All That Glitters: Reframing the Dutch “Golden” Age

In the late sixteenth century, Dutch culture experienced a revolution on every front. Several provinces in the present-day Netherlands united in 1579 and gained independence from the Kingdom of Spain. Together, they formed a wealthy republic with dense urban centers. Ushering in a period of advancement and expansion, this new Dutch Republic began reclaiming land from the sea for agricultural development and dominating global trading ventures. The economic prosperity that followed led to an increased interest in foreign luxuries and inspired artists to experiment with new genres to appeal to a thriving merchant class. Historians often refer to this near-century of influence as the “Dutch Golden Age.”

However, though this time in Dutch history is remarkable for its religious toleration, luminous painting tradition, and lucrative trade networks, this assessment conceals the violence that underwrote those accomplishments, including the beginnings of colonization and the transatlantic slave trade. These realities, while not always glaringly visible, were no less part of the structures that supported the successes of the Dutch Republic in this era.

This exhibition presents the museum’s collection of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings and prints alongside objects produced in some of the many countries that traded with the Dutch Republic. In associating these cultural histories, the installation reconsiders the global influences and systems that supported seventeenth-century Dutch artistic production during its so-called Golden Age.

All That Glitters: Reframing the Dutch “Golden” Age is curated by Sarah E. Farkas, Associate Curator of Art, Crocker Museum of Art; former Kress Interpretive Fellow, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.