Museums, museums

This year I decided to get a museum pass, giving me free entrance to most of Luxembourg city's museums. Which means that: 1) I am more enclined to visit museums, and 2) I am more spontaneous about it.

Lately I have been to the Musée d'Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg - MHVL (Museum of History of the City of Luxembourg) and Villa Vauban.

I love the MHVL. Not sure why. Maybe because of the building, maybe because its exhibitions are simple and without too much fuss.

The other day I went there for lunch at its cafeteria, AM 14, and took the opportunity to sketch part of the view that its beautiful terrasse offers, followed by a short visit of the permanent exhibition.

One of my favourite corners for some peace.

The statue of De Renert caught my eye, partly because of the beautiful lighting there. De Renert is a fox, a character of the most famous Luxemburg literary work written by Michel Rodange. There is another statue of the fox in Place Guillaume, a popular tourist visit.

There were Luxemburgish expressions written all over the walls, and part of De Renert as well. It seemed fitting to add them.

The drink was part of my lunch. Organic lemonade, very tasty!

A couple of weeks ago I went to Villa Vauban with Leen for some sketching. The villa is named for the famous military architect who lived under Louis XIV. He contributed a lot, among other things, to strengthen Luxembourg's fortifications. You can see his work all over the city.

The museum has temporary exhibitions, mainly of classic artworks. It was my first visit to this place and I really liked the feel of it. The garden is particularly lovely and the rooms offer enough space for a good exhibition.

I was not very inspired that day. I tried to sketch the building, but not having any plan, just ended up doodling different things on the same spread.

I will soon have thousands of bad portraits of Leen :)

The exhibition itself offered more interesting sketching material for that particular day. It showed artworks from William II's personal art collection. He was king of the Netherlands and Grand-duke of Luxembourg from 1840.

My favourite pieces were these here below: the one because of the collar and dramatic pose and the other because of the whole costume and, more importantly, the quote!

It would translate to something like: "Rather a cabin with my Guillaume, than suscribe to dishonour". It is so solemn and seeing it on the canvas seemed so out of place somehow, it was almost comic.

So many layers of fabric!

Museums are always good sketching territory!