Three consecutive generations of Habsburg princes and princesses spent part of their early lives in Mechelen, a fiefdom of the Habsburg Netherlands and an important centre for politics, culture, and early childhood education in the 15th and 16th centuries. Other powerful families from all over Europe also sent their children to Mechelen - the most famous is perhaps Anne Boleyn, who later became Queen of England. This catalogue documents an exhibition of children's portraits, manuscripts, toys, jewellery, and educational treatises from Mechelen, illuminating the historical, pedagogical, and artistic background of these works. Included here are early childhood portraits by well known artists, including Jan Gossart, Berard van Orley, and Juan de Flandes and educational tracts by Erasmus and Juan Luis Vives. AUTHOR: Dagmar Eichberger is professor of art history at the University of Heidelberg. She has written several books, including Women at the Burgundian Court: Presence and Influence and Durer and his Culture. Till-Holger Borchert is an art historian and the artistic director of Musea Bruges. He has written numerous books, most recently Masterpiece: Van Eyck to Rubens. Hilde De Ridder-Symoens is a retired professor of history at the Free University of Amsterdam and Ghent University. She is the author of A History of the University in Europe. Anne-Marieke Willemsen is an art historian and archaeologist and is a curator in the medieval department of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. She has written extensively on Roman and medieval children's toys. SELLING POINTS: . Documents an exhibition on art and the education of children in Mechelen during the Habsburg Empire . Offers insight into educational values ??and techniques from the 15th - 16th century . Sheds a surprising light on the genre of the children's portraiture 140 colour and 30 b/w illustrations