The iconic Van der Steur wing, the famous redbrick building constructed around ninety years ago, will close for renovations on 14 January 2019, and the museum will begin rehousing the collection.

While the old wing of the museum by architect Ad van der Steur is emptied from mid-January, a small part of the collection will remain on view. A selection of highlights from the collection will be on display in the galleries surrounding the Bauhaus exhibition until 26 May.

The museum’s collection is dynamic: it changes as it grows and in response to research and new insights. In the exhibition ‘When the Shutters Close: Highlights from the Collection’, curator Friso Lammertse shows the diversity of the collection through seventy masterpieces by artists including Max Beckmann, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Edgar Degas, Jan van Eyck, Carel Fabritius, Fra Angelico, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Vincent van Gogh, Pyke Koch, Oskar Kokoschka, Sarah Lucas, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Tejo Remy, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Auguste Rodin and Jan van Scorel.

The first gallery centres on a triptych depicting the Madonna and child with saints and scenes from the life of Christ from around 1400 by the Master of Saint Veronica, who was active in Cologne. This masterpiece in the International Gothic style was recently acquired at auction in London. While on display, the triptych will regularly be opened and closed, for when the side panels of the 600-year-old work are closed they reveal an equally striking image: a depiction of Christ carrying the cross. The new acquisition is one of the most beautiful works in Northern European painting of the fifteenth century.

For Friso Lammertse, curator of old master paintings and sculptures, the triptych was high on his wish list.

This rare and remarkable work has been acquired thanks to generous financial contributions from the Rembrandt Association, the Mondriaan Fund, the BankGiro Lottery, Stichting Bevordering van Volkskracht, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds (Breeman Talle Fonds), the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Foundation and several individuals.

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is a unique and multifaceted museum, established in the heart of Rotterdam almost 170 years ago. A visit to the museum is a journey through the history of art, featuring Dutch and international masterpieces from the early Middle Ages to the present day, from Bosch and Rembrandt to Van Gogh and Dalí. The museum charts the development of Impressionism and Modernism with works by Monet, Mondrian and Magritte and has an extensive collection of Pop art with works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and many others. The museum also has an extensive collection of Dutch design, with examples by Gerrit Rietveld, Gispen, Hella Jongerius, Bertjan Pot and Studio Wieki Somers, and works by eminent foreign designers such as Marcel Breuer, Charles and Ray Eames, Ettore Sottsass and Konstantin Grcic.