North European Panel Paintings

This book brings together, catalogues and illustrates over 70 Northern European paintings and altarpieces still to be found in English churches and colleges, and hitherto hardly known. They demonstrate the high quality of the output of German and Netherlandish workshops - particularly the Antwerp Mannerists - which, as the offspring of the earlier Northern school, still looked to Masters of the previous generation such as Hugo van der Goes, Quentin Massys, Memling, and Rogier van der Weyden. The present volume includes a thorough stylistic and iconographical analysis of the panels. The author suggests why certain subjects and iconographical details were preferred. She also discovers common models and establishes a relationship between the examples in England and the principal masters on the Continent, giving a new perspective to the works catalogued since more of these works survive in Britain than in the countries where they were made. The author traces the origins and subsequent history of the works. She shows how they found their way to their present destinations often as memorials, or to enrich the ecclesiastical buildings that were the result of the 19th century Catholic emancipation in England. By considering how these benefactions were made possible by the dispersal of religious works on the Continent in the wake of the Napoleonic wars, picked up by travellers or sold through the London art market, Dr Grossinger provides insights into the history of collecting. Students should be particularly grateful for the section giving brief lives of the artists involved in the panels - a useful reference tool for the study of Netherlandish painting in general. There is also a Handlist of Netherlandish and German Panel Paintings before 1600 found in British Public Collections (excluding the National Gallery in London)- this gives easy access to comparative material in different parts of the country.