Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection
The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, hosts Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection, the most extensive presentation of The Leiden Collection ever mounted in the United States. Featuring 76 paintings by 27 artists, this exhibition coincides with the 400th anniversary of the Dutch founding of New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan. An iteration of the show previously on view at H’ART Museum in Amsterdam, Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time continues the mission of bringing The Leiden Collection to a broad public.
The exhibition invites viewers into the vibrant world of the seventeenth-century Netherlands. Thematic groupings explore the diversity of daily life, from scenes of bustling markets, card games, music-making to intimate moments of study and reflection, and portraits projecting a range of identities and ambitions.
Rembrandt van Rijn stands at the center of the exhibition, represented by works from throughout his prolific career. Also featured are works by fellow Amsterdam artists who played key roles in Rembrandt’s artistic circle, among them his teacher Pieter Lastman and students Ferdinand Bol and Arent de Gelder.
Works from Rembrandt’s native Leiden are also prominent, including paintings by his close contemporary Jan Lievens and his pupil Gerrit Dou. Representing the refined fijnschilder tradition are masters such as Frans van Mieris the Elder and Godefridus Schalcken. Additional highlights include genre scenes, religious subjects, and portraits by artists working across the Dutch Republic, among them Hendrick ter Brugghen, Frans Hals, Carel Fabritius, Gerard ter Borch, Caspar Netscher, and Johannes Vermeer, whose Young Woman Seated at a Virginal remains the only painting by the artist in private hands.
From Rembrandt to Vermeer: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection is curated by Elizabeth Nogrady, The Leiden Collection, Robert Evren & J. Rachel Gustafson, Norton Museum of Art. Advisor for the exhibition is Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., The Leiden Collection.
