Enfilade

From the MFA Boston:

Location, Location, Location: Artistic Procedures, Knowledge, and

Place in Early Modern Netherlandish Art, 1550–1800

Center for Netherlandish Art Colloquium

Online, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 15 May 2026

Organized by Renata Nagy, Hannah Prescott, and Henrike Scholten

Proposals due by 29 March 2026

Artistic practice and practical forms of expertise do not occur in a vacuum, but are situated in a particular place, whether globally or locally. For instance, the Center for Netherlandish Art (CNA) supports the study of art from the Low Countries, but is situated in Boston; this location influences the work CNA fellows do, the objects they examine, and the networks that enhance their scholarship. This year’s CNA colloquium explores how the particularities of place shaped not just the lives of early modern artists and scholars, but also influenced their work. Talks may consider how trade networks, interpersonal dynamics, and local ecologies influenced the possibilities for learning, the availability of technical procedures, and the markets accessible to artistic practitioners.

The CNA seeks papers from emerging scholars that explore the connections between knowledge and locality in Dutch and Flemish art from approximately 1550 to 1800. We invite contributions from MA and PhD students, PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career museum professionals. As we amplify our efforts toward becoming truly inclusive, ensuring that diversity and equity are lived values, we actively encourage candidates from all backgrounds and in any discipline that interacts closely with art or material culture.

In the early modern period, making sense of the world encompassed a wide variety of practices, from observing objects of art and nature firsthand to learning and sharing expertise through established social networks. For instance, women active in the home displayed and disseminated knowledge through the use of everyday materials and objects; readers of natural history publications shaped visual and textual knowledge based on their own local experience; and artists active outside of artistic centers like Amsterdam were limited but also propelled by their local environments. These varied practices provide a shared terrain rather than a single interpretive framework for the exploration of knowledge and its relationship to place.

Paper topics may include but are not limited to:
• The influence of local networks on artistic production and scientific visual culture
• How the material culture of the domestic sphere shaped the development and demonstration of knowledge
• The extent that place (whether as a site of production or origin of a particular object or material) impacted art historical interpretations of something as central or peripheral
• The ways people consumed knowledge in the early modern Low Countries
• The extent that knowledge consumption can be divided into the categories of ‘local’ and ‘global’
• How global trade and the consumption of foreign materials revised established methods of artistic or craft production
• How the peripheries of artistic production, as opposed to cosmopolitan centers such as Antwerp or Amsterdam, influenced artists and scholars
• How size and portability impacted where objects were used

Two to three papers will be selected for presentation during colloquium. Selected candidates will have the opportunity to workshop their papers during a rehearsal presentation one week before the colloquium.

Please submit a title and abstract (300 words maximum) together with a CV in a single PDF file to cna@mfa.org, using ‘Call for Papers’ as the email subject line. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis through 29 March 2026. Selected participants will be notified by 3 April 2026.

The Founders of the Center for Netherlandish Art at the MFA are Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo and Susan and Matthew Weatherbie. The conference is organized by CNA Fellows Renata Nagy, Hannah Prescott, and Henrike Scholten.