America and the Art of Flanders

Esmée Quodbach is Assistant Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Center for the History of Collecting at The Frick Collection and Art Reference Library in New York. She is the editor of Holland’s Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals, also published by Penn State University Press.

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceEsmée QuodbachIntroduction: Pleasure and Prestige: The Complex History of Collecting Flemish Art in America Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr.Part 1. The Early Years: The Formation of America’s Taste for Flemish Painting1.Before Modern Connoisseurship: Robert Gilmor, Jr.’s, Quest for Flemish Paintings in the Early RepublicLance Humphries2.Collecting the Art of Flanders in Antebellum New YorkMargaret R. Laster3.The American Van DyckAdam Eaker4.A Family Affair: Bruegel and Sons in AmericaLouisa Wood RubyPart 2. The Gilded Age and Beyond5.In Search of Major Masters: Boston’s History of Collecting Flemish Baroque PaintingRonni Baer6.“Never a Dull Picture”: John Graver Johnson Collects Flemish ArtEsmée Quodbach7.Creating an Acquired Taste for Flemish Paintings: The Advice of W. R. Valentiner and OthersDennis P. Weller8.Collecting Seventeenth-Century Flemish Paintings in the MidwestGeorge S. KeyesPart 3. The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: The Dissemination of Flemish Art Across America9.From Personal Treasures to Public Gifts: The Flemish Painting Collection at the National Gallery of ArtAlexandra Libby10.Collecting Rubens in AmericaMarjorie E. Wieseman11.“It Is a Great Painting for a Museum”: Collecting Flemish Paintings in Southern CaliforniaAnne T. WoollettNotesReferencesList of ContributorsList of Artists’ NamesIndex

“America and the Art of Flanders is yet another excellent volume in an already impressive series on the history of collecting in the United States. It investigates the changing interest in Flemish art over time—and what happens when private love of art becomes institutional collecting. It also deals with many different American museum collections as part of a greater national collection. This is rarely done, and it is great food for thought.”—Peter Hecht, Professor Emeritus of Art History, Utrecht University, the Netherlands