This international symposium is organised in conjunction with the exhibition 'Early Netherlandish drawings' at the British Museum. It will take place on Friday 26 June at the Warburg Institute in London. The symposium will bring together scholars and curators from the UK, Europe and the USA, who will share new research on drawings from the Low Countries between 1400 and 1600.

The programme explores questions surrounding the themes explored in the exhibition, addressing the function and materials of drawings as well as new subjects and drawing practices. Papers will highlight the role of drawing in the workshop, preparatory drawings for painted glass roundels and prints, the function of model books and sketchbooks, and the emerging practice of drawing outdoors and from live models. Together, they will illuminate key facets of the transformational development of Netherlandish drawing from 1400 to 1600.

Programme:

10:00–10:30 – Registration with tea and coffee

10:30–10:45 – Olenka Horbatsch & Charlotte Wytema (British Museum, London): Welcome and Introduction

Session 1: Early Netherlandish drawings and workshop practice
Chair: Charlotte Wytema (British Museum, London)

10:45–11:05 – Emma Capron (The National Gallery, London): Jan Van Eyck: Drawing and Painting for Portraits in Fifteenth-Century Flanders

11:05–11:25 – Maryan W. Ainsworth (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York): Chiaroscuro Drawings in Workshop Practice for Paintings

11:25–11:45 – Stijn Alsteens (Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection, Paris): Names Without Portraits, Portraits Without Names. On Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Portrait Drawings

11:45–12:00 – Q&A

12:00–13:30 – Lunch break & opportunity to see exhibition

Session 2: New subjects and meanings
Chair: Olenka Horbatsch (British Museum, London)

13:30–13:50 – Daantje Meuwissen (Utrecht University): Unbound Practice. The Errera Album and the Problem of Netherlandish Sketchbooks

13:50–14:10 – Ellen Konowitz (SUNY, New Paltz): Dirk Vellert's 1523 drawings and the many meanings of Renaissance typology

14:10–14:30 – Daan van Heesch (Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels): Bosch’s Beggars: Reflections on a Model-Book Drawing and Its Transformations

14:30–14:45 – Q&A

14:45–15:15 – Coffee & tea break

Session 3: Drawing practice and innovation
Chair: An Van Camp (Rubenshuis, Antwerp)

15:15–15:35 – Edward Wouk (University of Manchester): From Drawing to Print: Cornelis Cort

15:35–15:55 – Austėja Mackelaitė (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam): Drawing as a Catalyst of Innovation: The Haarlem Academy and the Human Body

15:55–16:15 – Yvonne Bleyerveld (RKD — Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague, and Leiden University): ‘Pen Works’ by Jacob Matham: Following in Goltzius’s Footsteps and Searching For His Own Path

16:15–16:30 – Q&A

16:30–16:40 – Closing remarks

16:40–18:00 – Wine reception

To attend the symposium, please register online: https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/news-events/events/early-netherlandish-drawings-symposium.