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Gender and Self-Fashioning at the Intersection of Art and Science: Agnes Block, Botany, and Networks in the Dutch 17th Century

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Abstract

At once collector, botanist, reader, artist, and patron, Agnes Block is best described as a cultural producer. A member of an influential network in her lifetime, today she remains a largely obscure figure. The socioeconomic and political barriers faced by early modern women, together with a male-dominated tradition in art history, have meant that too few stories of women's roles in the creation, production, and consumption of art have reached us. This book seeks to write Block and her contributions into the art and cultural history of the seventeenth-century Netherlands, highlighting the need for and advantages of a multifaceted approach to research on early modern women. Examining Block's achievements, relationships, and objects reveals a woman who was independent, knowledgeable, self-aware, and not above self-promotion. Though her gender brought few opportunities and many barriers, Agnes Block succeeded in fashioning herself as Flora Batava, a liefhebber at the intersection of art and science.

Publisher

  • Publication

    Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023

  • Year

Is about

  • Person

  • Subject

  • Period

    1600-1699

Related objects

  • Is about art object

Type

  • Language

Classification

  • ISBN

    • 9789463725491
    • 9463725490

Annotations / title notes

  • Notes

    • Acknowledgements List of Figures and Photographic Credits Introduction Chapter 1. Vijverhof and the Pursuit of Nature Chapter 2. Vijverhof in Context Chapter 3. Vijverhof as a Space of Knowledge Creation, Exchange, and Relationships Chapter 4. Becoming Flora Batava Chapter 5. Flora Batava in Context Chapter 6. The Bloemenboek and Block's Watercolours: Self-Fashioning at the Intersection of Art and Science Chapter 7. The Bloemenboek as a Meeting Place and Visual Manifestation of Agnes Block's Artistic Network Appendix A Bibliography
    • "Amsterdam University Press"

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