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The National Gallery’s significant collection of Early Netherlandish paintings includes three signed and dated works by Jan van Eyck as well as important pictures by Robert Campin, Rogier van der Weyden, Dieric Bouts, Hans Memling, Gerard David, Hieronymus Bosch, Quinten Massijs, Jan Gossart, Jan Brueghel and Joachim Beuckelaer; many of these artists are represented by substantial groups of paintings. For the most part these paintings were acquired from individual British collectors in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Gallery’s holdings of Dutch and Flemish Baroque paintings are largely based on three major collections: that of Robert Peel acquired in 1871; of Wynn Ellis (bequest of 1876); and of George Salting (bequest of 1910). These brought to the Gallery major works by artists such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Jacob Ruisdael, Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck that together have created one of the most comprehensive collections of Dutch and Flemish paintings outside the Netherlands. Later acquisitions have built on this to create an ever fuller representation of Dutch and Flemish painting.
Bart Cornelis, Curator of Dutch sixteenth and seventeenth century paintings (May 2021)
Related CODART publications
Dr. Lucy Davis, “Rubens: Reuniting the Great Landscapes”, CODARTfeatures, July 2021.