This catalog of an Art Gallery of Ontario exhibition of Flemish masterpieces from the State Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg is a useful addition to the literature on Flemish art. Christiane Gottler (art history, Univ. of Washington) provides an overview of 17th-century Flanders, and brief essays by Hermitage curators discuss paintings by Rubens and his followers, paintings by other Flemish masters, drawings, and decorative arts. Each work is illustrated in color (rather dead and overall too orange in most cases), with catalog entries aimed more at the scholar than the general reader.

Nevertheless, this book documents a very rich part of the Hermitage Museum collection (much of it gathered by Catherine the Great, with many objects from Rubens's own collection) that merits close study. The drawings and decorative arts that form about a third of the exhibition have not been widely accessible. For advanced art history collections. Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib.

Usato buone condizioni, lievi segni d'uso e del tempo. (T-CA)