Going Dutch

The visual riches of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg have enthralled visitors since the 15th century. Michael Hall traces the reasons this small slice of Europe has nurtured some of the world's greatest masters

- Michael Hall

IN 1436, an intrepid young Spanish nobleman named Pedro Tafur set out from Gibraltar on a three-year journey to see the sights of Europe and the Middle East. From Italy, he sailed to the Holy Land, Egypt and Sinai, returning across land to Germany. By the time he reached the Netherlands, in 1438, he had seen many wonders, including hippopotamuses and the pyramids, but he was far from jaded: he was astonished by the wealth on show in the shops and markets of Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent and Bruges. ‘The goddess of luxury has great power there,’ Tafur wrote. ‘Anyone who has money, and wishes to spend it, will find in Bruges alone everything that the whole world produces.’ Among the magnificent goldsmiths’ work, textiles and carpets, Italian armour, furs from the Black Sea, oranges and lemons from Castile and spices from Alexandria, he noted that, in Antwerp, ‘pictures of all kinds are sold in the monastery of St Francis’.

Tafur does not describe those pictures, although he says that they are destined for churches and so, presumably, were religious in nature, but his account of his visit vividly conveys the main reason the region that is roughly encompassed by modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg sustained one of the great traditions of European art over nearly three centuries —it was rich. This was largely because the area lay on the most important crossroads of European trade by sea, as well as land: Tafur claimed that as many as 700 ships sailed from the harbour of Bruges every day. He pointed out that the region was not rich agriculturally, so, to an unusual degree, its inhabitants relied on ‘the work of their hands’ for their income.