New issues of Oud Holland and the Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum fell on the doormat this morning. Both are still 2003 issues, and that of Oud Holland is a (thin) double issue. The editors are apparently having a hard time keeping up. The Rijksmuseum begs the pardon of subscribers in an insert, pleading circumstances attendant on the discovery of asbestos in the museum last spring, which kept the photo service closed for a while.

Both journals have built up a backlog of goodwill more than large enough to cover such delays. It is to be hoped that the problems are not structural and that these indispensible publications continue appearing four times a year.

The Oud Holland issue consists of a single (long), fascinating article:

Trudie Rosa Carvalho-Roos, ‘Een speurtocht naar het decor waartegen het dagelijks leven van de stadhouders Willem IV en WIllem V zich afspeelde in de Stadhouderlijke Kwartieren van het Haagse Binnenhof.’

The articles in the Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum are all in Dutch, but with English summaries, whose titles are here quoted:

Jouke van der Werf, ‘Design at the service of contemplation: the reinstallation of the Rijksmuseum, 1945-1959’

Eddy Schavemaker, ‘The third Eglon van der Neer in the Rijksmuseum: the discovery of a female portrait’

Jonathan Bikker, Jan Piet Filedt Kok, Michel van der Laar and Willem de Ridder, ‘Three portraits of Antwerp burghers painted by Jacob Jordaens’

J.F. Heijbroek, ‘The Night watch on the move: a pictorial rapportage’

The new acquisitions are in the fields of Dutch history and French photography.