17th-Century Dutch Republic

Dutch Golden Age(s): The Shaping of a Cultural Community

By Jan Blanc, ed.

Gouden Eeuw: New Perspectives on Dutch Seventeenth-Century Art, vol. 1. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2021. 243 pp, 66 color illus. ISBN 978-2-503-5910-7-0.

Review published May 2021

The tag “Dutch Golden Age” evokes a luminous glow, as a sunset over vistas with ruins or harbors; it calls to mind lavish spreads of food in costly vessels, of well-dressed men gathered to celebrate [...] Read More

Women Artists and Patrons in the Netherlands, 1500-1700

By Elizabeth Sutton, ed.

Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019. 190 pp, 39 illus, 8 col. pls. ISBN 978-94-6372-140-0.

Review published March 2021

The early modern Netherlands were, statistically speaking, a land of women: estimates suggest that during the seventeenth century women outnumbered men four to three. These women were not only [...] Read More

The Golden Age of Dutch Marine Painting: The Inder Rieden Collection

By Gerlinde de Beer, with Franz Ossing and Jaap van der Veen, edited by Charles Dumas

Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2019. 4 Volumes. 348 + 348 + 368 + 320 pp; 900+ illustrations. ISBN 978-90-5997-268-1.

Review published January 2021

This lavishly produced four-volume boxed set accompanied an exhibition in 2019 at the Bredius Museum in The Hague devoted to the collection of Dutch marine paintings assembled by the London collector [...] Read More

Leiden circa 1630. Rembrandt Emerges

By Jacquelyn N. Coutré, ed., with contributions by Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Stephanie S. Dickey, Piet Bakker, and Janet M. Brooke

Exh. Cat. Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, ON, August 24 – December 1, 2019; The Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, March 7 – September 27, 2020; The McKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan, December 5, 2020 – February 21, 2021; The Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, ON, March 13 – May 30, 2021. Kingston, ON: Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 2019. 359 pp, 205 illus., mostly in color. ISBN 978-1-55339-419-8. In English and French.

Review published September 2020

The Agnes Etherington Art Centre joined the celebrations of the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt’s death (or immortality, if you will) with a traveling exhibition combining collection works and loans [...] Read More

Black in Rembrandt’s Time

By Elmer Kolfin and Epco Runia, eds., with contributions by Stefanie Archangel, Mark Ponte, Marieke de Winkel, and David de Witt

Exh. Cat., The Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam, March 5 – May 31, 2020, extended to September 10, 2020. Zwolle: WBOOKS, 2020. 135 pp, fully illustrated in color. ISBN 978-94-625-8372-6 (English), 978-94-625-8371-9 (Dutch).

Review published August 2020

In recent decades, art museums in Europe and North America have increasingly staged exhibitions contextualizing the multi-dimensional nature of our shared cultural heritage. The decision to mount [...] Read More

Painted Alchemists: Early Modern Artistry and Experiment in the Work of Thomas Wijck

By Elisabeth Berry Drago

Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019. 320 pp, 32 color and numerous b&w illus. ISBN: 978-94-6298-649-7.

Review published July 2020

The interiors inhabited by the alchemists in the work of the Dutch artist Thomas Wijck (1616–1677) are fascinating and complex. Scattered with the tools and props of the alchemist’s trade, Wijck’s [...] Read More

Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews

17th-Century Dutch Republic