Donation of Angel at Liduina by Aad de Haas

The work depicts Liduina, the saint and mystic from Schiedam, being visited by an angel during one of her visions. This donation creates a special connection between Schiedam and South Limburg.

Liduina of Schiedam

Aad de Haas’s Angel at Liduina refers to Liduina of Schiedam (1380–1433), the medieval saint closely associated with the city. After a fall on the ice, she became paralysed at the age of fifteen. She spent the following 38 years bedridden.

Liduina inspired many through the way she endured her suffering and through her extraordinary visions. During her lifetime, and after her death, she received many visitors — both locals and pilgrims from afar. To this day, Schiedam continues to welcome pilgrims: each year on 14 June, a procession is held in her honour.

Religious fascinations

The depiction of an angel with Liduina reflects Aad de Haas’s fascination with religious visions, mysticism, and the boundary between the earthly and the supernatural — recurring themes in his work. He remained largely unaffected by new artistic developments, maintaining his own distinctive style throughout his life: figurative, expressionist, and marked by vivid colours.

Although De Haas was born in Rotterdam, he developed his artistic practice mainly in South Limburg, where he lived and worked after the Second World War. SCHUNCK in Heerlen holds one of the most important museum collections of his work.

Ongoing collaboration with SCHUNCK

While this donation stands on its own, it also aligns with the ongoing collaboration between Stedelijk Museum Schiedam and SCHUNCK in Heerlen. Both museums have significant collections of contemporary art. Historically, Schiedam has focused more on abstract and serial art from the 1960s and 1970s, while SCHUNCK has placed greater emphasis on painting from the 1980s. Together, they offer a strong overview of key developments in Dutch visual art.

For this reason, the institutions aim to align their collections as closely as possible and jointly acquire at least one work each year, supported by the Mondriaan Fund. These works travel between the museums, and both institutions share responsibility for their care and preservation.

This year, the two institutions have also begun working closely together within the ArtBase programme, alongside ArtBase Terneuzen. ArtBase is a three-year pilot initiated by the Mondriaan Fund, exploring whether a regional museum programme for contemporary visual art can strengthen the position, development, and significance of art in the region.