The essay presents a qualitative, quantitative, and online interactive analysis of the register of the Brussels guild of painters, goldbeaters, and stained-glass makers (1599 – 1706), in relation to the online database Cornelia. We develop a sketch of the legal framework; a discussion of the register’s methodological challenges; a bird’s-eye view of the source; a presentation of the method we used to transform the register into a dataset; and an analysis of the aggregate data. In doing so, we obtain a picture of the professional mobility of Brussels painters and their strategies. As one concrete result, the essay disproves the assertion that the Brussels guild pursued an overly rigid and exclusive membership policy; instead, it dealt pragmatically with the rules to ensure the continuity of the guild.
Other articles in this issue:
Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte Issues
Volume 87 (2024)
Volume 86 (2023)
Volume 85 (2022)
Volume 84 (2021)
Volume 83 (2020)
Volume 82 (2019)
Volume 81 (2018)
Volume 80 (2017)
Volume 79 (2016)
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