Research team
Expertise
My research expertise is situated within material culture studies, at the intersection of history, art history and heritage studies. My research deals with material culture in the late medieval and early modern period (with a focus on housing, interior and furniture) on the one hand, and the biography of objects within a museum context and the interaction between visitors, curators and these objects on the other. I currently teach 2 courses within Conservation, Restoration and Heritage Studies: 'Project Management of Movable and Intangible Heritage' and 'Historical Interiors, Styles and Furniture'. In addition, I am involved in numerous heritage projects and research projects, always on the topics of palaeography, material culture, museology and design history.
UNMASC: UNcovering Materials, ArtisanS, and Consumer networks of lacquer scagliola objects in 17th-century Antwerp.
Abstract
This project explores lacquer scagliola, a largely forgotten lacquer technique developed and used uniquely in 17th-century Antwerp for decorating high-end furniture. Although scarcely studied, our preliminary research has revealed a substantial body of surviving objects and archival materials awaiting systematic analysis. The project's innovative strength lies in its integrated methodology. By combining material-technical analysis (of pigments, binders, and application techniques) with stylistic classification and historical network analysis, we aim to reconstruct and unmask relations between the production, trade, and consumption of objects decorated with lacquer scagliola. Hence, using state-of-the-art scientific tools alongside archival research and social network mapping, we will identify its material composition and contextualise the relationships between lacquer scagliola objects and their specific makers, merchants, and patrons. This cross-disciplinary approach not only unmasks a neglected artistic practice and unique decorative technique, but also demonstrates how this innovative combination of scientific and historical data can open new perspectives in the study of early modern material culture. ?Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Cattersel Vincent
- Co-promoter: De Groot Julie
- Co-promoter: Marchetti Andrea
Research team(s)
Funding
- FWO
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Painted and Material Interiors in the 15th and 16th-Century Low Countries: Towards a Spatial Turn of Domestic Material Culture.
Abstract
This project starts from two major lacunae in research. Despite substantial progress in the study of premodern material culture, historians have failed to add a spatial dimension to their knowledge about household goods, and have missed how ensembles of objects really function and impact on the agency of (male and female) household members ; on the other hand art historians have, because of insufficient knowledge about the household goods themselves, failed to understand what messages domestic scenes in visual culture convey. This project will investigate the spatial dimension of households and look at object ensembles in order to capture how the diverse domestic material culture was used in socially different households of the Low Countries. It creates real synergies between the two disciplines, because the research results in one discipline are necessary building blocks in the analyses of the other: art historians need a good understanding of the composition of material culture to assess the true meaning of their visual representation, and historians need the visual representation of interiors to assess how people interacted with their domestic surroundings. This project will enable an open access data-system with 1,000 inventories that have been collected in earlier projects, a critical step forward in scholarship, and it will result in a new approach of visual representations in Netherlandish art. The end goal is a synthesis on domestic cultures in the 15th-16th c.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Stabel Peter
- Co-promoter: Blondé Bruno
- Co-promoter: De Groot Julie
Research team(s)
Funding
- FWO
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Creating a Domestic City? The Production and Consumption of Domestic Space in Late Medieval Bruges, Dijon and Antwerp, 1450- 1600.
Abstract
The main objective of this project is to look beyond the public appearance of men and women in late-medieval cities. While the past two decades historical interest in the 'public' urban spaces has figured high on the research agenda, scholars have refrained from interrogating the complex ways people appropriated and arranged their own domestic space. Hence, there is an urgent need to define and redefine the ways in which city dwellers shaped their home, an entity that needs to be approached as both physical and ideological in essence (Lefebvre 1974).Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Blondé Bruno
- Fellow: De Groot Julie
Research team(s)
Funding
- FWO
Project type(s)
- Research Project
The domestic city. The organization and decoration of domestic space in fifteenth-and sixteenth- century Antwerp, Bruges and Dijon.
Abstract
The main objective of this project is to look beyond the public appearance of men and women in late-medieval cities. While the past two decades historical interest in the 'public' urban spaces has figured high on the research agenda, scholars have refrained from interrogating the complex ways people appropriated and arranged their own domestic space. Hence, there is an urgent need to define and redefine the ways in which city dwellers shaped their home, an entity that needs to be approached as both physical and ideological in essence (Lefebvre 1974).Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Blondé Bruno
- Fellow: De Groot Julie
Research team(s)
Funding
- FWO
Project type(s)
- Research Project
At Home in Sixteenth-Century Flanders. Materiality and Domesticity in the City (1450-1650).
Abstract
The main objective of this project is to look beyond studies that treat citizens as members of the public urban community (e.g. Nicholas 1985; Stabel and Boone 2000) without acknowledging the key role that may have been played by living patterns in their households.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Blondé Bruno
- Co-promoter: Stabel Peter
- Fellow: De Groot Julie
Research team(s)
Funding
- BELSPO
Project type(s)
- Research Project