Book Reviews

Van Eyck

By Maximiliaan Martens, Till-Holger Borchert, Jan Dumolyn, Johan De Smet, and Frederica Van Dam, eds.

Exh. Cat. Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, February 1 – March 12, 2020. London – New York: Thames & Hudson, 2020. 490 pp, 350 color illus. ISBN 978-0-500-02345-7.

Review published December 2020

Many readers will have shared my disappointment at having missed the exhibition Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution, which opened at Ghent’s Museum voor Schone Kunsten on February 1st, 2020, and was [...] Read More

Antwerp in the Renaissance

By Bruno Blondé and Jeroen Puttevils, eds.

Studies in European Urban History, 49. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2020. 315 pp, 61 illus. ISBN 978-2-503-58833-9.

Review published November 2020

Students of visual culture in the cities of the Netherlands have learned to attend to a variety of imagery that formerly were omitted from consideration as "art," especially printed images that also [...] Read More

Hans Holbein. The Artist in a Changing World

By Jeanne Nuechterlein

London: Reaktion Books, 2020, 280 pp., 70 illus., some in color. ISBN 978-1-78914-211-2.

Review published November 2020

Hans Holbein (c. 1497/98–1543) has generated plenty of scholarship in the form of catalogues of paintings, drawings and prints as well as serious exhibition catalogues and scholarly monographs. But he [...] Read More

The Ghent Altarpiece: Research and Conservation of the Exterior

By Bart Fransen and Cyriel Stroo, eds.

Contributions to the Study of the Flemish Primitives, 14. Brussels: Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA), Brussels, 2020. 430 pp, 300 color illus. ISBN 978-2-930054-38-4.

Review published October 2020

As the first in a series about Jan (and Hubert?) van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece (1432), this volume documents the research and conservation treatment of the exterior panels. It is undoubtedly an [...] 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

Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews

Book Reviews