Potomac & South River Branch Event – Private Tour
January 8th, 2026
On Thursday January 8th, 2026, Holland Society of New York members and friends descended on a fascinating collection of 17th and 18th century Dutch art painted mostly by Dutch women. Holland Society Potomac Branch President, Christopher Cortright, organized the private tour for Potomac and South River chapter members and friends of the exhibit Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750.
On view at National Museum of Women in the Arts until January 11th, the tour provided an insight into a broad range of work by more than forty Dutch and Flemish women artists, including Gesina ter Borch, Maria Faydherbe, Anna Maria de Koker, Judith Leyster, Magdalena van de Passe, Clara Peeters, Rachel Ruysch, Maria Tassaert, Jeanne Vergouwen, Michaelina Wautier, and more. Presenting an array of paintings, lace, prints, paper cuttings, embroidery, and sculpture, this exhibition drew on recent scholarship to demonstrate that a full view of women’s contributions to the artistic economy is essential to understanding Dutch and Flemish visual culture of the period. Interestingly, the tour also included male painters who depicted aspects of lives of Dutch women painters and their context.
Joining the tour were members Valerie Hadfield Rasnake, Betty Ann Kane, Molly Plummer, Executive Director of the New Netherland Institute (NNI) Deborah Hamer, PhD, and friend Kim Gray and prospective member Kristopher Wenn.
Women were involved in virtually every aspect of artistic production in the Low Countries during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. During this period, colonial exploitation and the international slave trade enriched Europe’s upper and middle classes, fueling demand for art and other luxuries. From celebrated painters who excelled in a male-dominated field to unsung women who toiled making some of the most expensive lace of the day, to wealthy patrons who shaped collecting practices, women created the very fabric of the visual culture of the era. Within a thematic presentation that considers the intertwined influences of status, family, and social expectations on a woman’s training and career choices, this exhibition demonstrates the many ways in which women of all classes contributed to the booming artistic economy of the day. Whether their work was circulated within aristocratic social circles, sold on the open market, or commissioned by patrons, women shaped and molded the world around them from Antwerp to Amsterdam.
Organized in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium, the exhibition was made possible by Denise Littlefield Sobel with leadership gifts provided by Morgan Stanley and Tara Rudman. Additional funding is provided by Martha Lyn Dippell and Daniel L. Korengold, Lugano, Kay Woodward Olson, Patti and George White, Laurel and John Rafter, and an anonymous donor. Further support comes from Marcia Myers Carlucci, Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York, Jacalyn D. Erickson, Lucas Kaempfer Foundation, Inc., Jacqueline Badger Mars, Geri Skirkanich, Tavolozza Foundation, VisitFlanders, the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Angela M. Lo Ré, Anne L. von Rosenberg, Ilene S. and Jeffrey S. Gutman, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Society of Daughters of Holland Dames, Charlotte and Michael Buxton, Anne N. Edwards, the Netherland-America Foundation, Frances Luessenhop Usher in memory of Carol Lascaris, and Marichu Valencia.
The group enjoyed lunch afterward in the nearby grand setting of La Grande Boucherie and recapped the tour highlights over escargots, Chardonnay, salads, and espresso while planning their next get-together in the spring.
