Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Netherlandish Alabaster sculpture »

Considering consequences of mass art production, we usually focus on the phenomena observed since the 19th century. However, we are aware of much earlier evidence of mass art production. An example for closer studies of this problem provides art of the Low Countries, where the system of mass art production was developed already in the Middle Ages. The most evident example of this phenomenon is Netherlandish print industry of the 16th and 17th centuries, but we will also find proofs in the field of sculpture. We observe that already in the fabrication of Netherlandish carved altarpieces, whose workshop tradition, vivified by all’antica stylistic, formed the basis for mass production of alabaster sculpture in Mechelen and Antwerp (ca. 1530–1650). The example of Netherlandish alabaster imports in Central Europe lets us notice specific perception and reception of art objects of this kind. Large number of alabaster reliefs and huisaltaartjes manufactured in Mechelen and Antwerp resulted in low prices. Their small size made transport easier and thanks to the exchange trade between Central Europe and Low Countries they were relatively easily available and could play the role of culture transfer medium. They intermediated not only in spreading of iconographical and stylistic patterns, but also caused the increase of interest for alabaster among local artists and founders. In the research area we find items that repeat alabaster modelling techniques, as well as compositions and types of imported pieces, which makes us suppose that local artists might have even copied fashionable Netherlandish works.

Abstract This essay offers a revaluation of the materiality of early modern Netherlandish tombs, a field that has only recently attracted serious scholarly attention. Her contribution focuses on the role played by materiality as a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of these monuments. Tomb sculpture generally relied on a combination of material properties: the potential of realistic representation, durability, intrinsic value, and material splendour. Most suitable for a convincing representation of a dead body in this period was translucent alabaster with its warm flesh tone, while Italian white marble and bronze referenced antiquity and classical notions of durability. The use of specific sets of local and imported materials resulted in a unique ‘material image’ of Netherlandish tomb sculpture, which effectively contributed to the preservation of the deceased’s memoria, social status, and dynastic and personal magnificence.

This dissertation explores how alabaster funerary sculptures and tapestries created complex and multifarious alliances between the Habsburgs and members of the high nobility. It proposes that the Habsburgs and the nobility negotiated their relationships with one another through commissioning and displaying works of art that used particular materials, iconographies and styles referencing the politically potent and culturally significant heritage of the Burgundian dukes and the ancient Roman emperors. The alabaster sculptures and tapestries discussed in this two-part study were instrumental in defining and redefining, establishing and renewing these relationships. Part one is devoted to alabaster funerary sculpture in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Habsburg domain. The origin of great interest in alabaster, together with black marble (black limestone), was the Carthusian monastery, the Chartreuse de Champmol, near Dijon, which had housed the tombs of Philip the Bold, and of John the Fearless and his wife, Margaret of Bavaria. The tombs of the Burgundian dukes became a model for funerary monuments in alabaster of other members of the family and later also for the Habsburgs, including Margaret of Austria, who governed the Low Countries as regent after the death of her husband, Philibert II of Savoy (1480-1504). The tombs of Margaret of Austria, Philibert of Savoy, and his mother, Margaret of Bourbon in a monastery in Brou were intended to assert Habsburg-Savoyard alliance in a region equally desirable to the French for fulfilling their royal ambitions. Following the alabaster and black marble examples in Dijon and Brou, the tombs of Guillaume I de Croÿ and Marie de Hamal, and of Cardinal Guillaume II de Croÿ, originally in Heverlee, near Leuven, were located in a Celestine monastery church that served as a dynastic mausoleum for the noble family. The tombs of the Croÿs offer insight into the extent to which the nobles historically exercised power in the courts of Burgundy and Habsburg, even influencing Margaret of Austria to include all’antica elements in the alabaster funerary monuments and altarpiece in Brou that are otherwise designed in late flamboyant Gothic style. Part two is devoted to exploring tapestries in the Burgundian and Habsburg collections from the late-fourteenth to mid-sixteenth century. Members of the Burgundian and Habsburg families were key players in the development of the tapestry industry in the Low Countries, regulating tapestry production and trade. As an important part of the rulers’ self-fashioning, tapestries were collected, used as gifts, or hung during important occasions. To demonstrate how tapestries were used in a particular setting, I discuss the Seven Deadly Sins set and one tapestry from the History of Scipio Africanus series, both in the Habsburgs' collection, that were displayed during the imperial festivities at Binche and Mariemont in 1549. I examine how these tapestries as well as the specific activities that occurred in front of them and the particular viewers who witnessed and participated in these activities effectively and affectively communicated Habsburg propaganda to the elite local audience, and thereby helped to encourage their loyalty and support.