Netherlandish stained glass roundels in private collections in nineteenth-century Ghent: display, function and meaning

In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Southern Netherlands saw the rise of a renewed interest in national artistic and antiquarian heritage among local amateurs. Perhaps rather unexpectedly, the city of Ghent was praised as a centre of private collecting, equal to the traditional artistic capitals Brussels and Antwerp. The local press as well as foreign (mostly German and English) travellers praised the Flemish town for its numerous rich collections of "national antiquities". The local collectors had a particular preference for Netherlandish stained glass from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, due to the decorative, artistic and national-historical value these objects had for them. Based on contemporary publications such as travel literature, articles published in periodicals and preserved collection and auction catalogues, this paper will trace the various meanings stained glass adopted for the Ghent private collectors. Not only did the integration of the panels into the decorative scheme of the collectors' cabinets allow for the creation of historicizing interiors that functioned as an appropriate setting for the display of other art objects and antiques. Stained glass roundels were moreover considered true national monuments, since it was believed that the art of painting on glass had been brought to the highest degree of perfection in the Southern Netherlands. Furthermore, I aim to relate the emerging interest in stained glass among Ghent collectors to the Gothic revival and the associated collecting of this art in Britain. On the one hand, the increasing demand for historical stained glass on the British market raised awareness of the precarious situation of these "national monuments" in their country of origin. On the other hand, however, the British neo-Gothic movement also provided aesthetic models for continental collectors.

http://ift.tt/2dRUHB0