Rotterdam, Netherlands
Museum Rotterdam was founded in 1905 as Museum of Antiquities, by a bourgeois elite that wanted to educate Rotterdam’s growing working class population, attracted by the development of the transit port. It later became the Historical Museum of Rotterdam that glorified Rotterdam´s Golden Age in a time that the modern city centre lacked its previous historical references due to its destruction in the bombardment of 1940. In recent years the museum has changed its aims and ambitions again. The contemporary transnational city, and not the past city, has become central to its museum policies. In 2010 it dropped the ´Historical´ in its name to continue as Museum Rotterdam. In 2016 the museum will open a new main location in the historical heart of Rotterdam, adjacent to City Hall. Here the story of Rotterdam, the city with a young heart and an old soul, will be told in new ways.
Visit websiteCologne, Germany
The Museum Schnütgen has a valuable collection of medieval art on exhibit in one of Cologne’s oldest churches. Many of them are in and of themselves already worth a trip, such as the radiant Parler Bust, the expressive Crucifix from St. George and the unique so-called Comb of St. Heribert, a filigree ivory carving.
The scope of the collection ranges from wooden and stone sculptures, valuable works of the goldsmith’s art and stained glass to rare ivories and textiles.
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Curator sculpture collection: Karen Straub
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Ghent, Belgium
The Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium, is situated at the East side of the Citadelpark. The museum holds a large permanent collection of art from the Middle Ages until the mid 20th century.
Visit websiteYerevan, Armenia
The National Gallery of Armenia is the country’s major art gallery. Its collection is displayed in 56 galleries, which allow the Gallery to tell the story of national visual arts, decorative-applied arts as well as world culture from ancient times to our days. In the galleries of European, Russian, Armenian and Oriental art the visitors are introduced to the art of Aivazovsky, Sarian, Kandinsky, Donatello and other distinguished artists.
Visit websiteSofia, Bulgaria
The National Gallery for Foreign Art was opened in 1985 when it was initially established as an art gallery to Bulgaria’s first international foundation St. St. Cyril and Methodius. Its coming into life took decades of collecting and organizational activities. To the works specially collected to build the main body of the future gallery the foreign art collection of National Fine Art Gallery was also added, as well as donations made by private persons and by the 1,300 years Bulgaria foundation. The gallery owns more than 3000 art objects, but only a part of them are exhibited in the eighteen exhibition halls covering a total area of 4,000sq.m. The gallery’s collection starts from the Greek Antiquity (4-3c. B.C.) and reaches as far as the most modern art movements worldwide. It represents a wide geographical spectrum with substantial representation of European, Asian and African art.
Visit websiteDublin, Ireland
The National Gallery houses some 15,000 paintings, sculptures, works on paper and objets d’art dating from the early thirteenth century through to the mid-twentieth century.The collection boasts an impressive range of masterpieces by artists from the major European schools of art whilst also featuring the world's most comprehensive collection of Irish art.
Visit websitePrague, Czech Republic
Curator sculpture collection: Olga Kotkova
Visit websiteLille, France
The Palais des Beaux-Arts of Lille, one of the premier museums in France, houses in its imposing 19th-century building collections of European paintings, a Prints and Drawings Room, a collection of Antiquities, a mediaeval and Renaissance collection, 17th- and 18th-century ceramics, 19th-century French sculptures and 18th-century scale models.
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