The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection

"The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection" explores the artistic world of the Dutch Republic through an exceptional group of 82 paintings and drawings by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) and his contemporaries. The exhibition is drawn from The Leiden Collection, one of the world’s largest and most significant private collections of seventeenth-century Dutch art. Comprised of 250 works of art, The Leiden Collection was assembled in a period of just fourteen years by Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan and Daphne Recanati Kaplan. Focusing upon the artistic center of Leiden, the exhibition explores the various contexts of artistic creativity that emerged around Rembrandt, the city’s most celebrated artist. The exhibition illuminates Rembrandt’s artistic beginnings, his relationship to rivals and contemporaries, and the artistic traditions that flourished in cities across the Dutch Republic. Artists such as Jan Lievens (1607–1674), Gerrit Dou (1613–1675), and Frans van Mieris (1635–1681), as well as Frans Hals (1582/83–1666), Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588–1629), and Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), provide a remarkable glimpse into the ideas and traditions that shaped the Dutch Golden Age. Seen together with the renowned collection in Moscow, the works in this exhibition reflect an enduring interest in collecting Dutch art, one that has existed in Russia for nearly four hundred years.

Curators: Vadim Sadkov, Head of the Old Masters Department, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, Curator, The Leiden Collection.