Discover how Flemish and Brabant masters made the Netherlands great

Seventeenth-century Dutch art is famed throughout the world. Yet how ‘Dutch’ are those paintings in actual fact? Did the countless history pieces, landscapes, portraits, still lifes and scenes from everyday life truly originate in cities like Amsterdam, Haarlem, Delft and Leiden? Or might the cradle of these genres actually be located somewhere else?

This book presents over ninety masterpieces by Flemish and Dutch artists to show how seventeenth-century Dutch painting could never have flourished the way it did without the foundations laid in sixteenth-century Antwerp. Thoroughly researched, it tells the story of the talented and accomplished artists and merchants who migrated north in search of religious liberty and new commercial opportunities after Antwerp fell to Spanish Catholic troops in 1585.

From Antwerp to Amsterdam is a timeless reference work containing unique paintings by outstanding masters such as Joos Van Cleve, Pieter Aertsen, Maarten De Vos, Frans Floris, Frans Hals, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Jan Steen and Rembrandt Van Rijn.

Publication accompanying the exhibition Ode to Antwerp, The Secret of the Dutch Masters at the Museum Catharijneconvent from 14 May to 17 September 2023.

With text contributions by Koenraad Jonckheere, professor of art history at Ghent University and author of the bestseller A New History of Western Art, Micha Leeflang, curator at the Museum Catharijneconvent, and Sven Van Dorst, head of the restoration studio at The Phoebus Foundation, and others.