The Mobility, Meaning, Mercantile Connections of Altarpieces between Germany and Scandinavia across the Hanse Network in the Fifteenth Century

Project Information

HANSEALTAR

Grant agreement ID: 840531

DOI

10.3030/840531

Project closed

EC signature date 9 April 2019

Start date 1 August 2019

End date 31 July 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 214 158,72

EU contribution

€ 214 158,72

Coordinated by

NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNU
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HANSEALTAR (The Mobility, Meaning, Mercantile Connections of Altarpieces between Germany and Scandinavia across the Hanse Network in the Fifteenth Century)

Reporting period: 2019-08-01 to 2021-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The action, “The Mobility, Meaning, and Mercantile Connections of Altarpieces between Germany and Scandinavia across the Hanse Network in the Fifteenth Century,” (HANSEALTAR) investigated the economics of making devotional works of art in late-medieval Europe. The objectives centered on training in conservation science and developing a corpus of primary sources to expand the fellow’s research into a book-length project. HANSEALTAR used devotional altarpieces to trace cultural connections over long-distances, contributing a model of pre-modern networks in the era before global trade.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

19 out of 24 months of the project’s duration overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a consequence, fieldwork was only completed during the first five months and access to primary and secondary research was severely curtailed. Despite these setbacks, I achieved HANSEALTAR’s primary objectives of training, exploitation, dissemination, and the transfer of knowledge and expertise in several ways.

1. Familiarity with medieval Scandinavia through Norwegian language study (August-October 2019)
2. Secondment technical training in art history at UiO with Dr. Noëlle Streeton (August-October 2019)
3. Fieldwork in Norway and Sweden (August 2019-February 2020)
4. Invited lecture “The Meaning, Mobility, and Mercantile Connections of Altarpieces between Germany and Scandinavia across the Hanse Network in the Fifteenth Century” University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway (18 September 2019)
5. Organization of conference panels: “Transgressing the Artistic Borders of Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe I: Exported Altarpieces to Scandinavia”; “Transgressing the Artistic Borders of Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe II: Mobility at the Court and City” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK (6-9 July, postponed to July 2022 due to Covid-19)
6. Peer-review article *“Hanse Cultural Geography and Communal Identity in Late-Medieval City Views of Lübeck” Journal of Urban History (May 2020) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0096144220917933
7. Organized and led virtual workshop for “The Medieval Scandinavian Art Reader” (October 2020)
8. Co-edited anthology with Margrethe C. Stang, The Medieval Scandinavian Art Reader (Scandinavian Academic Press, forthcoming 2022) with 18 international contributors
9. Guest virtual lecture, “Medieval and Early Modern Art,” James Madison University (August 2020)
10. published object essay on Smarthistory (“Hermen Rode”)
11. published object essay on Smarthistory (“St. George and the Dragon”)
12. Invited as Contributing Editor for Northern European Medieval Art on Smarthistory
13. Committee member, New Initiatives Working Group, the International Center of Medieval Art (2020-2023)
14. Co-organized panel for the International Congress of Medieval Studies, on “The Global North: Medieval Scandinavia on the Borders of Europe,” Kalamazoo, Michigan (May 2021)
15. Invited Virtual Zoom Lecture, “Intermedial Collaboration: Making the Double-Winged Altarpiece in the Late-Medieval Workshop” University of Cambridge, Graduate Seminar Series on ‘Intermediality’ (17 February 2021)
16. Article draft: “Gregory’s Two Visions on the Double-Winged Retable: Lübeck’s Corpus Christi Altarpiece and the Multi-Material Presence of Christ” targeted to Studies in Iconography (submit winter 2022)
17. Job application, virtual interview and campus interview to tenure-track position at Hamilton College, with job talk title, “Art of the Hanse.” Negotiated and accepted offer February 2021.
18. Book manuscript in progress, “Art of the Hanse: The Transcultural Altarpiece in the Baltic and North Seas” (targeted press, Penn State University Press, submission in 2023)

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The goal of my MSCA fellowship was to gain training as an early career scholar in an understudied and underrepresented field of medieval art history. I am currently in a tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor of Art History at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, USA. In my current position as a faculty at a liberal arts college, I teach medieval and early modern art history courses centered on knowledge gained from my postdoctoral fellowship to undergraduate students. In addition to my efforts in the classroom, I provide service to my discipline of art history as the field reorients itself more globally to include traditionally marginalized geography. I am a contributor and contributing content editor on Smarthistory, the largest website on art history with 57-million page views annually. Despite the severe impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on research and training, the MSCA fellowship has enabled me to remain a competitive researcher and educator. My project results will be published in a book-length monograph, Art of the Hanse: The Transcultural Altarpiece in the Baltic and North Seas, that will be the first book publication on the subject.

Related documents

• saint-george-3-1-870x747.pdf