Acquisitions

European Drawings for the Decorative Arts

Abstract

By the end of 2022, the Rijksmuseum’s Decorative Art Fund, established by private benefactors with the aim of forming a collection of drawings for the decorative arts, will celebrate its tenth anniversary. This will be marked by an exhibition, Process: Design Drawings from the Rijksmuseum 1500-1900, to be held at the Design Museum in Den Bosch and afterwards at the Fondation Custodia in Paris. The show is accompanied by a catalogue presenting about 250 drawings: the collection is indeed coming of age! And it continues to grow, as evidenced in the selection brought together here, almost entirely acquired after the choice of drawings for the exhibition had been finalized. Research on these drawings is ongoing, and only some preliminary findings are presented at this point.

The expansion of the collection is only possible because of the unflinching support of the Fund’s founders and of many other benefactors. Some of their names appear in the notes on individual acquisitions, but there are many more, and we are deeply grateful to them all.