Winter issue Oud Holland 138 (2025) 4
This issue of Oud Holland opens with a painting by Frans van Mieris long referred to as a depiction of a woman with a letter – a popular theme in the seventeenth century. As Lara Yeager-Crasselt and Menno Jonker show, however, the principal figure here isn’t reading a letter at all, but an edition of the Oprechte Haarlemse Courant . While newspapers had grown increasingly prevalent, the subject seldom appears in the visual arts. Among those rare examples, mainly working class men are represented. Van Mieris’ choice of a newspaper-reading woman from the upper class, therefore, turns out to have been quite a unique statement.
Readers can then turn to the famous art historian Wilhelm Martin (1876-1954), who worked on a catalogue raisonné of the most important members of the Hague School between 1913 and 1919. He aspired to become a ‘modern Smith’, referring to John Smith (1781-1855) who wrote several oeuvre catalogues of Dutch old masters. Although Martin’s work was never published, the extensive material that he collected and structured paints a new picture of the art market of the time. As authors, Evelien de Visser and Marie Mundigler demonstrate, his photographic reproductions are a valuable source for current research into the provenance of paintings.
The issue closes with three reviews. Larry Silver dives into the most recent monograph by Stephan Kemperdick and Erik Eising on Hugo van der Goes: Between pain and bliss. The book was accompanied by a high-profile exhibition in Berlin in 2023. Gerlinde Klatte discusses Michiel Roscam Abbing’s book Brazilië zien zonder de oceaan over te steken: De wandtapijten van Johan Maurits from 2021. Lastly, Junko Aono provides some critical comments on Wayne Franits’ publication Godefridus Schalcken: A late 17th-century Dutch painter in pursuit of fame and fortune (2023).
Oud Holland – Journal for Art of the Low Countries 2025–4, jaargang 138:
- Lara Yeager-Crasselt & Menno Jonker
The art of being ‘au courant’: Reading the news in Dutch genre painting (1640-1690) - Evelien de Visser & Marie Mundigler
Wilhelm Martin and his unfinished catalogue raisonné of the Hague School (1913-1919) - Larry Silver
Review of Stephan Kemperdick and Erik Eising (eds.), Hugo van der Goes: Between pain and bliss, Munich [Hirmer Publishers] 2022 / Exh. Berlin, Gemäldegalerie SMB, 2023 - Gerlinde Klatte
Review of Michiel Roscam Abbing, Brazilië zien zonder de oceaan over te steken: De wandtapijten van Johan Maurits, Amsterdam [Lias] 2021 - Junko Aono
Review of Wayne Franits, Godefridus Schalcken: A late 17th-century Dutch painter in pursuit of fame and fortune, London [Lund Humphries] 2023