The Archdukes and Company Before Mariemont Castle 

Jan Brueghel the Elder painted this idyllic scene of ‘The Archdukes and Company Before Mariemont Castle’ in the early 17th century. It’s an interesting example of the public role of art. Brueghel was working in a very particular social context. He was court painter to the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, the Habsburg rulers of the Spanish Netherlands. So in one sense, this is a piece of propaganda, showing the Archdukes as benevolent rulers at one with their land. But it is a little more subtle than that. The castle Mariemont was a former royal residence, which had been allowed to fall into disrepair, and this painting was commissioned to mark its restoration. So it seems to be making a claim about the Archdukes’ place in a longer history of the Netherlands, and signaling their intention to continue it. To understand the painting more fully we need to know the social conditions that shaped its production. And here, archival sources are key.