Dutch paintings - Report from Europe - Brief Article

Magazine Antiques, April, 2002 by Miriam Kramer

As a young boy in Amsterdam the Dutch collector Frits Lugt (1884-1970) often visited the Rijksmuseum, particularly the print room. At the age of fourteen he wrote a biography of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn to coincide with a Rembrandt exhibition at the museum. At the age of eighteen he wrote and published the first catalogue of his own collection.

His professional eye was trained at the auctioneers Frederik Muller et Compagnie, and he became a leading expert on Dutch and Flemish art. His marriage to Jacoba Klever brought financial security, and for nearly sixty years they shared a love of art and of collecting drawings, prints, paintings, and artists' letters. The collection is housed in the Hotel Turgot, a building adjoining the Institut neerlandais in Paris.

A selection of Dutch paintings from the Lugt Collection is on view at the Maurithuis in The Hague until June 30. Entitled A Choice Collection: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings from the Frits Lugt Collection, the exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in English written by Quentin Buvelot and Hans Bujis, with an essay by Ella Reitsma, which may be ordered by telephoning 31-70-302-34-29.