Dordrechts Museum

Local painting collection strong on Cuyp and the 17th century

The Dordrechts Museum sits in a former hospital building on Museumstraat, a short walk south of the Grote Kerk. The permanent collection focuses on painters from Dordrecht and the surrounding region, with a particularly strong holding of Aelbert Cuyp — his glowing skies and grazing cattle made him one of the most influential Dutch landscape painters and a favourite of 18th-century English collectors. Jan van Goyen, Nicolaes Maes (a pupil of Rembrandt) and Ary Scheffer all have rooms too.

The museum is generous in scale for a small city: alongside the historic collection there is a serious 19th-century gallery and a programme of changing exhibitions of contemporary art. The garden cafe in the inner courtyard is a calm spot for lunch. Allow two hours; combined tickets are available with the Hof van Nederland and Huis van Gijn.

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A story
The museum's Cuyp gallery holds one of the largest groups of his sunlit river paintings anywhere; Aelbert Cuyp was born in Dordrecht in 1620 and spent almost his entire life painting the same stretch of water you can still walk down to from the museum door.