by Jon Lackman | 31 March 2009 | Books
In the February 2009 issue of the Burlington Magazine, Xander van Eck considers recent publications from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum on their Dutch collections:
Both catalogues are excellent academic publications … The surprisingly different approaches to the two publications make one wonder what kind of information belongs in a catalogue: simply the facts and an informed opinion about them, or the entire history of what scholars have ever said about a work of art? [Met curator] Walter Liedtke … has clearly chosen the latter option … [whereas the Amsterdam] entries present what has become known about [the paintings], with the effect that one gets the idea that, instead of a host of experts, it is the paintings themselves that are speaking to us … The Metropolitan Museum has done more than its duty, and the art-historical community must be grateful that the most beautiful collection of Dutch paintings in the Western hemisphere has been made fully accessible. But it is the Rijksmuseum catalogue, with its matter-of-fact approach, its splendidly edited text and the visual pleasure it provides, that sets the standard for the future.
