In this virtual talk, Caroline Fowler will discuss the ways in which the development of trans-Atlantic slave trade was formative to the history of Dutch painting, and its reception. While Dutch painting is often heralded for its descriptive qualities of everyday middle-class existence in the burgeoning Dutch Republic, Fowler will consider the ways in which these tropes around freedom, description and the middle class are imbricated within a larger history of slavery and the plantation economy.

Caroline Fowler is Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute, and a lecturer at Williams College. Her most recent books include, The Art of Paper: From the Holy Land to the Americas and Slavery and the Invention of Dutch Art. She occasionally hosts the podcast In the Foreground: Conversations on Art & Writing, and co-edits a book series of conservation and art history, Art/Work.

$8 General Access

$5 Discounted Access (For HHS members, seniors, students, active military personnel and their families, and veterans.)