Women: Female Roles in Art and Society of the Netherlands, 1500-1950

Long overdue in the history of the Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art, this volume foregrounds women as creators, patrons, buyers, and agents of change in the arts of the Low Countries. Venturing beyond the participation of ’exceptional’ individuals, chapters investigate how women produced paintings, sculptures, scientific illustrations, and tapestries as well as their role in architectural patronage and personalized art collections. Teasing out a variety of socio-economic, legal, institutional, and art-theoretical dimensions of female agency, the volume highlights the role of visual culture in women’s lived experience and self-representation, asking to what extent women challenged, subverted, or confirmed societal norms in the Netherlands.