01 Work, The Art of War, Flemish School's The Capture of Tunis, 1535, with footnotes

Flemish School, mid-16th Century

The Capture of Tunis, c. 1535

Oil on panel

31 x 44 7/8 in. (78.7 x 114 cm.)

Private collection

Sold for GBP 325,000 in Dec 2020

The Conquest of Tunis (1535) was a battle of the Ottoman-Habsburg Wars that was fought between a Habsburg/Christian alliance (backed by the Hafsid dynasty) and the Ottoman Empire (backed by two French galleys). The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, assembled an invasion force of 60,000 troops and 398 ships from the Habsburg domains, Genoa, Portugal, the Papal States, and the Knights of St. John, and he had this force invade Tunis in North Africa, from which the Ottomans and their corsairs launched several raids against the Christian states of the Mediterranean. The Habsburgs destroyed the Ottoman fleet in the harbor before besieging the fortress of La Goletta, suffering heavy losses in the process (many of them from dysentery). After the Habsburg forces conquered the city of Tunis, they massacred 30,000 Muslim civilians, and the stench was so bad that Charles V moved his camp from Tunis to Rades to avoid it. Tunis would remain in Habsburg hands until 1574, when the Ottomans reconquered the city. More on The Conquest of Tunis (1535)

Flemish art, art of the 15th, 16th, and early 17th centuries in Flanders and in the surrounding regions, known for its vibrant materialism and unsurpassed technical skill. Flemish painters were masters of the oil medium and used it primarily to portray a robust and realistically detailed vision of the world around them. Their paintings reflect clearly the changes in fortune of this narrow slice of country between France, Germany, and the Low Countries.

The precursors of the Flemish school are usually placed in Dijon, the first capital of the dukes of Burgundy. Philip the Bold (reigned 1363–1404) established the powerful Flemish-Burgundian alliance that lasted more than a century. He also established a tradition of art patronage that was to last nearly as long. Among the artists he attracted to Dijon were the sculptor Claus Sluter of Haarlem and the painter Melchior Broederlam of Ypres, in whose richly textured works one can see the attachment to the world of surface appearances that is so characteristic of the Flemish school. More on Flemish art

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