A 17th-century drawing book, attributed to the Dutch painter Rombout Uylenburgh, is now on public display at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. This marks the first time these illustrations have been accessible to the public in nearly 90 years. The volume includes roughly 30 drawings, featuring several biblical scenes rendered on blue paper. This specific medium allowed the artist to experiment with shadow and light, preserving vivid details due to the book's long period of protection from direct light.
The collection remained in the van Eeghen family for over 300 years before their recent donation to the museum. Family ties to the Mennonite community in Amsterdam likely played a role in the book's survival. The original owner was Reyer Claesz, a merchant who shared social circles with the Uylenburgh family. The binding still bears an inscription addressed to him.
Rombout Uylenburgh spent time as a court painter in Poland before establishing a reputation for monochrome paintings in Gdańsk. While his name became less prominent after his death in the late 1620s, his relative Hendrick Uylenburgh maintained strong connections to Rembrandt van Rijn. Historians are now using this newly public resource to examine Uylenburgh’s techniques and workshop practices in greater detail.
The Rijksmuseum credits the discovery of the artist's connection to the work to the late C.P. van Eeghen, who identified visual similarities between these pages and existing museum inventory. Art historian Erik P. Löffler later solidified the attribution. This acquisition stands as a significant addition to the study of 17th-century Dutch draughtsmanship, providing rare insight into an artist with few surviving known works.