Shell energy company has agreed to donate a total of three million euros to the Mauritshuis expansion project, which will finance a new building and renovation of the Mauritshuis, one of the leading museums in The Hague.
In addition, Shell will fund a joint research project into the work of Dutch genre painter Jan Steen. Shell has already built up years of experience in such research with the Van Gogh Museum and will provide equipment and researchers.
In return, Shell will be granted the status as Mauritshuis’s founder and partner for six years, during its most ambitious project to date. The new Mauritshuis building will contain an underground foyer that will link the museum with the building across the street, at Plein 26. There will be more room for art, exhibitions, education and events.
The expansion will be completed by mid-2014. In the meantime, highlights from the Mauritshuis collection will be on display elsewhere in The Hague - in another one of the city's museums, the Gemeentemuseum - for two years from April 28, 2012, and part of its permanent collection will go on tour to Japan and the United States.
You can follow the building plans on the Mauritshuis wesbite.
Source: Municipality of The Hague