XXL Paper

Be amazed by the actual-size design drawings for the stained-glass windows of Haarlem’s St Bavokerk dating from 1541 – they are so huge that we had to use an enormous skateboard ramp to display them. Be astonished by the 23-metre section of hand-painted 19th-century French wallpaper that was recently ‘discovered’ in one of the Rijksmuseum’s depots. XXL Paper presents the biggest works on paper from the Rijksmuseum collection – very few of them have ever been exhibited before, because of their size.

Michiel Coxie (attributed to), Scipio Africanus Lands at Carthage, ca. 1555, h. 248 cm, w. 257 cm. Purchased with the support of the Jaffé-Pierson Stichting and the Rembrandt AssociationOther large works appearing in the exhibition include Michiel Coxie’s 2.5 square metre carpet design Scipio Africanus Lands at Carthage (1555) and a six-metre-tall woodcut from 1535 depicting the Robert Péril section of the royal line of the House of Habsburg . The display will also include several splendid city views, including the over two-metre-wide Amstelodamum: View of Amsterdam made in 1606 by Jan Saenredam and a map of Venice by Jacopo de Barbari dating from 1500 and depicting the city from an aerial perspective. Also on show will be the largest panoramas from the 18th-century Atlas Gordon: the almost eight metre Panorama of Cape Town and Surroundings as Seen from the Sea and the five metre Panorama taken from Helderberg.

Unique highlights of the exhibition also include the designs made by Richard Roland Holst in 1926 for the windows of the north transept of Utrecht’s St Martin’s Cathedral (or Dom Church). This work comprises 70 sections, each measuring one metre tall – their combined area is so large that it is only possible to display them as smaller ensembles.