Introduction

The Harvard Art Museums are the preeminent U.S. stronghold for drawings by Netherlandish, Dutch, and Flemish artists dating from the 15th century to around 1800. Unusual for an American museum, these works offer a comprehensive survey of the art of drawing in the Northern and Southern Netherlands during the early modern era. The most accomplished draftsmen of the period—Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jacques de Gheyn II, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Rembrandt van Rijn—are represented, as are the various subjects and genres that have become hallmarks of artistic invention during this era: religious, historical, and allegorical topics; scenes of everyday life; landscapes and seascapes; portraiture and studies of heads and individual figures; and observations of the natural world, including studies of plants and animals. The works illustrate the range of media used by draftsmen of the period as well as the many types of drawings they produced, from studies made for practice or documentation, to those that served as preparation for paintings, prints, and stained glass, to finished pieces enjoyed in their own right.