The Robert Lehman Collection. Vol. 2, Fifteenth- to Eighteenth-Century European Paintings: France, Central Europe, The Netherlands, Spain, and Great Britain

This volume catalogues forty-two remarkable paintings collected by Robert Lehman and his father, Philip Lehman. Petrus Christus' Goldsmith in His Shop of 1449 is justly famous as one of the first northern European paintings to depict the objects and roles of everyday life. To convey the prestige of the sitter in his Portrait of a Young Man of about 1475–80, Hans Memling posed him before a landscape, a formula that had lasting repercussions in Italian as well as Northern art. Philip Lehman also acquired Memling's Annunciation, which has long been regarded as one of his finest and most original works. Jean Hey's portrait of the young Margaret of Austria, painted about a decade later, is rightly considered a milestone in the history not only of French painting, but of portraiture. The wings of a triptych Gerard David painted about 1510 epitomize the best of Bruges painting before the economic and artistic decline of the city later in the century. Paintings by Lucas Cranach father and son, Hans Holbein, Gerard ter Borch, and Pieter de Hooch all represent in their own way the best of the era and place in which they were created. Two well-known works by El Greco, Rembrandt's sophisticated and sensitive portrayal of fellow artist Gerard de Lairesse, and masterful portraits by Goya, George Romney, and Sir Henry Raeburn are further high points of the collection. Each painting is discussed in light of recent technical as well as art historical research, and biographies of the artists and numerous comparative illustrations supplement the extensive catalogue entries.