"The Most Important Collectors You've Never Heard Of"

In July, I traveled up to Boston, and then Marblehead, where I interviewed Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, and if their names don't ring a bell, they will soon. My article about them, just published in The Art Newspaper's September issue, calls them "The Most Important Collectors You've Never Heard Of." If and when it is published online, I'll update this post.  Meantime, here's a bit about the story:

In their charming tale, the van Otterloos began collecting by buying horse carriages to fill a barn they owned in Vermont. It was only at the suggestion of Peter Sutton, then a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and now director of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT, that they started to collect Dutch Old Masters. Now they own what many believe is the best collection of them in private hands -- excepting the Queen of England and the Prince of Lichtenstein, if you call their treasures private.

The van Otterloos own Rembrandt's 1632 Portrait of Aeltje Uylenburgh, Aged 62, seen here (but on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and about 70 other master works. As the article reveals, most of them will go on view next year in an exhibition that starts at the Mauritshuis in the Hague, then moves to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. and two other American museums.

And in the article, the van Otterloos say definitively -- for the first time, a few sources told me -- that they will eventually put the collection into the public domain.

UPDATED: Here's a link to the article on my website.