To celebrate the publication of the complete catalogue of its Northern Drawings Collection, written by David Mandrella, the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Orléans is organizing an exhibition of 170 of its finest Netherlandish, Flemish, German, Swiss and Swedish drawings, about 100 of which are unpublished and have never been shown to the public.

Most of the drawings were bequeathed to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in 1922 by the collector Paul Fourché (1840-1922), an Orléans businessman who spent his life in Bordeaux. However, a significant number of sheets had already entered the collection in 1823, when the museum opened its doors. They were donated by various collectors, including the French engraver and collector André Gaspard Parfait de Bizemont-Prunelé (1752-1837).

130 of the exhibited drawings are of Dutch and Flemish origin, including works by Anthonie Blocklandt, Johannes Stradanus, Bartholomeus Spranger, Candido, Rubens, Jordaens, Goltzius, Jacques de Gheyn, Breenbergh, Jacob Backer, Bega, Molyn, Joris van der Haagen, Dusart, Jan Stolker, Jacob Cats, and Johan Barthold Jongkind.

About 35 other drawings in the exhibition are by German and Central European artists such as Michael Willmann, Balthasar Denner, Gottfried Bernhard Göz, Christoph Thomas Scheffler, and Wilhelm von Kobell.

The exhibition is curated by David Mandrella and Mehdi Korchane. The catalogue is written by David Mandrella and consists of 155 detailed entries, followed by illustrated summary entries for all 754 other Northern European drawings, including those no longer accepted or lost during the Second World War.