Individual Scholar Page

Personal Info

Photo

About Me

I am a cultural historian focused on early modern Catholic women’s relationships to visual culture. I have published extensively on the Court Beguinages of the Low Countries, and I am deeply interested in how women harnessed artistic patronage and display to gain and maintain agency over their lives. From that research I’ve also developed specializations in early modern Low Countries property rights, domestic material culture, and communal living. I also have broad expertise on late medieval, Renaissance, and baroque art and architecture.

Recent Publications

“Low Countries Women as Funders of Art and Architecture: Gender, Property Rights, and the Financing of the Flemish Baroque,” Journal of the Early Modern Low Countries 9.1 (2025), 240-263.

“Reform and Resistance in the 1540s, or How the Diest Beguines Tried to Get Rid of Their Priest,” in Women and Religion: Dissenters, Workers, Writers in the Early Modern European Context (1500-1700), eds. Francesco Quatrini and Katherine O’Donnell. London: Bloomsbury (in press/2025).

“Court Beguinage Mistresses as Art Curators,” in Women Who Made a Difference in the Arts in the Early Modern Low Countries. Essays in Honour of Katlijne Van der Stighelen, eds. Lieke Van Deinsen, Bert Schepers, Marjan Sterckx, Hans Vlieghe, Bert Watteeuw. Turnhout: Brepols, 2024, 314-323.

“Women and Artistic Knowledge in the Family: Mechelen Beguinage Grand Mistress Clara Eugenia Brueghel,” in Brueghel: The Family Reunion, ed. Nadia Groeneveld-Baadj. ’s-Hertogenbosch: WBooks, 2023, 107-113.

Media Coverage

Social Media

Country Focus

Belgium

Expertise by Geography

Western Europe

Expertise by Chronology

Medieval, Early Modern

Expertise by Topic

Art & Architectural History, Book History, Material Culture, Museums, Women