Features
The role elite women played in the arts has been a keystone in the discourses about gender, women and power in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. When late-twentieth-century scholars reacted against George Duby’s vision of a “mâle Moyen Âge” and began gathering evidence of female influence, women’s role as patrons of the arts was a key element in their reassessment, as countless examples demonstrated the active part taken by noble women in commissioning art and architecture. More recently, however, the inclusion in the debate of hitherto neglected object groups, such as textiles and certain manuscripts, has subtly shifted our approach to and understanding of female power. The creativity some women developed as patrons, the importance of certain types of objects or their functions can only be fully understood by admitting that female agency had limitations or was more powerful in certain social contexts than others. One of these contexts is the medieval marriage practice, once identified as the primary example of female disempowerment. In fact, having being transplanted to an often faraway court, women regularly acted as “ambassadors of culture”, bringing both their tastes and specific objects with them, thus encouraging artistic preferences and sometimes the artists themselves to cross cultural and regional borders.
Chairs:
Stefanie Seeberg, Alexandra Gajewski
Speakers:
Alexandra Gajewski (Independent Scholar)
Jitske Jasperse (CSIC, Madrid)
Stefanie Seeberg (Grassi Museum of Applied Arts, Leipzig; University of Cologne)
Adelina Modesti (La Trope University)