Invisible Hands?: The Role and Status of the Painter´s Journeyman

The topic of the workshop entitled ´Role and status of journeyman in artists´ and craftmen´s workshops in the Low Countries c. 1450 - c. 1650´, held in Groningen, 23-24 May 2003, grew out of archival and material-technical research on workshop practices. As a result of this research it gradually became clear that more knowledge about the social and economic mechanisms of art production was required in order to study the painters´ workshop. Such research frequently moves in two or more directions, and in this case the workshop proceeded on the basis of two questions: how can socially and economically oriented historical research help art historians, and what can art historical, and material and technical research add to corporate history of the painter´s guild? Geographically, the case studies in this volume deal with southern Netherlandish towns, in particular Antwerp, Brussels, Mechelen, Ghent and Bruges.