St. Jacob’s Antwerp Art and Counter Reformation in Rubens’s Parish Church

Jeffrey Muller, Ph.D. (1977), Yale University, is Professor of the History of Art at Brown University. His writings on early modern art include Rubens’s Collection in History (2004) and Jesuit Uses of Art in the Province of Flanders (2015).

“Jeffrey Muller’s book is the result of several years of painstaking research in Sint-Jacob’s well-preserved archival records … [It is] of great value both for its wealth of historical information and for the light it throws on the church’s important paintings and sculptures by Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, Gerard Seghers, the Quellinus family, Hendrik van Balen the Elder and many others. … Both the illuminating text and the illustrations will be a very useful resource for students of Flemish Baroque art.” - Hans Vlieghe, in: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 159, No. 1374 (September 2017), pp. 728-729“Expansive in scope and interdisciplinary in intent, […] Muller’s volume now represents the most important resource on the history and building of St. Jacob’s. As a case study par excellence in the communal, social, and material history of a highly significant early modern Antwerp institution, it also offers further food for thought on the roles that the urban elite and local traditions played in restoring Catholic Hapsburg power in Antwerp.” - Catherine H. Lusheck, University of San Francisco, in: Renaissance Quarterly 70.4 (Winter 2017), pp. 1514-1515“This is an extremely rewarding read for both specialists of Flemish art and architecture, historians of early modern Catholicism, and the general reader. It will be a crucial reference work and sets a very high standard for future studies on the art and culture of the Counter Reformation. By integrating all facets of the rich ecclesiastical art of the South Netherlands, this book shows how this religious culture was a vibrant social system which formed the very center of life.” - Eelco Nagelsmit, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen [Review published in February 2018 at Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews]

• ContentsList of IllustrationsList of tablesAbbreviationsAcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: St. Jacob’s Parish and Construction of the Church: 1491-1780Chapter 2: Ornament for the Church: 1585-1656Chapter 3: Circa 1660: Crisis and Ornament:The Creation of a New Interior for the Parish Church Chapter 4: Sacraments in the ParishChapter 5: The Blessed Sacrament Chapel and the Marriage ChapelChapter 6: The Lady Chapel in Search of an ImageChapter 7: St. Jacob's New Collegiate Chapter of Canons and Their ChoirChapter 8: Private Chapels in the ChurchChapter 9: St. Jacob’s Counter Reformation ConfraternitiesChapter 10: Death in the ChurchChapter 11: Church Against State in the Time of Enlightenment and RevolutionConclusionAppendix 1: Documentation of Private Chapels in St. Jacob'sAppendix 2: Foundation, Membership, and Location of Brotherhoods at St. Jacob’s in Chronological OrderBibliography