CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Rembrandt – Britain’s Discovery of the Master

A study visit to the National Galleries of Scotland (14-16 October 2018)

From Sunday afternoon 14 October to Tuesday morning 16 October 2018, CODART will visit Edinburgh, where the exhibition Rembrandt: Britain’s Discovery of the Master is being held at the Scottish National Gallery. This exhibition reveals how the taste for Rembrandt’s work in Britain has evolved over the past 400 years. It brings together key paintings, drawings and prints by Rembrandt which belong, or once belonged, to British collections, as well as a wide range of works by British artists who drew inspiration from the Dutch master, including Sir Joshua Reynolds and contemporary artists such as Frank Auerbach. The Scottish National Gallery will be giving focus participants the opportunity to attend a private viewing of the exhibition, a day after the show closes to the general public.

For more details about the program, please read on or click here. To register, go to the Participate page.

Program

Besides the exclusive visit to the exhibition, this CODARTfocus offers an ideal opportunity to become better acquainted with the permanent collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings and works on paper of the National Galleries of Scotland. On Sunday afternoon, 14 October we will be studying the permanent collection together with Tico Seifert, Senior Curator of Northern European Art and considering a number of unique paintings in greater depth. We will end the day with drinks offered by the National Galleries of Scotland.

The second day of the gathering, Monday, 15 October, will be devoted entirely to the exhibition Rembrandt: Britain’s Discovery of the Master. On Monday morning, following a lecture by the exhibition’s curator, Tico Seifert, participants will have an opportunity to join a private viewing of the exhibition under Tico’s expert guidance. This will be followed by two short lectures. The first will be given by Nadja Garthoff, Curator at the RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History in The Hague. She will speak about the renewed website of The Rembrandt Database, to which technical information about Rembrandt’s A Woman in Bed (Sarah) will soon be added, a painting gifted to the Scottish national collection in 1892 by the wealthy brewer William McEwan. In a second brief lecture, Peter Black, Curator of Dutch and Flemish Art at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, will address the impact of Rembrandt’s work on the British etching revival from the 1850s to the 1920s.

Since it is closed to the public, we will be organizing short presentations in the exhibition in the afternoon, in which we will consider certain works or issues in greater depth. Those participating in this program include: Martin Royalton-Kisch, the eminent Rembrandt scholar and former Curator of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum in London, who will discuss the group of four drawings depicting English views. Are they (all) by Rembrandt? And were they drawn from life or after prints or drawn models? Michiel Franken, Curator of Technical Documentation / Rembrandt and Rembrandt School at the  RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History in The Hague, and Tico Seifert, will discuss reproductive prints after Rembrandt paintings in British collections; Donato Esposito, Freelance art historian and formerly an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, will speak about Sir Joshua Reynolds and Rembrandt; and Jonny Yarker, Director at Lowell Libson and Jonny Yarker Ltd. in London, will talk on the subject of 18th-century copies after Rembrandt. After a coffee break, participants can return to the exhibition.

On Tuesday, 16 October we will be visiting the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, where we will study the permanent collection under the expert guidance of Kate Anderson, Senior Curator Pre-1700. The group will then divide into two. One group will study a number of works on paper from the Print Room of the National Galleries of Scotland together with Tico Seifert and Kate Anderson. Several exceptional drawings and prints from the collection will be presented especially for the CODARTfocus. The other group will visit the exhibition Art and Analysis: Two Netherlandish painters working in Jacobean Scotland with Kate Anderson and Caroline Rae, Technical Art Historian, Paintings Conservator and a Lecturer in Technical Art History at the University of Glasgow. After an hour the two groups will swop, after which all participants will have an opportunity to visit the Portrait Gallery individually.

Contact CODART

If you have any questions about this event, please contact the CODART office:
Maartje Beekman
events@codart.nl
+31 70 333 9744 (also during the CODARTfocus)

This event is a collaboration between CODART and the National Galleries of Scotland. We wish to thank the RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague for its ongoing support of CODART.