An exceptionally rare drawing book from the early 17th century has been donated to the Rijksmuseum by the family who has owned it for more than 300 years. Very few drawing books from the period have survived intact because individual drawings were more saleable so the pages made much more money when sold piecemeal. The books were taken apart, bindings destroyed, and the pages scattered.

The Van Eeghen Drawing Book contains about 30 full-page drawings of biblical scenes, some on blue paper, and smaller studies of figures and animals. They are in exceptional condition, because unlike drawings that were cut out of their bindings, the pages inside the book were almost never exposed to light.

The book is named after the Van Eeghen family who treasured the intact book, handing it down through the generations for more than three centuries without selling a single drawing, even though neither they nor anybody else knew who the artist was. It was only very recently, about 20 years ago, that C.P. van Eeghen (1921-2014) saw a drawing by Rombout Uylenburgh in the Rijksmuseum collection and connected it to one in the book.

Rombout Uylenburgh (1580/85–1627/28) was born in Leeuwarden, in the northern Dutch province of Friesland. His family moved to Kraków when he was still a boy and he grew up to become painter at the court of Polish King Sigismund III. He moved to Danzig in 1612 where his career continued to thrive. He specialized in grisailles, monochrome paintings in shades of grey.

After Rombout Uylenburgh’s death, he quickly fell into obscurity, even as his family became ever more prominent on the business side. His brother Hendrick, who had worked for Sigismund III as a commercial agent acquiring art works for the king, moved to Amsterdam and became Rembrandt’s art dealer. Rembrandt’s wife Saskia was one of Rombout and Hendrick’s cousins.

There is no documentation of how the Van Eeghen family acquired the book, but there’s a hint on the binding: an inscription in gold lettering reading “Konstboeck voor Reyer Claessoon” (“Art book for Reyer Claessoon”). Reyer Claessoon was a prominent member of the Dutch community in Danzig when Rombout Uylenburgh lived there. He and Uylenburgh were both Mennonites, so almost certainly knew each other personally. The Van Eeghen family were also part of the Danzig Mennonite community. This is likely the path the book took.

Only two drawings by Uylenburgh are known to survive, one of which is in the Rijksmuseum collection, plus a handful of his paintings, so the Van Eeghen Drawing Book is now one of the stand-out treasures of the Rijksmuseum Print Room Collection. With a loan from the Rembrandt House Museum, the Rijksmuseum has brought together most of the surviving works by Uylenburgh for a special exhibition introducing the drawing book and the little known artist to the public.