After a period of relative quiet, the last few years have seen a flurry of exhibitions of Northern European drawings across Britain, with more expected in 2026. These exhibitions have showcased the rich holdings to be found in British collections, and Dürer to Van Dyck at the Royal Scottish Academy was no exception, with the exhibits selected from arguably one of the best collections of Old Master drawings in the world – the Devonshire Collection, normally housed at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.

The necessary restrictions that accompany the display of drawings of any age mean that the chance to view such works is special, but in the case of the Devonshire Collection the opportunity is rarer still. The Old Master Cabinet which allows for a small rotating display of the 1800 Old Master drawings in the collection was only established in 2012. The recent touring exhibition, Lines of Beauty, at Sheffield (2020) and Woking (2021), was the first in over twenty years and unfortunately coincided with the global pandemic and its aftermath, restricting the number of visitors. All but two of the drawings in Dürer to Van Dyck were exhibited for the first time in Scotland as part of this exhibition, and five had never been exhibited before anywhere (Maarten van Heemskerck’s Susannah Accused by the Elders, 1562; three works by Sebastiaan Vrancx – Ruins on the Palatine: the Domus Augustana and the Palace of Septimus Severus, c. 1596-c. 1601; Design for a Frontispiece with a View of Rome inside the Porta del Popolo and a View of the Pincio, c. 1596-c. 1601; Young Men Playing Pallone Inside the Baths of Diocletian with San Bernardo in the Distance, c. 1596-c. 1601; and Unknown artist, Head of a Roebuck with Monstrous Antlers (So called Wig Buck), c. 1580-90).

Through their beautifully illustrated catalogue, Charles Noble, Gregory Rubinstein and Christian Tico Seifert have increased access to this collection, selecting 47 drawings by some of the most famous names from Chatsworth’s holdings. This includes eleven works by Van Dyck, eight works by Rembrandt, four by Rubens, and examples by Dürer, Holbein, Goltzius and Heemskerck, to name a few. Whilst the collection dates back to the eighteenth century, no scholarly catalogue of Old Master drawings existed of the Devonshire Collection until 2002 when the second of two multi-volume catalogues was published by Michael Jaffé (who had begun the task of researching the collection in the 1980s). Jaffé’s interest was predominantly in the Italian drawings held within the collection, whilst the focus of touring exhibitions from the 1960s to the early twenty-first century was on a broad overview of the Old Master drawing collection, covering works from a range of schools.

This catalogue’s specific focus on the Northern European holdings of the collection brings greater attention to important works of the Northern European Renaissance, further insight into the relationship between Rubens and Van Dyck and a focus on the significance of landscape within the oeuvre of Rembrandt.

The catalogue opens with a short essay by Charles Noble providing an overview of the collection’s history. The Old Master drawings at Chatsworth were collected by the first three Dukes of Devonshire, all named William Cavendish, although sadly there is little archival evidence about the drawings’ acquisition. The works originate from a variety of sources including the collection of Sir Peter Lely, the 2nd/14th Earl of Arundel, and – perhaps most interestingly – from the collection of Nicolaes Anthoni Flinck, a wealthy Dutch East India merchant, amateur engraver and grandson of the artist Govert Flinck. 225 drawings in the collection bear a Flinck ownership stamp, and this acquisition may account for some 28 Rembrandt drawings in the collection.

The catalogue and exhibition emphasise the importance of the collectors and the exhibition history of the drawings on display. A large oval portrait by John Riley of William Cavendish, later 2nd Duke of Devonshire, c. 1690, was displayed centrally within the exhibition’s first room, above a case containing an eighteenth-century vellum album in which these drawings were historically stored, together with an example of one of the frames into which select drawings were exhibited under the aegis of the 6th Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth after 1836. Whilst not thrilling objects in themselves, such inclusions highlight for visitors unfamiliar with the history of collecting how drawings were appreciated in the past and the prominence they might have had within grand houses, before a greater understanding of conservation practices sent them back into boxes and albums. In a country where Dutch and Flemish artists played such an important role in the development of a national school of art, it is also valuable to highlight the role of British collectors in the development of a taste for Northern European art in the first place.

Highlights from the catalogue (and exhibition) must include Dürer’s The Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John, c. 1516-18, (a new slightly earlier dating than the traditional 1518-19), infused with a calm intimacy interrupted by the Christ child playfully brushing a carnation against his mother’s face. The inclusion of Head of a Roebuck with Monstrous Antlers (So-called Wig Buck), c. 1580-90, here exhibited for the first time, reminds us of the many uses of drawings in this period. Related to two other watercolor drawings, from Berlin and Dresden, respectively, likely depicting the same taxidermied animal, the drawing highlights the fascination with unusual natural phenomena of the sixteenth century.

The Month of January by the Master of the Months of Lucas highlights the important role drawings played in the creation of tapestries, a medium now woefully under-appreciated by the general public but which outshone paintings in the sixteenth century. It also reminds us of the continued power of drawings almost 500 years old to dazzle us today – on entering the exhibition, a visitor assistant approached me excitedly and asked me to kneel in front of The Month of January so I might best appreciate the glint of the gold highlights. These would have guided master weavers on where to place the silver gilt thread in the tapestry – the same thread that led to the tapestry’s destruction in 1797 when French Revolutionaries burnt it to extract the metal.

A significant portion of the drawings considered in the catalogue are by Rubens and Van Dyck, and this selection provides an interesting overview of the connection between master and student. Van Dyck’s, A Wolf and Fox Hunt, c. 1616-17, closely follows Rubens’s painting Wolf and Fox Hunt, c. 1616, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Originally considered a preparatory study for the painting, it is now widely accepted as a record of the finished work, lauded for its dynamism which, in Seifert’s opinion, exceeds that of Rubens’s in the depiction of the horse, which Van Dyck relished drawing. Cattle at Pasture, c. 1618-20, highlights the continued discussions around the use of drawings by Rubens and Van Dyck – was Van Dyck’s Cattle at Pasture based on a lost drawing by Rubens as proposed by Julius Held in 1986? Or did Rubens adopt aspects of his most gifted student’s drawing for his painting Polder Landscapes with Eleven Cows, c. 1618-20?

Questions of attribution still continue around A Dying Tree, Its Trunk Covered with Brambles, Beside a Fence, c.1618, which Rubinstein describes as “one of the greatest nature studies created anywhere in Europe in the seventeenth century” (94), and argues convincingly in favor of Rubens as its author. He cites the unlikeliness of Rubens basing important elements of his related painting Landscape with a Boar Hunt, c. 1618 (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) on a drawing by his young pupil, the similarity of the drawing’s inscription to that on Rubens’s Trees Reflected in Water at Sunset (British Museum) and the use of scattered chalk highlights.

The inclusion of several landscapes by Rembrandt reinforces the artist’s mastery of blank space. Rubinstein writes atmospherically of Rembrandt’s ability to create a sense of light, weather and temperature without making a mark in the sky as we “accompany Rembrandt on his walk” (81), here referencing the influential work of Frits Lugt.

While less familiar to audiences, drawings by Sebastian Vrancx and Wencelaus Hollar are captivating choices. Hollar’s depiction of The Public Execution of Martin Aichinger (called Laimbauer) and Seven Other Leaders of a Farmer Rebellion in the City Square at Linz on the Danube, 1636, was based on his first-hand experience of the grisly scene whilst traveling with the Earl of Arundel on his diplomatic mission to the Emperor Ferdinand II in 1636. With an impossible viewpoint, looking down on the scene, Hollar distances the viewer from the action, casting us as impartial observers or armchair travellers. At the same time, Hollar connects us to the event through the detailed depictions of the backs of onlookers, suggesting that we are part of an endless crowd, gawping at this gruesome spectacle.

Understandably, due to the  exclusive focus on drawings, the catalogue does not include the captivating grisaille of Van Dyck and Rubens based on a design for an engraving by Paulus Pontius, itself based on prints from Van Dyck’s Iconography. This work was stolen in 1979 whilst part of an exhibition at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne and was only recently returned to the Devonshire Collection. The grisaille, which was exhibited in Edinburgh next to drawings for the Iconography, including portraits of Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Inigo Jones, highlighted the enduring appeal of Van Dyck’s great work and the translation of drawings across media and time.

The positive reception of Dürer to Van Dyck highlights the continued appetite for exhibitions which exclusively focus on drawings, within Britain and beyond, and shows that these often intimate works can challenge the largest of paintings with their power to enthral. The catalogue provides a glimpse of the rich holdings within British collections of Northern European works on paper, and within the magnificent Devonshire collection specifically, that I hope can only be delved into further in future exhibitions – 47 drawings down, only 1753 to go.

Jane Simpkiss
Compton Verney, Warwickshire