codart Courant 8/June 2004 codartCourant contents Published by Stichting codart P.O. Box 76709 2 A word from the director Rembrandt, their predecessors and successors: nl-1070 ka Amsterdam 3 News and notes from around the world 16th- to 18th-century Flemish and Dutch The Netherlands 3 Czech Republic, Prague, National drawings in Polish collections www.codart.nl Gallery: A birthday greeting to Hana 26 Krystyna Gutowska-Dudek, The Dutch Seifertová and Flemish paintings from the collection of Managing editor: Rachel Esner 4 France, Paris, Fondation Custodia Jan iiiSobieski housed in Wilanow Palace e [email protected] 4 Hungary, Budapest Museum of Fine Museum Arts 30 Wanda M. Rudzin´ska, The Tilman van Editors: Wietske Donkersloot, 6 Russia, St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Gameren archive in the print room of Gary Schwartz Museum Warsaw University Library t +31 (0)20 305 4515 7 codart zeven: Dutch and Flemish art 33 Study trip to Gdan´sk, Warsaw and f +31 (0)20 305 4500 in Poland Kraków, 18-25 April 2004 e [email protected] 8 Congress, Utrecht, 7-9 March 2004 39 Rulers of Poland, 14th-18th century 13 Antoni Ziemba, The Low Countries and 39 Index of Polish individuals and families codart board Poland: a history of artistic connections 40 Website news Henk van der Walle, chairman 16 Hanna Benesz, Early Netherlandish, 41 Appointments Wim Jacobs, controller of the Instituut Dutch and Flemish paintings in Polish 41 codartmembership news Collectie Nederland, secretary- collections 42 Museum list treasurer 19 Joanna Tomicka, Dutch and Flemish prints 48 codartdates Rudi Ekkart, director of the Rijksbureau in major Polish collections Preview of upcoming exhibitions and other voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie 23 Maciej Monkiewicz, Rubens and events, June-December 2004 Jan Houwert, chairman of the Board of Management of the Koninklijke Wegener N.V. Paul Huvenne, director of the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp Jeltje van Nieuwenhoven, member of the Labor Party faction in the Dutch parliament codartis an international council for curators of Dutch and Flemish art. It supports inter-museum cooperation in the study and display of art from the Lowlands through a variety of means, including congresses, study trips, pub- lications and a website (www.codart.nl). The organization was founded and is aided by the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage. It enjoys the generous support of the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Ministry of Welfare, Health and Culture of the Flemish Community. codartCourantappears twice a year. Contributions are welcome. codartCourant is designed by Typography Interiority & Other Serious Donkersloot Wietske Photo Matters, The Hague Poster for the exhibition of prints and drawings organized by the Czartoryski Museum in honor of the codart issn1388 9559 zevenvisit to Kraków: Treasures of the Netherlands. codart Courant 8/June 2004 2 A word from the learned in the course of time, is a hit-or-miss one major exception, the postponement of the affair. Around 1:30 a.m., after ten or so exhibition of Dutch and Flemish drawings in director unsuccessful attempts to reach call-in Warsaw (see p. 23) – more than fulfilled. numbers in Poland, Germany and the codart zevenbrought an important On 18 April lotPolish Airline flight lo268 Netherlands, I got a hit on a repeat call to turning point in my own understanding of the from Schiphol to Warsaw had about an hour Germany. With my wife Loekie and the central phenomenon on which codartis delay in departure. As a result, the codart codartassociates Wietske Donkersloot and based, the dispersal of Dutch and Flemish art zevenstudy trip participants traveling with Navany Almazan looking over my shoulder, I through the world. Until now, we may have the main party arrived late in Warsaw, with a read the e-mail and the report. assumed too easily that the presence abroad of mild case of nerves about making their quick ‘codartmakes an important Netherlandish art implied a positive reception connection to Gdan´sk, where the visit to contribution to the job of tracking down and at the moment of dispersal of the culture of the Poland began the following morning. The profiling Dutch and Flemish art throughout Low Countries. In his talk at the congress in transit was not as smooth as it might have the world. The Council concludes that in the Utrecht on 8 March, Antoni Ziemba, head of been, on account of the far more stringent past years codarthas worked in a purpose- the department of Old Master paintings at the security on the inland Warsaw-Gdan´sk route ful fashion towards the accomplishment of its National Museum in Warsaw, introduced an than on the international leg of the trip from aims. Partly with the use of new technologies, important nuance into this way of thinking. Amsterdam to Warsaw. But the plane did not the worldwide network of curators of Dutch He pointed out that even as Pomeranian cities leave without us, and we reached the Novotel and Flemish art has been charted and made like Gdan´sk were being rebuilt and decorated in Gdan´sk not long after midnight. accessible to the professional field… codart in a style we consider Netherlandish, by In my bag was an amazingly detailed letter has put together a well-functioning network architects, artists and engineers from the from the Arts Council of the Netherlands, the that, among its other functions, furthers the Netherlands, local society did not see the Raad voor Cultuur, mapping out the scenario development of expertise in the area of Dutch transformation as a specifically Netherlandish for the announcement of its recommendations and Flemish art…. The judgment of the contribution to their culture. The new style to the State Secretary of Culture for the four- Council concerning codart’s request for was regarded as a renovation common to all year funding period 2005-08. The complete text subsidy is positive.’ (For the complete Dutch northern European societies. When it came to was to appear on Internet on the Monday text, see http://www.cultuur.nl/cultuurnota. a conscious choice for foreign examples, as in morning, 19 April. The evening before, the 833 html.) giving form to the government, Poland turned individual applicants were to receive an e-mail Although we had asked for a slightly higher decisively to Italy. from the Council with the text of the amount per year than we had been granted for This insight brings with it the challenge to recommendation concerning their own 2001-04, we were relieved and very pleased that examine more closely the role of Dutch and institution. The continuation of codartin the Council advised the State Secretary to Flemish art abroad – and for that matter in the its present form depended in large measure on continue funding us at the old level, 164,000 Low Countries themselves – at each period what was in that recommendation. euros a year. Even though there is a theoretical since they were made. It gives reason to expand Getting onto the Internet with your possibility that the government will decide the intellectual and perhaps even the formal notebook pc from a Polish hotel room, I have not to follow the recommendation, I am terms under which codartoperates. Most confident that it will. We clinked our whiskey importantly, it underscores a principle that we glasses, drank to our success and went happily have embraced from the start: that Dutch and to sleep. Flemish art do not form a closed system, but Those nerves about making connections in operate within a larger European and global Poland did not end at Warsaw Airport. Polish culture. That was true in the 16th and 17th society and its physical arrangements are not centuries, and it is true today. It is truer than exactly a well-oiled machine. In fact, the study ever since 1 May 2004, when the Netherlands trip presented us at many turns with and Belgium became equal members, with unexpected surprises, some of which could Poland and 22 other countries, of a great have detracted from the value of the trip. In the European polity. I have always believed that event, none did. All the institutions on our we belong together, and although not itinerary were open to us, their staff as helpful everyone agrees, it is a wonderful thing that and friendly as we could wish. The buses and European unity is getting a chance to prove trains were on time, the restaurants were ready itself. If I may be excused for a touch of with the meals we ordered. In part because of arrogance – I wish the European Union as our worries that things might go wrong, we much good will from its members as codart were all the more delighted at how enjoys. resoundingly right they went. The promise Gary Schwartz Photo Thea Vignau-Wilberg Thea Photo held out by our Polish colleagues was – with 3 codart Courant 8/June 2004 News and notes from centuries. Hana wrote a number of important Over the years Hana Seifertová planned and articles and catalogues, both on contemporary executed a number of important projects, a around the world art and Old Master painting. She was, for few of which I will list here. In 1993-94 she example, a regular contributor to Oud Holland worked on an exhibition of her favorite czech republic in the 1960s. In a word, under her leadership painter, Georg Flegel. This magnificent show Prague, National Gallery: A birthday greeting and in the rather liberal atmosphere of the late of Flegel’s still lifes, which she curated to Hana Seifertová 1960s the Regional Gallery became an together with Kurt Wettengl of the Anyone who knows long-time codart important art center outside Prague.