Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

The National Gallery's collection of seventeenth-century Flemish paintings, although numbering fewer than sixty works, is exceptional in quality. At its core are major examples by the two greatest masters of the period, Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, artists whose renown extended to Italy, Spain, Germany, France, and England. The large-scale history paintings and the portraits that Rubens and Van Dyck painted of their aristocratic patrons once commanded spaces similar to the...
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The National Gallery's collection of seventeenth-century Flemish paintings, although numbering fewer than sixty works, is exceptional in quality. At its core are major examples by the two greatest masters of the period, Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, artists whose renown extended to Italy, Spain, Germany, France, and England. The large-scale history paintings and the portraits that Rubens and Van Dyck painted of their aristocratic patrons once commanded spaces similar to the grand, wood-paneled galleries in which they now hang. We are fortunate to be able to exhibit these old master paintings to such good effect. The collection also contains choice smaller-scale still lifes, genre scenes, and landscapes by other important Flemish masters, including Osias Beert the Elder, Adriaen Brouwer, Jan Brueghel the Elder, and David Teniers the Younger.

Many of these paintings benefited from recent conservation treatment during the preparation of this catalogue, and the resulting new technical information is published here for the first time. The extensive commentaries also include new information about provenance, and about the style, dating, and the place of these paintings within the cultural milieu in which the artists worked. The catalogue also includes artists' biographies, an appendix of artists' signatures and monograms, and a general index.