Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century—The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue

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.

Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. is curator of northern baroque painting at the National Gallery of Art and professor of art history at the University of Maryland. His books include Perspective, Optics, and Delft Artists around 1650; Jan Vermeer; Vermeer and the Art of Painting; and the catalogue of the Dutch collection at the National Gallery, Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. He has received a number of honors throughout his career, including the College Art Association/National Institute for Conservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation, the Minda de Gunzburg Prize for the best exhibition catalogue, and the Johannes Vermeer Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Dutch Art.