FEW SIXTEENTH-CENTURY Netherlandish diptychs have survived complete and intact. The challenge of attempting to reunite separated paintings was recently encountered in the case of two panels painted by Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen in about 1530, a portrait of Cardinal Erard de la Marck (Fig.1) in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the Holy family (Fig.2) in the collection of the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, Rijswijk, on long-term loan to the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. Cardinal Erard de la Marck (1472–1538), prince-bishop of Liège, is shown half-length and facing to the right, wearing a red hat (biretta) and a dark red garment (tabard) with a fur collar. Behind him two angels hold up a green curtain. In the Holy family, the Virgin Mary is shown seated and facing to the left. She holds two carnations in her left hand and with her right arm supports the muscular, standing Christ Child draped in a green cloth. In the upper right, Joseph’s brooding face and upper body are visible behind a rock or wall. In the top left-hand corner, God, surrounded by small music-making angels, is shown in the heavens. There is a seemingly incongruous triangle of green fabric on the left side of the composition. When the two paintings are placed side-by-side, the function of the green fabric becomes clear; it appears to be related to the green curtain in the background of the Cardinal’s portrait. Other aspects of the two compositions suggest a connection: the figures of the Cardinal and the Virgin are almost the same size, they lean slightly towards one another, and the light in the sky illuminates them both from a central point. The angels in the portrait face to the right; the hand gesture of one angel is echoed by Christ’s gesture in the Holy family.

IN HIS DISCUSSION in this Magazine of the Rembrandt Year in 2006, Christopher Brown devoted considerable attention to what he described as the ‘almost certainly over-lively’ state of Rembrandt studies. He was also concerned that the changes within the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) – the project which has, in Brown’s words, ‘to a significant degree [. . .] set the parameters of discussion’ – may have contributed to this situation, either directly or indirectly. He continued: ‘I was among those who believed that the “old” RRP [active 1968–93] had been unduly restrictive [with regard to the definition of the boundaries of Rembrandt’s autograph œuvre] [. . .] but this rigour appears to have given way to an excessive inclusiveness’.

ON THE MORNING of Tuesday 1st June 1909, Henry Clay Frick had every reason to believe that he owned Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, the portrait by Hans Holbein which had been on view at the National Gallery, London, since 1880 (Fig.21). Through his friend and agent Charles Carstairs, head of Knoedler & Company’s London branch, Frick had arranged earlier that spring to purchase the picture from the 15th Duke of Norfolk for £72,000 (approximately $330,000). By the beginning of May, only one obstacle delayed Frick’s acquisition: an option granted to the National Gallery to retain the painting if it could muster the cash. Representing the Duke, Colnaghi & Company sent a letter on 9th May to Charles Holroyd, then director of the Gallery, informing him that the trustees had until 1st June to meet the asking price.

THE PRINCIPAL PURPOSE of this article is to publish a rediscovered painting by Jan van der Straet (1523–1605), better known as Johannes Stradanus, to discuss its relationship with the single related preparatory drawing for the composition to have survived and other connected works, and to make some preliminary observations concerning its iconography.

A SMALL PAINTING on copper depicting a Nativity was recently offered for sale at a New York auction (Fig.33), where it was attributed to the elusive Antwerp master Lazarus van der Borcht (active 1601–11). Close inspection, however, has revealed several stylistic features in keeping with those found in the earliest output of Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625), to whom this remarkable painting is here attributed.

ONLY IN THE past few decades have art historians once again started to value the qualities of the Leiden painter Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–81) and other Dutch fijnschilders, including Van Mieris’s teacher, the well-known Gerrit Dou (1613–75). Initially this renewed interest revolved mainly around the iconography and meaning of their paintings, as explored in the major exhibition Tot lering en vermaak (‘To instruct and delight’) held in 1976 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. As time went on, the fijnschilder technique also attracted attention, and several publications focusing on it have appeared in recent years, including several on technical aspects of Dou’s work. Van Mieris’s technique was discussed cursorily in the 1981 monograph on the painter, which appeared at a time when few paintings had been studied by the curators and conservators of the museums which held them. In his technical essay on the collection of fijnschilder paintings in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden (2000), Christoph Schölzel also discussed Van Mieris’s paintings there. Finally, a concise study of underdrawing in Van Mieris’s work by Carol Pottasch was published in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition devoted to the artist in The Hague and Washington (2005–06).

THE MAURITSHUIS in The Hague recently succeeded in bringing to the Netherlands one of the most beautiful seascapes (Fig.43) ever made by the Amsterdam marine painter Jan van de Cappelle (1626–79). Until now, all Van de Cappelle’s most impressive seascapes have been in other countries. With the purchase of this monumental painting, a seascape of rarefied atmosphere and with a silvery tonality, the type of work for which this artist is best known is represented in a Dutch public collection for the first time. The painting, which was hitherto unknown in the art-historical literature, can vie with the masterpiece by this artist that was acquired in 1993 by the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.

IT IS NOT often that a new drawing can be added to the œuvre of Vincent van Gogh: until recently, in fact, it has happened only seven times since the appearance in 1970 of De la Faille’s catalogue raisonné. Now, however, the drawing Old man and woman can be added to that list (Fig.44). It shows a man holding a pipe in one hand and a walking stick in the other, and to his right a woman carrying a basket. The drawing was made in November or December 1882, when Van Gogh was living in The Hague. The attribution to Van Gogh is based on the motif, the materials used and the provenance of the drawing, which can be traced back to the artist’s lifetime.