This Further Subject is intended for undergraduates who wish to combine an interest in the structures of courts and court culture with an introduction to some of the major issues and methodological challenges involved in studying the history of art in a courtly context. The study of courts as the focus of political, social and cultural authority within the early modern state has been a dynamic and exciting area of historical enquiry in the last few decades. No less important has been the impact of both art-historical and historical scholarship in exploring the practical mechanisms of art patronage, the use of art by rulers and other élites to construct justifications for the legitimization of authority, and the respective role of artists, patrons and scholars in the formulation of ideological programmes within a court context. The course will seek to bring these two areas together in a study that will focus on a number of specific courts and on wider issues connected with court patronage of the arts, the resources and aims of patrons, and the reactions of both courtly and non-courtly élites to these initiatives. An introductory seminar will examine some of the historiographical and methodological problems involved in studying courts and in coming to terms with what will be for most students the unfamiliar context of art-historical scholarship. Subsequent seminars will look at a range of European courts, from Papal Rome, through the early Stuarts, the Habsburg court at Brussels and Louis XIV’s Versailles, while additional topics will include the role of female patrons, the place of collecting in court patronage and the use of theatrical, musical or other staged performances in court culture.

The prescribed texts and documents will introduce the student to a variety of texts and documents concerning the detail of commissions and execution of works of art, inventories of collections, correspondence between artists, courtiers. Near-contemporary writings about artists give insights into issues such as factional rivalries, political or familial strategies, perceptions of artistic merit and the status of artists in court culture. There are no prescribed images for this course, though students will be encouraged to analyse particular works of art as case studies in understanding the workings of patronage, the politics of display or the operations of court ritual and etiquette. In a number of cases, holdings in the major Oxford art galleries will be used to supplement this visual evidence. A general lecture course on ‘Art and Power in the 16th and 17th Centuries’ offered in Michaelmas term will provide an introduction to some of the major themes. The course is taught by a group of history and history of art tutors, including the Director of the Ashmolean, and while the subject matter of the seminars is prescriptive, there will be opportunities to diversify across a wider range of subjects in the tutorial component of the course.