Abstract
This study presents a data driven comparative analysis of the painting industries in sixteenth and seventeenth century Antwerp and Amsterdam. The popular view of the development of these two artistic centers still holds that Antwerp flourished in the sixteenth century and was succeeded by Amsterdam after the former’s recapturing by the Spanish in 1585. However, a demographic analysis of the number of painters active in Antwerp and Amsterdam shows that Antwerp recovered relatively quickly after 1585 and that it remained the leading artistic center in the Low Countries, only to be surpassed by Amsterdam in the 1650’s. An analysis of migration patterns and social networks shows that painters in Antwerp formed a more cohesive group than painters in Amsterdam. As a result, the two cities responded quite differently to internal and external market shocks. Data for this study are taken from ECARTICO, a database and a linked data web resource containing structured biographical data on over 9100 painters working in the Low Countries until circa 1725.
Highlights
At an auction in the early autumn of 1637, Rembrandt bought the painting Hero and Leander byPeter Paul Rubens for a little less than 425 guilders
We expect to have covered and with auxiliary that are not complete, we provide some provisional statistics on the Amsterdam painter resources (e.g., Duverger 1984; Van Hemeldonck 2007) more completely in the course of 2020
When we narrow the period under investigation to 1585–1600, Antwerp links become a little more prominent, but even it is clear that the growth of painting in Amsterdam in the years following 1585 was certainly not the result of the relocation of painter workshops from Antwerp to Amsterdam
Summary
At an auction in the early autumn of 1637, Rembrandt bought the painting Hero and Leander by. Antwerp’s economy, experienced a remarkable revival in the first half of the seventeenth century, a period often referred to as the Indian Summer of Antwerp’s Golden Age. The sharp distinction being made between Dutch and Flemish art is obviously an important reason why a comparative analysis, let alone an integrated analysis of the painting industries of Antwerp and Amsterdam, is still lacking. We have done extensive research on the Amsterdam baptism, marriage, and burial registers in the past years This has yielded a lot of new data on Amsterdam painters in the Dutch Golden Age. In 2010, we had data on 1010 painters who had been active in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century (Nijboer 2010); at the time of writing, this number has risen to 1744.
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