Girl with Letter / Meisje met brief

In participation with the municipality of Tilburg, two works by the hand of Adriaan de Lelie (1755-1830) were chosen to be painted here. De Lelie is a self-taught painter who was born in Tilburg. He moved to Antwerp and later to Düsseldorf, where he copied works by Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck. De Lelie then moved to Amsterdam, where he developed himself to be a celebrated portrait painter. Adriaan de Lelie made many paintings, some of which are also in the collection of the Tilburg City Museum. The reason that these two portraits were chosen was also to make it more interesting for passengers of passing trains. From the train you can see something happening between the girl and ...

Artist collective De Strakke Hand specializes in making murals of old masters. What makes the paintings so special is the tint of the colors. The artists paint everything with brushes and mix the paint on the wall so that it appears less "harsh". This way you see an old painting, but then on a large scale.

If you want to see the original painting by Adriaan de Lelie in real life, go and visit the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede.

The artists about this work: "We love his conventional/classical painting style and it was an honour to bring this to life on such a big scale.

The original can be found in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe. The original measures 35 x 27 centimeters and the wallpainting is 12 x 7 meters.

We like the dreamy glance in the eyes of the girl which brings up many questions. In times of emails and when the mailboxes are disappearing it is nice to see it how it was; waiting for days for that one letter from that special person"