The landscapes of adriaen van de velde

are among the very best that the Dutch Golden

Age produced, showing great variety and superb

draughtsmanship, depicting meadows, Italianate

views, beaches, dunes, forests, winter scenes,

and portraits in landscape settings. The short-lived

artist's work was greatly appreciated in the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, highly

sought after by collectors in Germany, France

and England. Despite that fame and the exquisite

quality of Adriaen van de Velde's output, this

exhibition marks the first time that a substantial

body of his work has been assembled.

The artist made figure and animal studies in

seductive red chalk and compositional studies

in pen and ink in preparation for his paintings,

making it possible to follow very precisely the

various phases in his creative process - perhaps

more so than is possible for any other Dutch artist

of the period. For this reason, and because of their

exceptional quality, drawings form a major part of

the exhibition that this catalogue accompanies,

with some of them reunited for the first time with

the paintings for which they were studies.