Clouds, Ice, and Bounty: The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Collection of Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings

National Gallery of Art, Washington

October 17, 2021–February 27, 2022

Simon de Vlieger, Estuary at Day's End, c. 1640/1645
oil on panel, overall: 36.8 x 58.4 cm (14 1/2 x 23 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons' Permanent Fund and The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund in memory of Kathrine Dulin Folger

From majestic seascapes and expansive landscapes to lively genre scenes and rich still lifes, Dutch and Flemish paintings of the 1600s reveal the ways art helped the young Dutch Republic define a collective cultural identity. On view from October 17, 2021, through February 27, 2022, Clouds, Ice, and Bounty: The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Collection of Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings presents 27 paintings acquired by the National Gallery of Art through the generosity of the Lee and Juliet Folger Fund over the past 25 years, plus one painting from Lee and Juliet Folger's personal collection.

Outstanding works by artists such as Salomon van Ruysdael and Clara Peeters, along with recent acquisitions by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Dirck Hals, fill the West Building's Dutch and Flemish Cabinet Galleries. The construction of these galleries in 1995 was also supported by the Lee and Juliet Folger Fund. This suite of spaces, newly refurbished for the exhibition, emulates the domestic environments for which many of the works were originally created, providing viewers with a uniquely intimate viewing experience.

"The National Gallery's collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings—one of the finest outside the Netherlands—owes much to the Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, which for more than two decades has generously supported the acquisition of exceptional works by artists at the height of their talents. Clouds, Ice, and Bounty offers visitors new ways to understand these highlights of our collection and provides a first glimpse of several new additions," said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art.

Exhibition Organization and Curator

The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

The exhibition is curated by Marjorie E. Wieseman, curator and head of the department of northern European paintings, National Gallery of Art.

Exhibition Overview

Clouds, Ice, and Bounty features a broad range of landscapes, seascapes, genre scenes, portraits, and still lifes produced by Dutch and Flemish painters during the 1600s. The paintings represent the prosperity and progress enjoyed by the Dutch Republic and the neighboring province of Flanders during the period. However, the exhibition acknowledges that artists carefully selected what to depict of their time, typically avoiding the darker sides of progress. The Dutch and Flemish also experienced near-constant war, religious strife, sickness, poverty, and famine, and beyond their borders the Republic participated in the transatlantic slave trade and colonization. Throughout the exhibition, information about the paintings' historical contexts demonstrates how the compositions blend reality and fiction, revealing the values of the artists that made them, the patrons that commissioned them, and the collectors that cherished them.

Jan van Goyen's Ice Scene near a Wooden Observation Tower (1646) was undoubtedly painted in the artist's studio, but the close study of architectural details and masterful rendering of atmospheric effects indicate the artist's familiarity with this chill and blustery setting. The scene depicts one of the many waterways that were essential to both transport and recreation in the Low Countries. The various messages of genre scenes are illustrated in works like Jacob Ochtervelt's A Nurse and a Child in an Elegant Foyer (1663), which emphasizes the virtue of charity. Others, such as Philips Wouwerman's elegantly detailed The Departure for the Hunt (c. 1665/1668), appear to reflect the wealth—or aspirations of wealth—of their original owners. The exhibition's range of still lifes includes small-scale compositions like Still Life with Flowers Surrounded by Insects and a Snail (c. 1610) by Clara Peeters, one of the few women painters known to have been working professionally in the Low Countries in the early 1600s. Made while she was still in her teens, the painting's precise detailing suggests that Peeters studied the flowers and insects from life. Pieter Claesz's grand and vividly colored Still Life with Peacock Pie (1627) would have been admired by 17th-century viewers for the artist's skill in recreating the textures of the different objects and for the immense luxury and abundance those objects represented.

Clouds, Ice, and Bounty includes several paintings that were acquired in the past year, some of which will be on view for the first time as a result of the National Gallery's temporary closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. These include Jan Brueghel the Elder's Wooded Landscape with Travelers (1610), a fictionalized view of farmers, herdsmen, and others crossing paths on a road through the woods. On public view for just one day before the museum's closure in March 2020, Dirck Hals's brightly colored Merry Company on a Terrace (1625) is the first painting by the artist to enter the National Gallery's collection. The merry company—a popular subject depicting carefree young men and women—shows the influence of the artist's older brother, Frans Hals, in its animated brushwork. Also acquired in 2020, Adriaen Coorte's Still Life with a Hanging Bunch of Grapes, Two Medlars, and a Butterfly (1687) is striking in its stark simplicity. The painting is the second work by Coorte to enter the National Gallery's collection. It will be installed alongside the artist's Still Life with Asparagus and Red Currants (1696), which was acquired in 2002.

Jan Miense Molenaer
Self-Portrait as a Lute Player, c. 1636/1637
oil on panel
overall: 38.7 x 32.4 cm (15 1/4 x 12 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Adriaen Coorte
Still Life with Asparagus and Red Currants, 1696
oil on canvas
overall: 34 x 25 cm (13 3/8 x 9 13/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Godefridus Schalcken
Woman Weaving a Crown of Flowers, c. 1675/1680
oil on panel
overall: 26.7 x 20.3 cm (10 1/2 x 8 in.)
framed: 37.6 x 31.4 x 5.1 cm (14 13/16 x 12 3/8 x 2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Pieter Claesz
Still Life with Peacock Pie, 1627
oil on panel
overall: 77.5 x 128.9 cm (30 1/2 x 50 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Frans Snyders
Still Life with Grapes and Game, c. 1630
oil on panel
overall: 90.2 x 112.1 cm (35 1/2 x 44 1/8 in.)
framed: 111.8 x 133.4 x 7 cm (44 x 52 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund in Honor of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Circle of the National Gallery of Art

Cornelis van Poelenburch
Christ Carrying the Cross, early 1620s
oil on copper
overall: 44.2 x 62.3 cm (17 3/8 x 24 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

John Ward of Hull
The Northern Whale Fishery: The "Swan" and "Isabella", c. 1840
oil on canvas
overall: 48.9 x 71.8 cm (19 1/4 x 28 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

River Landscape with Ferry, 1649
oil on canvas
overall: 101.5 x 134.8 cm (39 15/16 x 53 1/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons' Permanent Fund and The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund. This acquisition was made possible through the generosity of the family of Jacques Goudstikker, in his memory.

Adam van Breen
Skating on the Frozen Amstel River, 1611
oil on panel
overall: 44.3 x 66.5 cm (17 7/16 x 26 3/16 in.)
framed: 55.88 x 78.74 x 5.08 cm (22 x 31 x 2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, in honor of Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr.

Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman
Amsterdam Harbor Scene, c. 1658
oil on canvas
overall: 61 x 81.8 cm (24 x 32 3/16 in.)
framed: 81.9 x 102.2 x 5.72 cm (32 1/4 x 40 1/4 x 2 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Thomas de Keyser
Portrait of a Gentleman Wearing a Fancy Ruff, 1627
oil on copper
overall (octagonal): 28 x 22 cm (11 x 8 11/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Jacob van Hulsdonck
Wild Strawberries and a Carnation in a Wan-Li Bowl, c. 1620
oil on copper
overall (copper panel): 28.3 x 36.2 cm (11 1/8 x 14 1/4 in.)
overall (with wood strip edges): 29.6 x 37.3 cm (11 5/8 x 14 11/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Caspar Netscher
A Woman Feeding a Parrot, with a Page, 1666
oil on panel
overall: 45.7 x 36.2 cm (18 x 14 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Jan van Goyen
Ice Scene near a Wooden Observation Tower, 1646
oil on panel
overall: 36.5 x 34.3 cm (14 3/8 x 13 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Jacob Ochtervelt
A Nurse and a Child in an Elegant Foyer, 1663
oil on canvas
overall: 81.5 x 66.8 cm (32 1/16 x 26 5/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Frans van Mieris
A Soldier Smoking a Pipe, c. 1657/1658
oil on panel
overall: 32.4 x 25.4 cm (12 3/4 x 10 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Herman Saftleven
Imaginary River Landscape, 1670
oil on panel
overall: 17 x 23.2 cm (6 11/16 x 9 1/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Jacob van Ruisdael
Dunes by the Sea, 1648
oil on panel
overall: 45.4 x 61.6 cm (17 7/8 x 24 1/4 in.)
framed: 64.77 x 83.19 cm (25 1/2 x 32 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Willem van de Velde the Younger
An English Warship Firing a Salute, 1673
oil on canvas
overall: 66.4 x 52.9 cm (26 1/8 x 20 13/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Clara Peeters
Still Life with Flowers Surrounded by Insects and a Snail, c. 1610
oil on copper
overall: 16.6 x 13.5 cm (6 9/16 x 5 5/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Philips Wouwerman
The Departure for the Hunt, c. 1665/1668
oil on panel
overall: 52.1 x 67 cm (20 1/2 x 26 3/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, in honor of Earl A. Powell III, Director of the National Gallery of Art (1992-2019)

Jan Jansz van de Velde III
Still Life with Stoneware Jug and Pipe, 1650
oil on panel
overall: 35.9 x 27.9 cm (14 1/8 x 11 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Dirck Hals
Merry Company on a Terrace, 1625
oil on panel
overall: 38.7 x 51.5 cm (15 1/4 x 20 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Adriaen Coorte
Still Life with a Hanging Bunch of Grapes, Two Medlars, and a Butterfly, 1687
oil on canvas
overall: 38.1 x 30.5 cm (15 x 12 in.)
framed: 47.31 x 40.64 x 5.4 cm (18 5/8 x 16 x 2 1/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Jan Brueghel the Elder
Wooded Landscape with Travelers, 1610
oil on panel
overall: 37 x 58 cm (14 9/16 x 22 13/16 in.)
framed: 72.39 x 73.98 x 3.49 cm (28 1/2 x 29 1/8 x 1 3/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund

Jan van Kessel
Auricula and morning glory with shells and insects, 
oil on panel
overall: 16.5 x 22.7 cm (6 1/2 x 8 15/16 in.)
Private collection-on loan

Publication

A fully illustrated catalog has been published by the National Gallery. Written by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., formerly the National Gallery's curator of northern baroque paintings, the volume opens with an essay on the development of the Dutch and Flemish painting collection. Individual entries consider the compositions and techniques, as well as the broader historical contexts, of each work. 

For more than two decades, Lee and Juliet Folger have worked closely with the National Gallery of Art to acquire exceptional seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings. Clouds, Ice, and Bounty honors this remarkable group of paintings and the collaborative relationship that has brought them into the nation’s collection. To date, twenty-five works (including one British painting) have been purchased for the Gallery by the Lee and Juliet Folger Fund. The same fund also enabled the construction of the Dutch and Flemish Cabinet Galleries. These intimate spaces, nestled among the grand galleries of the West Building of the National Gallery of Art, encourage quiet contemplation of the sort of masterful, small-scale works to which the Folgers are drawn.

The Folger paintings highlight the everyday pleasures of the Low Countries in the seventeenth century, a period of relative peace, prosperity, optimism, and reflection. An array of still lifes envelops the senses with enticing foods, lush blossoms, and impossibly fragile insects. Landscapes and seascapes explore the Netherlandish lowlands and waterways, recording minute shifts in color and terrain as land and water spread out beneath towering skies. Genre scenes capture the fashion, pastimes, and personalities of the period.

All twenty-five paintings donated to the Gallery by the Lee and Juliet Folger Fund are reproduced and discussed in this book. Luxurious illustrations allow close examination of the many charming details and expansive vistas found in the Folger paintings. Catalog entries consider composition and technique as well as the broader historical context and meaning of each work. An introductory essay by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. tells the story of Lee and Juliet Folger’s connection to the Gallery and their thoughtful collecting practice. A volume as exquisite as the art it celebrates, this book contains a treasure trove of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century painting.

172 pages | 81 illustrations | 9.25 × 10.75 inches

Imperial Splendor: The Art of the Book in the Holy Roman Empire, ca. 800–1500,

The Morgan Library & Museum

October 15, 2021through January 23, 2022

 “Heiningen Gospels” (fragment), in Latin, Germany, Hamersleben, ca. 1180–1200. Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.565, fols. 13v–14r, Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1905. 

The exhibition offers a sweeping overview of manuscript production in the Holy Roman Empire, one of the most impressive chapters in the history of medieval art. Rarely seen by the general public, these illuminated manuscripts are among the most luxurious works of art from the Middle Ages. Designed to edify, to entertain, and above all to embody the sacred, these manuscripts and their spectacular illuminations retain the ability to dazzle and inspire modern audiences just as they did those of the Middle Ages. 

Encompassing at various times parts of modern-day Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Low Countries, and northern Italy, the Holy Roman Empire played a crucial role in the patronage and development of the arts of the book. Throughout the Middle Ages, scribes and artists across the empire developed an array of visual techniques that transformed their manuscripts into vivid manifestations of power, prestige, and tradition. 

From dyed parchment and gold ink to full-page frontispieces and sweeping cycles of narrative illustrations, the striking features of these manuscripts lend them great presence and rhetorical grandeur. As this exhibition demonstrates, these books were not only repositories of knowledge, but also artistic protagonists used in rituals and ceremonies, agents of reform, and tools of propaganda. 

The first major presentation of this subject in the English-speaking world, Imperial Splendor brings together some seventy manuscripts from collections across the country. 

Arranged chronologically, the exhibition’s three sections focus on different thematic points. “Imperial Networks” examines the precedents set by Carolingian and Ottonian Emperors, devoting attention to the development of a visual rhetoric of power. “Imperial Monasteries” demonstrates the important role of monasteries in the production of manuscripts as well as the closely related issue of aristocratic patronage. The final section, “Imperial Cities,” takes visitors on a tour of important urban centers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, from Vienna and Prague to Cologne and Nuremberg. This final stop includes a consideration of the impact of Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) and humanism on the arts of the book. 

Many of the manuscripts in Imperial Splendor were acquired under the leadership of Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950), the Morgan’s founding Director and first keeper of manuscripts. Through her keen eye and widespread connections to leading scholars of the day, Greene was instrumental in shaping the collection and fostering access to it. 

Highlights of the exhibition include, in the first section, the tenth-century “Golden Gospels” (Germany, Trier, ca. 980), produced under Ottonian patronage. This spectacular manuscript was written entirely in gold ink on purple-painted parchment. The intended recipient is unknown, but in the sixteenth century it  was owned by King Henry VIII of England. 

 “Berthold Sacramentary,” in Latin Illuminated by the Berthold Master Germany, Weingarten, ca. 1215–17. Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.710, front cover. Purchased by J.P. Morgan, Jr., 1926

A highlight of the second section is the astounding “Berthold Sacramentary” (Germany, Weingarten, ca. 1215–17), which came about after a fire in 1215 consumed the monastery at Weingarten. Major relics were lost, and the abbey church had to be rebuilt. In this context of renewal, Abbot Berthold engaged a professional painter—known as the Berthold Master—to illuminate this Mass book, one of the great masterpieces of thirteenth-century painting. The manuscript preserves its original silk textiles and treasure binding. 

“Geese Book,” in Latin Illuminated by Jakob Elsner (ca. 1460–1517). Germany, Nuremberg, ca. 1507–10. Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.905, vol. 1, fol. 194r. Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, December 1962.

The final section features the monumental “Geese Book” (Germany, Nuremberg, ca. 1507–10), the largest manuscript in the Morgan’s collection, which was made for the church of Saint Lawrence in Nuremberg, and donated to the Morgan by Samuel Kress in 1961. Because of its exceptionally large size (65.4 x 44.5 cm), the manuscript has not been displayed publicly in over twenty years. 

“The Morgan is thrilled to bring to light the group of rarely seen manuscripts presented in Imperial Splendor,” said the Morgan’s Director, Colin B. Bailey. “With many of these manuscripts having been among J Pierpont Morgan’s most important early acquisitions, a taste extended under the guidance of founding Director Belle da Costa Greene, the topic has deep roots at the Morgan, indeed.” 

Joshua O’Driscoll, Ph.D., the Morgan’s Assistant Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts and co-curator of the exhibition, said, “Imperial Splendor builds on one of the great strengths of the Morgan’s renowned holdings of illuminated manuscripts: its collection of Central European manuscripts, long acknowledged as one of the finest outside the German-speaking world. The exhibition also features important manuscripts from collections across the country, including institutions in Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. In many instances, it marks the first time that related manuscripts from these collections have been brought together.” 

Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art and Culture at Harvard University and co-curator of the exhibition, said, “Collections across the United States hold a great wealth of illuminated manuscripts from Central Europe, material that by its nature is often hidden from view. For the first time, this exhibition brings together many of the most important to present an overview of the illustrated book across the entire span of the European Middle Ages, from the eighth century right up to the Reformation. These books were intended to dazzle, awe, and instruct anyone privileged enough to view them—and to this day they still do.” 

Catalogue:

Incomparable Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

November 14, 2021–March 27, 2022

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Bougival, 1883, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Picture Fund. © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / All Rights Reserved

The MFAH is the only U.S. venue for Incomparable Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which traces the arc of this radical movement through 100 masterworks curated exclusively for this presentation

For the first time, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), is lending some 100 of the most significant paintings and works on paper from its renowned Impressionist collection for an exhibition that will open November 14 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, its only American venue. Incomparable Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston will trace the evolution of this 19th-century avant-garde movement, from its roots in the novel, naturalistic landscapes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Charles Francois Daubigny, and other painters of the Barbizon School, to the early “optical color” experimentations in plein-air landscape painting by Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Camille Pissarro, to the frank depictions of modern urban life by Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Mary Cassatt, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The exhibition highlights the artists’ relationships and their thoughts, in their own words, to underscore the philosophy behind this now world-renowned movement. The exhibition, which is currently on view at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, will be at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 14, 2021–March 27, 2022.

“The MFA in Boston was the first museum in the U.S. to acquire a Degas, in 1903, and early patronage by pioneering Bostonian collectors ensured the growth of its now-extensive French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist holdings,” commented Gary Tinterow, Director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair, the MFAH. “This extraordinary collection has a distinctive capacity to narrate the history of French Impressionism with nuance, depth, and flare. We are enormously pleased to be able to share this rare selection here in Houston.”

The exhibition brings together the MFA’s 19th-century- and early-20th-century paintings, assembled in nine thematic groupings. An exhibition highlight is a breathtaking display of 15 canvases by Claude Monet, painted over a 30-year period, featuring Monet’s most beloved sites. Together, these paintings demonstrate the full scope of his immeasurable contribution to the Impressionist movement.

Additional works included are Monet’s luminous Grainstack (Snow Effect), one of the artist’s famed series of 25 depictions of haystacks in varying seasons and light conditions, exhibited in May 1891 and purchased the following month by Bostonian Horatio Appleton Lamb; 

Degas’s empathic double portrait of his sister, Thérèse, and her husband, Edmondo Morbilli (about 1865), which remained with Degas, and then his descendants, until it was purchased by Boston collector Robert Treat Paine, 2nd; Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s life-size Dance at Bougival (1883), with its swirling evocation of modern café life; and Manet’s quintessentially urban portrait Street Singer (1862). (John Singer Sargent’s portrait of the patron who bequeathed this Manet to the MFA, Sarah Choate Sears, hangs in the American Paintings galleries of the MFAH.)

An integral aspect of the exhibition is a fascinating selection of works on paper showcasing the artists’ working processes. These prints, with concentrations of works by Pissarro, Degas, and Cassatt, illuminate the artists’ working methods and approaches to their landscapes, portraits, and interiors, as part of a collaborative publication venture. Pissarro sought technical advice from Degas for his etching and aquatint of a favored woodland view. Degas’s painting Visit to a Museum (about 1879–90), from his series depicting women, including his friend and fellow Impressionist Mary Cassatt, in museum galleries, is accompanied by three prints from that series that portray Cassatt; four etching-and-aquatint prints from Cassatt’s own series In the Opera Box (about 1880) reveal the avid experimentation of her printmaking practice. 

French Impressionism charts the trajectory of the late-nineteenth century artistic movement, highlighting the key milestones and figures at the centre of this period of experimentation and revolution in modern art. Through an arresting display of paintings and works on paper that showcases the breadth of the movement, the exhibition evokes the artistic energy and intellectual dynamism of the period by placing emphasis on the thoughts and observations of the artists themselves, revealing the social connections, artistic influences and personal relationships that united the group of radical practitioners at the centre of this new art movement.

Presented thematically across ten sections, the exhibition opens with early works by Monet and his forebears, Eugène Boudin and painters of the Barbizon School, illustrating their profound influence on Monet’s use of the then radical method of painting outdoors en plein air (‘in the open air’) to capture changing conditions in nature. The growth of the movement in subsequent decades is mapped through an exploration of the favoured subjects and ideas of the Impressionists. Moving through an immersive exhibition design, audiences experience the hallmarks of Impressionism, including distinctive brushwork, unique points of view, arresting use of colour, as well as places dear to the artists, such as Paris, Fontainebleau Forest, Pontoise, Giverny, the Normandy coast and the South of France. Many artists also placed equal weight on recording movement and change in urban and domestic realms. Still life paintings, intimate interiors and street scenes by such artists as Manet, Renoir and Gustave Caillebotte also feature.

These broader themes are punctuated by focused sections of the exhibition that examine significant moments and characteristics in the practices of a selection of artists, including Renoir and his experimentation with pictorial effects in the 1880s, as well as Pissarro and his role as mentor to a number of other artists.

An exhibition highlight is a breathtaking display of sixteen canvases by Claude Monet, in an immersive arrangement reminiscent of the distinctive, oval gallery designed for his famous Water Lilies at the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, between 1922 and his death in 1926. Painted over a thirty-year period, these paintings depict many of Monet’s most beloved scenes of nature in Argenteuil, the Normandy coast, the Mediterranean coast and his extraordinary garden in Giverny. Together, these paintings demonstrate the full scope of the artist’s immeasurable contribution to the Impressionist movement.

MFA Boston’s significant collection of French Impressionism benefited from the collecting efforts of individual Bostonians, some of whom visited the artists in France during the movement’s height. Mary Cassatt, an American-born artist integral to the French Impressionist movement and whose work is featured in the exhibition, advocated among her fellow Americans for their patronage of her French colleagues, ensuring that many great Impressionist paintings found their way into important American collections.

Book:

https://store.ngv.vic.gov.au/products/french-impressionism-from-the-museum-of-fine-arts-boston

Aquatint: From Its Origins to Goya

 

Paul Sandby, Caernarvon Castle (Night), 1776
etching and aquatint printed in brown on laid paper, plate: 23.9 x 31.6 cm (9 7/16 x 12 7/16 in.), sheet: 29 x 37.2 cm (11 7/16 x 14 5/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington. Gift of Ruth B. Benedict. 1994.60.58
National Gallery of ArtOctober 24, 2021, through February 21, 2022
Aquatint is a printmaking technique that first gained popularity in 18th-century Europe for its unique ability to evoke the subtle tonalities of ink and wash drawings. The first exhibition of its type in the United States, Aquatint: From Its Origins to Goya explores the medium as a cross-cultural and cosmopolitan phenomenon that contributed to the rise of art publishing, connoisseurship, leisure travel, and drawing instruction, as well as the spread of neoclassicism.

This landmark exhibition features some 100 early and exceptional impressions of erupting volcanoes, amorous couples, mysterious tombs, biting caricatures, and moonlit vistas—many of which have recently been acquired by the National Gallery. A lavishly illustrated book of rare works from the museum’s collection of early aquatints accompanies this presentation. Aquatint: From Its Origins to Goya will be on view in Washington from October 24, 2021, through February 21, 2022, in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art.

“This exhibition offers a fresh look at an innovative printmaking technique that reflects the era of the European Enlightenment," said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art. "We are grateful to the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust, whose generous support made this exhibition and its companion book possible."

Exhibition Organization

The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

The exhibition is made possible by a generous grant from the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust.

Exhibition Curator

The exhibition is curated by Rena M. Hoisington, curator and head of the department of old master prints, National Gallery of Art.

About the Exhibition

A tonal intaglio printmaking technique, aquatint supplemented the line work of etching and mimicked the subtle variations of ink, wash, and watercolor drawings. Printed in a variety of brown and black inks, the images engaged viewers with depictions of faraway places, scientific phenomena, and imaginary visions. Produced in multiples and distributed widely, the prints circulated various ideas and information across Europe during the Enlightenment. Three kinds of artists played a distinctive and significant role in publicizing, disseminating, and advancing the aquatint medium: professional printmakers, amateurs, and painter-printmakers. Professional printmakers combined it with other intaglio printmaking techniques to reproduce highly prized drawings by old master and contemporary artists. Amateurs, an elite group of like-minded collectors who made prints for enjoyment rather than to earn a livelihood, embraced drawing, etching, and aquatint to expand their historical artistic knowledge and cultivate relationships with artists. Peintre-graveurs (painter-printmakers) revisited, re-created, and circulated their designs in aquatint to build their reputations and broaden their audiences, dramatically expanding the formal vocabulary and expressive potential of the medium.

François-Philippe Charpentier, Carle Van Loo, Persée et Andromede (Perseus and Andromeda), 1762, etching and aquatint with roulette and burnishing printed in brown-black on laid paper, Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund, 2018.91.8

1 of 12

The exhibition begins by contextualizing the European development of aquatint and the growing interest in and market for reproductions of drawings. In Paris during the 1760s, several enterprising printmakers and print publishers experimented with and used aquatint to interpret the sought-after drawings of other artists in private collections, including those of their contemporaries, such as François Boucher (1703–1770), Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), and Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805). The painter Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734–1781) developed a secret aquatint process to multiply his own compositions of Russian figures and landscapes.

Interest in aquatint spread across Europe through the circulation of prints and periodicals as well as the interconnected circles of artists and cosmopolitan collectors. Among the notable artists on view are Paul Sandby (1731–1809), whose extensive network of artists and patrons provided a foundation for aquatint’s development in England, especially through his atmospheric landscape vistas. Sandby also coined the term aquatinta for this new printmaking medium. Amateur Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726–1798) used aquatint to show his commitment to studying and collecting Dutch graphic arts, the enjoyment he took in developing his own distinctive printmaking processes, and his association with the Dutch cultural elite.

In Germany, one of the few prominent female practitioners of aquatint, Maria Catharina Prestel (1747–1794), ran a professional printmaking studio with her husband Johann Gottlieb Prestel (1739–1808). Together they created more than 100 reproductions of old master drawings from German collections using a customized combination of printmaking techniques, often printed from more than one plate inked in different colors. Inspired by costume, travel, and tradesmen, painter-printmaker Giovanni David’s (1743–1790) series Divers Portraits (1775) depicts different “types” of people associated with Venice and its culture. Louis-Jean Desprez’s (1743–1804) mysterious print series (1779/1784) depicts massive tombs with figural sculptures and Egyptian elements. Richard Cooper II’s (1740–after 1814) aquatints from the series Twelve Views of Rome illustrate large-scale views of tourist attractions including St. Peter’s Basilica and classical ruins. Giovanni De Pian’s (1764–1800) series The "Wells" and "Leads" of Venice portrays the city’s notorious prison system. Johann Carl Richter’s (1759–after 1832) aquatint captures the drama of an erupting Mount Vesuvius. Also on view is Francis B. Spilsbury’s (1756–1823) pocket-sized book that was one of the first instructional publications on aquatint technique.

Francisco Goya’s (1746–1828) experimentation with and mastery of aquatint allowed him to achieve a remarkable range of formal and pictorial effects with an unprecedented emotive drama and technical virtuosity. His renowned series Los Caprichos (1799) gave Goya a way to expand on the genre of the capriccioand to showcase his inventiveness and imagination. In The Disasters of War (1810/1820), Goya exposed the horrors of conflict and the upheaval and widespread devastation and aftermath of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain during the Peninsular War (1808–1814). Informed by newspaper accounts, the testimony of fellow Spaniards, and firsthand experience, Goya’s prints feature generalized settings that would have resonated with the experience of people across Spain. The exhibition closes with two impressions of two states of Eugène Delacroix’s (1798–1863) A Blacksmith (1833) showing the powerful figure working in a dark and dramatic setting.

Companion Book

Supported by the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust and written by Rena M. Hoisington, curator and head of old master prints at the National Gallery of Art, a 264-page book illustrated with rare works from the National Gallery’s collection of early aquatints accompanies the exhibition. It provides an engaging narrative about the medium’s flourishing as a cross-cultural and cosmopolitan phenomenon that contributed to the rise of art publishing, connoisseurship, leisure travel, and drawing instruction, as well as the spread of neoclassicism. Thoughtful, focused examinations of key projects and themes offer insight into the sophisticated experiments of artists including Francisco Goya, Maria Catharina Prestel, Paul Sandby, and Jean-Baptiste Le Prince.