• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

BOEKBESPREKING/BOOK REVIEW Bruegelto Rembrandt.Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the Maida Amstel's extensive facsimile series Collectiond'imitationJ de deJJinJ and GeorgeAbrams CollectionExhibition catalogue by William W. d'aprèJ In print-il)alix niaitres h. ollunduiset ?umuradr (published by Robinson, with an essay by Martin Royalton-Kisch, 2002 (British Christian Josi in 182 i). For instance, Rembrandt and his school are Museum, London; Institut Néerlandais, Paris; Fogg Art Museum, represented in this publication by seventeen sheets, among which Cambridge). 299 pp., 113 colour illus., 138 b/w illus. is only one history scene. In the 2002-03 Abrams catalogue there are twenty-five sheets from Rembrandt and his school; there are In 1 99 1 -92the American and European public became acquainted only two histories: Rembrandt's Zuchuriusf?t and the and with an exceptional selection of Dutch seventeenth-century draw- Gerbrand van den Eeckhout's unidentified history scene in his Sheet ings from the collection of Maida and George Abrams, which was of Studies. During the nineteenth century collectors and connois- shown in Amsterdam, Vienna, New York, and Cambridge, Massa- seurs both in the Netherlands and abroad tended to ignore the Ital- chusetts.' Now, just ten years later, the same collectors have sent ianate landscapists such as Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Cornelis van another group of their drawings on an extended tour to London, Poelenburch, Jan Both, Nicolaes Berchem, and Jan Asselijn, while Paris, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The 2002-03 exhibition was concentrating on 'real' Dutch artists like Jan van Goyen, Jacob a triumphal procession of old master drawings of the highest cal- Ruisdael, and Paulus Potter. It is therefore not surprising that in iber, three-quarters of which did not appear in the I 99 1 -92exhi- the i9y and zooz-o3 Abrams catalogues there are no views of the bition and more than fifty of which are new acquisitions (including Italian campagna, but many of the Dutch countryside. This 'Dutch' treasures by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Joachim Wtewael, Rem- bias and the high standard of their drawings place Mr. and Mrs. brandt, Pieter Saenredam, and Jacob van Ruisdael). Exhibition and Abrams in the elevated company of such well-known Dutch collec- catalogue are a monument to the love and discernment of Maida tors as Pieter Langerliulzen, Cornelis Hofstede de and Hen- and George Abrams, who over a period of forty years built an ex- drikus Egbertus ten Cate.4 traordinary assemblage of drawings including the world's finest private collection of Dutch seventeenth-century drawings. Unhap- Outside the Netherlands a concentration on Dutch drawings was pily Maida Abrams died on May 9, 2002. She did not enjoy the ex- (and still is) very rare, as Martin Royalton-Kisch astutely points out hibition's success, but she did oversee the project through the in his 'Dutch Drawings Abroad: Aspects of the History of Collect- proofs of the catalogue. ing.' The first of its kind, this essay analyses the ratio of Dutch drawings found in some of the largest collections formed since the The 2002-03 exhibition and catalogue celebrate the gift of Mr. and seventeenth century. Royalton-Kisch makes it clear that in the ear- Mrs. Abrams of i io Dutch and Flemish drawings to the Fogg Art ly years Dutch drawings collected outside the Netherlands were Museum.?This impressive donation includes works by Pieter generally of minor importance. Only during the nineteenth centu- Bruegel the Elder, Jacques de Gheyn II and III, Rembrandt (his ry do we start to encounter collections where the ratios of national beautiful landscape Faryrz ora thee A??r?rteldijkfrom Chatsworth schools are more balanced. Collections where the Dutch School out- [cat.no. s s ]),Wi llem Buytewech, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, and numbers the other schools, however, remain very rare, as do collec- a unique 'friendship album' dating from the iiild-i630s in its orig- tions devoted solely to Dutch drawings. To reach these conclusions, inal binding and filled with works by infrequently encountered Royalton-Kisch researched among others the collections of Peter Delft and Hague draftsmen, among them Willem van Aelst, Christ- Lely, Hans Sloane, Jonathan Richardson, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas tiaen van Couwenburgh, Pieter Groenewegen, Francois Ryckhals, Lawrence, William Esdaile, John Sheepshanks, Albert von Sachsen- and Emanuel de Witte. Sixteen pieces from this donation appeared Teschen, Johann Stadel, Everard Jabach, Pierre Crozat, Carl Gustaf in the 2002-03 exhibition.5 With this gift the Abrams couple con- Tessin, and Pierre-Jean Mariette. Royalton-Kisch calculated the firmed their strong ties with the Fogg Art Museum, while stressing relative numbers of every national school in almost all of these col- the importance of I larvard as a center for the study of old master lections, an intense, time-consuming labor for which we are very drawings. Renowned scholars, among them Paul Sachs, Agnes grateful. He cites even more collectors in his footnotes, again in- Mongan, Jakob Rosenberg, Otto Benesch, Seymour Slive, Sidney cluding the national-school ratios of their holdings. As the author Freedberg, Jim Ackerman, and Konrad Oberhuber, have shaped acknowledges, the largest sample is that of the English collectors. this center. Several of these scholars helped the Abrams in their col- Two continental collectors I missed were Rudolf i of lecting - and not only with words but also with works of art: An- Prague (especially noteworthy as one of Hendrick Goltzius's most thonie Waterloo's fine Resting Travelers on û Road near ?a Wood spectacular pen works is one of the only two illustrations in the es- (cat.no. 73) was given to them in 1974 by Jakob Rosenberg. say) and Gottfried Wagner (1652-1-725) of Leipzig, who seems to be one of the first collectors outside the Netherlands to assemble a The 199) and the zoo2-o3 catalogues allow us to examine some of rich holding of Dutch drawings (among which forty-two drawings the most important drawings Maida and George Abrams acquired thought to be by Remlorandt).?But apart from these two minor and to develop an overview of their taste. In 1 991 George Abrams omissions, Royalton-Kisch's essay is an important text, which ac- wrote: 'The Dutch artists we loved most were interested in the curately assesses the remarkable achievement of Mr. and Mrs. everyday things around them - the land, the sea, peasants, children, Abrams. animals.' The 2002-03 catalogue confirms that this preference re- mained unchanged. From the seventeenth century there are Dutch William W. Robinson is the author of both the 1 99 r and the 2002- landscapes, genrescenes, portraits, figure- and animal-studies, and 03 catalogues. In his preface to the zoo2-o3 publication he relates botanical drawings. The Abramses evidently shared the interests of how important his association with Mr. and Mrs. Abrams - which great Dutch drawing collectors of the late-eighteenth through the began some thirty years ago - was for him. They constantly, in a early-twentieth century. The disregard of seventeenth-century very generous way, gave him access to their ever-growing collection Dutch history drawings more or less started with Cornelis Ploos van of Dutch drawings. Eventually, as he writes, this relationship de- 99 fined his professional life. Even his museum title is related to this doubts expressed in the Abrams-catalogue are unnecessary. The friendship: in recognition of the 1 qq9 gift William W. Robinson zoo_3auction catalogue erroneously mentions the Abrams drawing became the Fogg's first Maida and George Abrams curator. as preparatory to the picture. The drawing is obviously the model for the print and the painting shows clear differences in details from Larger and more handsome than the 199 1 publication, the present the drawing and the print. catalogue is a treat for the eye and the mind. All the works are il- Cat. no. 43. A probably seventeenth-century copy recently en- lustrated in superb colour, and the texts, often provided with one to tered the collection of the Fogg Art Museum (inv. no. 2002.95.90). three black and white illustrations, are a great pleasure to read. Cat. no. 48. When the Abrams Album was unpacked at the Fon- Some read like exciting stories (the discussions of Pieter Bruegel the dation Custodia in Paris, the staffput forward an interesting thesis: Elder and of Hendrick Vroom, for example). They often relate dis- the uncommon black leather binding looked very much like that of coveries, large and small (in the Vroom the represented site is iden- the ' 1 63 collector." To date the most convincing candidate for the tified). Goltzius's Studiesof a Lamb turns out to have been executed collector' is Pieter Spiering Silvercroon (died i<5z), son of in black chalk instead of metalpoint; Wtewael's The Tmce is not the famous Delft tapestry-weaver Fran?ols Spiering and a great con- only a previously unknown work from the famous series The Nether- noisseur and collector of paintings and drawings. Pieter lived main- landiJh History but also discloses the (much debated) date for the ly in The Ilague and was the ambassador and art buyer for Queen whole set: i 6 i 2; and Isack van Ostade's newly published Sheet of Christina of Sweden. So it seems that not only the provenance of Studies is found to have been lar?;er (an 1 846 auction catalogue dis- this highly treasured album - mysterious since its sudden appear- closes that it then contained three more figures). Specialists have of- ance in 1987 - has been clarified, but also the proposal of Pieter ten been consulted for identification of birds, costumes, boat types, Spiering as the '1637 collector' has become much more viable be- and the like.

Load more

  2

Copy Link