14th and 15th Centuries

Painter to the Queen: Michel Sittow, Courtier to Isabella of Castile and the Habsburg Dynasty (Courts and Courtiers in a Global Context, Vol. 2)

By Oskar J. Rojewski

Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2025. 278 pp, 129 illus. (96 in color). ISBN 978-2-503-61178-5.

Review published October 2026

Oskar Rojewski has made an important contribution to the study of the Tallinn (Reval)-born painter Michel Sittow (1468/1469-1525), who enjoyed an extraordinary career at the courts of Renaissance [...] Read More

Early Netherlandish Drawings 1400-1600

By Olenka Horbatsch and Charlotte Wytema (curators)

London, The British Museum, April 16 – September 20, 2026.
Exh. cat. ed. by Olenka Horbatsch and Charlotte Wytema, London: The British Museum Press, 2026, 368 pp, 320 illus. ISBN 978-0-7141-3651-6.

Review published June 2026

Accompanying an exhibition of its spectacular holdings of Netherlandish drawings, the British Museum has issued its richly illustrated definitive catalogue of collection highlights, the first in [...] Read More

Les précurseurs flamands: Rogier Van der Weyden et les frères Van Eyck au prisme de la perspective

By Ludovic Balavoine and Gilles Simon

Turnhout: Brepols, 2025. 415 pp, 218 col., 41 b&w illus. ISBN 978-2-503-61506-6 (hardback).

Review published May 2026

While art history has long been anchored in the “Italian myth” – crediting Brunelleschi with the empirical invention of linear perspective around 1413 and Alberti with its formal theorization in 1435 [...] Read More

Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages

By Melanie Holcomb and Nancy Thebaut (curators)

New York, The Cloisters, October 17, 2025 – March 29, 2026.

Exh. cat. ed. by Melanie Holcomb and Nancy Thebaut, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2025, 144 pp. ISBN 9781588398055.

Review published April 2026

Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages, edited by Melanie Holcomb and Nancy Thebaut, was designed to accompany an exhibition of the same title at The Cloisters in New York. [...] Read More

Borman in Context; Un trésor dévoilé: Le Retable de l’Adoration des Mages du xve siècle conservé à la Basilique San Nazaro Maggiore à Milan. Un chef-d’œuvre bruxellois de Jan Borman; Borman. A Family of Northern Renaissance Sculptors

By Marjan Debaene and Hannah De Moor (eds.); Emmanuelle Mercier, Catheline Périer-D’Ieteren, and Sacha Zdanov (eds); Marjan Debaene (ed)

Borman in Context
Edited by Marjan Debaene and Hannah De Moor
Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2025, 326 pp, 189 color illus & 28 b & w illus. ISBN 978-2-503-60799-3.

Un trésor dévoilé: Le Retable de l’Adoration des Mages du xve siècle conservé à la Basilique San Nazaro Maggiore à Milan. Un chef-d’œuvre bruxellois de Jan Borman
Edited by Emmanuelle Mercier, Catheline Périer-D’Ieteren, and Sacha Zdanov
Brussels: Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, 2025, 277 pp, 237 color illus & 13 b & w illus. ISBN 978-2-930054-46-9.

Borman. A Family of Northern Renaissance Sculptors
Edited by Marjan Debaene
London – Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers. An Imprint of Brepols Publishers, 2019, 312 pp, 363 color illus & 132 b & w illus. ISBN 978-1-912554-41-6 (hardcover) & 978-1-912554-46-2 (paperback).

Review published April 2026

The Bormans were a family of sculptors who dominated sculptural production in Brussels from the late fifteenth century through the first third of the sixteenth century. Their works significantly [...] Read More

Pride and Solace: Medieval Books of Hours and Their Readers

By Evelien Hauwaerts (curator)

Bruges, Groeningemuseum, April 4 – October 7, 2025.

Exh. cat. ed. by Evelien Hauwaerts with Emma De Nil and Caroline Van Cauwenberge, English edition: Books of Hours, Books of Hope: Medieval Books of Hours and their Readers, Antwerp: Hannibal Books, 2025, 160 pp. ISBN 978-9464941951; Dutch edition: Trots en Troost: Middeleuuwse getijdenboeken en hun lezers. ISBN 9464941952.

Review published March 2026

For manuscript enthusiasts, 2025 was dominated by the blockbuster exhibition displaying the calendar of the Très Riches Heures (and many related items) at the castle of Chantilly, just outside Paris. [...] Read More

Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews

14th and 15th Centuries