Making and Valuing Reproducible Metalwork in the Early Modern Low Countries

Reproducible metalwork like medals, plaquettes, roundels, and statuettes circulated widely from the late fifteenth century onward. While produced in multiples, these small-scale objects—cast in lead, bronze, copper, or even silver and gold—were valuable personal objects of daily life. In comparison to the unique carvings of sculptors such as Conrat Meit or Lucas Faydherbe, these small, replicable images have been overlooked in recent studies of Netherlandish sculpture. During this lecture Elizabeth Rice Mattison, the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art at the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, will explore their roles and meanings in the early modern Low Countries.

This Food for Thought lecture is organised in collaboration with Illuminare and ARDS, the centre for medieval sculpture at M. M coordinates and funds ARDS, an international network around research on sculpture from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.