ABSTRACT
When Adriaan Hertsen, former burgomaster of Antwerp, died on 11 January 1532 at the age of about fifty, he left behind a widow, many children, and an immense house full of art and other luxury objects. The notes of the clerks who made up the inventory of Hertsen’s worldly possessions provide an intimate view into the interior of the deceased’s large townhouse, or huizinghe. This document is also one of the richest and most complete early sixteenth-century civic probate inventories to have surfaced thus far. The present contribution aims to clarify the nature of Hertsen’s art collection, to put it into a broader context by comparing it with other contemporary private collections, and to sketch the owner’s profile as a collector.
