Washington’s Golden Age
12 March 2020
The National Gallery, Washington DC has one of the world’s finest collections of seventeenth century Dutch and Flemish art. Building on the founding collections of Andrew Mellon and Joseph Widener, it encompasses superb paintings such as Jan Vermeer’s Woman holding a balance and Rembrandt’s Portait of Saskia van Uylenburgh, as well as works by Rubens, Frans Hals, Hobbema, de Hooch and Salomon van Ruysdael. Washington has been a pioneer in outstanding Dutch art exhibitions, including Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting (2018).
Richard Green Gallery is proud to have assisted the National Gallery to enhance its Dutch Golden Age collection over many years. Washington recently acquired from Richard Green two very different masterpieces, Philips Wouwerman’s The departure for the hunt, c.1665 and Jan Jansz. van de Velde’s Still life with a stoneware jug and smoker’s requisites, c.1650. Wouwerman’s landscape, in blues and silvery tones, reflects the aristocratic glamour of hunting and the elegance of Italianate architecture, aspirations of wealthy Dutchmen who increasingly sent their offspring on a Grand Tour of Europe. Van de Velde’s still life, with its tonally interlinked, subdued hues and serene evocation of light on everyday objects, shows another aspect of Dutch society: the search for modesty and balance.
Jan Jansz. van de Velde’s Still life with a stoneware jug and smoker’s requisites, c.1650.
Philips Wouwerman’s The departure for the hunt, c.1665
To find more information on the acquisition of these paintings or, to view all acquisition announcements made by the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC in 2019, go to https://www.nga.gov/press/acquisitions/2019.html