The Spanish Netherlands, as Flanders was known, remained under Habsburg rule until 1700, when Philip V, grandson of Louis XIV of France, ascended the Spanish throne. In the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), which followed, the Spanish Netherlands was ceded to the Austrian Habsburgs. Under Austrian rule the country was relatively peaceful. Commissions for architecture were numerous and the activities of the clergy and religious Orders were felt as much in the arts as socially. Contacts with the art of other countries were frequent, owing to visits of Flemish artists to France and Italy and to foreign artists who worked in Flanders.

In 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht ended the war between France and the United Provinces. Holland was in a state of decline, despite the prosperity of the Dutch East India Company. The re-establishment of the Stadtholderate in 1747 did not succeed in arresting the decline but merely maintained the traditions of the past. The house of Orange limited its artistic activities to the maintenance of its innumerable châteaux.