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The "Seven Works of Mercy" by the Master of Alkmaar presents several conundrums. The archivalia concerning its commission and use no longer exist and the identity of the artist is in dispute. Further, damage done to the panels during the sixteenth century and the subsequent repairs put art historians on shaky ground when trying to interpret the series as a whole. Consequently, it is one of the most challenging, and perhaps least understood, objects in the history of northern art. These difficulties aside, something of its function can still be gleaned by turning to the historical realities of Alkmaar in the decade preceding the panels' execution. This article works to reconstruct the context in which and for which the "Seven Works of Mercy" was made. Specifically, it is argued that these panels constituted a clear political statement designed to repair the city's shattered reputation and argue for the return of its lost rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the Dutch Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Particular focus is given to his travels throughout Italy between 1552 and 1555. Additional topics discussed include travel conditions and motives for the artist, the artist's work in ink drawing and Bruegel's time spent in Rome, Italy.

This article is an account of the copies made during the fifteenth and sixteenth century of Rogier van der Weyden's "Deposition from the Cross" (c. 1430–35), as that altarpiece migrated from the chapel of Our Lady Outside the Walls in Louvain to the monastery of El Escorial in Spain. My primary concern in describing the journey of the "Deposition" from the Netherlands to Spain and the copies that it left in its wake is to show how these events and images bear on the concept of originality, and on the art-historical practice of reconstructing what is commonly designated as original context – a practice that, I use this material to argue, is more problematic than it is sometimes taken to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]