Over the past few months, in cooperation with curators of the National Trust, CODART published nine summary texts of National Trust properties with significant holdings of Dutch and Flemish art.

The concise and insightful texts aim to introduce smaller and lesser-known collections that hold artworks of exceptional importance. The addition of these summaries to the CODART website follows an earlier publication of more than 30 texts on collections in the UK.

The National Trust owns and manages over 500 heritage properties in the UK, including many historic houses and gardens, as well as industrial monuments and social history sites, many of which are open to the public. Several of these historic sites are home to rich collections of objects from the Low Countries. These locations are now presented through a selection of highlights and a brief history of the collection. All works of art mentioned in the summary texts are linked to the National Trust’s collection website for images and further reading.

Properties include such highlights as Ascott House, well-known for its Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century cabinet pictures, and the world-class holdings of Petworth House, which range from Rogier van der Weyden and Jheronimus Bosch to Van Dyck and Sir Peter Lely, as well as Upton House where panels by Bosch and Brueghel can be seen together with work by Gabriel Metsu and Govert Flinck. In addition, other fascinating collections such as Polesden Lacey, Ham House, Buckland Abbey, Saltram, Tatton Park and Penrhyn Castle are also represented.

CODART would like to thank all National Trust curators who contributed to these texts and in particular Alice Rylance-Watson (Assistant Curator of Pictures and Sculpture) for compiling them.

The CODART website currently includes more than 200 texts for various collections in the USA, Canada, the UK and Central Europe. More summary texts will be published in the future. Information on the collections in Italy and Flanders is currently in preparation.