This project was a collaborative effort, involving Prof. em. Dr. Arie Wallert, Prof. Dr. Ing. Maarten van Bommel, Prof. Dr. Ing. Joris Dik as well as students from the University of Amsterdam and the University of Delft. The goal of the Frans Hals pilot project was to analyse the criteria that a number of prominent Hals scholars have used to determine whether a painting can be labelled an ‘authentic’ Hals or not. This study related these criteria to the seventeenth-century context in which the paintings were made. Moreover, it featured three case studies that assessed whether these criteria could be replaced and/or expanded by using new technical research methods such as infrared reflectography (IRR), hyperspectral imaging and MA-XRF analysis. This research laid the ground for the 2020 exhibition Frans Hals / not Frans Hals.

Experimental reconstructions and ethnographic methods are used as a means to study material culture, artisanal practices and art technologies of the pre-modern period and the practice of reconstruction research. This is an inherently collaborative approach, including a diversity of research methods, combining hands-on research in the laboratory with object-based, and text-based historical research.

My research focuses on methodological questions concerning the reconstruction of historical experience and embodied knowledge, close readings of recipes in their original language and translations. In the postdoctoral projects at Columbia University (2014-2016) and at Utrecht University (2016-today), I also developed a keen interest in digital humanities tools and digital environments for international collaborations. Within the ARTECHNE project, the focus is on artistic technique as codified in art technological how-to texts, in particular on 19th-century editions and their making, which are still in use in today’s conservation and research labs.

This postdoctoral research is part of the ERC-funded project ARTECHNE.

This project studies how technique was taught and learned in art and science between 1500 and 1950. Although the term ‘technical’ is readily used today, presently a history of the shifting meanings of the term ‘technique’ in arts and science is sorely lacking. This research is aimed at closing this gap in intellectual history, a.o. through the development of an interactive semantic-geographical map of ‘technique’ and related terms.
This postdoctoral research is part of the ERC-funded project ARTECHNE.

This project investigates a collection of 17th-century maritime archaeological textiles that was found in a shipwreck at the bottom of the North Sea near Texel, which can be dated to the middle of the 17th century. Research on the chemical characterization of these textiles by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography with photo diode array detector (UHPLC-PDA) and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-Ray (SEM-EDX) helps verifying their origins as well as evaluating their condition in order to support decision-making on adequate preservation measures and conservation treatments.