FOR PLEASURE, PROFIT, AND PERSUASION: CONSTRUCTIONS OF ART'S MANY VIRTUES IN THE NETHERLANDS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

This project is a book-length study of the theme of artistic virtue in seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings and prints. It specifically explores how constructions of art’s pleasures, profitability, and persuasive powers served three contested domains of cultural meaning: the body, the home, and the political sphere.