Buchanan, William: Memoirs of painting: with a chronological history of the importation of pictures by the great masters into England since the French Revolution (Band 2) (London: Ackermann, 1824)

302 MR. BUCHANAN’S IMPORTATIONS.
moiselle Van Winter, of Amsterdam, alone appeared
to be an entire and genuine collection of the best
works of the principal masters of the Dutch school.
In many private families in Holland, however, he
found a few fine pictures of the first class of the
Flemish and Dutch schools, in particular in the
collections of Van Havre, at Antwerp, Van Loon,
Van Breen, and Van Goll, at Amsterdam; while
the public galleries at the Hague and Amsterdam
also contained works of the finest class of the
Dutch school.
The rich and splendid collections of Antwerp,
which had so much distinguished that city at the
period of its greatest importance, and which had
given a splendour and consequence to the wealth
of its commercial inhabitants which no other spe-
cies of riches could have bestowed on them, had
entirely disappeared. A few of Rubens’ best
works still remained in her churches and museum,
or had been restored to these from the French
capital; but the collections of individuals ap-
peared entirely stripped of their former riches,
and with the exception of four pictures by Ru-
bens which were in the possession of the family
of Von Havre, and some fine portraits by Van-
dyck, which belonged to the Baron Steers, no-
thing else existed to attract the attention of the
connoisseur, or which could excite that interest