The life and career of Jan Lievens (1607‱674), one of the greatest yet most enigmatic Dutch painters of the Seventeenth Century, is finally brought to light in the exhibition “Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered,” on view at the National Gallery of Art in the West Building to January 11.
The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with the Milwaukee Art Museum, where it will be on view February 7⁁pril 26, and the Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, where it will be seen May 17⁁ugust 9.
“History has not been kind to Jan Lievens, and this intriguing exhibition invites a serious reconsideration of his place in the annals of art history,” said Earl A. Powell III, director of the National Gallery of Art. “The gallery is grateful for the outstanding loans from private and public collections in Europe and America, and we hope that general visitors and scholars alike will find this show to be an eye-opener.”
This exhibition and its accompanying catalog present an overview of the full range of Lievens’s career. More than 130 of the artist’s finest works will be presented, including 54 paintings, 39 drawings and 39 prints.
Lievens was a child prodigy, whose early works in Leiden were highly praised by his contemporaries and valued by princely patrons. His later career was marked by important civic and private commissions in Amsterdam, the Hague and Berlin. Nevertheless, his name today barely registers in the public consciousness. This exhibition and catalog suggest that his posthumous reputation waned after many of his works were mistakenly attributed to other masters †especially Rembrandt van Rijn (1606‱669), with whom he had a somewhat symbiotic relationship †and because he worked in a remarkable range of styles, reflecting multiple influences from the various cities in which he lived.
The exhibition, arranged chronologically, includes such noteworthy paintings as Lievens’s youthful and penetrating “Self-Portrait,” circa 1629‱630; “The Feast of Esther,” circa 1625, which demonstrates his connection to the Utrecht Carravaggisti; “Bearded Man with a Beret,” circa 1630, an expressive character study of the type Lievens made during his Leiden period; “Job in His Misery,” 1631, one of his finest and most important works.
Also, “Prince Charles Louis with His Tutor, as the Young Alexander Instructed by Aristotle,” 1631, painted for the king and queen of Bohemia; “The Lamentation of Christ,” circa 1640, an Antwerp period altarpiece that reflects the influence of Anthony van Dyck; and “Brinio Raised on a Shield,” 1660, an oil sketch/ modello of an important commission for the Amsterdam Town Hall, now called the Royal Palace.
Among the works on paper are “The Raising of Lazarus,” 1630‱631, an etching Lievens made after a painting of the same subject, also in the exhibition, and “Village Street with a Windmill,” circa 1650s, one of a number of Lievens’s landscape drawings from his Amsterdam period.
The catalog Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered was published by the National Gallery of Art in association with Yale University Press, New Haven and London. The 256-page catalog is edited by Wheelock with essays by Stephanie Dickey, Melanie Gifford, Gregory Rubinstein, Jaap van der Veen and Lloyd DeWitt, and includes 190 color and 30 black and white illustrations. It is available from the gallery shops for $65 (hardcover) and $45 (softcover).
The National Gallery of Art is on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW. For information, 202-737-4215 or www.nga.gov .
