RKD STUDIES

Artists from the Low Countries in Britain : an Overview in Numbers

Rieke van Leeuwen

The Gerson Digital : Britain project was carried out between January 2020 and December 2023. The project involved biographical research on artists from the Northern and Southern Netherlands, active before 1800, who crossed the North Sea or the Channel and visited Britain.¹ The results were recorded in the RKDartists database, documenting as best as possible when an artist left for Britain and how long a stay lasted. For research into mobility, actually all life dates are important, especially those of family and other relations.² By combining the biographical information of individuals in the networks, new information can be generated and existing information enhanced. For this contribution, a dataset of 838 artists (reference date 7 March 2024) was used. These include painters, draughtsmen, printmakers, gold and silversmiths, sculptors, architects and tapestry weavers. In this paper, Britain refers to the island on which the countries of England, Wales and Scotland lie, including Ireland. By far the majority of Netherlandish artists went to England, especially to London. Of the 838 artists, only 25 are documented (also) in Scotland, 12 in Ireland and 2 in Wales. The data in RKDartists are accessible online and comply with the principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (FAIR).³

The aim of this paper is to use data extracted from the dataset to reveal patterns in the mobility of artists from the Low Countries who travelled to Britain before 1800. There was an idea about these patterns before, but 'to measure is to know': by filtering per year how many Netherlandish artists left for or were present in Britain, we can confirm or correct conjectures. Some artists visited Britain only briefly, others travelled back and forth frequently and many never returned. Either way, they found a lively Dutch community in London and –  at least if they were Protestant – could attend services in their own language at the Dutch Church in Austin Friars [1].⁴

First, the content and selection criteria of the dataset of 838 artists are described in more detail and the basis on which the terms 'Northern Netherlandish' and 'Southern Netherlandish' were used in RKDartists is explained. Special attention is then paid to female artists who travelled to Britain. It then maps how the division was between Northern and Southern Netherlandish artists in Britain and which specialisations they practiced most. A visualisation of the data is used to show in which years or periods most artists from the Low Countries decided to leave for Britain, presenting the data of the Northern and Southern Netherlanders separately. A second visualisation shows how many artists from the Low Countries were present in Britain per year. From these visualisations it is possible to deduce what the political and economic conditions were that presumably contributed to their departure, or that they were inviting to stay in Britain for longer or for good.

Part of the information in RKDartists was previously made available to Sander Karst for his dissertation Painting in a country without painters. The Netherlandish contribution to the emergence of the British school of painting, 1520-1720 (in translation) which he defended in 2021. However, his research focused more on the implications of the migration of Netherlandish artists to Britain than on statistics. In Karst's analysis of the data, no clear distinction was made between the mobility of Northern and Southern Netherlanders; therefore, it does not provide a sharp picture in the striking differences between them. These, however, are brought to light in this paper.

Cover image
F. van Hees
Group portrait of William Penn (1628-1693) and Sarah Shallcross († 1698) with their four children, half-lengths, with dogs and a monkey in a tree, in a landscape
Buckinghamshire (county), Trustees of the Howe Settled Estates

1
Johan Faber (I)
Portrait of Aemilius van Cuylenburgh (c. 1650-1704), minister in the Reformed Church of Holland in London, dated 1701
London (England), British Museum, inv./cat.nr. Gg,1.514