A Dutch Social Network at the Getty

Adriaen van Ostade, Violin Player, about 1653. J. Paul Getty Museum

17th-century Holland had 1/4 the population of today's Los Angeles, spread out over an area barely larger than San Bernardino County. It was a small social network in which many of the great Dutch artists knew each other or were related by marriage or mentorship. The Getty Center's "Dutch Drawings from a Collector's Cabinet" displays all but one of 39 drawings the Getty bought from a still-unidentified private collector in 2019. The purchase spans sheets by van Honthorst, Rembrandt, and van Ruisdael, but is even more notable for its many small masterpieces by petit maîtres. As the installation demonstrates, there were many more accomplished figures than the few who now rate single-artist shows. 

Influenced by Rembrandt, Adriaen van Ostade turned to boisterous low-life subjects. His black chalk Violin Player was made for an etching. The prolific van Ostade taught his talented brother Isaack and also Jan Steen, Cornelis Bega, and Cornelis Dusart (the latter represented here with two comic-peasant drawings).

Maria Sibylla Merian, Metamorphosis of a Small Emperor Moth on a Damson Plum, 1679

The tulip trade offered a side hustle for still-life masters. German-born Jacob Marrel's watercolor of Four Tulips must have been made just about the time of the tulipmania collapse (Feb. 1637). Marrel was father-in-law and teacher to Maria Sibyl Merian, whose fame now exceeds his. Merian's Metamorphosis of a Small Emperor Moth is a hand-colored counterproof from a plate in her Caterpillar Book (1679).

Peter Withoos, Purple Oleander, 1691. J. Paul Getty Museum

Pieter Withoos came from a family of prominent artists who are almost totally forgotten today. He used gum arabic to lend a waxy gloss to the leaves and stem of his luminous Purple Oleander. Wealthy widow Agneta Block commissioned Withoos and other still-life specialists to document specimens growing at her country estate. 

Cornelis Vroom, Mountain Landscape with a Distant View Behind, about 1635-1640

Cornelis Vroom was the son of a marine artist and friend to Pieter Saenredam, famed painter of church interiors. After trying his hand at boats and seas, Vroom found his metier creating magical mountainscapes. His pictures, so unlike the flat Dutch countryside, were an influence on Jacob van Ruisdael, also from Haarlem. The Getty's Mountain Landscape with a Distant View Behind is one of just about 20 sheets identified by Vroom. 

Allart van Everdingen, Norwegian Landscape with a Timber Yard, 1644

Allart van Everdingen studied with Roelandt Savery and Pieter de Molijn. Shipwrecked in Norway, he toured the Scandinavian landscape and returned to Holland with a new artistic mission of producing Nordic views. For Dutch citizens of the time, Norway must have been almost as exotic as the Brazil of Frans Post. Van Everdingen's paintings conceive Norway as an almost extraterrestrial wilderness. The more empirical Getty watercolor plays up the otherness of Norway's vernacular architecture, particularly the bell tower.

Jacob van Ruisdael, Cottages among Trees, about 1652-1653

Italianate landscapes by Dutch artists. At right is a 1646 British (Isle of Wight) view by Lambert Doomer 

Gerrit Pietersz., Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, 1608

The proto-Baroque history painter Gerrit Pietersz. taught Pieter Lastman, who taught Rembrandt. Another Saint Francis is by Jacob Pynas, one of the so-called Pre-Rembrandists.

Rembrandt, Young Man Leaning on a Stick, about 1629

Ferdinand Bol, Reclining Female Nude, about 1655-1661

Rembrandt's pupils Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck hired prostitutes to pose nude, a controversial innovation that led to prosecutions (of the women, not the male gazers). Bol's Reclining Female Nude is a glimpse into the next century, more rococo-naughty than Rembrandt natural.

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Sleeping Girl, about 1652

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout is not the most famous of Rembrandt's pupils, but he may be the most gifted at capturing the poetry of figures in repose. 

The one drawing of the 2019 purchase omitted from this show is an early Mondrian landscape. "Dutch Drawings from a Collector's Cabinet" runs though Jan. 15, 2023.