EXHIBITION

Reunited After 70 Years - Melchior d' Hondecoeters Monumental Room Decoration

13.07.2010 - 09.01.2011
Alte Pinakothek

The Rembrandt Room in the Alte Pinakothek is one major work richer. After some 70 years, the almost four-metre-wide `Portrait of Three Children in a Landscape with the Day's Kill' by the leading Dutch animal painter of the 17th century, Melchior d'Hondecoeter (1636-95), is on show to the public once again.
The painting, created around 1670, has been reunited with three other related works that have been in the Pinakothek for many decades. Together, this impressive ensemble originally decorated the walls of a room in Driemond House, the feudal country residence of the Amsterdam confectioner and art collector Adolf Visscher. In 1791, Charles II August, Duke of Palatinate-Zweibrücken acquired the room decoration, before his collection found its way to Munich. A rural panorama, stretching across a width of more than 13 metres, is brought to life by numerous native and exotic birds, at the centre of which the client's three children are depicted.
That the Alte Pinakothek can now display d'Hondecoeter's painting ensemble once again as a whole is thanks to the Rudolf August Oetker Foundation, which made the extensive restoration of the children's portrait possible. The Rudolf August Oetker Foundation that has been associated with the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen for some time, previously acted as a benefactor for the new wall covering in the Rembrandt Room, against which d'Hondecoeter's picture series is now so magnificently displayed.