‘Rymsdyk's Museum’

Abstract

Jan van Rymsdyk (c.1730–88/89), a Dutch-born medical illustrator living in England, prominently inscribed the drawings in his collection ‘Rymsdyk's Museum’. Rymsdyk collected on a modest scale, acquiring more than thirty drawings in London between 1750 and 1790, including significant sheets by such artists as Rembrandt and Van Dyck. Some drawings in Rymsdyk's collection were formerly owned by the celebrated artist and collector Jonathan Richardson, whose collection also served as one of Rymsdyk's models for organizing, mounting and classifying the drawings in his ‘museum’. The eventual dispersal of his collection enriched the holdings of other prominent collectors such as Sir Joshua Reynolds and William Young Ottley. The scope of Rymsdyk's collection, and its sources, organization and dispersal, has not previously been studied. This initial exploration of the contents and context of Rymsdyk's ‘museum’ seeks to provide a general account of his activity as a collector and characterize the nature of his collection.