Book Reviews

Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art

By Robert Schindler, Bernd Ebert, and Anna C. Knaap (curators)

Munich, Alte Pinakothek, November 26, 204 – March 16, 2025; Toledo, OH, Toledo Museum of Art, April 13 – July 27, 2025; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, August 23 – December 7, 2025. Exh. cat. edited by Robert Schindler, Bernd Ebert, and Anna C. Knaap. With contributions by Marianne Berardi, Charles C. Davis, Lieke van Deinsen, Josephina de Fouw, Nouchka de Keyser, Jorinda Koenen, Bert van de Roemer, and Katharina Schmidt-Loske. Boston, MA, MFA Publications, 2025. 248 pp, fully illustrated in color. ISBN 978-0-87846-899-7.

Review published August 2025

Every historian of Dutch art knows of Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) but few know much about her. Flower painter, daughter of the famed anatomist Frederik Ruysch… and there it usually stops. There has not [...] Read More

Rembrandt-Hoogstraten: Colour and Illusion; Samuel van Hoogstraten: The Illusionist; The Life and Work of the Painter: Dirck van Hoogstraten (1596-1640).

By Sabine Penot; David de Witt, Leonore van Sloten et al.; Michiel Roscam Abbing, Robert Schillemans

Rembrandt-Hoogstraten: Colour and Illusion.
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, October 8, 2024 – January 12, 2025. Exh. cat. ed. by Sabine Pénot. Veurne (Belgium): Hannibal Books, 2024. 288 pp, fully illustrated. English hardcover: ISBN 978-94-6494-131-9.

Samuel van Hoogstraten: The Illusionist.
Amsterdam, Museum Rembrandthuis, February 1 – May 4, 2025. Exh. cat. by David de Witt, Leonore van Sloten et al. Zwolle: WBOOKS and Museum Rembrandthuis, 2025. English and Dutch editions, 144 pp, fully illustrated. English: ISBN 978-94-6258-68-02; Dutch: ISBN 978-94-6258-67-89

The Life and Work of the Painter: Dirck van Hoogstraten (1596-1640).
By Michiel Roscam Abbing, Robert Schillemans. Zwolle: WBOOKS, 2025. English and Dutch editions, 240 pp, illustrated, chiefly in color. Paperback. English: ISBN 978-94-6258-67-960; Dutch: ISBN 978-94-6258-67-72.

Review published August 2025

These three publications, one monograph and two exhibition catalogues, complement one another, celebrating three artists of very distinct characters, abilities, ambitions and generations: Dirck van [...] Read More

Fifteenth-Century Netherlandish Painting at the Museo Nacional del Prado: Catalogue Raisonné

By José Juan Pérez Preciado, with the specialist advice of Lorne Campbell, translated by Jenny Dodman

Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2024. 392 pp, fully illustrated in color. ISBN 978-84-8480-614-1.

Review published June 2025

In his introduction explaining the organizing principles of this catalogue raisonné, José Juan Pérez Preciado discloses a crucial detail about the fifteenth-century Netherlandish paintings in the [...] Read More

Rubens and the Dominican Church in Antwerp: Art and Political Economy in an Age of Religious Conflict. (Brill’s Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History, 67)

By Adam Sammut

Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2023. 526 pp, incl. 269 col. + b& illus. ISBN 978-90-04-27637-6 (hardback); 978-90-04-27638-3 (e-book).

Review published June 2025

This book is the revised publication of a PhD thesis, defended by the author in 2021 at the University of York. Actually, it is about two very important painting commissions for the decoration of [...] Read More

Little Beasts. Art, Wonder, and the Natural World

By Alexandra Libby, Brooks Rich, and Stacey Sell (curators)

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, May 18 – November 2, 2025 Exh. Cat. edited by Alexandra Libby, Brooks Rich, and Stacey Sell. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2025. 224 pp, 105 color illus. ISBN 978-0-69127-130-9.

Review published May 2025

Insects have been enjoying increased visibility in early modern art history studies. After the late Janice Neri’s book, The Insect and the Image: Visualizing Nature in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700 [...] Read More

Early Netherlandish and French Paintings 1400-1480: Critical Catalogue for the Gemäldegalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

By Katrin Dyballa and Stephan Kemperdick, editors

Petersburg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2024. 608 pp, 497 color & 142 b & w illus. ISBN 978-3-7319-1319-1 (English edition) / 978-3-7319-1289-7 (German edition).

Review published May 2025

This handsome collection catalogue provides in-depth studies of the paintings in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, by artists who were active before ca. 1475-80 in the Burgundian Netherlands and France. Its [...] Read More

Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews

Book Reviews