From 2011 until 2022, Frans Grijzenhout (1956) held the chair of art history of the early modern period at the University of Amsterdam. He is a specialist in the relationships between art and politics in the Netherlands in the late-eighteenth century, on which he co-authored and co-edited the book Het Bataafse experiment (The Batavian Experiment. Politics and Culture around 1800, 2013, together with Niek van Sas and Wyger Velema ). Among his other publications are The Golden Age of Dutch Painting in its Historical Perspective (Cambridge UP 1999, with Henk van Veen), The Burgher of Delft. A Painting by Jan Steen (2007, with Niek van Sas), and ‘Ferdinand Bol’s portrait historié in the Hermitage: identification and interpretation’, Simiolus (2010), and Vermeer's Little Street: a View of the Penspoort in Delft (Rijksmuseum, 2015).

A full list of his publications organized by field of interest can be found elsewhere on this personal webpage.

International publications

on Dutch Painting of the Seventeenth Century

‘Three brothers, thrice six years old: Thomas de Keyser’s riddle solved’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin (2022:1) 4-25 https://doi.org/10.52476/trb.11720

‘Adriaen van Ostade, Frans Hals, and the art-loving Van den Heuvel family’, Simiolus (2021: 3) 170-188

‘Potter’s Bull: an heirloom and a gift’, Journal of the Historians of Netherlandish Art 13: 1 (2021) https://jhna.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/JHNA_13.1_Grijzenhout.pdf

Frans Grijzenhout, Gwen Borms, Julia van Marissing, Sophia Thomassen, ‘A Delft family portrait (1638) by Jan Daemen Cool’, Oud-Holland 133 (2020) 77-90 (peer reviewed)

https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/55499510/_18750176_Oud_Holland_Journal_for_Art_of_the_Low_Countries_A_Delft_family_portrait_1638_by_Jan_Daemen_Cool.pdf

‘Pieter de Hooch’s personal topography: Delft and Amsterdam’ and ‘Portrait of a Delft family’, in: A. Jansen ed., Pieter de Hooch: from the shadow of Vermeer, Zwolle 2019, 48-55 en 138-142. 

A footnote on the provenance of Vermeer’s Lady standing at a virginal in the National Gallery, London’, The Burlington Magazine 161 (2019) 745-747

'Vermeer's Little Street revisited', Bulletin of the KNOB (2018:1), 1-13. https://journals.open.tudelft.nl/index.php/knob/article/download/2014/3971/.

Frans Grijzenhout en Erna Kok, ‘A rare case of evidence: Ferdinand Bol’s portrait of an 8-year-old boy (1652) identified’, in: Stephanie S. Dickey (ed.), Ferdinand Bol & Govert Flick: new research, Zwolle (W Books) 2017, 115-131.

Vermeer`s Little Street: A View of the Penspoort in Delft, Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015, 84 pp. 

‘Between memory and amnesia: the posthumous portraits of Johan and Cornelis de Witt’, Journal of the Historians of Netherlandish Art 7 (2015: 1) 12pp. http://www.jhna.org/index.php/vol-7-1-2015/306-frans-grijzenhout

Frans Grijzenhout, Ines Jonkhoff, Merel Kramer, Dorine de Bruijne, ‘Frans Hals in mennonitischen Brauerkreisen. Die Porträts eines unbekannten Ehepaares im Wallraf-Richartz-Museum’, Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch, Köln 2014, pp. 254-266.

‘Frans Hals: the portraits of a mennonite watch maker and his wife’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 61 (2013: 2) 123-138.  https://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.400514

‘Michiel van Musscher and Bartholomeus van der Helst: theft of honor or creative imitation?’, in: A.W.A. Boschloo, J. Couttré, N. Sluijter-Seijffert ed., Aemulatio: essays in honor of Eric Jan Sluijter, 2011, 393-406.

'Ferdinand Bol's portrait historié in the Hermitage: identification and interpretation', Simiolus 34 (2009-2010) nr. 1, 33-49. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20779989

'New information on Pieter de Hooch and the Amsterdam lunatic asylum', The Burlington Magazine 150 (2008-2009) 612-613.

F. Grijzenhout & N.C.F. van Sas, The burgher of Delft. A picture by Jan Steen, Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam) 2007.

F. Grijzenhout & H.Th. van Veen (red.), The Golden Age of Dutch painting in historical perspective, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 1999.

'Non gloria sed memoria. Die Erinneringsfunktion des Wortes in der niederländischen Malerei', in: Cat. tent. Leselust. Niederländische Kunst von Rembrandt bis Vermeer, Frankfurt (Schirn Kunsthalle) 1993, 93-105.

Eighteenth Century, Art and Politics, Satire

'Looking backward. On a motive in visual satire’, S. de Leeuw & M. Meijer Drees (red.),  The power of satire, Amsterdam (John Benjamins) 2015, 147-174.

‘Esser & Napoleon: Kupferstichhändler’, in: W. Cillessen, R. Reichardt (red.), Revoution und Gegenrevolution in der europäischen Bildpublizistik 1789-1889, Hildesheim (Georg Olms) 2010, 242-260.

'"In these days of convulsive political change". Discourse and display in the revolutionary museum 1793-1815', in: F. van Vree, J. Winter (red.), Performing the past. The making of European historical culture, Amsterdam (Amsterdam University Press) 2010, 287-303.

'Visiting the conservation studio in revolutionary Paris: putting words to conservation', in: E.S. Bergvelt, D.J. Meijers, L. Tibbe, E. van Wezel (red.), Napoleon's legacy. The rise of national museums in Europe 1794-1830, Berlijn (G + H Verlag) 2009 (Berliner Schriftenreihe zur Museumsforschung XXVII), 101-109.

‘Un souverain étranger et son opinion publique’, in: Louis Napoléon, premier roi de Hollande, 1806-1810 (Cat. expo. Institut Néerlandais, Paris), Zutphen (De Walburg Pers) 2007, 13-21.

'La fête révolutionnaire aux Pays-Bas: de l'utopie à l'indifférence', in: La révolution batave. Péripéties d'une république-soeur (1795-1813) ( Annales historiques de la révolution française, nr. 326 (octobre/décembre 2001)) 107-116.

'La patrie réinventée. L'art hollandais dans la période française (1795-1813)', in: A. Jourdan & J. Leerssen (red.), Remous révolutionnaires. République batave, armée française, Amsterdam (Amsterdam University Press) 1996, 138-159.

'Jean-Etienne Liotard aux Pays-Bas. A propos de quelques documents inédits', Genava , n.s. 33 (1985) 83-95.

other

Douwe Fokkema & Frans Grijzenhout (red.), Ouzhou shiye zhong di helan wenhua, Guangxi ( Guangxi Normal University Press) 2007.

Douwe Fokkema & Frans Grijzenhout (red.), Accounting for the past, New York (Palgrave) 2004

'Empty places: historic houses and national memory', in: R. Pavoni (red.), Historic house museums as witnesses of national and local identities (Acts of the third annual DEMHIST conference, Amsterdam, 14-16 October 2002).

In the morning of the 19th of November I presented the results of my inquiry into the exact location of Johannes Vermeer's famous painting The Little Street in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum. After exhaustive research in the Delft Archives and elsewhere I have reached the conclusion that Vermeer's Little Street must be sought on the north side of Vlamingstraat, at the present house numbers 40-42. Vlamingstraat is one of the smaller canals in the eastern part of the town of Delft; in Vermeer's days this was a humbe neighbourhood.

The house that is now number 42 (the right one in Vermeer's picture) belonged to Vermeer's aunt, Ariaentgen Claes van der Minne; she was a half-sister of Vermeer's father. Ariaentgen Claes earned her living and that of her five children by selling tripe. The alleyway next to her house was called the Penspoort (Tripe Gate).

You can read the full story in: Frans Grijzenhout, Vermeer's Little Street: A View of the Penspoort in Delft, 84 pp, Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015 (transl. Lynne Richards)

In June-July 2017, I was given the opportunity by Dutch public television to present my research to a wider audience . Six episodes of the programme "Kunstraadsels" ("Enigma's of Dutch Art") were broadcasted in prime time on Thursday evenings. In this programme, I was assisted by my two former students Julia van Marissing and Sophia Thomassen, whilst trying to find out the identity of sitters in several Dutch Goden Age portraits by Ferdinand Bol, Frans Hals and Jan Steen, and, of course, the location of Vermeer's Little Street.  It was great fun working with them as well as with a large number of specialists, independent or from all kinds of museums and archives, and with the wonderful team of Niehe Media / Medialane (Iris van Reeuwijk, Feije Riemersma, Helmi Slings, Monique Visser).