The 17th century dazzles at Vienna’s Albertina

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Vienna's world-renowned Albertina gallery has published a catalogue of its 17th-century treasure. Larry SIlver looks inside

Its cover image features Big Fish Eat Little Fish, the early drawing design for an engraving by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525–69) yet fashioned with flying fish monsters in the manner of Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450–1516).  From such a linkage of pioneering Netherlandish masters of drawing, the great collection of the Albertina in Vienna establishes its pedigree, almost as strong in these Northern masterworks as in its unmatched Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) drawings (currently on view at the National Gallery in Washington). 

As its title reveals, the tradition remains strong through the great Dutch and Flemish masters of the 17th century, and this dazzling exhibition in the home gallery of Vienna lasts all spring (14 March through 30 June).  Its full-sized catalogue, richly illustrated in full-page reproductions that capture sepia tones and colour, offers learned, if brief, entries by a team of Albertina curators (and a few outside experts).

Even the earliest great works of the 15th century find representation here, albeit chiefly through copies derived from the master designs by Jan van Eyck (c.1390–c.1441) (nos. 1–15), Dieric Bouts (1415–75)(nos. 16, 19) and Hugo van der Goes (c.1430–82)(no. 17).  Then the collection fully blossoms in the 16th century, when Bosch first introduced the notion of drawings as collectors’ items by renowned individuals, especially his signature Tree-Man (no. 38) and a sketch of drolleries (no. 39).  Four marvellous Bruegels (nos. 41–44) span his entire range (1556–65), displaying Boschian monsters, proverbs, and the varied cultivations during Spring.  Yet beyond this homegrown distinctiveness, Italian influence, particularly in Antwerp, is well represented by drawings of Jan Gossaert (c.1478–1532), Bernard van Orley (c.1489–1541), and Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574) (nos. 30-37).

By the end of the 16th century, the Netherlands had developed its own distinctive genres, particularly landscape (nos. 46–57) but had also begun to reshape an international idiom at the Northern courts, particularly Munich and Prague, the capital of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.  Such artists – names largely known to specialists but richly exemplified here – as Peter Candid (1548–1628), Friedrich Sustris  (c.1540–99), Paulus van Vianen (1570–1614), Adriaen de Vries (c1556–1626), Roelant Savery (1576–1639), and especially Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611) and Joris van Hoefnagel (1542–1601) provided both a wide range of subjects and a consistent figural elegance (nos. 60–87) in refined, often coloured graphic production.

Everyone knows Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), whose Albertina drawings (nos. 102–116) extend from early ink studies for narratives to delicate chalk renderings of posed figures and individual portraits.  His Antwerp circle, Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) and Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678) (nos. 117–23) also appear in characteristic media and subjects.  But fewer viewers will know the great Dutch draughtsmen of Haarlem and Utrecht who preceded those Flemish titans.  Starting with the magnificent coloured chalk self-por (c. 1593/4; no. 88) by Hendrick Goltzius, these ‘Mannerist’ artists (de Gheyn, van Mander, Cornelis van Haarlem, Wtewael, Bloemart) at the turn of the 17th century produced imposing biblical or mythic narratives (nos. 89–101).

Nor does the Albertina collection neglect Holland’s Golden Age.  Seventeenth-century landscapes and interiors (nos. 124–40) are complemented with figural genre scenes of peasants in taverns by the van Ostades (nos. 141-43).  Finally, Rembrandt, represented by no fewer than eight drawings (nos. 144-51): figure studies from the mid-1630s (including an elephant in black chalk, dated 1637; no. 151); an ink Jonah outdoors (no. 145); and one major landscape, the Farmhouses against a Stormy Sky (c. 1635; no. 149). 

Thus this sumptuous catalogue provides a primer of drawing history in the Netherlands from its origins to the Golden Age climax in the era of Rubens and Rembrandt.  At the same time, the great tradition of collecting in Vienna and scholarship about these works is handsomely presented for the modern art-lover in a volume of lasting value.

Bosch Bruegel Rubens Rembrandt. Masterpieces of the Albertina edited by Klaus Albrecht Schröder and Christof Metzger is published by Albertina/Hatje Cantz 2013. 336 pp., 156 illus. ISBN  978-3-7757-3295-6