At once collector, botanist, reader, artist, and patron, Agnes Block is best described as a cultural producer. A member of an influential network in her lifetime, today she remains a largely obscure figure. The socioeconomic and political barriers faced by early modern women, together with a male-dominated tradition in art history, have meant that too few stories of women’s roles in the creation, production, and consumption of art have reached us. This book seeks to write Block and her contributions into the art and cultural history of the seventeenth-century Netherlands, highlighting the need for and advantages of a multifaceted approach to research on early modern women. Examining Block’s achievements, relationships, and objects reveals a woman who was independent, knowledgeable, self-aware, and not above self-promotion. Though her gender brought few opportunities and many barriers, Agnes Block succeeded in fashioning herself as Flora Batava, a liefhebber at the intersection of art and science.

Dr. Catherine Powell-Warren is a postdoctoral research fellow in art history at Ghent University. Her research focuses on the role of early modern women of the Low Countries in the creation, production, and consumption of art and culture, with a special interest in networks and concepts of collaboration and community.

Acknowledgements
List of Figures and Photographic Credits
Introduction
Chapter 1. Vijverhof and the Pursuit of Nature
Chapter 2. Vijverhof in Context
Chapter 3. Vijverhof as a Space of Knowledge Creation, Exchange, and Relationships
Chapter 4. Becoming Flora Batava
Chapter 5. Flora Batava in Context
Chapter 6. The Bloemenboek and Block’s Watercolours: Self-Fashioning at the Intersection of Art and Science
Chapter 7. The Bloemenboek as a Meeting Place and Visual Manifestation of Agnes Block’s Artistic Network
Appendix A
Bibliography