By mid-seventeenth century, the Antwerp Saint Luke's guild was already working to revive the local art market to heights experienced just a century before. 1648 marked a difficult turn after the blockade of the Schelde, and with the foundation of the Paris Academie that same year, the guild needed to act. This lecture explored the actions taken by the guild to found the Royal Academy for Painting and Sculpture in 1663. What was the guild's intention and how did it accomplish the academy's founding? And how did its artisans respond to the school, including the emphasis on drawing from life, the foundation of contemporary Italian artistic theory? Works donated to the guild at this time by Jacob Jordaens, Theodor Boeijermans, Artus Quellinus I and others were essential for exploring these and other questions about the impact of the guild on the place of art and its production in the city.
The lecture was given in English.
With the support of the Baillet Latour Fund.