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16th – 18th Century Dutch Painting

The Liberec collection of the "little masters” (in contrast to the “great” ones such as Rembrandt van Rijn or Jan Vermeer) was established only in the 1960’s thanks to the then director Hana Seifertová. The only exception is the rare still-life by Jan Davidsz de Heem, which comes from the estate of the industrial magnate Heinrich Liebieg. Several paintings have been purchased during the last fifteen years thanks to the financial means from special funds of the Ministry of Culture, Czech Republic.

With regard to the individual art centers, the Gallery owns selections from paintings produced in Flemish and Dutch towns such as Amsterdam, Antwerp, Haarlem, Leiden, and others. From the perspective of the subject themes, we can find here the portrait (Jakob Adriaensz Backer), biblical (Vincent Sellaer) and mythological themes, motifs from the Roman history (Frans van Mieris), scenes from ordinary life of people with various social status (Jan Baptist Weenix), several types of landscape, for instance the Paris panorama (Cornelis Beelt), the seaside landscape (Wouter Knijff) and the ideal countryside of the sunny Italian Campagne. Several types of still-life form an integral part of the collection: for instance hunting (Jan Fyt) or floral (Elias van den Broeck), or a still-life portraying the variety of materials in the tromple l'oil style (Jan Jansz van de Velde).

The essential part of the collection consists of the 17th century Dutch paintings. Visitors can admire the scope of Dutch painters, their sensitivity to detail, sense of the ordinary day poetry, technical and technological skills. However, the works also tell about the power of the then growing democracy and reveal some of its dark sides.