Casting a wider net than his eminent predecessors, over the last twenty-five years, Michael Montias transformed for our field the way archival data has been interpreted. His model encouraged following generations of scholars, in several disciplines, to locate works of art in the larger context of both production and collection. In the process, we have a greater intimate knowledge not only of Vermeer, the shifting market for art training and consumption in Delft, but also collecting communities in Amsterdam, and models for analyzing fluctuations in this data in broad perspective. This workshop addresses the variety of materials available in specific archives, discuss past interpretive models, and then brainstorm about alternative models that might be used in the future, in order to enlarge our understanding of along the full range of this spectrum, from details of the personal life of an artist, patron, or guild to analysis of larger aggregations of data - not only in Montias' chosen areas, but also earlier and later periods and in other regions also studied by HNA membership.

Paleography Handbook:
W. Bogtman, Het Nederlandsche handschrift in 1600 (Haarlem, 1933)

Introduction: Montias' quantitative approach in historical context (Ann Jensen Adams)

• J. M. Montias, "Socio-Economic Aspects of Netherlandish Art from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century," Art Bulletin, 72:3 (1990: September): 358-373

The Student in the Archive (Eric Jan Sluijter)

Artist's biographies as documents (Celeste Brusati)

• Karel van Mander, Het Schilderboek, Haarlem: Paschier van Wesbusch, 1604
• Jacob Campo Weyerman, De Levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche Konst-schilders en Konst-schilderessen. 's Gravenhage: By de Wed. H. Boucquet [etc.], 1729
• Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst: anders de zichtbaere werelt ot Rotterdam, By Fransois van Hoogstraeten, 1678

Published archival sources (Lynn Jacobs)

Montias' documents at the Frick Collection (Louisa Wood Ruby)

• Montias' Database for Documents on Dutch 16th-and 17th-Century Art Collecting

Archival resources on the Internet (Marten Jan Bok)

• Getty Provenance Index
• Netherlands Archives
• Belgium Archives
• Digitale Bronbewerkingen Nederland En Belgio
• GenLias
• Stichting Historic Future (Historische weken op cd- en dvd-rom)
• Sabine Index - Universiteits Bibliotheek Utrecht

Courtesy Amy Golahny, Mia M. Mochizuki and Lisa Vergara, eds., In His Milieu. Essays on Netherlandish Art in Memory of John Michael Montias (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), pp. 23-28; bibliography with the help of Marten Jan Bok. [PDF document]

Montias' contribution, Gary Schwartz, Schwartzlist

• "Montias in the Annales" (1994) [PDF document]
• "The idiosyncratic mid-life career change of Michael Montias" (1998) [PDF document]

Obituaries. John Michael Montias (1928-2005).
Journal of Cultural Economics. 29 (2005): 335-336
New York Times. August 1, 2006: Section A, page 13, column 4