On 9 May 2025, the international seminar No Man is an Island will be hosted at the Kadriorg Art Museum, where several CODART members will speak. The seminar is held within the framework of the museum’s exhibition Bernardo Strozzi: Beyond Caravaggio. It offers a comparative look at artists’ studio practices in the Early Modern period, it sheds light on both the continuity of the tradition (the workshop) and its evolution (the studio), regional differences and universal similarities, as well as issues of art education and trade.

The exhibition has some of its topics focused on questions related to Strozzi’s workshop practices: running the workshop in Genoa and Venice, preparing autograph replicas and workshop copies, the role of pupils’ and assistants’ contributions in Strozzi’s oeuvre, and the adaptation of the master’s technique and style. Considering the extent of the workshop’s production in Strozzi’s work, this topic has so far remained understudied. The seminar brings together various examples of workshops/studios operating in the late sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century, including examples from Italy, the Low Countries and the Baltic Sea region. The most famous examples of the period are Peter Paul Rubens’s “painting factory” in Antwerp, with its strict division of labor, and Rembrandt’s more pedagogical studio-school in Amsterdam. Before Rubens, Maarten de Vos ran the most productive studio in Antwerp, and it provided altarpieces and pictorial models that spread across Europe and the Atlantic Ocean and were adopted by different Christian confessions. Paintings from De Vos’s studio also formed the impetus for the joint research and exhibition project of the Kadriorg Art Museum and the Sinebrychoff Art Museum: Maarten de Vos: A Universal Image Engine (2025–2028).

Program

• 11 am Welcoming words
  Aleksandra Murre, the director of the Kadriorg Art Museum – Art Museum of Estonia
• 11.10 am Introduction to the seminar theme
  Dr. Greta Koppel, a curator at the Kadriorg Art Museum
• 11.20 am The Madonna Enthroned: Creating a Monumental Altarpiece in the Rubens Workshop
  Dr. Koen Bulckens, the curator of sixteenth and seventeenth century art, Royal Fine Arts Museum in Antwerp (KMSKA)
• 11.50 am Grappling with Greatness: Rembrandt and his “Disciples” in the Studio
  Dr. David de Witt, a senior curator, Rembrandthuis
• 12.20–1.50 pm Leisurely lunch and time to visit the exhibition Bernardo Strozzi: Beyond Caravaggio
• 1.50 pm Jacopo Bassano: Running a Workshop in the Venetian Terraferma
  Dr. Kirsi Eskelinen, the director of the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki
• 2.20 pm An Artistic Elephant in the Room: Maarten de Vos Waiting to be Rediscovered
  Dr. Nico van Hout, the head of collection research and curator of seventeenth century paintings, Royal Fine Arts Museum in Antwerp (KMSKA)
• 2.40–3 pm Coffee break
• 3 pm Ermanno Stroiffi and Strozzi’s Venetian Workshop: Between Techniques, Practices and Market
  Anna Orlando, an independent researcher and curator / Municipality of Genova, Board of Culture
• 3.30 pm Bernardo Strozzi’s Painting Technique in his Journey Between Genoa and Venice
  Dr. Michela Fasce, a painting conservator in Genoa
• 4 pm The Case of Concert: Strozzi’s Studio Production
  Dr. Greta Koppel and Johanna Lamp, a former painting conservator in the Art Museum of Estonia
• 4.20 pm Wall Dyers and Artists in the Tallinn Painters’ Guild
  PhD candidate Triin Kröönström, chief specialist, Tallinn City Archives
• 4.40 pm Exporting Art Across the Sea: Tobias Heintze’s Workshop in Tallinn
  Dr. Merike Kurisoo, the director of the Niguliste Museum – Art Museum of Estonia
• 5–5.30 pm Moderated discussion

Practicalities

The seminar will be held in English. Entrance is free, but please register by e-mail via kadriorg@ekm.ee.