Rijksmuseum receives rare 17th-century drawing book

The Van Eeghen Drawing Book  

The exceptional Van Eeghen Drawing Book contains some 30 drawings, including a beautifully executed series of biblical scenes attributed to Rombout Uylenburgh and his workshop. These spectacular, full-page drawings are masterpieces filled with drama and emotion, with some executed on blue paper. As the drawings have scarcely been exposed to light, the colours are still as striking as they were 400 years ago. 

The words Konstboeck voor Reyer Claessoon (‘Art book for Reyer Claessoon’) appear in gold lettering on the binding. Reyer Claessoon was a merchant from Enkhuizen who, like more of his compatriots, had settled in the Polish port city of Danzig, present-day Gdańsk. He probably knew Rombout Uylenburgh well, as they both were adherents of the Mennonite faith. The same is true of the Van Eeghen family, who acquired the book more than three centuries ago. The drawing book has been on public display only once before, in 1935. 

Rombout Uylenburgh  

Rombout Uylenburgh (1580/85–1627/28) was an established and celebrated artist in his own time. Today, however, only a handful of works by him survive. At a young age, he moved with his family from Leeuwarden in the Netherlands to the Polish city of Kraków, where King Sigismund III held court. He went on to become a court painter, while his brother Hendrick also entered the king’s service as a commercial agent, in which capacity he purchased paintings for the royal collections. In 1612, Rombout settled in Danzig, where a Dutch community lived. Here, he probably met Reyer Claessoon. He continued his career successfully, one of his specialities being grisailles, paintings executed entirely in shades of grey. 

Following his death in Danzig in 1627–28, Rombout gradually fell into obscurity. His family, however, became increasingly well known. His brother Hendrick returned from Poland, settled in Amsterdam and became Rembrandt’s art dealer. In 1634, Rembrandt married Saskia van Uylenburgh, a cousin of Rombout and Hendrick. 

Research and display  

For a long time, it was unclear which artists had worked in the drawing book, until the previous owner, C.P. van Eeghen (1921-2014), noticed a connection between a sheet by Rombout Uylenburgh in the Rijksmuseum collection and one in his book. This attribution was first published in 2013 by the late Erik Löffler, curator at the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD). That publication led to the discovery of a series of paintings by Rombout Uylenburgh in the collection of Museum Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder in Amsterdam. 

This gift enables the Rijksmuseum to conduct further research into the work of Rombout Uylenburgh. Besides a small number of paintings, only two drawings by him are known to have survived, one of which is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. Thanks to a loan from the Rembrandt House Museum, an important part of his surviving work will be brought together for the first time in the display at the Rijksmuseum, on view from 19 August 2026.