16th Century

Renaissance Illuminators in Paris: Artists & Artisans 1500-1715

By Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse

London: Harvey Miller Publishers. An Imprint of Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, 2019. 280 pp, 65 color illus. ISBN: 978-1-912554-28-7.

Review published April 2020

As Richard and Mary Rouse explain in their acknowledgments, “the impetus for this book came from Myra Orth,” whose lifework was the study of illuminated manuscripts of the Renaissance period in [...] Read More

The Invention of the Emblem Book and the Transmission of Knowledge, ca. 1510-1610

By Karl A.E. Enenkel

Brill’s Studies in Art, Art History, and Intellectual History, vol. 295-36. Boston – Leiden: Brill, 2018. 460 pp, xxxv, 156 illus. ISBN 978-90-04-38725-6.

Review published March 2020

With its focus on emblems, the present study directly addresses topics of interest to historians of Netherlandish art. This contribution is due to the significant production of emblem books by Dutch [...] Read More

Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Religious Art for the Urban Community

By Barbara A. Kaminska

Leiden: Brill, 2019. 241 pp. 37 illus. ISBN 978-90-04-40039-9.

Review published November 2019

Peasant subjects have always received the focus in Pieter Bruegel studies, at the expense of all but a few of his religious subjects. Despite the recent appearance of another volume from Brill, Pieter [...] Read More

Maarten van Heemskerck’s Rome: Antiquity, Memory, and the Cult of Ruins

By Arthur J. DiFuria

Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, volume 287; Brill’s Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History, volume 31. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2019. 523 pp. 89 color ills. ISBN 978-90-04-38046-2

Review published November 2019

A view of the Septizonium by Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574) captures why the artist’s drawings of Roman ruins count among the most evocative and enigmatic images ever made of the oft-depicted [...] Read More

Women. The Art of Power. Three Women from the House of Habsburg

By Sabine Haag, Dagmar Eichberger and Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, eds.

Exh. Cat. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck, June 14 – October 7, 2018. Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum, 2018. 190 pp, fully illustrated in color. ISBN 978-3-99020-178-7.

Review published August 2019

Women, the Art of Power. Three Women from the House of Habsburg translates into English the German catalogue to an exhibition at Schloss Ambras in Innsbruck in 2018. The catalogue explores the [...] Read More

Niederländische Maler in Italien: Künstlerreisen und Kunstrezeption im 16. Jahrhundert

By Maria Harnack

Reflexe der immateriellen und materiellen Kultur, 6. Berlin – Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. 332 pp, fully illustrated, ISBN 978-3-11-0557428-8.

Review published July 2019

Maria Harnack offers a broad-view examination of sixteenth-century Netherlandish artists in Italy. She begins Chapter One’s first section, travel to the Eternal City, by citing a few key contributors [...] Read More

Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews

16th Century