Guilliam Forchondt and the role of the Greater Netherlands in the dissemination of Flemish art in Latin America

The many seventeenth-century Flemish paintings now found in Spain and Latin America show the expanse of the circulation of artworks from the Southern Netherlands. Antwerp artists and vertically integrated art dealers such as Guilliam Forchondt (1608-1678) drove this widespread dissemination of paintings. A systematic study of Forchondt’s business records kept in Antwerp, complemented by archival and visual sources in Spain, Mexico and Peru, shows that Forchondt was an export-oriented dealer with a voluminous trade in paintings with the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas. This paper explores the type of imagery Forchondt sent to Spanish and New World buyers in contrast to what his clients bought in other parts of Europe, and identifies market conditions at the points of origin and destination that made these artistic exchanges possible. In doing so, this research also unveils the role the Northern Netherlands played in promoting this longdistance art trade venture.