CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Master drawings from the Fondation Custodia in Paris on display at TEFAF

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of TEFAF, the Fondation Custodia in Paris, home of the Frits Lugt Collection, will be presenting a parade of master drawings in Maastricht chosen by its director Ger Luijten of Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Rubens, Tiepolo etc.

Information from the Fondation Custodia, 7 March 2011

Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Federico Barocci, Jacques de Gheyn, Rembrandt, Rubens, Pieter Saenredam, Guercino, Tiepolo and many others have been selected around the central theme: studying on paper. The works shown are studies or sketches in which the artist tried something out, rendered something that was in front of him to be used later in a painting or another drawing. They are not works of art in their own right, and many are likely to have been drawn from life.

The exhibition is concentrated around eleven different types of drawing: draperies, nudes, figure studies, sketches with variations of the same subject, faces, animals, landscapes, trees, architecture, studies of light and dark and drawings that tell stories. Four splendid examples have been chosen in each category to create a powerful visual rhyme. At the entrance four drawings – in period frames – will be highlighted showing draughtsmen at work. The idea is to stress that various artists have been preoccupied with very similar problems for which they found original solutions.

The Frits Lugt collection is strong in drawings preparatory for a painting or done by the artist to practice. In fact Lugt wanted very much to understand the artistic process and reveal it within his collection. In order to enhance that he also started a collection of artist’s autographs, ideally letters that illuminate the genesis of a work of art or an artistic career. Lugt was particularly interested in sketchbooks and illustrated printed manuals for artists. Rare examples of those will also be included in the exhibition at TEFAF, which shows scarcely seen masterpieces in a telling context – both to honor the achievement of collector Frits Lugt (1884-1970) and to give great pleasure to the spectator.