The latest issue of Simiolus has been published. This double issue ushers in a new era for the journal. It is the first issue produced by the new editorial team led by Ruben Suykerbuyk. In addition, this issue announces that subsequent installments of the quarterly will also be available in a new digital format. Further information can be found in the editorial below, which we are allowed to publish with kind permission of the editor.

Editorial

This new volume of Simiolus festively opens by publishing the laureate of the 2021 Haboldt-Mutters Prize, established by Bob Haboldt in memory of his mother and awarded to young art historians. It is a pleasure to congratulate Elsabeth Dikkes with winning it, and to share with you her painstaking research into the international career of François de Bray and his lacquer works in the Dutch Republic and Denmark. We are now accepting submissions for this year’s competition, the call for which is open until the end of the year. So please have a look at our website for the guidelines, and send us your papers, or encourage bright young minds to do so.

This double issue also includes the first full reconstruction of Jacob Jordaens’s Psyche Gallery in his Antwerp house, as well as an in-depth iconological analysis of Jacques de Gheyn II’s monumental Preparation for the witches’ sabbath. Furthermore, it publishes the rich archive of an early and previously unknown film project by Marcel Broodthaers on the Dutch light artist Livinus van de Bundt. While this might be unfamiliar terrain for our readers, it nicely fits with previously published papers about films on art and artists. And it also underscores our enthusiasm for occasional forays into twentieth-century art.

The current volume of Simiolus also marks a moment of transition. It is the first to have been produced by our slightly rejuvenated board of editors, headed by Ruben Suykerbuyk, and it is with enormous gratitude that we thank retiring members Peter Hecht and Ger Luijten for their hard work and faithful devotion in safeguarding the quality and production of our journal through the last decades. Fortunately, both will stay with us as board members of the Stichting Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties, the foundation that publishes Simiolus. Ger even generously accepted to take up the position of chair, which had remained vacant after Emilie Gordenker left us in 2019. Anita Hopmans, from the RKD, replaces Everhard Kortals Altes as secretary, while Victor Schmidt, from Utrecht University, serves as our new treasurer.

Finally, Simiolus has now also definitively entered the digital age. Not only have we set up a successful Instagram account, this is also the last volume to appear in print only. As of volume 45 (2023), we will indeed be offering the supplementary possibility to read Simiolus digitally, in order to reach as many readers as possible. Subscribers will be able to choose how they would like to receive our issues, and the most recent individual articles that are not yet found in JSTOR will be accessible at our website, Simiolus.nl. The practicalities of this operation are currently being finalized, so do send your name and e-mail address to info@simiolus.nl if you are interested, and/or follow us on Instagram to stay informed. But most of all: keep subscribing, reading and writing for us!

Contents

Simiolus Netherlands quarterly for the history of art, vol. 44, nr. 1/2

Guy Tal
‘Skepticism and morality in Jacques de Gheyn II’s Preparation for the witches’ sabbath’

Leen Kelchtermans and Katharina van Cauteren
‘From drawings to comprehensive work of art: a reconstruction of Jacob Jordaens’s Psyche Gallery in his Antwerp house’

Elsabeth Alicia Dikkes
‘East Asian lacquer in the Dutch Republic and Denmark: the early networks of François de Bray’

Raf Wollaert
‘Lumière sur La Haye: exploring Marcel Broodthaers’s unfinished film project on Livinus van de Bundt’s photo-painting practice (1962)’

Simiolus Netherlands quarterly for the history of art

Simiolus is an English-language journal devoted to the history of Dutch and Flemish art of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, with occasional forays into more recent periods and other schools. Simiolus is published as a quarterly by the Stichting Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties. For subscriptions visit www.simiolus.nl