Overview

It is said that much of the greatest art is produced during periods of strife. In the mid-16th century, Flanders - the United Provinces in the north (modern Holland) and the Spanish Netherlands in the south (modern Belgium) - was the most sophisticated society in Europe, but its learning and luxury industries were all but annihilated by the so-called Dutch Revolt and by the Eighty Years War that followed (1568-1648). Two-thirds of the works discussed here were painted during this turbulent period, including Pieter Bruegels Massacre of the Innocents of 1567. Other highlights include works by his son Jan Brueghel, while the Twelve Years Truce (1609-21) is celebrated by a group of landscapes (including three by Rubens) depicting the blessings of peace and the fertility of the region.

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9781905686001

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Desmond Shawe-Taylor was Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery and is now Surveyor of The Queen's Pictures. His publications include The Georgians: Eighteenth-Century Portraiture and Society (1990); and contributions to Rembrandt to Gainsborough; Masterpieces from Dulwich Picture Gallery (1999) and Shakespeare in Art (2003). Jennifer Scott, Assistant to the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, worked at National Museums Liverpool and the National Gallery and joined the Royal Collection in 2004. She lectures regularly on paintings in the Royal Collection.

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