Cultural Crossroads: Artistic Encounters between the Low Countries and Spain, 15th-17th Centuries

The export of art produced in the Southern Netherlands to the Iberian Peninsula is a well-known research topic. The importance of the economic links, based mainly on the trade in wool from Castile for the looms of Flanders and Brabant, contributed to the creation of a commercial network for the dissemination of works from the North throughout the Iberian Peninsula. In addition, the close diplomatic and dynastic ties between the houses of Burgundy and Habsburg on the one hand and the Catholic sovereigns of Spain on the other favoured the emergence of major patrons. These included Isabel the Catholic, but also Diego de Guevara. Numerous paintings, tapestries, sculptures, and stained-glass windows thus found their way into Spanish collections, whether private or public, civil or religious, where they have often remained to this day.

Since 2020, the Instituto Moll (Madrid) and the Fondation Périer-D’Ieteren (Brussels) have been carrying out a research programme aimed at identifying and studying the art of the Southern Netherlands from the 15th to 17th centuries that is still preserved in Spanish collections today.

By focusing initially on paintings (15th-17th centuries), this project responds directly to the needs of researchers expressed as early as 1953 with the publication of the first repertoire of the Centre for Flemish Primitives devoted to the Spanish collections, under the direction of Jacques Lavalleye[1]. The very objective of the repertory was « to make known unpublished or less studied paintings (…) fragmentarily explored by scholars ». Unfortunately, only two volumes will be published, which will leave in the shadows several important paintings. More recently, the work of Elisa Bermejo, Matias Díaz Padrón and Didier Martens, the large survey of the Burgos and Palencia regions by Pilar Silva Maroto, the Las Edades del Hombre exhibitions held since the end of the 1980s, Constanza Negrín Delgado’s and Ana Diéguez Rodríguez’s doctoral dissertations, as well as the publications of the scientific catalogues of Spanish museums’ collections have reproduced and studied a large number of little-known or previously unpublished Flemish paintings[2]. All these publications have made it possible to envisage a more extensive census to broaden the range of research topics and to make professionals and a wider public aware of the artistic and heritage issues of these works.

To continue the dynamic initiated by these predecessors, the Instituto Moll and the Fondation Périer-D’Ieteren are organising a series of study days dedicated to this subject. The aim of this first study day, focusing on paintings, is to offer short contributions on a little-known Flemish painting or group of paintings (15th-17th century) preserved in Spain. Other conferences devoted to the different art forms will be organised as part of this project.

Conference panels:
1. Expand the catalogue of painters and their workshops: new research
2. Workshop practices, collaborations, and serial production
3. Success stories: iconographies and compositions
4. Patrons, collectors, and the art market
5. Material and technical studies, conservation and restoration issues

The authors of the selected proposals will be invited to speak at the study day to be held on 24 November 2023 at the Fondation Périer-D’Ieteren (Brussels). Papers will be presented in English, French or Spanish and will be 15-20 minutes in length. The proceedings of the study day will be published in the Cahiers d’étude series of Annales d’Histoire de l’Art et d’Archéologie in 2024 and the works discussed during the day will be included in the database currently being created by the Instituto Moll and the Fondation Périer-D’Ieteren.

If you wish to participate in this study day, please send a provisional title, a short abstract of your paper (300 words) and a CV by 30 July 2023 to: Ana Diéguez Rodriguez (congreso@institutomoll.es) and Sacha Zdanov (sacha.zdanov@perier-dieteren.org). The organizers will respond by 31 August 2023.

Organizers:
– Dr Ana Diéguez Rodriguez, Instituto Moll / Universidad de Burgos
– Dr Sacha Zdanov, Fondation Périer-D’Ieteren / Université Libre de Bruxelles

Registration for this event is not yet open.

[1] J. Lavalleye (dir.), Collections d’Espagne, (= Les Primitif flamands, II. Répertoire des peintures flamandes des quinzième et seizième siècles 1), 2 volumes, Antwerp, 1953-1958.

[2] E. Bermejo, La pintura de los primitivos flamencos en España, 2 volumes, Madrid, 1980-1982; M. Díaz Padrón (dir.), Splendeurs d’Espagne et les villes belges, 1500-1700, Brussels, 1985; M.P. Silva Maroto, Pintura hispanoflamenca castellana: Burgos y Palencia. Obras en tablas y sarga, 3 volumes, Valladolid, 1990; Didier Martens, Peinture flamande et goût ibérique aux XVème et XVIème siècles, Brussels, 2010; Constanza Negrín Delgado, El arte de los Países Bajos de los siglos XVI y XVII en las Islas Canarias, doctoral thesis, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1993; Ana Diéguez Rodríguez, La Pintura flamenca del siglo XVI en el norte de España: Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, País Vasco y Navarra, doctoral thesis, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 2012.