An Inner World, the exhibition co-curated by Lara Yeager-Crasselt of the Leiden Collection and Heather Gibson Moqtaderi, Assistant Director and Associate Curator of the Arthur Ross Gallery, features exceptional paintings by seventeenth-century Dutch artists working in or near the city of Leiden, including nine paintings from the Leiden Collection (New York) and one painting from the Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, MA). Ten rare seventeenth-century books drawn from the collection of University of Pennsylvania's Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts expand the intellectual and cultural contexts of the exhibition. Works by Gerrit Dou, Gabriel Metsu, Domenicus van Tol, Willem van Mieris, and Jacob Toorenvliet demonstrate how these artists developed a sustained interest in an inner world—figures in interior spaces, and in moments of contemplation or quiet exchange, achieved through their meticulous technique of fine painting. In this lavishly illustrated catalogue, essays penned by specialists in the field of early modern Dutch painting illuminate the exhibition's themes and lesser known artists, and shed new light on the fijnschilders, or fine painters, of Leiden. Yeager-Crasselt's essay explores the central themes of An Inner World through the lens of Leiden as a university city and Dutch artists' interests in the illusionism of space, candlelight, and painted surfaces. Shira Brisman examines the use of candlelight in seventeenth-century paintings and its role as a source of illumination as well as an indicator of the larger issue of the wax trade and the "outer world" of commerce. Last, Eric Jorink reflects on the confluence of art, science, and religion in the Dutch Golden Age.

A vivid and exciting account of royal collectors, art dealers, connoisseurs, and the rise of old master paintings Old master paintings are among the most valuable and prestigious of the visual arts, and the best examples command the highest prices of any luxury commodity. In Kings and Connoisseurs, Jonathan Brown tells the story of how painting rose to this exalted status. The transformation of painting from an inexpensive to a costly art form reached a crucial stage in the royal courts of Europe in the seventeenth century, where rulers and aristocrats assembled huge collections, often in short periods of time. By comparing collecting and collectors at these courts, Brown explains the formation of new attitudes toward pictures, as well as the mechanisms that supported the enterprise of collecting, including the emergence of the art dealer, the development of connoisseurship, and the publication of sumptuous picture books of various collections. The result is an exciting narrative of greed and passion, played out against a background of international politics and intrigue.

This volume explores the world of book collecting in early modern Ireland and Britain. It investigates the ways in which texts, both manuscript and printed, were collected, and draws attention to the wider impact of the European book trade on changing reading habits and the availability of books. Early modern book collectors bought books for a variety of reasons. By combining case studies of institutional and private book collectors, the essays not only demonstrate how individual collections came into being, but also how private and public collections interacted with each other. These essays offer vital insights into the communal world of the early modern book trade.

The first study of album-making in the Ottoman empire during the seventeenth century, demonstrating the period’s experimentation, eclecticism, and global outlook The Album of the World Emperor examines an extraordinary piece of art: an album of paintings, drawings, calligraphy, and European prints compiled for the Ottoman sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–17) by his courtier Kalender Paşa (d. 1616). In this detailed study of one of the most important works of seventeenth-century Ottoman art, Emine Fetvacı uses the album to explore questions of style, iconography, foreign inspiration, and the very meaning of the visual arts in the Islamic world. The album’s thirty-two folios feature artworks that range from intricate paper cutouts to the earliest examples of Islamic genre painting, and contents as eclectic as Persian and Persian-influenced calligraphy, studies of men and women of different ethnicities and backgrounds, depictions of popular entertainment and urban life, and European prints depicting Christ on the cross that in turn served as models for apocalyptic Ottoman paintings. Through the album, Fetvacı sheds light on imperial ideals as well as relationships between court life and popular culture, and shows that the boundaries between Ottoman art and the art of Iran and Western Europe were much more porous than has been assumed. Rather than perpetuating the established Ottoman idiom of the sixteenth century, the album shows that this was a time of openness to new models, outside sources, and fresh forms of expression. Beautifully illustrated and featuring all the folios of the original seventy-page album, The Album of the World Emperor revives a neglected yet significant artwork to demonstrate the distinctive aesthetic innovations of the Ottoman court.

This book celebrates the most important collection of 17th-century Chinese porcelain in the world, assembled by the distinguished British diplomat Sir Michael Butler. His passion for porcelain is clearly reflected in the over eight hundred pieces he collected and lived with at his home and private museum in Dorset. The pots (as Sir Michael called them), many of extreme rarity or exquisite quality, give testimony to the incredible depth of knowledge he acquired over five decades and his outstanding contribution to research and education in this previously neglected field of study. This lavish and comprehensive collection covers most types of porcelain produced at Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province, during the 17th century. The variety of the pieces carefully acquired by Sir Michael reflects the great innovative spirit of the highly skilled Jingdezhen potters and painters at a time when they were released from the controls of Imperial patronage, between the end of the reign of the Ming Emperor Wanli in 1620 and the re-establishment of the Imperial kilns by the Qing Emperor Kangxi in 1683. It is a study collection of porcelain unrivalled in its breath and rarity that demonstrates the stylistic and qualitative evolution which occurred in Chinese porcelain production during the 17th century. An introduction written by Katharine Butler tells the fascinating story of the circumstances that encouraged her father to acquire, collect and passionately study Chinese porcelain of the 17th century; how he found rare pieces with dates, interesting inscriptions, seal marksor narrative scenes; and how the collection and his scholarly publications came to be internationally renowned. The core of the book is composed of nine sections presenting the main categories of porcelains in the collection: Late Ming, High Transitional, Shunzhi, Early Kangxi, Mid-Late Kangxi, Monochromes and Famille Verte, as well as disputed pieces. Some of the highlights are the extremely rare High Transitional pieces painted only in overglaze enamels dating to the Chongzhen reign, c.1640-43; the first piece acquired by Sir Michael, a green enamel winepot, dating to the early Kangxi reign, c.1665-70; a group of rare dated Zhonghe Tang pieces painted in underglaze blue and red, and an early Kangxi basin finely painted in underglaze blue and red with a Master of the Rocks landscape, dating to c.1670-75. Leaping the Dragon Gate refers to the symbolic metamorphosis from a humble carp to a mighty dragon - the most powerful of the Four Divine Creatures - that a student would undergo on succeeding in the Jinshi or Imperial civil service examinations. Passing these examinations required years, sometimes decades, of enormous effort to acquire the requisite educational merit and success was very rare. It is a worthy metaphor for Sir Michael's scholarly achievement. This 384-page book with over 600 colour illustrations is a catalogue raisonné of almost his entire 17th century porcelain collection, including many previously unpublished pieces. In the spirit of keeping the family legacy of acquisition and scholarship alive, the authors have included a few important, recently purchased pieces and also have revised and expanded the list of all known dated pieces of 17th Century Chinese porcelain in the world that Sir Michael compiled in his 1992 USA exhibition catalogue.

This book provides an in-depth introduction to the issues involved in the expansion of European interests to the Hudson River Valley, the cultural interaction that took place there, and the colonization of the region. Written in accessible language by leading scholars, these essays incorporate the latest historical insights as they explore the new world in which American Indians and Europeans interacted, the settlement of the Dutch colony that ensued from the exploration of the Hudson River, and the development of imperial and other networks which came to incorporate the Hudson Valley.

Heda's Banquet Piece, Frans Hals' Willem Coymans, and Rembrandt's Lucretia. Paintings by these and other masters attracted the American collectors P. A. B. Widener, his son Joseph, and Andrew W. Mellon, whose bequests form the heart of the National Gallery's distinguished and remarkably cohesive collection of ninety-one Dutch paintings.