ABSTRACT
In the early modern Netherlands, architecture and monumental sculpture were particularly effective in asserting the political claims of society’s privileged sectors. Opulent town halls and imposing cloth halls announced the power of the cities and their commercial interests to the ruling elite. 1 In the communal space of parish churches, elaborate tombs for the high nobility forcefully affirmed their public authority and their proximity to the emperor. 2 And during the years of Protestant rebellion, sumptuous church furnishing could trumpet the victory of Catholicism and its institutions over heresy. Recently, Charles Avery and Mariët Westermann have discussed the jubé made for the Church of St. John in ’s-Hertogenbosch as a compelling declaration of Counter-reformatory triumph in this northernmost outpost of the Roman religion. 3
