Abstracts from the Speakers’ Corner held on Tuesday 17 March at STAM – Ghent City Museum. If you wish to contact one of the speakers, please find their contact information by clicking on their names.

Her stories, Rubenshuis

Klara Alen, Research Curator for the Historical Garden & House, Abigail D. Newman, Research Curator, and Ute Staes, Head of Collections, Librarian, and Curator of Research Collections and Rare Books, Rubenshuis in Antwerp, Belgium

The Rubenshuis (Antwerp) is closed for renovation and currently reenvisioning the scenography, which will be unveiled at the museum’s reopening, at earliest in 2030. This transformation provides a rare opportunity to move beyond the traditional “master” narrative and to integrate the overlooked yet essential roles of women in the story of Rubens and his household. Their research and curatorial work have highlighted the importance of Isabella Brant and Helena Fourment, Rubens’s wives, as partners, muses, and mediators in artistic and political networks. Ongoing archival research also allows them to recover the lives of Willemyne, Anneken and Adriaenken, the women who sustained the household. They are looking into ways to allow visitors to delve into the lives of the daughters, the sisters(-in-law), the (grand)mothers and other female members of the household. The new scenography will weave these women into the museum’s narrative, positioning them not as marginal figures but as central to the artist’s environment and legacy. A key challenge is the inaccessibility of these women’s portraits. Some are museum masterpieces whose condition or media preclude long-term loans. Others do not exist or have yet to be identified. The Rubenshuis is therefore exploring alternative modes of presenting these women’s lives that enrich the traditional intertwining of biography and portraiture, while still maintaining a strong connection to (historical) objects and artworks. By combining fresh archival findings with innovative exhibition design and interpretive strategies, the museum aims to present a richer, more inclusive story that will resonate with today’s – and tomorrow’s – audiences.

The portraits of the Orange Hall in Erbach Castle in Odenwald, Germany – perspectives of research, restoration, and loans for exhibitions during the complete renovation of the castle

Dr. Katharina Bechler, Head of Museums and Collections, Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Hessen in Bad Homburg, Germany

Dr. Katharina Bechler gave a presentation on a rarely known Orange Hall and outlined proposals for future projects. The Oranien-Nassau Family Portrait Gallery in Erbach Castle consists of two full-length portraits of Johann VIII “the Younger”, Count of Nassau-Siegen, likely painted in part by Anthonis van Dyck and his workshop, and his wife, Ernestine Yolande, Princess de Ligne, from the workshop of van Dyck. Also on display are full-length portraits of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, Princess of Orange, from the workshop of Gerard van Honthorst; William Frederick, Prince of Nassau-Dietz, signed by Wybrand de Geest; and Maurice, Prince of Orange, Count of Nassau, after Mierevelt. Four knee-length portraits from the workshop of Mierevelt depict William I, Prince of Orange; Philip William, Prince of Orange; Johann VII, Count of Nassau-Siegen; and Johann Ernst I, Count of Nassau-Siegen. Following initial research (Savelsberg, Spliethoff, Bechler), she proposed further discussion of the collection with experts from CODART, as well as strategies for restoration (and funding) and possibilities for loans to museums during the general renovation of Erbach Castle.

Missing Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the collection of the Ferdinandeum

Delia Scheffer, Curator of Art before 1900, Tiroler Landesmuseum (Ferdinandeum) in Innsbruck, Austria

As part of a research project on Dutch and Flemish Old Master paintings at the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, the museum is investigating the history of the collection and searching for paintings that were once owned by the museum but were given away at some point in the past. They still have old photos of several objects that might help to locate them. During the CODART Speaker’s Corner, Delia Scheffer presented the list of missing objects and appealed to colleagues from around the world for help with the search.

Tracing Maria van Oosterwijck (1630-1693)

Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire, Curator of European and American Art, Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, and Michèle Seehafer, Curator and Senior Researcher, Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, Denmark

As the theme of the CODART 27 Congress 27 demonstrates, research on the roles of women during the Early Modern Period is transforming our understanding of art making and patronage in the seventeenth-century Low Countries. Among the numerous artists who have now come into focus, Maria van Oosterwijck is increasingly attracting attention in the museum sector, the art market, and academia for the remarkable quality of her work and the breadth of her career: Van Oosterwijck was not only one of the most highly esteemed seventeenth-century Dutch artist of her time, she was also the first woman to develop an international network of patrons during her lifetime. Despite this renown, van Oosterwijck’s surviving oeuvre is remarkably small, with fewer than 50 paintings known to exist today, of which approximately half are held in public collections. So far, no preliminary studies or sketches have been identified. This leads to a number of significant unanswered questions concerning her working methods, creative processes, and production practices. 

The Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh have been developing independent in-depth exhibition projects devoted to van Oosterwijck’s oeuvre, training, career and legacy. Recognizing the gaps in current research, they seek to foster a collaborative, cross-institutional approach that will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of her significance within the artistic culture of her time, and enable them to introduce this remarkable artist more deeply to contemporary museum audiences. 

The Autograph Replica in Dutch Painting

Gary Schwartz, Founding Director (1998-2005) and Webmaster (2005-2009), CODART in The Hague, the Netherlands

In connection with the study of two paintings with identical compositions, of which one is accepted as by Rembrandt and the other is considered a copy by a pupil, Gary Schwartz is investigating the possibility that the second version too, which is of top quality, may also be by Rembrandt. To do so, he is gathering examples of autograph replicas by other artists, for comparison with the case in hand. Schwartz liked to show and briefly discuss the results garnered.

Flora, Fauna & Friendships [working title]

Jorien Soepboer, Curator, Museum Gouda in Gouda, the Netherlands

In the spring of 2027, Museum Gouda will present an exhibition centred on the networks of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century women who worked with flora and fauna, and on the people around them. In this exhibition, they will collaborate with researcher Catherine Powell-Warren (KU Leuven), who specializes in the power of networks and communities in shaping participation in artistic practices by women. Flora, Fauna & Friendships [working title] focuses on friendship, collaboration and informal networks as ways through which women gained access to artistic and scientific environments from which they were often formally excluded. In the exhibition rooms they will show the interconnected worlds of painter of birds and insects Cornelia de Rijk and her husband, the collector Simon Schijnvoet; botanist and patron Agnes Block; and scientific illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian and her daughters. Jorien Soepboer is hoping to find private collectors or art dealers, next to museum collections, who have works by Cornelia de Rijck and artists from the circles of Agnes Block, such as Alida Withoos and Maria Moninckx.