“Image and Sense”: the exhibition of the 17th century Dutch paintings from Russian collections in the Serpukhov Historical and Art Museum

Abstract

The study of the 17th century Dutch art has a 150-year history in Russia and remains an actively developing field of modern Russian art-historical science. This is largely predetermined by the abundance and variety of collections of Dutch art in Russian museums, including regional museums. At the present time the main achievements are associated with the development of the genre-thematic approach to the heritage of Dutch school, attribution researches and exhibition practice, in which interaction between museums and cooperation with collectors play a very important role. The article is a review on the exhibition of the 17th century Dutch painting from Russian museums and private collections in the Serpukhov historical and art museum, November 2021 – April 2022. The art museums of Serpukhov, Moscow, Volga region, Kursk, Ryazan, Krasnodar and some collectors took part in the exhibition. The curator was Prof. Vadim Sadkov, a great specialist in history of Netherlandish art of the late 16th and 17th centuries. There were demonstrated work of well-known masters as Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruysdael, Adriaen van Ostade, Otto Marseus van Schrieck and many paintings by lesser known authors, which deserve the attention of specialists and the public. In terms of the variety and high artistic quality of the exhibits, reflecting the breadth of the genre system of Dutch art, the scientific conception, the possibility of comparing works with each other it was the significant event in Russian art-historical science and museum practice, which opens up further prospects for cooperation between museums in the study and popularization of the heritage of Dutch masters stored in our country.