May 2025 marked the publication of the collection “Early Netherlandish Paintings at The Met” on the museum’s website. It currently features 162 works created before 1600, housed primarily within European Paintings, including the Jack and Belle Linsky Collection, but also within The Robert Lehman Collection and the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters.

This new online hub showcases the impressive cataloguing of the Netherlandish paintings collection that has been undertaken by Maryan Ainsworth (Curator Emerita in European Paintings) and Sophie Scully (Associate Conservator in Paintings Conservation) since 2014. There are now 106 new catalogue entries, primarily written by Maryan, and 90 new technical notes, authored by Sophie. A resource for scholars, students, and interested members of the public alike, these in-depth and comprehensive essays are richly illustrated with high resolution, zoomable technical documentation and comparative illustrations. The first fully online collection cataloguing project of European paintings undertaken by The Met—part of a larger online cataloguing effort begun by the Department of European Paintings in 2010—its format offers the crucial benefit of accessibility. It is also a uniquely nimble format in comparison to both print catalogues and digital catalogues in a PDF format, as it enables the department to regularly update entries to reflect new research.

The project exemplifies the collaborative, interdisciplinary work fostered between the departments of European Paintings and Paintings Conservation. Also essential have been the contributions of colleagues in Scientific Research, notably Silvia Centeno, Research Scientist. Jennifer Meagher, Senior Collections Cataloguer in European Paintings, has been indispensable to the project, publishing the entries and accompanying images online on a rolling basis. Maryan and Sophie have trained generations of Slifka Fellows hosted by the European Paintings Department, many of whom also contributed select catalogue entries. (This includes Anna-Claire Stinebring, Assistant Curator and Maryan’s successor in the department, who continues collections research.) Exciting discoveries of the cataloguing project include charting the compositional changes to the sumptuous costume of Maria in Memling’s masterpieces of portraiture, Tommaso di Folco Portinari (1428–1501); Maria Portinari (Maria Maddalena Baroncelli, born 1456) as well as a proposal of a triptych to which these portraits belonged. Maryan and Sophie’s research offers new insights into the time the artist Joos van Wassenhove (formerly called Justus of Ghent) spent at the Court of Urbino as exemplified by his luminous Adoration of the Magi, a rare surviving tüchlein (distemper on canvas) from the period. Their transformative reevaluation of the original appearance and function of Jan van Eyck’s Crucifixion and Last Judgment panels and frames is available online and also the subject of a recent scholarly monograph: Maryan Ainsworth, ed., Jan van Eyck’s Crucifixion and Last Judgment: Solving a Conundrum (Turnhout: Brepols, “Me Fecit” Series, 2022).

The whole collection can be explored here: www.metmuseum.org/collections/early-netherlandish-paintings-at-the-met.

How it works: Click on the thumbnail of The Met painting of interest (with its generic author label) to access the comprehensive online entry. Some entries are forthcoming while others are updated on an ongoing basis.