Qualla: Beverweerd Castle

Beverweerd Castle: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Agnes Monkelbaan, CC BY-SA 4.0. Geert Jan Jansen has lived at Beverweerd Castle since 2006. He paints in a studio in one of the towers - landscapes, abstracts, the occasional figure - and the work is good. The work has always been good. It is what got him into trouble in the first place. In 1994 French police raided a Provence farmhouse and found thousands of canvases signed Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Karel Appel - all of them painted by Jansen. He has since served his time, declared his hand, and become one of the more peculiar fixtures of Dutch art. He paints under his own name now, in a castle that has belonged at various points to a Prince of Orange, a Quaker boarding school, and a foundation that hoped to turn it into a retirement home for vegetarians.

Read more: Beverweerd Castle on Qualla

Image: Agnes Monkelbaan | CC BY-SA 4.0

Beverweerd Castle: An Island on the Kromme Rijn

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GVR, CC BY-SA 3.0 nl. Beverweerd sits on a small artificial island in the Kromme Rijn, the slow looped river that was once the main channel of the Rhine and now wanders quietly through the orchards south of Utrecht. The oldest part - the rectangular residential tower - was built in the thirteenth cent...

Read more: Beverweerd Castle on Qualla

Image: GVR | CC BY-SA 3.0 nl

Beverweerd Castle: From Orange to Quaker

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ednl from Utrecht, Netherlands, CC BY 2.0. In 1563 the castle passed to Philip William, Prince of Orange - the eldest son of William the Silent, founder of the Dutch Republic. Philip William died childless in 1618 and his half-brother Maurice inherited Beverweerd two years later. From Maurice the manor went to one of his ...

Read more: Beverweerd Castle on Qualla

Image: ednl from Utrecht, Netherlands | CC BY 2.0

Beverweerd Castle: The Vegetarian Retirement Home That Wasn't

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michiel1972, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the school closed, Beverweerd sat empty for nearly a decade. In May 2005 it was bought by the Philadelphia Vegetarian Center Foundation, an organization from Oosterbeek that planned to build apartments and care facilities for elderly vegetarians on the estate grounds. The p...

Read more: Beverweerd Castle on Qualla

Image: Michiel1972 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Beverweerd Castle: The Forger in the Tower

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter van der Wielen, CC BY-SA 3.0 nl. Jansen has talked openly about why his forgeries worked. He never sold them as 'genuine'; he sold them through middlemen who sold them as genuine, and the middlemen paid well. Galleries authenticated them. Auction houses sold them. Buyers hung them on walls. After his arrest he s...

Read more: Beverweerd Castle on Qualla

Image: Peter van der Wielen | CC BY-SA 3.0 nl