exhibitions

21 September 2024 till 2 March 2025

Leiden Celebrates - 450 Years of Parades

Celebrating together is of all times. Parades are the perfect form for that. They create togetherness and a shared identity. When society changes, parades change with it - for example, from elitist to democratic, from divided to united or vice versa. This makes parades a mirror of society. With the exhibition Leiden Celebrates - 450 years of Parades, Museum De Lakenhal, together with the city and the university, celebrates Leiden's rich tradition in this field - a tradition that is still alive and kicking. We also look ahead to the future.

Leiden as a parade city

Nowhere else in our country has the genesis of the Netherlands been celebrated as exuberantly as in Leiden. Ever since Leiden's Relief on October 3, 1574 and the founding of the university on February 8, 1575, parades have been organized in the city. With the exhibition Leiden Celebrates - 450 Years of Parades we look back on this rich history.

Photo: Andor Kranenburg/3 October Vereeniging
Detail van Maskerade van de Leidse studenten, Gerardus Johannes Bos (1870)
Detail van Maskerade van de Leidse studenten, Gerardus Johannes Bos (1870)

From archer parades to folk festival

In the exhibition you will discover what developments these parades have gone through in Leiden over the centuries: from the military and theatrical parades by archers and rhetoricians in the early modern period and the student masquerades in the nineteenth century to the tattoo today. We also look ahead: what will the parade of the future look like?

Walking through four and a half centuries of history

The exhibition brings together eloquent objects and images of parades from all eras. With paintings, meters-long prints, photographs, films, costumes and attributes, we show how grand these celebrations were and are handled. Visitors walk through four and a half centuries of Leiden parades history.

Photo: Joep Jacobs
Grote beschilderde trom van de schutterij
Grote beschilderde trom van de schutterij Collection Museum De Lakenhal
Feestwijzer van de maskerade in 1905
Feestwijzer van de maskerade in 1905 Collection Museum De Lakenhal
Photo: Joep Jacobs

Jubilees

Leiden will celebrate several anniversaries in 2024 and 2025. In 2024 it will be 450 years since Leiden was unseated on October 3, 1574, and Museum De Lakenhal will celebrate its 150th anniversary. In 2025, we will mark the 450th anniversary of Leiden University. Museum De Lakenhal, the Leiden University Libraries and the 3 October Vereeniging are working together to celebrate these special anniversaries. The activities are made possible in part by the City of Leiden.

Thanks

The exhibition Leiden celebrates - 450 years of parades has been made possible in part thanks to the 3 October Vereeniging, the Mondriaan Fonds, the City of Leiden, the Leiden University Libraries, Cultuurfonds Zuid-Holland, M.A.O.C. Gravin van Bylandt Stichting and through the generous loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.