The Fondation Custodia holds one of the finest collections of prints put together by a private collector in the twentieth century. Very critical about what he bought, Frits Lugt was always on the lookout for exceptional impressions. The collection reflects Lugt’s taste and has a number of core sections, among them portrait prints, including highlights of the French engraved portrait art by Robert Nanteuil (1623-1678) and the set of portraits that form the Iconography by Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641).

The chiaroscuro woodcuts with their amazing colour nuances by Italian, German and Dutch artists are another important group. The emphasis, however, lies on prints by Dutch and Flemish artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which include countless landscapes. Lugt also acquired nineteenth- and early twentieth-century prints, mainly by etchers who were inspired by Rembrandt, one fine example being Sir Francis Seymour Haden (1818-1910). There are also several original seventeenth- and eighteenth-century bound prints and collectors’ albums in the collection.

The work of a number of individual artists is particularly well represented. The Fondation Custodia notably owns superb impressions of almost every print by Rembrandt (1606-1669). The rare engravings by Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533), prints by Wenzel Hollar (1607-1677), Jacques Callot (1592-1635) and Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685) also occupy an important place in the collection. Lugt had a particular liking for original prints by peintres-graveurs: artists who translated their own designs into prints. He therefore bought very few reproduction prints, with the exception of the chiaroscuro woodcuts and the portraits.

The collection, now around 15,000 prints, is still growing thanks to acquisitions that supplement existing groups or can be linked to other parts of the collection – drawings, paintings, letters, ... A number of Mannerist prints, which were not well represented, have recently been added to the collection, as has a small group of nineteenth-century Danish prints. The Fondation Custodia is also interested in contemporary etchers who are inspired by seventeenth-century Netherlandish etching. Almost the entire oeuvre of one of these artists, Frans Pannekoek (b. 1937), is present in the collection.