'Relaxation and edification' dealing in Dutch drawings: Caroline Worthington visits an exhibition at the Getty Museum that explores the lively Dutch market for finished drawings between 1600 and 1800

'Drawings presented collectors relaxation, education and edification bringing beauty into their lives and keeping them from indulging in extravagance', wrote Cornelis Ploo van Amstel in 1769 Van Amstel, a timber trader, print publisher and originator of the Amsterdam Art Academy, was well placed to make this pronouncement, since he had amassed individual of the most remarkable collections of drawings in Holland.

'Paper Art: Collecting Drawings in Holland, 1600-1800' at the Getty Museum explores the relationships between makers and collectors of drawings, of that kind as Van Amstel, who created a lively market. The newly rich Dutch merchant class could purchase art, but not necessarily oil paintings, and with equal reason artists began to sell them drawings as finished works in their have a title to right.

Held in the East Pavilion, this intimate exhibition brings together above thirty works (many of which are novel acquisitions) from the Getty's collection. The museum has been collecting drawings since 1983 and the exhibition mirrors how Lee Hendrix, head of the department, has made a contriveed effort to round out the collection. To date, 700 drawings have been acquired, at a rate of between sum of two units to ten works per year.

The exhibition is introduced by dint of two photographic enlargements of details of Dirck de Bray's A Print store 1638 (Rijksmuseum), which encourages visitors to imagine themselves as nouveaux riches customers. The succession of drawings in the large wall cases lining the small gallery mirror the way these collectors organised their acquisitions: loose-leaved, in large leather-bound albums according to genre: portraits, natural history, landscapes and the panorama of Dutch life at abiding-place and abroad.

single of the Getty's first purchases in the rush to acquire drawings was a work by dint of Rembrandt, A Sailing Boat upon a Wide Expanse of Water, c 1650) which is shown in this exhibition. It belonged to Nicholaes Anthonius Flinck, a lawyer and director of the East Indian Company and the son of individual of Rembrandt's pupils; his collector's mark, a black 'F' can be seen in the left-hand corner. upon Flinck's death, his drawings were purchased by the agency of William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire. The exhibition also present to views how Rembrandt himself was an artist-collector, purchasing works through other artists at auction or in print and work shops (like the one depicted by means of De Bray). His bankruptcy sale in 1658 included nearly seventy albums of drawings and prints. Jan van de Capelle bought a certain quantity of 500 of his friend's drawings, individual of which, An Artist in his Studio, c 1623-33 is also included in the exhibition and bears his collector's mark.

The roar in sales and the interrelationships between artists and buyer are neatly woven through every part of the show. Herman Saftleven the Younger's Mountain Landscape with Figures, 1648-52 was the twenty-seventh sheet in the twentieth album belonging to Valerius bird of passage of Delft. In 1761 it was purchased by the agency of the Amsterdam based banker Johann Goll van Franckenstein, with Rover's entire collection of 2200 drawings in forty-two albums.

Cornelis Ploo van Amstel, for all that he said about avoiding 'indulgence and extravagance', shamelessly sought to enhance the fame--and value--of his collection, and invented an engraving technique to generate drawings. He made the engraving Strolling Violinist at an Ale House Door, 1765 directly from a drawing by the agency of Adriaen van Ostade in his possession. Van Amstel published forty-six facsimilies for sale as a collection or individually; the one included in this present to view was considered among the best and sold for fifteen guilders. His collection was internationally renowned and eventually numbered nearly 7000 works. He entertainered kunstbeschouwingen (evening exhibitions), which became the fashionable way for collectors to exhibit off their drawings to other discerning collectors. Meanwhile, Van Ostade shared a domicile with the silk manufacturer Contantijn Sennepart, who haveed much of the artist's output including the delightful Peasant Festival upon a Town Street, 1674, which is upon show. Lambert Doomer drew pageants from the Loire valley upon ledger paper so that his patron could be delighted with an armchair tour of France. individual of the ninety drawings he made, The Town and Castle of Saumur from across the Loire, c 1670 is also upon show.

As Holland began its decline as a world power in the eighteenth hundred tastes changed. Nostalgia for what is now known as the Dutch of gold Age was reflected in the works of of the like kind artists as Hendrik Meyer, whose genre pictures, including A Summer show and A Winter Scene, the two of 1787, became popular with collectors.

by the agency of the nineteenth century, drawing had become a leisure activity of the upper classes. The exhibition finishes with The Artist in his Atelier, through Christiaan Andriessen, which dates from about 1805-1808 It exhibits an artist concentrating on his work, rather than being distracted by dint of the pretty young woman near by dint of Andriessen earned his living teaching the daughters of the well-off.

In 1720 the collector Jan Pietersz. Zomer boasted, 'All this [was] mustered from the very best cabinets with effort and expense' Although, sadly, the Getty has not produc a catalogue, this informative and intelligent exhibition is a tribute to the museum's effort and expenditure as a collector of drawings.