Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- Dispersal and destruction -- Italian perspectives -- Sources and documents -- Physical evidence and technical examination -- Centres -- Products -- Patrons : importing art and artists -- The de Limbourgs in the service of Jean de Berry -- Hans Memling painting panels in Bruges -- Printmakers in the Rhine Valley inventing, marketing, and distributing images -- Declaring authorship and expertise : signatures and self-portraits -- Workspace and equipment -- The workforce -- Materials, methods, and technical virtuosity -- Moving images -- Settings, vistas, and accoutrements for mass and prayer -- Meditation and imagination.

"A wide-ranging introduction to the way that art was made, valued, and viewed in northern Europe in the age of the Renaissance, from the late fourteenth to the early years of the sixteenth century. Drawing on a rich range of sources, from inventories and guild regulations to poetry and chronicles, Northern Renaissance Art examines everything from panel paintings and prints to metalwork and manuscripts. While many little-known works are highlighted, the book also presents new ways of viewing and understanding the more familiar, such as the paintings of Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Hans Memling, or the sculpture of Claus Sluter and Veit Stoss, by considering the physical and technical evidence of these works as objects, alongside the social and economic contexts of their creation and reception. Throughout, Susie Nash challenges the perception that Italy was the European leader in artistic innovation at this time, demonstrating forcefully that northern art, and particularly that of the Southern Netherlands, dominated visual culture throughout Europe in this crucial period."--Page 4 of cover.