Cornelis Hofstede de Groot

Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (9 November 1863 – 14 April 1930), was a Dutch art collector, art historian and museum curator.

Biography

He was born in Dwingeloo and spent some time in Switzerland in his youth due to weak lungs, where he learned German. He became the first academically schooled art historian of the Netherlands, receiving his training in Leipzig, which is why much of his work was published in German.

He became an expert, who had many differences of opinion with Abraham Bredius and other art collectors, while serving various art institutions of the Netherlands, including the Frans Hals Museum, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, and the RKD.

In 1893 he published a short article on Judith Leyster in the journal Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, thus "re-discovering" her work for the first time after centuries.

In 1896 he became director of the Rijksprentenkabinet —the Dutch national collection of prints, drawings, and photographs housed in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum building— but he quit after two years because of a difference of opinion with his predecessor there. He then settled in The Hague as an independent art critic.

From 1912 to 1930 he lived in Haarlem, where he was a member of Teylers Tweede Genootschap.

From 1916 onwards he was a member of the Rijksmonument commission in the Netherlands.

Literature work

In The Hague, he started to work on an eight-part book on Rembrandt with Wilhelm von Bode. His catalogue of his extensive collection of Rembrandt drawings was published in German by the Teylers Tweede Genootschap in their Verhandelingen of 1906.