Over the past few months, the CODART website has been expanded with a large number of collection summaries of Dutch and Flemish art in French museums. More than 50 public institutions in France are involved, all of which hold significant collections of objects made in the Low Countries before 1750.

Naturally, the featured museums include many “Musées des Beaux-Arts,” which are fine arts institutions situated in France’s main cities. Founded around the beginning of the nineteenth century, these museums were largely formed with works of art confiscated from churches and aristocratic families during the French Revolution. Well-known examples with relevant collections include those in Lyon, Bordeaux, and Nancy. The new texts also aim to introduce smaller, lesser-known collections housing artworks of exceptional importance. Examples include the Flemish collection at the Monastère Royal de Brou, the surprising seventeenth-century Dutch holdings of the Musée de Tessé in Le Mans, and the Italianate Dutch paintings in Montpellier’s Musée Fabre.

Northern border regions

Of particular interest are the museums in the northern border region where important collections of mostly Flemish works can be found, including the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai, the Musée de Flandre in Cassel, the Musée Municipal Mont-de-Piété in Bergues, and the Musée Benoît de Puydt in Bailleul. These collections are a testament to the enduring northern influences that the “Franco-Flemish” region has experienced over time.

More than painting

Although Dutch and Netherlandish culture in French museums is primarily represented by painting, extensive graphic collections are also represented in this project, such as the well-known Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection, but also the lesser-known drawing collections in the Bibliothèque Patrimoniale in Rouen and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes. In all texts, attention is also paid to other media in the collection, where available, such as sculpture, tapestries, and applied arts. For instance, the rich collection of the Musée Benoît de Puydt includes a group of sculptures by Artus Quellinus.

Project collaboration and future goals

Almost all texts were written specifically for CODART by the curators of the participating museums. To contact the French institutions and to aid with translations, CODART gratefully employed the services of Florian Terryn for this project. As part of his Dutch Studies at the University of Lille, he worked on this project as an intern from February to May.

The CODART website currently offers more than 450 unique summaries of all kinds of collections in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Central Europe, the Netherlands, Belgium, and now France. With this project, we aim to make Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide more visible and accessible to an international audience. In the coming years, we will continue to complete the collection texts.