From the museum website, 10 December 2009
During the 17th century, a period known as the Golden Age witnessed a great increase in artistic activity in the Netherlands. Over nearly a century of struggle—culminating in the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648—the Protestant Dutch in the north won their independence from Catholic Spain. As the new Dutch Republic became more prosperous, its art market grew. Also at this time, Jesuits in the southern Netherlands (or Flanders) were building churches and commissioning art in an attempt to confirm the faith of Catholics. Both situations greatly influenced the political and economic life of the region, and art flourished.
This intimate installation of 15 important works on paper displays biblical, mythological, and genre subjects by such masters as Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617), Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), and Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). Organized together with the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, this display is a fitting collaboration between institutions founded by Henry E. Huntington and Edwin B. Crocker— both men who helped bring the railroad to the West. The installation also complements several museum exhibitions relating to Rembrandt on view concurrently in Southern California.