Albert Geelvinck came from the upper class
Geelvinck family, who had acquired their wealth through merchant shipping to Spain, Africa,
Suriname and the West Indies.
Sara Hinlopen came from a family of originally Flemish cloth merchants, private investors and in an early stage involved in the governing the city and the
Dutch East India Company. Both families belonged to the
regents of Amsterdam. The republican
Geelvincks delivered five
burgomasters (mayors) in the 17th and 18th century. They too served in the
Admiralty of Amsterdam,
Dutch West India Company or the
Society of Surinam. Sara became an orphan at the age of six. Then she and her sister Johanna were raised by a stepmother
Lucia Wijbrants. Because the cooperation did not work out well, they moved in with
Jacob J. Hinlopen, their uncle, in 1672. Keen on leaving the house, she married in 1680 the fifteen-year-older lawyer Albert Geelvinck. A few months before the girls came by lot in the possession of the paintings by
Rembrandt, and
Gabriel Metsu, collected by their father
Jan J. Hinlopen. In 1695, she married Jacob Bicker, Hendricksz (1642-1713), eighteen-years older, without community of property and separated from bed. In 1749 she died at the age of almost 89, but blind. The house, her stocks and bonds, her paintings and her books, including the cash money (ƒ 2,50), was divided into lots and went to
Nicolaes Geelvinck and his three sisters.
Garden and rooms at the Geelvinck Hinlopen House Between the entrance and the mansion is a spacious and quiet garden. The back of the garden is a
Renaissance garden, while the front is a formal and symmetrical
French garden with a large pond and a fountain. Most of the time there is an exhibition of statues. Going up the stairs to the main floor of the museum, there are four rooms open to the public.
The Blue room in a
Louis XVI or
neo-classical style has an ensemble of five
wallpaper panels, painted around 1788 by
Egbert van Drielst. Van Drielst was a romantic painter, who in his style was influenced by
Meindert Hobbema and
Jacob van Ruisdael. On all the panels nature is idealized, the horizon is on eyeheight. Originally the panels were designed for a house on the
Keizersgracht, then decorating a room in New York and Miami, but since 1990 they are back. On the chimney are two
porcelain jars from the factory of
Joannes de Mol.
The Red Room is decorated in either a
Louis XV or a neo-
Rococo style. The high ceiling and the fixed mirrors are impressive. There are six 17th-century paintings in this room: a Flamish fantasy landscape with tree, game and birds by
Gillis d'Hondecoeter; also depicting
Christ healing the blind. Further there is still life with flowers but without a
saint by
Daniel Seghers, a
Jesuit from Antwerp, a flashy
still life by
Pieter de Ring, a
seascape by
Hans Goderis and a winterscape by
Antonie van Stralen. On the table is an interesting piece of
Kraak porcelain. The ceiling in the library is in a
neo-classical style, resembling the work of the Scottish architect and interior decorator
Robert Adam. Adam, was inspired by the
Domus Aurea in Rome and the palace of
Diocletian in
Split.
The Chinese Room has eight Rococo wallpaper panels on
canvas with fantasy flowers and birds, vegetables and
chinoiserie, made somewhere between the years 1765–1775. The artist, working in the
cuir de Cordoue manufacture of in Brussels, perhaps used
engravings by
Jean-Baptiste Pillement, then famous for his
Chinoiserie. The table is in
scagliolatechnique, and once belonged to
Frederick William III of Prussia. • In June the museum used to participate in the
Open Garden Days. • The museum programs concerts, sometimes on historic fortepianos, such as the
Broadwood square piano; this program continues now in other historic houses and castles, such as the Posthoornkerk and Castle Heeswijk (near Den Bosch), where the museum has located some of its historic pianos. • The first exhibitions in the museum was in 1991 on
Antoine Ignace Melling. By the end of 2015, Museum Geelvinck had to move to new premises. Since Spring 2017, the Geelvinck Muziek Museum opened for the public at the historic house 'De Wildeman' in Zutphen (till end of 2016 this was the Museum Henriëtte Polak, which had moved to the 'Hof van Heeckeren'). Museum Geelvinck was forced out of its Zutphen venue already by the end of 2019 and since moved to the country estate 'Kolthoorn House' in
Heerde. Since 2012, Museum Geelvinck also has a modest venue in the 'Posthoornkerk' in Amsterdam (the collection of historic pianos is on view by appointment only). Museum Geelvinck collaborates in the partnership 'Geelvinck Muziek Musea with the Pianola Museum and Huis Midwoud (
Midwoud). Museum Geelvinck continued its weekly Geelvinck Salon concert series first in the Museum Cromhouthuis in de
Cromhouthuizen and, since the closure of this venue, starting in Autumn 2018 in the Luther Museum Amsterdam. ==See also==