The in-person event takes place in the Taylorian Institute
The online event will be via Zoom
Booking is essential. See below
With author Michael Pye
Before glamorous 19th-century Paris or menacing 20th-century New York, there was Antwerp in the 16th century - the city of Bruegel and then Rubens, a river port which played politics to become a dazzling world city.
Join Michael Pye, author of Antwerp: The Glory Years, for this talk which will explore the sensational history of the town where Bruegel and Rubens worked.
Plan of Antwerp, Virgilius Bononiensis, 1565, hand-coloured woodcut © Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp
A distant view of Antwerp, seen from the East, Hans Bol, 1575-1580, pen in brown ink © Ashmolean Museum. Both drawings featured in the Bruegel to Rubens exhibition
Antwerp's markets guaranteed credit for the known world whilst its scandals went around Europe, dinner table by dinner table.
Books and music and art created in Antwerp decorated Medici palaces, American chapels and helped kings when they went wooing.
It was the city of the deal which survived sieges and fires and mutinies to leave a double legacy: wonderful art, and the machinery to sell it.
In this fascinating talk from Michael Pye, you'll delve into all this rich history and discover more about the backdrop to our current Bruegel to Rubens exhibition.
About Michael Pye
Michael Pye's 12 previous books have been translated into 15 languages; three have been New York Times 'Notable Books of the Year', two were British bestsellers and one became a Hollywood movie.
He won various prizes in Modern History at Oxford, and went on to be journalist, broadcaster and columnist in London and New York. He lives in Amsterdam.
Author Michael Pye
The book Antwerp: The Glory Years
BOOKING
The in-person event will take place in the Taylorian Lecture Theatre. The online event will take place on Zoom.
Tickets are £15 each (for both onsite and online) or £17 with gift aid.
BOOK YOUR IN-PERSON TICKET
BOOK YOUR ONLINE TICKET
If you have any questions, please email us at publicprogrammes@ashmus.ox.ac.uk
This event is part of our Making a Mark season of events.
Public programming is in partnership with Visit Flanders and the Diplomatic Representation of Flanders to the UK.