Coping with crisis. Career strategies of Antwerp painters after 1585

Samenvatting

This article explores how painters responded to the crisis on the Antwerp art market in the 1580s. Although scholarship has stressed the profound crisis and subsequent emigration wave, prosopographical analysis shows that only a minority of painters left the city. Demand for Counter-Reformation artworks allowed many to pursue their career in Antwerp, while others managed to survive the crisis by relying on cheap apprentices and the export of mass-produced paintings. Emigrant painters, on the other hand, minimised the risk of migration by settling in destinations that already had close artistic ties to Antwerp, such as Middelburg. Prosopographical analysis thus allows for a more nuanced understanding of artistic careers in the Low Countries.