COUNTY DURHAM.- Dutch Landscapes: Paintings from the Royal Collection, which is on show at The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, brings together 38 remarkable works from the ‘golden age’ of Dutch painting, generously lent by Her Majesty The Queen. The exhibition, which opened on Saturday 12 November, draws on the Royal Collection’s rich holdings of Dutch 17th century landscapes, presenting outstanding examples by the great masters of landscape, including Jacob van Ruisdael, Aelbert Cuyp, Jan van der Heyden and Meyndert Hobbema. By the 17th century, landscape painting was well established as a distinct art form and one in which Netherlandish artists excelled. Artists turned to the countryside and to the sea to convey a pride in their homeland – the newly formed Dutch United Provinces – following the Eighty Years War with Spain. As the foundation of trade and empire, the sea was the most important for