An exhibition of masterpieces of the Leiden collection - the most significant private collection of Dutch painting - opens in Moscow

An exhibition of masterpieces of the Leiden collection - the most significant private collection of Dutch painting - opens in Moscow
22 March 2018, Thursday

The Pushkin Museum with the support of Sberbank for the first time in Russia presents an exhibition of masterpieces of the Leiden collection of Thomas S. Kaplan and his wife Daphne Recanati-Kaplan - one of the largest and most significant private collections of Dutch painting of the XVII century. The exhibition will feature 82 works, none of which were previously exhibited in Russia, - eighty paintings and two drawings.


The exhibition, whose main focus is on Leiden and the artistic community formed around him, tells about the origins of Rembrandt's creativity, his relations with rivals and associates, as well as those picturesque traditions that developed in Holland in the golden XVII century. Along with the well-known collections of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the works presented at the exhibition reflect a deep interest in Dutch art that has existed in Russia for more than three hundred years.


The visitors will see the masterpieces of Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn (twelve paintings and one drawing), Jan Vermeer of Delft and Karel Fabricius (one piece each), Frans Hals (two), Gerrit Dau (nine), Jan Livens (four) and other outstanding contemporaries . Also a unique drawing of Leonardo da Vinci will be presented. The work of the great Italian does not belong to the art of the Dutch Golden Age, but his small work is the pearl of the Leiden collection.


Thomas Kaplan from a young age admired the works of Rembrandt and masters of the Dutch golden age. Nevertheless, it was only in 2003 that he learned that not all the masterpieces of his beloved era, including the work of Rembrandt himself, are in museums and that many of them are available in the art market. Since that moment, together with his wife, he started his incredibly ambitious collection activity.


The Leiden collection, the core of which is a collection of Rembrandt's works, is inferior in scope and richness to the leading national museums in the world. Visitors to the exhibition will get acquainted with the masterpieces of the early Leiden period of Rembrandt's creativity from a series of allegories of feelings: "Extraction of the Stone of Foolishness (Allegory of Touch)", "Three Musicians (Allegory of Hearing)" and the recent find - "The Fainted (Allegory of Smell) the earliest of the works signed by the artist. The mature period of Rembrandt's work, connected with the long and fruitful work in Amsterdam, is represented by the "Portrait of a Man in Red Doublet", "The Girl in a Gold-Embroidered Cloak", "Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes". The audience will also see the famous "Minerva", which belongs to a series of stylistically similar works written by Rembrandt between 1633 and 1635 and currently owned by the Hermitage (St. Petersburg), the Prado Museum (Madrid) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) .


The exhibition will show the picture "Girl for Virdzhinelom" by Jan Vermeer of Delft, whose work is extremely rare. This work - the only work of the mature period of creativity of the great master, which is still in a private collection. In the world, only thirty-six works of the artist are known, and viewers have a unique opportunity to see one of them, as the master's works are not represented in collections of Russian museums. This late painting is supposedly written on canvas from the same roll as the other work of Vermeer - "Lacemaker", represented in the permanent exposition of the Louvre.


The exhibition includes works by Rembrandt's contemporaries: his teacher Peter Lastman, friend and colleague Jan Livens, with whom he shared a workshop in Leiden. The works of Gerrit Dau, one of the first and most famous pupils of the master, as well as Frans van Miris the Elder, Gerard Terborch, Gabriela Metsu, are widely represented. Visitors will see the unique painting "The Apparition of the Angel of Hagar," written by Karel Fabricius. This is one of only sixteen works of the artist, preserved to this day.


As can be seen from the collections in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the works of all these artists were among the most popular in Europe, not only in their era, but also much later.


A valuable addition to the exposition are two drawings with images of animals. One of them, on which the young lion is represented, belongs to Rembrandt, the other, "The Bear's Head" - Leonardo da Vinci.

 

03/28/2018 - 22/07/2018
 

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