ABSTRACT
From the late fifteenth century, some women acted as patrons of the arts. By the seventeenth century, the growing importance of collecting among princes and nobles stimulated a lively international art market, while in the Dutch Republic paintings appealed to almost all ranks of society, fostering a deep interest in extra-European cultures. In Northern Europe, artists' guilds survived well into the seventeenth century. By the early seventeenth century several princes and courtiers possessed large collections of paintings and sculptures, composed of both the works of Renaissance masters – whose value had steadily increased – and those of contemporary artists. The construction of the Buen Retiro palace, adorned with hundreds of artworks, on the outskirts of Madrid signalled the crown's power, wealth, taste and cultural discernment to both courtiers and foreign visitors. The arts played a crucial role in the confessional age.
