Station: [12] Room 7 – Studio Mirror, Armchair

M:

If we can trust the ground plans from the time when the mansion was built, this once used to be the Koekkoeks’ “sleeping chamber”.

Sadly, very little of the family’s furniture has survived, so while most of the pieces you see in the house are from Koekkoek’s lifetime, they were in fact purchased later for the rooms of the museum.

On the other hand, the studio mirror and the small armchair with the brocade cover are known to have belonged to B.C. Koekkoek, along with a few other pieces of utility furniture, and are specially worth mentioning.

F:

The cheval glass, or psyche mirror, stood in his studio in the Belvédère tower – an essential piece of utility furniture in a painter’s studio. The armchair also stood there and has a very special story associated with it:

According to family legend, one of Koekkoek’s most important clients is said to have sat in this chair during a visit to the studio: Willem the Second, King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg. In 1845, he invited the painter to accompany him on a trip around Luxembourg and create a cycle of nine views of his estates in the Grand Duchy for the royal collections.

King Friedrich Wilhelm the Fourth of Prussia and Tsar Alexander the Second also appreciated Koekkoek’s style and bought his paintings. But his most important patron was always the Dutch King Willem.

We’ll be discussing Koekkoek’s origins in the Dutch province of Zeeland and his family history in the next room – the one with blue walls. Please head on in there.