Adrian van Ostade
Dutch, 1610-1684
Rural Family in a Cottage Interior, 1661
Oil on panel
In contrast to Bega's mocking image of excessive drinking, this painting endorses the simple pleasures of family. In a lofty room, the mother entertains her child, the father looks on, and a young girl plays with her dog near the window. To urban viewers such imagery of unburdened country life offered a reprieve.
Gift of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art, 2021 2021.712 | MFA Boston
Aelbert Cuyp
Dutch, 1620-1691
Orpheus Charming the Animals, about 1640
Oil on canvas
The ancient Roman poet Ovid recounts how Orpheus, a legendary Greek musician, pacified wild animals with his soothing music. Here Cuyp places Orpheus in a typical Dutch landscape, populated with native species such as bulls, goats, and cats. But Cuyp adds American, Asian, and African creatures, too, including jaguars, a camel, an elephant, and an ostrich. Cuyp probably saw many of these species in person, but he almost certainly studied pictures of them in prints and books as well. His menagerie reflects the explosion of scientific knowledge that came with overseas trade and colonial ventures. The picture is, at the same time, an illustration of a Classical story, a landscape, and an animal painting. But it also makes a political statement, drawing a parallel between Orpheus's power over the animals and the Dutch Republic's dominance of the globe.
Promised gift of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art | MFA Boston
Claes Jansz. Visscher Dutch, 1587-1652
After a print by Jacob Hoefnagel
Flemish, about 1573-1632/33
After a design by Joris Hoefnagel
Flemish, 1542-1600
Diversae insectarum volatilium icones...
(Images of Diverse Flying Insects), 1630
Engraving
Prints like this provided models for illustrations in paintings, decorative objects, and even natural history books. Visscher's insect series was a common source among artists. Visscher adapted his illustrations from a series Jacob Hoefnagel produced after designs by his father, Joris Hoefnagel.
Like Hoefnagel, Visscher decontextualized the specimens for easy repurposing. Two insects from this print, a moth and beetle, appear on Jan Bellekin's nautilus cup (on view nearby).
Stephen Bullard Memorial Fund, 1970 1970.282 | MFA Boston
Pieter Saenredam
Dutch, 1597-1665
Church of St. Odulphus, Assendelft, 1655
Oil on panel
Believing that the word of God could be communicated only through preaching and reading the Bible, Protestant Calvinists in the Dutch Republic removed all religious decorations from churches and whitewashed the walls. Saenredam specialized in "portraits" of such interiors -paintings as spare and rigorous as Calvinist doctrine itself.
Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection, 1948 48.321 | MFA Boston
