Exhibitions

Since the publication of the two standard works, HP1 and HP2, as well as exhibitions and study days in the Rotterdam Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, knowledge of, and interest in, late medieval badges has greatly increased. Researchers from various disciplines consider these small lead-tin pins to be uniquely visual bearers of information and valuable cultural history source material.

Makers of exhibitions are equally interested. Applications for loans from the Collection van Beuningen for (international) exhibitions are received on a regular basis. Applications can be not only for religious, but also for profane and (un)ambiguous sexual badges, depending on the framework and theme of the exhibition. Given sufficient lighting and explanatory texts, the badges can offer an important contribution to an exhibition’s ‘story’.

These past years many badges from the collection have travelled through Europe, to Italian, French, English, German and of course Dutch and Belgian musea, as part of the concept of an exhibition. One of the objectives of the Foundation is to promote the late medieval badge by means of exhibitions and other public presentations. For further information concerning the conditions for loans of badges from the Van Beuningen Family Collection please contact the Foundation’s secretariat.

A few expositions with late medieval badges - loans from the Van Beuningen Collection - on display:

Exhibition 'Wijvenwereld: Een verrassende kijk op vrouwen in de late middeleeuwen' in Wijchen, March 2023, showing 36 badges on loan from the Collection Family Van Beuningen.