摘要：It all began with "600 Years of Netherlandish Art," a symposium announced in the CAA Newsletter for Winter 1981/82 (fig. 1). Nearly three decades later, we hear that announcement as a clarion call, for this gathering was the progenitor of Historians of Netherlandish Art, heralding a new era in the field of Northern European studies. From those beginnings, HNA has grown to an international organization with over six hundred members, many of them young scholars for whom HNA's early years are as shrouded in the mists of history as the 1430s. The publication of this inaugural issue of the Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art marks a milestone, an opportunity to pause and reflect on the genesis of HNA and on the enterprise and inspired leadership of the extraordinary woman who was its prime mover, Carol J. Purtle (1939-2008).
