The Arbeitskreis Niederländische Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte (ANKK) is a German-speaking society devoted to the study of Dutch and Flemish art and culture. Their 2025 annual meeting took place in Aschaffenburg, on the theme of cultural interactions between the Low Countries and Germany. Over three panels, speakers covered a diverse range of topics: cabinets of curiosities, musical instruments, scholarly and architectural networks, and the mobility of artists.

My own contribution, “When nature called”, was about Peter Paul Rubens’s four hunting scenes for Maximilian I, duke and later elector of Bavaria. Commissioned c. 1617, they were originally hung in the great hall of the Altes Schloss Schleißheim. I situated the commission within its political and religious context, drawing attention to Maximilian’s dynastic strategies for expanding Catholicism in Southern Germany before his famous victory at White Mountain. I then interpreted Rubens’s hunts through an ecological lens, drawing attention to their symbolic function at the heart of an agricultural estate famous for its beer and cheese production.

My paper found a receptive audience, and I made many useful contacts with both young and more established researchers. The intimate and collegiate atmosphere made my participation in the conference especially productive. I also had the pleasure of guided tours of the Stiftsmuseum and Stiftsbasilika, and of the Staatsgalerie Aschaffenburg. Highlights included Lucas Cranach’s Magdalene Altar and the Apostles series by Van Dyck. In addition, I welcomed the opportunity to practice my German, and I enjoyed sampling the local beer. Prost!

Dr Adam Sammut is a historian of seventeenth-century Flemish art. Adam’s articles have appeared in Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art, Dutch Crossing and Review of Scottish Culture. His PhD thesis (University of York, 2021) was published as a monograph entitled Rubens and the Dominican church in Antwerp: art and political economy in an age of religious conflict (2023), as part of Brill’s Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History. In 2023, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.