OSAKA.- The first major international exhibition based on the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Bruegel’s ‘The Tower of Babel’ and Great 16th Century Masters, closed its doors on 2 July at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum with a total of 379.527 visitors. The exhibition has now travelled to Osaka, where it was officially opened today at the National Museum of Art, Osaka, with an equal success expected.

This exhibition marks the launch of BVB Collections, an exhibitions programme of internationally touring shows from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s collection.

Collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen - Bruegel’s ‘The Tower of Babel’ and Great 16th Century Masters at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Photo: Asahi Shimbun.

A remarkable success among the visitors in Tokyo, Bruegel’s ‘The Tower of Babel’ and Great 16th Century Masters includes unique works by the 15th- and 16th-century Dutch masters. With Bruegel’s The Tower of Babel (c. 1563) and Hieronymus Bosch’s The Pedlar (c. 1500) as its highlights, the exhibition comprises 39 paintings, 43 prints and 10 sculptures from the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

The exhibition is a joint venture between the museum and the Japanese media conglomerate The Asahi Shimbun, who in addition has become a member of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s business club for seven years. As a token of appreciation of this successful collaboration, one of the spaces in the new Depot of the Rotterdam museum set to open its doors in 2020, will be named after Asahi Shimbun.

This exhibition has stimulated a further bilateral collaboration on an academic level with students from the Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai) creating a reproduction of the painting – three times the size of the original – in collaboration with Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).

Bruegel’s ‘The Tower of Babel’ and Great 16th Century Masters has now travelled to Osaka, where it will be on view at the National Museum of Art, Osaka until 15 October 2017. On the opening day, over 2.000 guests visited the exhibition. The estimates for the Osaka venue run into 300.000 visitors over the next three months.

The exhibition in Japan is the first to be organised through BVB Collections, an initiative by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. This travelling exhibitions programme draws from the museum’s rich collections and currently offers exhibitions on Surrealism, Golden Age, Classical Modern Painting, Dutch Design, contemporary art and works on paper. BVB Collections, under the directorship of Sandra Tatsakis, is currently making preparations for partnerships in Italy and Spain. Sandra Tatsakis is pleased with the proceedings in Japan: ‘If every collaboration works out as well as this one, we can eagerly look forward to the years to come.’

Collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen - Bruegel’s ‘The Tower of Babel’ and Great 16th Century Masters, at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum was on view until 2 July 2017; at the National Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan, from 18 July to 15 October 2017.