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Contextualising copies:
Investigating copies and
reproductions after
Early-Netherlandish masters in the
light of the reception of their art
in the second half of the 16th
century
Joris Van Grieken, Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven
A copy or a reproduction can tell
us a lot about the appreciation,
which copyists and their patrons
had for the original that was
copied. This seems to be
specifically demonstrable in cases
were the original and the copy are
remote in time and context. The
needs and conditions which formed
the basis of the original’s
creation, could hardly have been
the same in another era and under
different circumstances.
In order to obtain a usable
analysis of this differentiation,
it is necessary to group and
contextualise copies. This process
of contextualisation is not easy in
al cases. Some copies are
artistically and historically
documented. For others one has to
rely on the study of materiality,
working-methods and style, before a
geographical and chronological
situation is possible. Finally the
reconstruction of a good part of
the socio-cultural network, in
which copies originated and
functioned, is unavoidable. This
approach can provide new insights
into the reception of
Early-Netherlandish art in the
second half of the sixteenth
century.
This period, which resulted into
the publication of Van Mander’s ‘
Schilderboek’ in 1604, is very
significant for the formation of an
historical vision on the artistic
past of the Low Countries.
The modest amount of written
sources offers a rather limited
view on the evolution of this
process of early art-historical
realisation. Moreover, the risk is
run that opinions, tastes and
appreciations of specific 16th
century literary circles get
overemphasised to the disadvantage
of those of other sections of
society. By involving figurative
sources as painted copies and
graphic renditions or reproductions
our insight can become more
nuanced.
My paper will consider two
different clusters of works, on the
hand of which the significance of
copies and (reproductive) prints in
the debate on reception will be
revealed. The first consists of
copies and a print after the famous ‘
deposition’ by Rogier van der Weyden.
The second cluster comprehends two
related representations of a Calvary,
executed in an early-Netherlandish
style, of which numerous painted and
printed versions can be dated in the
second half of the sixteenth century.
These two opponent groups will
demonstrate different aspects of the
late 16th-century view on
15th-century Netherlandish art.
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