courant 7 - CODART

codart Courant 7/December 2003 4
Curator David de Witt is presently preparing a
catalogue of the Dutch and Flemish paintings
currently in the Art Centre’s collection and
those that will enter it from the collection of
Alfred and Isabel Bader in Milwaukee as part of
a bequest. Also in preparation is an exhibition
on the theme of Tobit in Dutch art, with the
Bijbels Museum in Amsterdam as partner.
David de Witt
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston
france
Paris, Institut Néerlandais, Fondation Custodia
The Fondation Custodia, housed together with
the Institut Néerlandais in Paris, was founded
on the initiative of the art historian Frits Lugt
(1884-1970) and in conjunction with the Dutch
government in 1956. It administers the Frits
Lugt Collection, which is a remarkable
ensemble of drawings, prints, artists’ letters,
paintings and rare books. Scholarly research
relating to these collections, a publishing
program and the organization of exhibitions
belong to the various activities of the
curatorial staff.
We are currently preparing several
exhibitions and publications. Regards sur l’art
hollandais du xviie siècle: Frits Lugt et les frères
Dutuit collectionneurs will be on view from
18 March to 16 May 2004, organized by the
Fondation Custodia in collaboration with the
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville
de Paris. A choice of about 70 of the best works
(paintings, drawings and prints) from both
institutions will be displayed as a tribute to
the collectors Dutuit and Frits Lugt, forming a
presentation of the Dutch Golden Age as well.
The exhibition will be held at the Institut
Néerlandais, as the Petit Palais is closed for
renovation. Jongkind et son cercle., curated by
Rhea Blok (10 June-18 July 2004) at the Institut
Néerlandais (Hôtel Turgot), will present
autograph letters, drawings and prints by
Jongkind and his circle from the Frits Lugt
Collection. Around the same time, a show of
Jongkind’s work will be held at the Musée
d’Orsay.
Our most important project at the
moment, however, is the preparation of a
revised edition of Frits Lugt’s Les marques de
collections de dessins et d’estampes. For many
collectors, dealers and art historians, the name
Frits Lugt is mainly associated with this
unsurpassed reference work, published in
1921. A supplement appeared in 1956. The book
provides an inventory of collectors’ marks and
contains a vast amount of information about
collectors of drawings and prints and their
collections. Planning for an improved and
expanded edition of this indispensable
standard work began in 1996 at the Fondation
Custodia. All those acquainted with the book
will understand how much time and money is
involved in this operation. The Société Frits
Lugt pour l’Étude des Marques de Collections
was established specifically in order to bring
this project to fruition. Fund-raising began
with a highly successful sale of donated prints
and drawings. The Société Frits Lugt (sfl)
invites all those interested in researching and
disseminating knowledge of marks, initials,
signatures, inscriptions, mounts and all other
collectors’ marks on works on paper to
contribute to and support this new edition.
Providing supplementary information and
funds now will enable future generations to
make use of a priceless store of information
about their predecessors. A computer program
has now been developed that contains all the
information from the existing volumes and
that will incorporate the new material,
enabling us to publish the forthcoming
edition of Les marques de collections in three
volumes as well as on cd-Rom. The new,
expanded and revised edition of the book is
planned for 2006.
For more information please contact the Société
Frits Lugt pour l’Étude des Marques de Collections,
121 rue de Lille
f- 75007 Paris
t +33 1 4705 7519
f + 33 1 4555 6535
e coll.lugt@fondationcustodia.fr
w www.fondationcustodia.fr
Stijn Alsteens
Institut Néerlandais, Fondation Custodia, Paris
germany
Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
The television pictures and reports of last
August’s flood disaster in Dresden went all
around the world. The aerial images of the
Zwinger in particular, the heart of Dresden’s
Baroque city center and the repository of a
number of large world-class art collections,
were greeted with dismay. The Galeriegebäude
Gottfried Semper, which borders the northern
side of the grounds nearest the Elbe, houses
the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, while the
management offices, the museum’s photo
laboratory and the workshops for restoration,
framing and gilding are in the northeastern
Zwingerpavillon and adjoining rooms, and in
the cellars beneath. Since a comprehensive
renovation project, completed in 1992, three
modern storage and packing areas were
accommodated in the cellar beneath the
Semperbau and Theaterplatz.
The first extreme floods in the Dresden area
originated in the small rivers in the Erzgebirge
to the south of the city, and reached Dresden
itself in the early hours of 13 August. Around
6 a.m. the gallery’s technical staff noticed that
water was beginning to seep into the three
underground storerooms, coming in by way of
the ventilation shafts and the sewers. Shortly
afterwards, the decision was taken to evacuate
the storerooms and at around 8 a.m. all
available staff began the task of clearing the
area. The deeper stores beneath Theaterplatz
were the first to be cleared; these contained
several hundred pictures belonging to third
parties, a large collection of historic frames and
parts of two valuable 17th-century Turkish
tents from the Dresden Armory. As it was not
long before water levels also began to rise in
the main storeroom beneath the Semperbau,
home to two-thirds of the old collection of the
musem, the morning’s work was concentrated
principally on this area. With the aid of around
200 staff members and helpers from the army
and the Saxony Ministry for Science and Art, it
was possible to clear most of this storeroom by
the late afternoon. The paintings were carried
to the exhibition rooms on the first floor of the
Semperbau and quickly stacked there as safely
as possible, while the staff, with great effort,
moved the large-scale works of art, some of
which were very heavy, into the Gobelinsaal
and surrounding rooms. This evacuation took
place under very difficult conditions: the
power had failed that morning so that neither
the lighting nor the freight elevator were
working, and by the afternoon the water in
The painting reserves of the Gemäldegalerie Alte
Meister in Dresden after the flood in August 2002.