Published by Memo Books

The penciled scribbles of a Dutch connoisseur, ‘can be a Rembrandt’, ‘not a Maes’, on the catalogue of the 1933 exhibition of the Van Horne Collection triggered this book. Based on correspondence and other archival material, some of it translated from Dutch for the first time, The William Van Horne Collection: A Dutch Treat, chronicles the build-up of this Gilded Age collection based in Montreal. Dutch dealers, some of ill-repute, and connoisseurs are the mainfocus. As a client, Van Horne’s relationship with them was multi-layered, leading to the indirect involvement of this American/Canadian railway magnate in a few sordid affairs that rocked the North-American art world and provoked a change in art dealing on the North-American continent in the early years of the 19th century. The closing chapter describes the impact of the Great War on the collection and includes a description of Van Horne’s last days by the Dutch painter Willem Witsen. His painting of the Van Horne’s daughter-in-law, Edith Van Horne-Molson, was the last addition to the Van Horne collection