In September of 2020, the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels opened a state-of-the-art museum to great fanfare. Its purpose is to offer the public the opportunity to enjoy a rotating exhibit of [...] Read More
14th and 15th Centuries
Van Eyck
Many readers will have shared my disappointment at having missed the exhibition Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution, which opened at Ghent’s Museum voor Schone Kunsten on February 1st, 2020, and was [...] Read More
The Ghent Altarpiece: Research and Conservation of the Exterior
As the first in a series about Jan (and Hubert?) van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece (1432), this volume documents the research and conservation treatment of the exterior panels. It is undoubtedly an [...] Read More
Borman. A Family of Northern Renaissance Sculptors
This edited volume was produced to accompany the much anticipated exhibition Borman and Sons: The Best Sculptors, held at M-Museum Leuven from September 20th, 2019 to January 26th, 2020. Like the [...] Read More
Satire, Veneration, and St. Joseph in Art, c. 1300-1550
As Anne Williams astutely identifies, depictions of Saint Joseph in works of art of the fourteenth to sixteenth century are rife with paradox, a seemingly conflicting combination of ridicule and [...] Read More
Devotional Portraiture and Spiritual Experience in Early Netherlandish Painting
Lucidly written and clearly organized, Ingrid Falque’s study focuses on the portraits integrated into religious pictures from the Low Countries between circa 1400 and 1550. The corpus of works [...] Read More
The Image of the City in Early Netherlandish Painting (1400-1550)
As a religious artifact, The Ghent Altarpiece (1432) radiates the intangible power of Christ’s sacrifice and God’s forgiveness. As a material work of art, Jan van Eyck’s polyptych pulls the narrative [...] Read More
Moving with the Magdalen: Late Medieval Art and Devotion in the Alps
Joanne Anderson expands our knowledge of Mary Magdalen imagery by analyzing little known Alpine fresco cycles and altarpieces of the saint produced between the late thirteenth and early sixteenth [...] Read More
Rubrics, Images and Indulgences in Late Medieval Netherlandish Manuscripts
Kathryn Rudy has added a new and beautifully illustrated study to her already extensive bibliography on readers’ interactions with early Netherlandish manuscripts. It is a monumental undertaking. She [...] Read More
The Renaissance Nude
This handsomely produced and beautifully illustrated catalogue considers the development of the naturalistic nude in various media produced in northern and southern Europe, c. 1400-1530. It [...] Read More
A Knight for the Ages: Jacques de Lalaing and the Art of Chivalry
Jacques de Lalaing, the bon chevalier, a renowned jouster and military commander in the service of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, died in 1453, aged only thirty-two, at the siege of Poeke during [...] Read More
Hans Memling: Portraiture, Piety, and a Reunited Altarpiece
New York is a city fortunate enough to contain a significant group of paintings by Hans Memling. From portraiture (the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Tommaso di Folco Portinari and Maria Portinari are [...] Read More
Gardens of Love and the Limits of Morality in Early Netherlandish Art
Pearson sets out to expand and recalibrate the ways that art historians conceptualize early modern garden imagery. Specifically, she challenges an overemphasis on interiority that she sees in modern [...] Read More
Colard Mansion. Incunabula, Prints and Manuscripts in Medieval Bruges
This catalogue accompanied the exhibition Haute Lecture by Colard Mansion: Innovating Text and Image in Medieval Bruges, co-organized by Musea Brugge and Openbare Bibliotheek Brugge. Devoting an [...] Read More
Gender, Otherness, and Culture in Medieval and Early Modern Art
In a new blog on intersectionality posted by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women, literature historian Christina Luckyj confronted tensions that she identified between a contemporary, [...] Read More