Family members and political allies: the portrait collection of Margaret of Austria

Among the early sixteenth-century collections in the Netherlands the art collection of Margaret of Austria was exceptional in terminuss of its size and quality.(1) It included paintings of the like kind as the Arnolfini Wedding through Jan van Eyck and the Passion round of years by Juan de Flandes, as well as contemporary works of the like kind as the Metamorphosis of Hermaphrodite and Salamacis by means of Jan Gossaert. While individually these works have not seldom been the subject of thorough investigation, the collection as a whole has not hitherto received a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of attention.(2)

This paper sets without to investigate one section of the collection, the portraits which Margaret of Austria kept in the more public areas of her palace in Mechelen (Malines), the Premiere Chambre and the library.(3) The Premiere Chambre come ups from this investigation as a dynastic portrait gallery with a distinctly political agenda, its display of pictures carefully shaped and set uped by Margaret of Austria to reinforce the importance of the Burgundian-Hapsburg family and their allies. The display in the library differs in certain aspects from that of the official portrait gallery. Portraits in this swing were represented in a variety of media, greatest in quantity notably painting and sculpture, and formed part of a diverse collection which included ethnographic material. In 1523-24 painted portraits were hung together with religious images and battle exhibitions Although the sitters in these portraits did not form a homogenous cluster the manuscripts and genealogical charts in the library provide a lock opener to the reading of the portraits in one as well as the other public areas of the palace.

Archduchess Margaret of Austria [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED], daughter of Emperor Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy was born upon January 10, 1480, and died upon November 30, 1530, in Mechelen. The time frame overlayed by this paper is the period between 1507 and 1530 when she lived in Mechelen as ruler of the Netherlands and acted as foster-mother to the children of her brother Philip the Handsome.

Soon after the death of her next to the first husband the archduchess answered her father's call to become governor of the Netherlands and decided to establish herself permanently in Mechelen, which formed part of her personal power base.(4) The court she created in this town fulfilled an important political function within the Burgundian Hapsburg empire. She was an active patron of the arts, collecting and maintaining a large number of artworks as well as retaining several artists at her court. She occupyed sculptors and architects such as Conrad Meit and Loy Van Boghem to undertake individual commissions, among them her main architectural throw the church of St.-Nicolas at Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse.(5) She also nourished literature and music, making a major impact in the sphere of courtly patronage in Northern Europe(6) These wide-ranging interests were throw backed in her extensive collection of works and illuminated manuscripts, which she kept in a richly decorated library,(7) visited by the agency of Erasmus of Rotterdam and others.

The Collection

The collection of Margaret of Austria ranged in aim from jewelry, paintings, sculpture, liturgical phenomenons and precious gold and silver plate to corals, jewels and ethnographic objects from the novel World. Like her Burgundian ancestors she also had a large collection of tapestry sets(8) a certain number of of the most lavish of which were given to her through her first mother-in-law, Queen Isabella of Castile, during her stay at the Spanish court. Also listed in the inventories are several scientific instruments, furniture, chess places and medals. No clear distinction is made between "art" and "nonart" objects; instead they are listed according to the distribution of existences throughout the various rooms within the palace. From this it appears that greatest in quantity of Margaret's collection was integrated into her living quarters rather than being kept in a separate, purpose-built space.(9)

The sum of two units main categories to emerge from an analysis of the art in her collection are religious things and secular portraiture, both showed in a wide variety of media. Her large collection of paintings consisted almost exclusively of these sum of two units categories with only a scarcely any mythological or historical paintings.(10) by dint of 1523-24 Margaret of Austria possessed in total eighty portraits, not counting the six devotional diptychs and triptychs which also included likenesses of herself and her shut up family.(11) If these religious images and the later portraits by means of Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen are included, her collection of portraiture came shut to one hundred items.(12) It is apparent from a comparison with other Netherlandish collections similar as that of Philip of Cleve who holded thirty-three portraits, that this was single of the strengths of her collection.(13)

The unusually rich locate of inventories and court accounts that exist make it possible to re-establish the nature and growth of Margaret's collection from 1493 to the time of her death in 1530 greatest in quantity of our information concerning the portraits derives from sum of two units key inventories of 1516 and 1523-24 While they overlap to a certain stage a number of the paintings, plastic arts and other objects listed in 1516 do not reappear in the later inventory.(14) The sum of two units inventories frequently provide complementary information upon the same object, almost suggesting that they were written by the agency of two different groups of court officials, who noted down different aspects of the same work when preparing the inventory. The fragmentary inventory of 1516 is more specific in regard to artists' names, storage, and maintenance of specific external realitys The 1523-24 document is more informative as far as the location and display of items are regarded and individual entries are more descriptive.(15) For example, a portrait of Charles the heroic by Rogier van der Weyden is described in 1516 as "Ung tableau de chief du duc Charles, ayeul de Madame. Fait par la main de Rogier."(16) In 1523 the same painting is described: "Item, un aultre tableau de la pourtraiture de Monseigneur le duc Charles de Bourgogne, habille de noir, pourtant la Thoison d'or pendant a une chayne, et ung rolet en sa main dextre ayant le chiefz nuz"(17) single of the major strengths of the 1523-24 inventory is the emphasis placed upon the distribution of items through every part of the various rooms of the palace. Apart from the small number of portraits and other paintings added later to the original list of artifacts and household items, all facts can be located with a high stage of certainty. In fact, the location of the various items within the palace has been of the most distant importance in establishing the end and function of each specific swing and consequently of the paintings and statuarys therein.