Bruegel to Rembrandt: Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the Maida and George Abrams Collection

, British Museum, , Fondation Custodia, Institut Néerlandais, , Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums
A drawing of a road in the middle of a forest

British Museum Fondation Custodia, Institut Néerlandais Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums

This exhibition presents 113 works from the preeminent private collection of Dutch 17th-century drawings. George Abrams and his late wife, Maida, a Massachusetts couple, assembled their collection during a period of more than 40 years.

The exhibition opens with a few Flemish drawings of the 16th and early 17th centuries, including a recently discovered work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, but the majority are by 17th-century Dutch artists. They range from studies by renowned masters—Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Ruisdael, Jacques de Gheyn II, Hendrick Goltzius, and Hendrick Avercamp, among others—to works by lesser-known draftsmen whose contributions are essential to understanding the art history of the period. Highlights include seven drawings by Rembrandt, a diverse group by his pupils, excellent examples of Dutch landscapes, and figure studies and scenes of daily life by genre artists such as Willem Buytewech and Adriaen van Ostade.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by the Harvard University Art Museums and distributed by Yale University Press.

Organized by William W. Robinson, Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings.

Funded in part by a grant from the Viacom Foundation.

Exhibition Objects