We are deeply saddened to share the news that Volker Manuth, Professor Emeritus at Radboud University in Nijmegen, passed away on Sunday, August 23. The following tribute was written by David de Witt on behalf of Volker’s partner, Marieke de Winkel, and close friends.

On 23 August 2026, fifteen days after his 70th birthday, Volker Manuth passed away after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. Over four decades as an art historian, he devoted himself tirelessly to research and teaching in the field, focusing on Rembrandt and his circle of pupils, friends, and followers. Trained in Kiel and Berlin, he emphasized a broad knowledge, and competence in connoisseurship, iconography, and technical research, as well as historical and social context. After completing his dissertation on Old Testament iconography in the Rembrandt school and its relation to religious denomination, he joined the newly reformed Rembrandt Research Project in 1992, already having contributed substantially to the 1991-1992 exhibition in Berlin, Amsterdam, and London. In 1995 Manuth moved from Berlin to Kingston, ON, to take up the newly formed Bader Chair in Northern Baroque Art, and in 2003 he proceeded to the professorship at Radboud University Nijmegen. His major project there, working with his life partner Marieke de Winkel and Ph.D. graduate Rudie van Leeuwen, was a full monograph on Rembrandt’s paintings for the Rembrandt year 2019. Many of his students proceeded to museum posts, in the U.K., the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands and Germany. Over the years he participated regularly in museum exhibitions, including Arent de Gelder (1999), Rembrandt by Himself (1999-2000), Rembrandt/Caravaggio (2006), Ferdinand Bol & Govert Flinck (2017-2018), Rembrandt’s Social Network (2019), and in a leading role in Monogrammist I.S. (2025), working together with Marieke de Winkel, which inspired the decision to proceed with a monographic study on the artist, on which they were still working in the summer of this year.