Date: Fri 11-Dec-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: JUDIR

Quick Words:

MiniatureMasterpieces

Full Text:

Miniature Masterpieces At Richard Green

LONDON, ENGLAND -- The Dutch and Flemish delighted in creating small paintings

which have come to be known as cabinet pictures. "The Cabinet Picture: Dutch

and Flemish Masters of the Seventeenth Century," the first exhibition ever to

be devoted to this subject, will be staged by Richard Green at 33 New Bond

Street, from Wednesday, April 14 to Friday, May 7.

This exhibition will also illustrate the development of taste for Dutch and

Flemish cabinet pictures over three centuries: from Eighteenth Century

monarchs and aristocrats, through Nineteenth Century philanthropists to

Twentieth Century collectors.

Some 77 paintings have been loaned for this exhibition, of which 51 are owned

by 18 English museums and galleries and some of these works are not normally

on view to the public. Many of the famous masters of the period are

represented such as Frans Hals and Jan Brueghel the Elder as well as some of

the lesser known such as the reassessed late-Seventeenth Century artists

Godfried Schalcken and Adriaen van der Werff.

There are anecdotal scenes by Jan Steen and a series of intimate genre

pictures including a masterpiece by Gabriel Metsu. There are landscapes by all

the main masters of the school such as Salomon van Ruysdael and Jacob van

Ruisdael as well as a memorable group of flower pieces. The other genres are

all represented ranging from scenes of everyday life to meticulously painted

insects and even rare religious paintings have been included.

There are fine works from London's National Gallery and the Dulwich Picture

Gallery, the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and the Ashmolean Museum,

Oxford, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Other pictures, some of them

unpublished, have been lent by municipal art galleries.

The paintings, by some 50 different artists, will be grouped in the exhibition

according to the collector who originally brought them together. This has not

only resulted in paintings being reunited but also provides an insight into

the taste of individual collectors, as many regional museums are well endowed

with works from Nineteenth and Twentieth Century collections. Among them are

Baron de Ferrieres' gift of 1898 to the Cheltenham Art Gallery, William

Harvey's in Cannon Hall, Barnsley, and the Assheton Bennett collection

bequeathed in 1979 to the City Art Gallery, Manchester.

However, in order to reunite paintings from the Eighteenth Century collections

works have been borrowed from different museums including the City Art

Gallery, Gloucester, and the Castle Museum, Nottingham. This search has led to

new discoveries about the early royal or aristocratic provenances of some

paintings.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a scholarly catalogue by the art

historian Christopher Wright and will contain new research and insights into

the collectors as well as the paintings. Many of these pictures will be

catalogued in depth for the first time.

Hours are Monday through Friday, 10 am to 5:30 pm; Saturday, 10 am to 12:30

pm. For information, 44/(0)171/493-3939.