Curator
Ruud Priem, independent curator and education coordinator of the Dutch Postgraduate School for Art History
From the museum website
The most comprehensive display of 17th century Dutch masterpieces is on its way to Melbourne for the second exhibition in the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series. Following the success of The Impressionists in 2004, Dutch Masters from the Rijksmuseum will offer audiences the richest survey of 17th century Dutch art ever staged in Australia. Opening Friday 24 June, the exhibition brings together more than 100 sumptuous works and decorative objects by great artists such as Vermeer, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch and Jan Steen.
A rare treat for Australian audiences, this exhibition is only possible due to the major renovations happening at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. NGV Director Dr Gerard Vaughan says: “We have secured some absolutely amazing works – masterpieces that would not normally leave the walls of this great European gallery.”
Displaying lavish still lifes, revealing self-portraits, insightful portraiture, humble and reverent genre works, and masterful cityscapes and seascapes, this exhibition powerfully captures the vivid images of daily life in the Netherlands during the 17th century – a period often referred to as “The Golden Age”.
Publication
Dutch masters from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Ruud Priem
Catalogue of an exhibition held in 2005 in Melbourne (National Gallery of Victoria) and in 2005-06 in Kobe (Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art)
XXXIX + 248 pp., 27 cm.
Melbourne (National Gallery of Victoria) 2005
ISBN-10: 1-875460-24-1