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Some of the recent acquisitions: BalusterJapan, 1636-39 Wood (cherry or plum) and lacquer, h. 55 cm; Cornelia de Rijck (Amsterdam 1653-1726 Amsterdam)A Small Tortoiseshell, a Dryas Iulia, a Heliconius Sara, a Large Tortoiseshell, a Heliconius Erato, a Comma, a Utetheisa Ornatrix and a Hypocrita Bicolora, c. 1700Watercolour and bodycolour, 280 x 200 mm Signed, lower right: Cornelia de Rijk Watermark: posthorn within a shield surmounted by a crown; Spinner: Margrieta van Kuijk (Ochten 1715-1786 Arnhem)Weaver: Anonymous Tablecloth and Napkin with Rose Motifs, c. 1750-85 Linen damask, 165 x 300 cm and 118 x 87.5 cm; Maria Katharina Prestel, née höll (Nuremberg 1747-1794 London)The Rustic Singers (Les Chanteurs rustiques), 1775 and The Flemish Drinkers (Les Buveurs Flamands), c. 1775 (both after Johann Albrecht Dietzsch)Etching and aquatint, 324 x 259 mm (plate mark), state 2(2) / 320 x 254 mm (plate mark) Inscribed, lower left: J.A. Dietsch del.; lower centre: J:G:Hertel: exc.; signed, lower right: Marie Catherine Prestel sculp.

As part of a series of articles offering information on prints and drawings acquired by the Rijks Museum, these 11 engravings by Salvatore Tresca after Louis Lafitte are discussed. The Twelve Months in the Second Year of the Republican Calendar by Salvatore Tresca were made as illustrations for the Republican calendar, a replacement for the Gregorian calendar that was used from 1793 to 1806 and for a short period in 1871. The year was divided up differently and the months were given new names based on the French climate or associated with agriculture and horticulture. After the French Revolution, the Republicans wanted to turn their backs on the ancient regime. Imagery was consequently no longer dominated by religion and politics, but rather by nature as the symbol of the bright, harmonious future that the French people could look forward to under the new regime.

As part of a series of articles offering information on prints and drawings acquired by the Rijks Museum, this lithograph by Johann Anton Ramboux is discussed. Double Portrait of the Brothers Konrad and Franz Eberhard was a long-desired work, because it is one of the most iconic early German lithographs, only twenty impressions of which are known. The double portrait occupies a special place in the artist’s subjects and townscapes. Ramboux made few portraits and those he did make were almost exclusively of friends and colleagues. The portrait of the Eberhard brothers, which he had painted in Rome in 1822, immediately prior to his return to Germany, was the example for this lithograph. In Italy, where he had been living since 1816, he kept in close touch with a group of Nazarenes, the circle that also included Konrad and Franz Eberhard.

As part of a series of articles offering information on prints and drawings acquired by the Rijks Museum, this etching and drypoint by Jean-Pierre Norblin de la Gourdaine after Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn is discussed. Rembrandt’s etchings were popular among eighteenth-century followers in part because of their unusual subjects and characteristic chiaroscuro. The French artist Jean-Pierre Norblin de la Gourdaine, for instance, owned prints by the Dutch master, which he touched up with a brush, as he did to works on paper by other seventeenth-century artists from the Low Countries. In this case, however, he worked not from an etching by Rembrandt, but from his painting John the Baptist Preaching. Around 1805 this canvas was in a French private collection, where Norblin may have seen it. A year earlier he had returned to Paris, having spent thirty years in Poland.

Frangois Gérard Waller (1867-1934) was a passionate collector and considerable expert on prints. His interests went beyond traditional printmaking to encompass more peripheral areas such as popular prints and decorated paper. He gifted much of his collection to the Rijksmuseum during his lifetime. His greatest gift, though, was the fund that bears his name, in which he placed his bequest on condition that the Rijksmuseum Print Room should draw on it to make purchases every year. This has been happening since 1938. This spring the Rijksmuseum will show a selection of the finest acquisitions to honour this extraordinary benefactor and highlight the eclectism of the print collection. Some of the most remarkable recent purchases are discussed in the following pages.