The little-known story of Margaret of Parma, governor, art lover and Italian society figure

Daughter of Charles V, Governor of the Netherlands, a society figure in Italy and a passionate art lover and patron: Margaret of Parma (1522–1586) is a fascinating figure who for a long time was neglected by historians. This richly illustrated publication rehabilitates a woman who played a key role in the Habsburg Netherlands and the turbulent sixteenth century.

Who was Margaret of Parma, as a person...

The official book marking the centenary of the Rietveld Schröder House tells the story of two lovers and radical innovators in modern architecture: Truus Schröder and Gerrit Rietveld

"The idea of living in the house like this essentially came from me."

— Truus Schröder

Rietveld Schröder House: A Biography of the House tells the story of the iconic house and its creators, Truus Schröder (1889–1985) and Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964). The construction of the house, the designs by ‘Sch...

Discover the dynamic connection between art history and social media

How are the Holy Trinity and social media related? Why do we love colour filters so much? What makes hashtags so powerful? And why do we experience digital images so differently from their analogue counterparts?

In Instagrammable – What Art Tells Us About Social Media, Koenraad Jonckheere delves into the surprising similarities between 2,500 years of European art history and our modern image culture on social media. He rev...

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This book presents over ninety masterpieces by Flemish and Dutch artists to show how seventeenth-century Dutch painting could never have flourished the way it did without the foundations laid in sixteenth-century Antwerp. Thoroughly researched, it tells the story of the talented and accomplished artists and merchants who migrated north in search of religious liberty and new commercial opportunities after Antwerp fell to Spanish Catholic troops in 1585.

From Antwerp to Amste...

Hedendaagse blik op barokke meesterwerken

Hoe gebruikten de jezuïeten de barokke beeldtaal van hun tijd om het publiek te overtuigen van hun visie op mens, geloof en maatschappij? In dit prachtig geïllustreerde boek met onder meer talrijke werken van Peter Paul Rubens trachten verschillende auteurs die complexe vraag te beantwoorden.

De setting is Antwerpen in de zeventiende eeuw. De stad was in die tijd het hoofdkwartier van de jezuïetenorde in de Nederlanden en een bastion tegen het calv...

Awe-inspiring reference work on the Flemish and Dutch art of drawing from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, with masterly drawings from the collection of the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR)

The Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels houses the largest collection of drawings in the country. Among its highlights are works by leading artists of the Low Countries, including Pieter Bruegel I, Joris Hoefnagel, Hendrick Goltzius, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacques Jordaens.

As the ...

A magnificent introduction to the Cobra art movement

With French as its working language, Cobra was pretty much the last truly European movement within Modernism. The group’s anarchic story is not just an important strand in art history — it remains as lively as ever and has inspired all sorts of artists who were never directly involved with Cobra. The work bequeathed to us by Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky, Constant, Corneille and other kindred spirits is as fascinating as ever, both raw...

Exclusive insight into the finest hundred masterpieces from the permanent collection of the renewed KMSKA

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) has reopened after several years of major renovation. It is home to an especially varied collection of art that runs to more than nine thousand items: paintings, sculptures, assemblages, drawings and prints from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century.

Old Flemish masters like Jan van Eyck, Quinten Massys and Peter Paul Rubens feature along...

Unique view on the 'tronies' in art from the Netherlands

Our fascination for faces transcends eras and cultures. Turning Heads – Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer highlights a remarkable genre in painting to which little attention has so far been paid: tronies or study heads, which were intended first and foremost to depict an emotion or a character trait. Since the model’s identity did not matter, painters could truly go to town with these heads. Tronies were drawn and painted by some of the...

Meet the work of the one and only Belgian futurist

Recent years have seen revived interest in Jules Schmalzigaug (1882–1917). The only Belgian representative of Futurism deserves his place in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, which holds the world’s largest collection of his work. A talented pioneer of the international avant-garde, he also loved the work of Peter Paul Rubens and James Ensor, two other masters whose work is featured in the museum’s collection. Schmalzigaug experime...