Comprising some 1140 pictures, the Louvre's collection of Flemish and Dutch paintings spans the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Remarkably varied and home to a number of universally famed masterpieces, the collection has been endowed with a new catalog which replaces the much less detailed one of 1979. Now each painting has its own entry, an in-depth historical presentation, a selection of the main reference works and, where necessary, iconographic, chronological, and stylistic details. The century-by-century approach gives a much clearer idea of the collection and its high points. A set of indexes - artists, titles and provenances (commissioners of works, collectors, dealers and donors) - and the source bibliography make this book the excellent tool for research it is intended to be.

 The author

Jacques Foucart, honorary curator-general, was long in charge of Dutch and Flemish paintings in the Louvre: he it was, in the context of the Grand Louvre project, who undertook the thorough reorganization of the exhibition rooms for the two schools and the new presentation in the Richelieu wing. The revised catalogue is the fruit of the research he carried out over the years for the Studies and Documentation division, of which he was also the director.