Studie of decoratie? Schilderijen van oude meesters in het Kunsthistorisch Instituut te Utrecht, 1923-1974

During the years 1923-1974 the Utrecht Institute for Art History at the Drift housed a collection of about 65 old master paintings. The objects were loans from the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch Art Property (Stichting Nederlandsch Kunstbezit) that curated objects which came into public ownership after the Second World War through restitution from Germany, and the State art collection. Though professor Willem Vogelsang and professor Jan van Gelder, who realised those loans, stressed the importance of the collection for study and research, apparently the main function of the paintings was decoration of the monumental building. Incidents that caused damage to several paintings entailed the end of the loan. Some of the art works that once decorated the rooms of the Institute are nowadays in the galleries of prominent museums, such as the Rijksmuseum, the Mauritshuis and the National Gallery in London. Some works that had been looted during the Second World War, are since restituted to the descendants of former owners, an act of justice to which more importance is attached today than in the 1950’s and 1960’s.