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Gallery Talk: A Sweeping Panorama—Simon de Vlieger’s View of Weesp

A drawing of a waterway flanked to the right by a row of tightly packed buildings.
Simon de Vlieger, Dutch, View of Weesp, c. 1649–53. Black chalk, gray wash on off-white antique laid paper. The Maida and George Abrams Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2008.250.

Gallery Talk

In-Person
Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

Seventeenth-century artist Simon de Vlieger was one of many Dutch draftsmen who captured panoramas of the cities and towns that surrounded them. In his observed and accurate drawing of Weesp, a municipality located outside Amsterdam on the river Vecht, aspects of this recognizable view speak to larger questions of commerce and the environment. Join curatorial research associate Susan Anderson to discover these details within the broader artistic and cultural milieu of landscape drawing in the Dutch Republic.

This talk is offered in conjunction with the exhibition Crossroads: Drawing the Dutch Landscape, on view May 21–August 14, 2022.

Our galleries are full of stories—this series of talks gives visitors a chance to hear the best ones! The talks highlight new works on view, take a fresh look at old favorites, investigate artists’ materials and techniques, and reveal the latest discoveries by curators, conservators, fellows, visiting artists, technologists, and other contributors.

Led by:
Susan Anderson, Curatorial Research Associate for Dutch and Flemish Drawings, Division of European and American Art

Gallery talks are limited to 18 people, and it is required that you reserve your place. At 10am the day of the event, reservations will open and may be arranged online through this form. The gallery talk reservation will also serve as your general museum reservation. If required, visitors will pay the museum admission fee upon arrival.

Please meet in the Calderwood Courtyard, in front of the digital screens between the shop and the admissions desk.

See the museum visit page to learn about our general policies for visiting the museums.

The Harvard Art Museums are committed to accessibility for all visitors. For anyone requiring accessibility accommodations for our programs, please contact us at am_register@harvard.edu at least 48 hours in advance.

Funding for the Crossroads exhibition and related programming was provided by the Stanley H. Durwood Foundation Support Fund and the M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Series Endowment Fund. The accompanying catalogue was made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Publication Funds, including the Henry P. McIlhenny Fund, and by the WOLFGANG RATJEN FOUNDATION, Liechtenstein.