Art History & Archaeology Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2744
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Item King of the Renaissance: Art and Politics at the Neapolitan Court of Ferrante I, 1458-1494(2016) Riesenberger, Nicole Joy; Gill, Meredith J.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the second half of the fifteenth century, King Ferrante I of Naples (r. 1458-1494) dominated the political and cultural life of the Mediterranean world. His court was home to artists, writers, musicians, and ambassadors from England to Egypt and everywhere in between. Yet, despite its historical importance, Ferrante’s court has been neglected in the scholarship. This dissertation provides a long-overdue analysis of Ferrante’s artistic patronage and attempts to explicate the king’s specific role in the process of art production at the Neapolitan court, as well as the experiences of artists employed therein. By situating Ferrante and the material culture of his court within the broader discourse of Early Modern art history for the first time, my project broadens our understanding of the function of art in Early Modern Europe. I demonstrate that, contrary to traditional assumptions, King Ferrante was a sophisticated patron of the visual arts whose political circumstances and shifting alliances were the most influential factors contributing to his artistic patronage. Unlike his father, Alfonso the Magnanimous, whose court was dominated by artists and courtiers from Spain, France, and elsewhere, Ferrante differentiated himself as a truly Neapolitan king. Yet Ferrante’s court was by no means provincial. His residence, the Castel Nuovo in Naples, became the physical embodiment of his commercial and political network, revealing the accretion of local and foreign visual vocabularies that characterizes Neapolitan visual culture.Item Amalia van Solms and the Formation of the Stadhouder's Art Collection, 1625-1675(2012) Treanor, Virginia Clare; Wheelock, Jr., Arthur K.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the role of Amalia van Solms (1602-1675), wife of Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange and Stadhouder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1584-1647), in the formation of the couple's art collection. Amalia and Frederik Hendrik's collection of fine and decorative arts was modeled after foreign, royal courts and they cultivated it to rival those of other great European treasure houses. While some scholars have recognized isolated instances of Amalia's involvement with artistic projects at the Stadhouder's court, this dissertation presents a more comprehensive account of these activities by highlighing specific examples of Amalia's patronage and collecting practices. Through an examination of gifts of art, portraits of Amalia and her porcelain collection, this study considers the ways in which Amalia contributed to the formation of the Stadhouder's art collection. This dissertation seeks to provide a greater knowledge not only of Amalia's activities as a patron and collector, but also a more throrough understanding of the genesis and function of the collection as a whole, which reflected the power and glory of the House of Orange during the Dutch Golden Age.