Convener:
Robert Oresko (Institute of Historical Research)

This session deals with patronage of the visual arts at sovereign courts. It addresses itself to the phenomenon of multiple foyers of patronage at courts; that is to say that no court was a homogeneous unit, but all were a heterogeneous collection of circles. It will examine the roles of the artists as courtiers, their income and their court offices in tandem with their artistic creations. The widest range of media will be explored, including the 'decorative' arts, ephemeral events such as pageants and festivities, as well as portraiture and the other 'fine' arts. The history of active patronage will be a central focus, as well as the history of collections.

• Mary Hollingsworth (Florence): Ideas, Agents and Execution: Relationships between Patrons and their Artists at the Italian Renaissance Courts
• Gabriele Neher (University of Warwick): Romanino and the Court of Cardinal Bernado Clesio of Trent
• Luc Duerloo (Het Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven): An European Court in Brussels: the Cultural Patronage of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, 1599-1632
• Sarah Richards (Bath College of Higher Education): Material Progress and the Dresden Court: Patronage and Luxury Manufactures, 1700-1750
• David Maskill (Victoria University of Wellington): A Royal Copyest in Eighteenth-Century France: the Case of François-Albert Stiémart
• David Wisner (The American College of Higher Studies, Anatolia Collegre, Pylea, Thessaloniki): The Ministry of the Interior: Diffusion of Revolutionay Culture in France, 1789-1800
• Robert Oresko (University of London): Is there Life after Haskell?: the Course of Court Patronage Studies since 1963