Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the Robert Lehman Collection

This is the fourth exhibition in a series through which all the drawings in the Robert Lehman Collection will eventually be shown. The sixty-six works represent all our holdings by the seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish masters.

This is an especially prominent and cohesive group, representing the art of draftsmanship in the Netherlands. It includes more than ten drawings by Rembrandt, half a dozen each by Jordaens, Jan van Goyen, and Willem van de Velde. Other prominent artists such as van Loo, Ostade, and Roghman are represented by fewer drawings. Many of these are well known and extensively published; however, some are shown here for the first time or have not been exhibited for decades.

Rembrandt's drawings illustrate his entire life and career. The Self-Portrait and the Satire on Art Criticism are highly important personal documents, while The Last Supper after Leonardo and the Cottage near the Entrance to a Wood are also two monuments of seventeenth-century Dutch art.

Rubens's Bust of Seneca (?) and Rembrandt's Last Supper are reminders of the seventeenth-century artists' interest in classical antiquity and in the great achievements of the Italian Renaissance.

Jordaens's religious drawings are moving examples of the reinterpretation of biblical scenes by Protestant artists.

A fascination with an involvement in contemporary life is clearly mirrored in the landscapes of van Goyen, the genre scenes of Jordaens and Ostade, and even in such gruesome subjects as Rembrandt's Woman on the Gallows. History is reflected in the depictions of sea battles by van de Velde and in The Triumphal Entry of Frederik Hendrik of Orange into The Hague by Vinckboons or in the studio still life by Jan Fyt.

This catalogue fully illustrates not only all the exhibited drawings but also the versos, which cannot be shown. The attributions are mostly those assigned to the drawings during Robert Lehman's lifetime, but often the results of recent research is also mentioned and incorporated into the brief descriptions and comments. The selected bibliographies supply further information about provenance and literature.