Objects of beauty and prestige with their rich colour and fine detail, early Netherlandish oil paintings were among the most sought-after works of the Renaissance. Beginning in the early fifteenth century with Jan van Eyck, and ending in the early sixteenth century with the career of Pieter Bruegel, Susan Frances Jones explores the roles played by paintings in political, domestic, religious and secular contexts during this gloriously innovative period. She draws on the National Gallery's remarkable research into materials and techniques to describe how painters' working and creative practices changed and shifted, and examines whether Northern European artists, like some of their Italian counterparts, laid claim to intellectual as well as artistic sophistication. Published alongside the exhibition Jan Gossaert's Renaissance, National Gallery, London, 23 February — 30 May 2011.