THE NINE COLLECTIONS OF THE SEVENTH MUSEUM
This is The Collection. The scene commemorates a visit to Den Haag in
May 1994. The Collection was assembled at the Lahey residence in the
west of the city. The basic origin of The Collection comes from an
initial visit and subsequent stay at the Lahay resident.
Within The Collection we see constant references to the house and
garden at Lahey, and indeed The Lahey Collection, which we know
was vast.
The main collection was been divided into nine subsidiary collections:
The Lahey Collection, The Seven sorrows collection, The
Recollection Collection, The Allegory of Happiness Collection,
The Costume Collection, The Junior Collection, The Storytellers
Collection, The Portrait Collection and The Visit to a Small
Planet Collection.
Lying in a prominent position, in the Floor Panel, is a reproduction of
the painting by the Antwerp painter Van Hecht, Apelles painting
Campapse, in The Mauritshuis Collection. The classical story within the
Van Hecht painting is situated in an imaginary museum containing art
treasures which the artist (Van Hecht) saw around him every day, along
with works which he may never have seen, and were therefore reproduced
using memory and imagination. The painting is not only a masterpiece due
to its visual richness, but due to the many stories and hidden meanings
the artist built into it. In The Collection the reproduction of
this painting is situated on the central seat, where we are led to
believe the visitor could have sat.
The Golden Gown, The Costume Collection lays across this central
seat and could be a reference to the golden gown of Campapse in the
Apelles painting Campapse reproduction. Both the look of the costume
and the positioning of the seat are comparable.
To understand the whole collection it is necessary to look at each of
the individual collections, ....
This is the introduction Georgina Starr wrote for 'The Nine collections of the Seventh
Museum'.
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