More Dutch treasures for Harvard

Source: news.harvard.edu --- Thursday, November 09, 2017
Like many kids growing up in the 1930s, George Abrams ’54, LL.B. ’57, made marbles and Baseball cards his earliest beloved collections. Fast-forward 80 years and Abrams is one of the world’s most celebrated collectors of drawings from the Dutch Golden Age, eager to ensure his cherished art is cherished by others for decades to come. Last week, Abrams announced a gift of 330 16th- to 18th-century Dutch, Flemish, and Netherlandish drawings from the Maida and George Abrams collection to the Harvard Art Museums . The trove includes four works by Rembrandt and a number of drawings by the artist’s pupils, and adds to more than 140 previous gifts to the Harvard Art Museums by Abrams and his wife, who died in 2002. The couple gave 110 drawings in 1999 and bequeathed more works in subsequent years. With the combined gifts, Harvard now has the most comprehensive holding of 17th-century Dutch drawings outside of Europe. The new collection, said Martha Tedeschi, the museums’ Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director, “gives us incredible depth and breadth.” “Before we had great examples of some of the major hands of the period,” she said. “But now, when you can see multiple works by multiple artists or works that represent a whole career or pockets of material where you have a whole school, you can see the way that artists were speaking to each other and looking at each other’s work. You can use the collection in a very different way and teac ...

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