Northern stars

Many tourists from the Netherlands enjoy the tranquillity of the banks of the Loire during the summer, and this exhibition in Orléans, with its trilingual labels, is sure to come as a pleasant surprise. It reveals an almost unprecedented part of the Musée des Beaux-Arts’ rich collections, built up in the 19th century and little developed since, despite the remarkable acquisition of this view of the city (ill. 1) circa 1650, donated in 1987 by the Société des Amis des Musées d’Orléans.

This summer’s exhibition is the culmination of three years of intense scientific work coordinated by Mehdi Korchane, co-curator alongside David Mandrella, who was entrusted with the task of producing the complete catalogue of "Northern School drawings" in the broadest sense, which was published to coincide with the exhibition. Although it was necessary to forego the temptation of showing the more than 800 drawings listed, the catalogue is still packed with 174 drawings, the vast majority of them previously unpublished! We can only recommend that you visit this exhibition and then buy its impressive catalogue, both of which are the highlight of the summer in the field of old master drawings.

Fortunately, the exhibition includes some big names and well-known sheets such as Hendrick Goltzius’s Mountain Landscape with the Temptation of Christ (ill. 2), which was chosen as the catalogue cover, Rubens’s superb Silene (ill. 3) and the no less splendid Jordaens (ill. 4), which is much admired despite its fragmentary nature. The centre of this preparatory composition for a tapestry adorning the Palazzo Carignano in Turin is missing. Unfortunately, it was impossible to obtain a photo of it, but a clever montage made it almost invisible at first glance.

Another of the museum’s well-known Nordic drawings is Cornelis Saftleven’s singular masterpiece showing the emaciated corpse of a horse (ill. 5) carefully mounted, yet intended for sale as the date and monogram indicate. While the presence of these headliners will…