Van Gogh, Monet, Isaac Israels, Van Dongen, Jongkind, Breitner: a roll call of major artists whose works often come with the label ‘Provenance: Ivo Bouwman’. Bouwman is a Hague art dealer and certified art appraiser specialising in Dutch and French paintings from the period around 1900. Over the last forty years he has sold many fine works to private collectors, organizations and museums. To mark the fortieth anniversary of his art dealership, the Gemeentemuseum has asked Bouwman to exhibit a selection of top works sold by him in the course of his career. The result is worth seeing: Provenance: Ivo Bouwman may be a small exhibition, but visitors will be entranced by the outstanding quality of each of the paintings on show.

Fans of turn-of-the-century art will revel in this spring show at the Gemeentemuseum. Some 25 pearls of the period around 1900 will be on display in the intimate setting of the Willem Cordia room. They range from Claude Monet’s Coastal landscape in Normandy to Vincent van Gogh’s Jardin de Presbytère, and from two portraits by Kees van Dongen to G.H. Breitner’s small but splendid Three Schoolgirls. Other major artists featured in the show will include J.B. Jongkind, Jan Toorop, Marc Chagall and Jan Sluijters. Three of the exhibits are now in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum. Since Bouwman feels that many artists are unjustly eclipsed by more famous contemporaries, he has also included a work by a less widely known artist – Raimundo de Madrazo Y Garetta’s Hommage à Manet: a painting that is likewise of exceptional merit.