Friday 1 November, 3:30pm
RKD, Prins Willem-Alexanderhof 5, The Hague
Public Lecture RKD: Innovation, Competition, and Fine Painting Technique: Marketing High-life Style in the Dutch 17th Century
Mauritshuis Visiting Fellows in Technical Studies
E. Melanie Gifford, Research Conservator for Painting Technology, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Lisha Glinsman, Conservation Scientist, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Recent technical research at the National Gallery of Art in Washington explores artistic exchange among the painters featured in the exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry (Paris, Dublin, Washington, 2017). This study reveals that these elegant scenes, painted for an elite Dutch art market, shared physical characteristics that defined a collective “high-life” style. At the same time, the research shows that painters each marketed their works by cultivating a distinctive personal manner—and that through subtle variations of technique and materials they could sell at somewhat different price levels. Finally, this technical study offers direct evidence for seventeenth century artists’ evaluations of their contemporaries’ artistic style: as they selected recognizable features which they quoted in their own works for the amusement of sophisticated collectors.
Program:
14.00 – 15.30: Introductory Lectures
The Jan Steen project of the Mauritshuis: results and options for further research – Sabrina Meloni & Marya Albrecht, Mauritshuis
Down to the Ground: analysis of coloured grounds in Netherlandish paintings, 1550-1650 – Maartje Stols-Witlox, University of Amsterdam
15.30 – 16.30: Public Lecture
Innovation, Competition, and Fine Painting Technique: Marketing High-life Style in the Dutch 17th Century – E. Melanie Gifford & Lisha Glinsman
16.30 – 17.30 Drinks
Tickets:
Tickets (€10, €5 for students) available in the webshop.
Friends of het RKD and Friends of the Mauritshuis apply for free via vrienden@rkd.nl
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