Celebrating the Old Master Collections of the National Gallery of Art: Dutch Art of the Golden Age

Eric Denker, senior lecturer, National Gallery of Art The 2019 Summer Sunday Lecture Series, Celebrating the Old Master Collections of the National Gallery of Art, takes a closer look at the many treasures housed in the Gallery’s permanent collection. Works by Italian, French, Dutch, and American artists are featured in this visual tour. New insights and surprising discoveries await, featuring Gallery favorites and recently acquired works. In this first lecture in the series, presented on July 14, 2019 senior lecturer Eric Denker discusses the Gallery’s collection of 17th-century Dutch paintings, one of the most important outside of the Netherlands. The holdings include a distinguished selection of well-known masters, including Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, as well as many superlative works by lesser-known painters of the Golden Age of Dutch painting. Intense competition during this era propelled artists to specialize in specific genres of painting including portraiture, landscape, still life, and scenes of daily life.