Painting in Bruges at the close of the Middle Ages

by Jean C. Wilson

This book is the first to explore the origins and nature of the demand for painting in Bruges over the course of the fifteenth century and its subsequent effect on the community of painters and their workshop and marketing practices. The evolution of Bruges was fundamentally linked with commerce, and as a result of the city's thriving international trade and rising merchant class, it was to become one of the most affluent and cosmopolitan centers in late medieval Europe. However, only after the Duke of Burgundy moved his court to Bruges in the early decades of the fifteenth century would it begin to be a major center for the production of panel painting. This study examines the coming together of the opulent Burgundian court, an affluent urban bourgeoisie, and an increasingly expanding community of painters, and the effects of this dynamic social configuration on the newly emerging art of oil painting.