Koekkoek Manor

Belvedere

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, the most famous landscape painter in the Netherlands in the 19th century before Vincent van Gogh, who married Elise Therèse Daiwaille (*1814 in Amsterdam; † 1881 in Koblenz), the daughter of his teacher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam, Jean Augustin Daiwaille, in 1833, settled in Kleve in 1834. Initially renting several times, then for a few years in the upper town of Kleve, Koekkoek moved with his wife and three daughters into a house near the Brücktor on the Kermisdahl in 1838.

In 1842, Koekkoek acquired a plot of land including a house from Lobry in front of the Kavarinertor, which had been demolished in 1820. Opposite it lay the parcel of the garden of the Minorite monastery, secularized in 1802, and towards the city, it was still bordered by the remains of the old city wall. In 1834, the painter had a three-story tower built on the highest part of this property, where he housed his studio and named it Belvedere. From its platform, an impressive panorama over the Rhine plain, from Wesel to Arnhem, and over the Tiergartenwald can be seen. On the top floor of the Belvedere, with its "two large rooms, one above the other, open to the east, north, and west, accessible via a side-mounted stair tower," Koekkoek received the neutral northern light, popular with artists and painters since the 17th century, through the north-facing workshop rooms. On the lowest floor was the paint chamber, where servants had to mix the paint – as Koekkoek did not yet use tube paint for his paintings.

Koekkoek Palace

At the turn of the year 1846/47, Koekkoek had the Lobry house demolished under the guidance of the Kleve architect Anton Weinhagen, in order to erect a stately building on a high plinth in the typical classical style of the time at the lowest point of his property in 1847, "which was called Koekkoek Palace in Kleve." The building, completed in 1848, has four floors and five window axes facing the street. Due to its hillside location, the rear facade facing the garden is reduced to three floors and conveys the character of a country house.

Towards the street, the palace has a classical entrance portal, behind which is an impressive staircase with a barrel-vaulted coffered ceiling, as well as a service entrance. Through this, a large kitchen was reached on the ground floor. On the bel étage on the floor above, high-ranking guests were received in the "Golden Salon" – which had received its name from the gold stucco on the ceiling. On this representative floor, which was laid with rich inlaid parquet, there was also a garden salon and a tiled dining room. On the floor above, the Koekkoek family's living room, their bedrooms, and a guest room were located. On the top floor, maids and servants slept, as well as Koekkoek's brother-in-law, Alexander Joseph Daiwaille, until 1849 inclusive.

During his time at Koekkoek Palace, Barend Cornelis Koekkoek created his most famous works, including the large eight Luxembourg landscapes, which he had made on behalf of King William II, who visited him in Kleve specifically for the commission. As a sign of his fame, Koekkoek presumably had an almost three-meter-high wooden statue placed on the roof of his studio tower from the mid-1840s, depicting Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom and the fine arts. The figure, created by Ignatius Johannes Stracké, collapsed in the 1930s after it had become rotten due to weather conditions. Stacké, whose life dates are unknown, came from Rees and was a student of Christian Daniel Rauch. Pallas Athena could only be reconstructed and re-erected in 2012 through an initiative of the Friends of Museum Kurhaus and Koekkoek House Kleve e.V. with the help of the NRW Foundation, the LVR, and others.

Residents after Koekkoek's Death

After the death of Barend Cornelis Koekkoek in 1862, the majority of the furniture was auctioned in Amsterdam in the same year. Seven years later, in 1869, the artist's widow sold the building to the Dutch Doornik family, who had become rich in the Dutch East Indies and retired to Kleve. In 1886, the Kleve building contractor Franz Kleindorp acquired the property, who sold the higher-lying orchard and vegetable garden with the studio tower to the church painter Heinrich Lamers.

In 1902, after the B.C. Koekkoek House had been rented for some years to the widow of the Goch notary Wilhelm van Aerßen, and later to the district court judge Eduard Sarazzin, Hans van Ackeren, a doctor from Emmerich, acquired the building. He had the customs house directly adjacent to the left of the house, which Koekkoek had never been able to acquire, demolished and extended the building at this point by a three-axis wing with a second entrance area, behind which the new practice rooms were located. Externally, he had the extension, realized by the Kleve architect Otto van de Sandt in 1909, adapted to the ensemble, but internally he furnished it in Art Nouveau style. After the death of Hans van Ackeren in 1942, his son Heinrich van Ackeren lived in the house.

Artist's Studio

Through the acquisition by the church painter Heinrich Lamers in 1896, the Belvedere once again became an artist's studio until 1966. Lamers extended the studio rooms, "by converting the coach house and the stable [...] into a studio and providing it with a skylight." Johanna Lamers, Heinrich Lamers' widow, had to sell the villa after her husband's death and transformed the studio tower into a residential house, with a small vestibule built on the north side in the style of New Objectivity, from which both the studio tower and the new studio were accessible.

After his mother's death on December 30, 1945, her son Hanns Lamers, who was trained as an artist in Munich and Berlin, took care of the tower and moved into it with his wife Ilse Lamers. Since 1946, Lamers, together with the sculptor Walter Brüx, organized exhibitions of the Lower Rhine art scene in his father's former studio and gathered artists such as Joseph Beuys, Waldemar Kuhn, and Rudolf Schoofs, as well as photographers Fritz Getlinger and Willy Maywald, and the later gallerist René Block from Weeze, until his death in 1966. In May 1967, the studio tower, from the estate of the Kleve artist Hanns Lamers, was acquired by the architect Werner van Ackeren and his wife Tanja. Van Ackeren, who was born in the Koekkoek House, subsequently expertly supervised the restoration of the tower, during which, among other things, the many stucco friezes were renewed.

Since the building was largely spared from the Second World War, it was confiscated for administrative purposes after 1945 and initially served as the town hall. In early 1956, the Kleve city council decided to acquire the building and, after the town hall moved in 1957, to set it up as a museum. After several years of provisional renovation with the help of monument preservation, the Städtisches Museum Haus Koekkoek was opened on May 10, 1960, by the first museum director Friedrich Gorissen. Gorissen was museum director until January 1, 1976. He was succeeded by Guido de Werd, who is still the artistic director today. According to Gorissen's specifications, Koekkoek's art was to be the focus of the museum.

In 1961, one of Joseph Beuys' first museum exhibitions took place in the Städtisches Museum Haus Koekkoek. However, the museum also made a name for itself through large international exhibitions, including in 1979 with the exhibition "As far as the Earth Extends. Johann Moritz von Nassau-Siegen" and in 1984 with "Land in the Center of Powers. The Duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg." In 2011, the large traveling exhibition "A Romantic View. The Rademakers Collection" was shown there, which was also presented in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, and Museum M in Leuven. Works from the museum's collection are permanently exhibited in the B.C. Koekkoek House: romantic paintings by Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, members of his large family of painters, and his students and contemporaries. Through the imposing building and partly original furniture, the museum conveys a comprehensive picture of that era.

The garden located between the residential palace and the studio tower was restored in 1990 by the Wuppertal garden and landscape architect couple Gustav and Rose Wörner in accordance with monument preservation principles. Since its return to its original state as an artist's house in 1997, the Koekkoek House has served as a museum, exhibiting paintings, drawings, and graphics by the Dutch landscape painter and the Kleve School of painting founded by him, as well as his family.