Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Breda (?), c. 1525 - 1569 Brussels), Wooded Landscape with a Distant View toward the Sea, 1554. Brown ink, brown wash and white opaque watercolor over black chalk on blue antique laid paper, 26 x 34.4 cm (10 1/4 x 13 9/16 in.). The Maida and George Abrams Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999.132. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The Harvard Art Museums hold one of the most comprehensive U.S. collections of Netherlandish, Dutch, and Flemish drawings from the 15th to 18th century. This exhibition will present about 40 of those drawings, covering five salient themes in the art history of the Netherlands during the 16th and 17th centuries. Works by the period’s outstanding draftsmen will be on view, including Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Lambert Doomer, Jacques de Gheyn II, Hendrick Goltzius, Jan van Goyen, Maarten van Heemskerck, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, and Cornelis Vroom. The first section, comprised of drawings from the 1500s, highlights the stylistic innovations precipitated by contact with Italian Renaissance models. A second group evokes the imagery propagated by a resurgent Catholic church in the southern Netherlands after the division of the Low Countries into an independent and officially Protestant North (the Dutch Republic) and a Catholic South ruled by regents of the Spanish monarchy. A third group shows the range of subjects and techniques explored in the drawings of Rembrandt and the adaptation of his draftsmanship by some of his pupils and close followers. The emergence of landscape as an autonomous artistic genre is the focus of the fourth section, which includes works by 16th-century precursors of the naturalistic landscape and illustrates several of the types of views depicted by Dutch 17th-century masters. Dutch draftsmen of the 17th century also helped turn portraits and scenes from everyday life into autonomous artistic genres of remarkable variety and sophistication. Drawings in the final section range from poignant studies taken from life to complete compositions rife with humor and layers of meaning that would have delighted and challenged viewers of the period.

This exhibition corresponds to the publication of Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt, which catalogues 100 of the most significant 16th- to 18th-century works from the Netherlandish, Dutch, and Flemish schools in the museums’ collections. The catalogue presents the results of extensive research conducted by William W. Robinson, curator emeritus of drawings; Susan Anderson, curatorial research associate for Dutch and Flemish drawings; and Penley Knipe, the Philip and Lynn Straus Conservator of Works of Art on Paper in the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies. It focuses on the media, supports, techniques, attribution, function, provenance, and iconographic interpretation of these works.

Jacques de Gheyn II (Antwerp, 1565 - 1629 The Hague), Crossbowman Assisted by a Milkmaid, c. 1600-1610. Brown ink, gray and brown wash over black and red chalk on off-white antique laid paper, 39 x 32.5 cm (15 3/8 x 12 13/16 in.); mount: 43.7 x 37.8 cm (17 3/16 x 14 7/8 in.); framed: 73 x 61 cm (28 3/4 x 24 in.). Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Meta and Paul J. Sachs, 1953.86. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The Harvard Art Museums’ collection of drawings from the Low Countries has grown in recent decades, thanks to the generosity of donors such as Melvin R. Seiden (Harvard College ’52; Harvard Law ’55) and, especially, Maida and George Abrams (Harvard College ’54; Harvard Law ’57), whose 1999 gift of 110 works transformed the collection into one of the most comprehensive in any U.S. museum.

Curated by William W. Robinson, the Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings, emeritus, at the Harvard Art Museums.

May 21, 2016–August 14, 2016. Harvard Art Museums

Jacques de Gheyn II (Antwerp, 1565 - 1629 The Hague), A Roma Woman with a Child, c. 1604. Brown ink and black chalk on light tan antique laid paper, 16.2 x 13.1 cm (6 3/8 x 5 3/16 in.). The Maida and George Abrams Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Promised Gift, 25.1998.10. © President and Fellows of Harvard College. 

Hendrick Goltzius, (Mühlbracht 1558 - 1617 Haarlem, Netherlands), Portrait of a Man, 1591. Black, red, and ocher chalk, and gray wash, some incised lines, silhouetted, on cream antique laid paper, framing line in black ink, 36.3 x 27.2 cm (14 5/16 x 10 11/16 in.). The Maida and George Abrams Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999.141. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Jan van Goyen, Dutch (Leiden 1596 - 1656 The Hague), On the Seashore, 1652. Black chalk and gray wash on cream antique laid paper, framing line in black chalk, 14.3 x 21.7 cm (5 5/8 x 8 9/16 in.). Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs, 1965.204. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Maarten van Heemskerck, Netherlandish (1498 - 1574), Giving Drink to the Thirsty, 1552. Brown ink over touches of black chalk and incidental white opaque watercolor, incised, on cream antique laid paper, framing line in brown ink over black chalk, actual: 25.6 x 20 cm (10 1/16 x 7 7/8 in.). Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Purchase through the generosity of an Anonymous Donor, 1994.155. © President and Fellows of Harvard College. 

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Dutch (Leiden 1606 - 1669 Amsterdam),  A Standing Old Man, c. 1638. Brown ink on antique laid paper probably toned with light brown wash, framing line in brown ink, 18 x 10.2 cm (7 1/16 x 4 in.). Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs, 1965.213. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Dutch (Leiden 1606 - 1669 Amsterdam),  Zacharias (?) and the Angel, c. 1635.  Brown ink on off-white antique laid paper, two framing lines in brown ink, 10.9 x 11.5 cm (4 5/16 x 4 1/2 in.). The Maida and George Abrams Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; 1999.163. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Dutch (Leiden 1606 - 1669 Amsterdam),  A Farm on the Amsteldijk (?), c. 1650-1652.  Brown ink, brown wash and white opaque watercolor on cream antique laid paper, 10.9 x 22.1 cm (4 5/16 x 8 11/16 in.). The Maida and George Abrams Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gift of George Abrams in memory of Maida Abrams; 2004.181. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Dutch (Leiden 1606 - 1669 Amsterdam),  Landscape with a Farmstead ("Winter Landscape"), c. 1650.  Brown ink, pale brown wash, and incidental marks in black chalk on cream antique laid paper, prepared with light rose-brown wash, mounted overall, framing line in brown ink, 6.7 x 16 cm (2 5/8 x 6 5/16 in.); framed: 26.7 x 38.1 cm (10 1/2 x 15 in.). Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Charles A. Loeser, 1932.368. © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish (Siegen 1577 - 1640 Antwerp), Studies for Apostles; verso: Study of Drapery, c. c. 1611. Black chalk on gray antique laid paper; verso: black chalk, 35.2 x 25.9 cm (13 7/8 x 10 3/16 in.). Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of The Honorable and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, 1936.123 © President and Fellows of Harvard College