Striking still lifes, regal Rembrandts and gleaming silver are just a few of the treasures on view in a new exhibition at the Kimbell Art Museum, 3333 Camp Bowie Blvd.
“Dutch Art in a Global Age,” combines an impressive collection from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston with complementary pieces from the Kimbell.
“In the galleries you’ll witness the world’s first multinational corporations, the Dutch West India and Dutch East India companies, as reflected through the cultural output of the Netherlands,” Eric Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum, said.
Maps with vast webs of crisscrossing trade routes help contextualize the global influence of the Netherlands in the 1600s.
“With trade networks that stretch from Asia to the Americas and Africa, the Dutch oversaw an unprecedented movement of goods, ideas and people, giving rise to what many consider the first age of globalization and sparking an artistic boom,” Lee continued.
Still lifes from artists like Willem Claesz Heda, Jan Davidsz de Heem and Adriaen Coorte show off the exotic shells, precious metals and luxury goods such as tobacco that were status symbols at the time.
The ability to travel back in time is further aided by likenesses carefully studied and painted by the likes of masters like Rembrandt and Jan de Bray.
One of Rembrandt’s early paintings from around 1628 is worth a close study, said George Shackelford, deputy director of the Kimbell Art Museum.
“I think it is one of the most emotionally moving statements of a young artist who is confronted with the future of what his art is going to be about,” Shackelford said of Rembrandt’s “Artist in His Studio.” “The (blank) panel that’s on the easel … he’s standing back from it, and I always imagine … that he’s standing back and thinking, ‘What am I going to do with this?’”
The exhibition also includes a collection of gleaming porcelain and intricately carved silver to help guests imagine the elaborate dinner services of the aristocracy and the fanfare associated with religious ceremonies such as christenings.
“The way that the world behaves now is … dependent on how it was invented in the 17th century in the Netherlands — on trade, finance, exploitation and profits and the spending of profit,” Shackelford continued. “As we go through this exhibition, I think one of the fascinating things is for us to think about how what we are seeing here has to do with the world that we live in now.”
The exhibition opens to the public Nov. 10 and will remain on view through Feb. 9, 2025.
If you go
What: Dutch Art in a Global Age
When: Nov. 10, 2024 – Feb. 9, 2025
Where: Kimbell Art Museum, 3333 Camp Bowie Blvd., Fort Worth
Admission: $14-$18 for nonmembers; free for members.
Marcheta Fornoff covers the arts for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
