Brief aan de commissie van de Tentoonstelling van Levende Meesters in Den Haag Possibly 1843 - 1844

This is a letter in French written by Eugène Verboeckhoven on the 27th of April 1843. It’s addressed to the commission of the Exhibition of Living Masters in The Hague. Verboeckhoven asks the members of the commission to allow him to exhibit a painting that represents a Swiss interior with sheep and lambs going to drink from an opening, and on which one sees the mountain of the canton of Zug in the background. Nineteenth-century art exhibitions were important social institutions. They provided artists with opportunities to showcase and sell their work, while also shaping public taste and artistic reputations. Letters like this one provide valuable insights into the institutional history of art. They reveal how artists navigated the exhibition system, sought patronage, and negotiated their place within the art world. By studying these documents, art historians can better understand the social and economic conditions that shaped artistic production in the past. To understand it better, we might research the archives of the Exhibition of Living Masters in The Hague and the correspondence of Verboeckhoven himself.