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| Antonio Tempesta Gathering of the Manna ca. 1600 oil on alabaster Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Antonio Tempesta Joseph explaining his Dream to his Brothers ca. 1600 oil on alabaster Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
"Antonio Tempesta, best known as a prolific printmaker, also specialized in oil paintings on unusual stone supports. In this pair, groups of figures echo the alabaster's patterning, with the veining transformed into rolling restless landscapes."
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| Joachim Wtewael Actaeon watching Diana and her Nymphs bathing 1612 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Roelant Savery Forest Scene with Hunters ca. 1615 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
"Savery traveled in 1603 to Prague, where he worked for Emperor Rudolf II. Probably painted after the artist returned to Amsterdam, this landscape draws on Savery's memories of the mountainous scenery of the Tyrol, Rudolf's menagerie of birds and animals, and castles that the artist passed on his way along the Rhine."
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| Pensionante del Saraceni St Stephen mourned by St Gamaliel and St Nicodemus ca. 1615 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| attributed to Antonio Carracci Landscape with Bathers before 1618 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
"The nude bathers climbing onto a rocky ledge in the middle ground are quoted from Michelangelo's celebrated Battle of Cascina. That painting, commissioned for a public space in Florence, was never completed, but Michelangelo's finished cartoon became an object of study for other artists (though it too failed to survive beyond the sixteenth century). The figures retained their influence through an abundance of reproductive prints and drawings that continued to circulate."
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| Martin Ryckaert River Landscape with Mining ca. 1620-29 oil on panel Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
"Mining was an important industry in the southern Netherlands, Germany and Austria in the 15th-17th centuries. As many powerful figures with significant interests in mining were also great patrons of art, as Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, the theme became quite popular for landscape painting."
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| Peter Paul Rubens Landscape with an Avenue of Trees ca. 1635 oil on paper, mounted on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
"This late panoramic landscape sketch depicts the area surrounding Het Steen, an estate outside Antwerp that Rubens acquired in 1635. A country house, perhaps the artist's own, is visible in the distance at right. The painting once belonged to the famed connoisseur and Rubens patron Everhard Jabach (1618-1695), in whose collection it was described as unfinished. The cloud-filled sky, foliage of the trees at right, and foreground strip were added at a later date, presumably to make the painting more saleable."
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| Gaspard Dughet Landscape with St Jerome and the Lion ca. 1638 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
"By the mid-eighteenth century this landscape was in a London collection and firmly attributed to Nicolas Poussin. As Dughet's kinsman and master, and a far more famous artist, Poussin's name became attached to many Dughet canvases. The work was exhibited as a Poussin throughout the nineteenth century, and when auctioned in 1920 it was still so identified. By the time Colnaghi's sold the painting to the Museum of Fine Arts in 1951, the Poussin attribution had fallen away and the artist was held to be Francisque Millet. It was not properly restored to Gaspard Dughet until the second half of the twentieth century, after it had reached Boston."
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| Cornelis van Poelenburgh Rest on the Flight into Egypt ca. 1640-50 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Jan Asselijn River Landscape with Fort Saint Jean and the Château of Pierre Seize in Lyon ca. 1650 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Willem de Heusch Pan and Syrinx ca. 1650 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Nicolaes Berchem Landscape with an Elegant Party on a Stag Hunt ca. 1665-70 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Giuseppe Recco Flowers by a Pond with Frogs ca. 1670-79 oil on panel Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
"This close-up of flowers, frogs, and insects is presented from what seems to be the low viewing angel of a naturalist searching for specimens in the underbrush on the edge of an upland meadow. However, the knowledgeable viewer would recognize that this is a fantasy. Tulips were expensive, carefully cultivated flowers that were only to be found in well-tended gardens. Recco was the foremost painter of still lifes in 17th-century Naples. His works reveal the influence of Dutch painters working in Italy who introduced such "underbrush" subjects."
– texts based on curator's notes from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Walters Art Museum, Baltimore