Institute: Rijksmuseum
Country: The Netherlands
Link: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/stories/operation-night-watch
Dr. Esther van Duijn is paintings conservator and researcher. In 1996 Van Duijn finished her art history study at the University of Utrecht with a M.A. thesis about father and son Hopman, two restorers from the nineteenth century. During the subsequent five-year training program for paintings conservation at the Stichting Restauratie Atelier Limburg in Maastricht, the history of her own profession turned into a lifelong passion that has run as a thread throughout her career ever since.
As independent conservator she worked for several institutions and museums, including the Cultural Heritage Agency, the Kröller-Müller Museum and the Mauritshuis. Between 2008 and 2013 she worked part-time – alongside her work as a conservator – on her Ph.D. thesis All that glitters is not gold. The depiction of gold-brocaded velvets in fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Netherlandish paintings, which was part of an interdisciplinary research project called The Impact of Oil: A history of oil painting in the Low Countries and its consequences for the visual arts, 1350-1550.
Between 2015 and 2018 she worked in the Rijksmuseum on a full-time research project into the conservation history of the museum’s paintings collection. Since 2019 she is part of the Operation Night Watch team as conservator and specialist in conservation history.
In February 2021 Van Duijn recorded a lecture on the history of wax-resin linings especially for the masterclass. The lecture Part I is available through this subpage on our website: lecture 2 – Esther van Duijn.
In June 2021 Van Duijn recorded a lecture on the history of wax-resin linings and the Operation Night Watch. The lecture Part II is available through this subpage on our website: Lecture 10 – Esther van Duijn.
In June 2021 Van Duijn recorded a lecture on the history of wax-resin linings and the Operation Night Watch. The lecture Part III is available through this subpage on our website: lecture 18 – Esther van Duijn