Leseprobe

55 The Netherlandish School The paintings of the Flemish and Dutch Baroque came to Dresden through the bold and far-reaching collecting activities of Augustus the Strong and his son August III. With Bathseba and Old Woman with a Basket of Coal , the collection boasts two major works by Peter Paul Rubens, now on display in one of the main exhibition galleries alongside portraits and head studies by his pupil Anthony van Dyck. Also active in Antwerp at the same time as Rubens were Jacob Jordaens and Frans Snyders, renowned as painters of histories and market still lifes. Their large-scale paintings fill the walls of the first main gallery of Netherlandish masters. Joining their ranks are Flemish landscapes of the 17th century, starting with the Landscape with the Judgement of Midas by Gillis van Coninxloo and Karel van Mander. A centrepiece of the gallery as a whole and of its new hang are six works by Rembrandt, the luminary of Dutch Baroque painting, including his Self-Portrait with Saskia . The third main exhibition gallery contains works by all Rembrandt’s students, represented by some key paintings from their respective oeuvres. The Dutch Caravaggisti form a separate group of their own, with Honthorst and his Dentist the most notable on display. The gallery owns two works by the Delft artist Johannes Vermeer: his early Caravaggesque painting The Procuress and later Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window . In theme, his work shows an affinity with the group of fijnschilders (‘fine’ painters) of Leiden, who are represented here in a rich collection, stunning in both quality and number. Dutch and Flemish masters of the art of cabinet painting, including Jan Brueghel the Elder, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, and Adriaen Brouwer, are on view in the cabinet galleries, with their works arranged according to genre: landscape, still life, or genre scene. And with the presentation of portraits and history paintings from the 16th century, a hitherto little-noticed part of the collection is now revealed in a new light. Meanwhile, Jan van Eyck’s unique triptych of the Virgin Mary, part of a small, interesting collection of 15th and early 16th century panel paintings, now finds a new home alongside the mag­ nificent Brussels tapestries of the ‘Old Passion’. | un