Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck and Their Circle

Book excerpt: Among the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum's extensive holdings of Old Master drawings, the collection of drawings by the Antwerp masters Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens and Anthony van Dyck stand out as absolute highlights. This generously illustrated publication examines 70 of their best drawings, discussing not only the significance of these works, but also their provenance, attribution and dating. It also sets the work in context, by considering the work of a variety of contemporaries on the seventeenth-century Flemish scene (many of whom were influenced directly by the work of these masters), and by including essays on a variety of topics of art and culture in Antwerp. This book will be a major contribution to the study of seventeenth-century Northern European art.