About the Drents Museum
Drents Museum
The Drents Museum is known in the Netherlands and abroad for its major international exhibitions in the fields of archaeology, art and history and for its daring, special activities and leading exhibitions. With this we attract around 200.000 visitors to the museum every year. The Drents Museum has a beautiful and spacious exhibition wing of 1000 square meters that meets all modern safety, security and climate requirements.
Our collection
We have a diverse collection divided into five main collections: Archaeology, Drenthe History, Painters of Drenthe, Art around 1900 and Contemporary Realism. The collection of the Drents Museum contains almost 100.000 objects. We have been collecting since the founding of the museum in 1854. The Drents Museum is one of the oldest museums in the Netherlands.
In terms of size and quality, the Archaeology collection is one of the most important in Northwestern Europe. Mammoth bones, Neanderthal finds, objects from dolmen and burial mounds, the oldest boat in the world, the famous bog bodies such as the Yde girl, and golden treasures like the coin treasure of Beilen and Zeegse are absolute masterpieces.
Statement Dutch Museum Council
Director of the Dutch Museum Association, Vera Carasso, states that the Drents Museum is ‘a professional and highly respected museum’ that has already organised many top international exhibitions, such as The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Terracotta Army, Gold from Georgia and Viva la Frida! - Life and art of Frida Kahlo. ‘The museum always works well with insurers in its preparations, with all risks being reviewed for each exhibition,’ it said.
The Council for Culture describes the Drents Museum as a ‘high-quality museum’ and an ‘innovative and socially enterprising institution, with a large audience reach and a collection of (inter)national importance’.
Our exhibitions
European Exhibition Network
The Drents Museum is part of the European Exhibition Network (EEN), an alliance of museums of similar size from countries such as Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, England and Sweden. The network aims to share and collaborate on exhibition projects and collections.
Our EEN Partners:
Awards
In 2019, the exhibition Iran – Cradle of Civilization has been named the Best Exhibition of the Netherlands 2019. The prize is presented annually by the Dutch Museumtijdschrift (Art Magazine).
In the same year, the Drents Museum has won an audience prize in New York at the prestigious Global Fine Art Awards. The prize was granted on March 12, 2019 for its contribution to hosting Iran – Cradle of Civilization, an enormous loan exhibit on the history of Persia. The exhibition attracted 115,000 visitors and showed with two hundred unique finds from National Museum of Iran.
Three years later, the exhibition Under the Spell of Mount Ararat - Treasures from Ancient Armenia at Drents Museum has been named the Best Exhibition of the Netherlands 2022.
The exhibition The Nebra Sky Disc – The Discovery of Heaven at the Drents Museum Assen, designed by NorthernLight has been awarded with a Special Mention at the German Design Award 2023.