Early Netherlandish Painting (Panofsky book)

Early Netherlandish Painting
First edition, Volume one: Text, Volume two: Plates
AuthorErwin Panofsky
Cover artistVolume one: Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, c. 1435 by Jan van Eyck
Volume two: The Virgin of the Annunciation, from the Portinari Triptych, c. 1479 by Hugo van der Goes[1]
LanguageEnglish
GenreArt history
PublisherHarvard University Press
Publication date
1953
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback (1953) and paperback (1971))
Pages358 pages of text, 150 pages of notes, 496 illustrations
ISBN978-0-06-436683-0

Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character is a 1953 book on art history by Erwin Panofsky, derived from the 1947–48 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. The book had a wide impact[2] on studies of Renaissance art and Early Netherlandish painting in particular, but also studies in iconography, art history, and intellectual history in general. The book is particularly well-known for its iconographic treatment of Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait as a kind of marriage contract, a hypothesis advanced by Panofsky as early as 1934. The book remains influential despite its reliance on black-and-white reproductions of paintings, which led to some errors of analysis.[3]

Early Netherlandish Painting shares its title with the comprehensive, 14-volume survey by Max J. Friedländer, a fact obliquely acknowledged at the beginning of the preface.[4]

  1. ^ The Virgin of the Annunciation, from the Portinari Triptych, c.1479 (oil on panel) Posters & Prints by Hugo van der Goes Retrieved 01-01-2016.
  2. ^ Nash (2013), pp. 89–101
  3. ^ Nash (2013), p. 95
  4. ^ Early Netherlandish Painting, p. vii