Ad Stijnman appointed as Jacoba Lugt-Klever Fellow

Jacoba Lugt-Klever Fellow

The RKD and the Fondation Custodia are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Ad Stijnman as the second Jacoba Lugt-Klever Fellow. The fellowship was established in memory of Jacoba Lugt-Klever (1888-1969), wife of the collector and connoisseur Frits Lugt and co-founder of the Fondation Custodia. It is a collaboration between the latter institute and the RKD and offers an experienced researcher in the area of prints and/or drawings the opportunity to work on their own research for a period of two years. The location is The Hague. Ad Stijnman’s activity for the fellowship will start on 1 January 2024.

A Brighter Vision

The past twenty years saw a decisive change in the study of early European colour prints. Before, focus was on 16th-century chiaroscuro woodcuts and 18th-century intaglio colour prints mainly. Recent studies have disclosed a much wider area of the use of colour in European prints and printing, challenging many earlier assumptions. The present Jacoba Lugt-Klever Fellowship is aimed at compiling a monograph – working title A Brighter Vision – on the history of European colour prints, book illustrations and ephemera from 1450 to 1830. Discussed will be, among many others, antecedents of European colour printing, style and function of colour prints, materials and techniques, historical terminology, and developments through the ages. The study will be supported by a generous selection of illustrations of colour printed materials covering a range of subjects, passages from primary technical sources on colour printing processes, results of technical examination of objects, and quotes from historical contemporaries.

Ad Stijnman

Dr Ad Stijnman (PhD University of Amsterdam, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London) is a professional printmaker and leading scholar of historical printmaking processes, specialising in manual intaglio printmaking techniques. He has lectured widely and published extensively on the subject, including his seminal, award-winning book Engraving and Etching 1400-2000: A History of the Development of Manual Intaglio Printmaking Processes (2012). Other award-winning publications include Printing Colour 1400-1700: History, Techniques, Functions and Receptions (2015), co-edited with Elizabeth Savage, and the exhibition catalogue The Renaissance of Etching (2019) to which he was a contributing author. He curated exhibitions on medieval prints, early modern colour prints and Rembrandt’s etchings on Japanese paper. Read more here.

 

Image: Studio of Johannes Teyler, Ten flowers, including a tulip and a rose, engraving with dotting, c. 1690-1695, Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden