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Old Masters at Birmingham Museum of Art
From January 31 until April 26 at Birmingham Museum of Art, Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, and Their Contemporaries
Sat, Jan 31 - Sun, Apr 26 2015
From January 31 until April 26 at Birmingham Museum of Art, Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, and Their Contemporaries
About the Exhibition
Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, and Their Contemporaries is the first exhibition to explore this little-known field of small-format 17th-century paintings from the Dutch and Flemish Golden Age. Organized by the North Carolina Museum of Art, the exhibition brings together 40 small-scale oil paintings, most of which are no more than ten inches in height, by 28 artists who lived and worked in what is today the Netherlands and Belgium during the 17th century.
During the Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish painting in the 17th century, artists demonstrated more than ever before a love for minute and precise detail by painting on a small scale. At the time, the incredible technical skills of artists were highly revered, creating a demand for small-scale portraits. These precious paintings played an important part of many artists’ practices but have historically been overlooked by scholars and museum exhibitions.
Drawn from public and private collections throughout the United States, Small Treasures features the small –scale work of the greatest masters of Dutch and Flemish art including Anthony van Dyck, Adriaen Brouwer, David Teniers, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jan Steen, Gerard Terborch, Gerrit Dou, and Frans van Mieris.
A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, featuring all of the exhibited paintings reproduced in full.