Abstract
Over the last couple of decades, art historians have shown a growing interest in studies into women artists as well as into technical art history. Researchers of women studies have focused recently on the role of women in the production, trading and patronage of art, whereas recent developments in technical art history revealed new insights in the way artists produced their paintings (in terms of materials and techniques) and how these objects may have changed (both visually and chemically) over the years. However, during my PhD it became clear that there is a substantial knowledge gap regarding the artistic practice of women painters, as the two aforementioned approaches have not yet been combined. Therefore, the aim of this study is to understand (a) the studio practice of Dutch and Flemish women painters active between 1600 and 1750, (b) how this relates to the artistic practice of their male colleagues (with regard to painting techniques, iconography etc.) and (c) how this relates to the historical textual sources on artistic techniques of the period. This will be achieved by collecting and interpreting material-technical data from paintings by means of recently developed, non-invasive (chemical) imaging, supplemented by (limited) paint sample analysis, as well as by studying art technological sources. This way we will fully exploit advanced imaging techniques to make the invisible visible and write a more inclusive art history.
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