The Vereniging van Nederlandse Kunsthistorici (Dutch Association of Art Historians) has awarded its annual Karel van Mander prize to Anna Koopstra. The Curator of Early Netherlandish Painting at Musea Brugge received the award for her publication Jean Bellegambe (c. 1470 – 1535/36). Making, Meaning and Patronage of His Works (2022). The Karel van Mander prize has been awarded to outstanding art-historical publications since 1958.

According to the jury, Anna Koopstra’s book on Jean Bellegambe adds an extremely careful, thorough and beautifully edited study to the monographs on early Dutch painters. The painter Bellegambe belongs to the last generation of the so-called ‘Flemish Primitives’ and has remained underexposed because not a single signed work of his has survived and because his working area was limited to the region of Douai (Dowaai), the northern French town where he worked throughout his life. Koopstra’s book, which is based on her 2016 Ph.D. dissertation at London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, shows that such ignorance is not justified.

For the complete jury report, see the VNK-website (in Dutch).