Starting May 1st, Lea van der Vinde will be the new director of Huygens’ Hofwijck and Huygens’ Swaensteyn in Voorburg. She succeeds Peter van der Ploeg who is retiring. Van der Vinde is currently curator at the Mauritshuis. She previously worked for Hofwijck as guest curator of the exhibition Women around Huygens (2009).

As curator or project manager at the Mauritshuis, Van der Vinde was responsible for a wide variety of exhibitions, publications and other projects. Recent examples of this include George Stubbs – The Man, the Horse, the Obsession (2020) and Alone with Vermeer – ‘the most beautiful painting in the world’ (2020). She also curated the exhibition Shifting Image – In Search of Johan Maurits (2019), about Johan Maurits’ governance of the Dutch-Brazil colony and his role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This exhibition led to the scientific research project, Revisiting Dutch Brazil and Johan Maurits, which she coordinated.

Huygens’ Hofwijck in Voorburg is housed in the seventeenth-century, monumental summer residence designed by Constantijn Huygens in cooperation with Jacob van Campen. The museum holds portraits (painted, drawn and printed) of Constantijn and Christiaan Huygens and their family, original manuscripts mainly by Constantijn and views on Hofwijck’s building and gardens. Museum Swaensteyn is established is established in one of the oldest buildings in the historical center of Voorburg. The collection focuses on Roman archeological findings, the Forum Hadriani, and the life of Princess Marianne of the Netherlands. Both museums were recently merged into one foundation: Stichting Huygensmuseum.