Her Majesty Queen Máxima will open the exhibition ‘Royal embroidery – stitches and stories’ in the TextielMuseum in Tilburg on Wednesday 30 November 2022. Also attending will be more than 150 hand embroiderers from across the Netherlands who contributed to the new curtains for the Chinese Room of Huis ten Bosch Palace.
The TextielMuseum will be closed to the public on 30 November from 12 p.m. for the opening. ‘Royal embroidery’ can be visited with a time-slot ticket from Thursday 1 December 2022. Reservations for time slots are now open on textielmuseum.nl.
Her Majesty Queen Máxima embroiders with members of embroidery group Pennywafelhuis on the new curtains for Huis ten Bosch Palace in the TextielMuseum. Photo: Benjamin Arthur on behalf of TextielMuseum.
Passion for embroidery
‘Royal embroidery’ celebrates the passion for embroidery. The opening will centre on the contribution of more than 150 hand embroiderers. After officially opening the exhibition, Queen Máxima – who also helped to embroider the curtains – will be given a guided tour of the exhibition along with various members of the embroidery groups. The tour will start at the original 18th-century curtains on which the new curtains are based, take in the design and production process of the new curtains before ending at the new curtains themselves. One room is dedicated to embroidered works submitted by each of the embroidery groups. These include the hand-embroidered white bridal shawl that Nasima Azimi made in Kabul, Afghanistan and brought to the Netherlands when she fled the Taliban; a highly refined Japanese embroidery by Jessica de Boer van Brouwershaven that took 900 hours to make; and work by fashion students Angela Acosta Hernandez and Rayyan Jindi, who had never embroidered before taking part in the ‘Royal embroidery’ project.
About the exhibition
The exhibition in the TextielMuseum features both the historical and new curtains for Huis ten Bosch Palace, the royal residence of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, before the new curtains are hung in the palace’s Chinese Room. At the heart of the exhibition is the technical expertise and immense creativity that went into making the new curtains, which were machine embroidered in the TextielLab – the museum’s professional workshop – and to which more than 150 hand embroiderers from across the country and Queen Máxima herself contributed.
Download the full press release about the exhibition here.
Accreditation
Members of the press can request media accreditation by Thursday 24 November at 6 p.m. by emailing femke.vos@textielmuseum.nl, stating your name, medium and position and the news item you would like to make.
Accredited media will receive a press programme with further information after the accreditation period has ended. If we are unable to honour your accreditation request, we kindly ask that you do not attend.
On Tuesday 29 November from 10 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. there is also an opportunity to get a preview of the exhibition, in the presence of director Errol van de Werdt, curator Suzan Rüsseler and head of the TextielLab Hebe Verstappen. You can also register for this preview via femke.vos@textielmuseum.nl. Please clearly state the date for which you wish to register.
