The Hidden Youth of Dirck Jacobsz Leeuw

Margriet van Eikema Hommes studied art history and obtained her doctorate (cum laude) in 2002 for her dissertation on the discolourationof fifteenth- to seventeenth-century oil paintings.
Since 2005 she has worked as a researcher at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, and since 2011 as an Associate Professor at TU Delft. Her research focuses on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch painting ensembles, combining scientific investigations into techniques and materials with research into the visual and iconographic aspects of these works of art.

Ruud Lambour worked as a psychological adviser for the Dutch Ministry of Defence until 2011. As a freelance researcher he specializes in the Amsterdam Mennonites of the Golden Age, including their relationship with arts and crafts. He has written articles for Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, Oud Holland and Maandblad Amstelodamum. His current archive research focuses on clothes and luxury goods in probate Mennonite inventories from 1614 to 1725.

Bianca M. du Mortier started as Curator of Costume at the Rijksmuseum in 1980. She has contributed to publications on seventeenth-century painters, such as Avercamp and Metsu and has written many articles in the Netherlands and abroad on the various aspects of costume and accessories. She is a founding member of Modemuze, a digital platform for the seven most important Dutch costume collections. Du Mortier is presently finishing the book Costume & Fashion, on 80 costumes from the Rijksmuseum collection to be published in the spring of 2016.

Marieke de Winkel is an art historian and costume historian. In 2002 she obtained her doctorate (cum laude) from the University of
Amsterdam for her dissertation on dress and meaning in Rembrandt’s paintings. She has been affiliated to the Rembrandt Research Project in Amsterdam and has published on costume in the works of artists such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Vermeer.

Gwen Tauber has worked as a painting conservator in the Rijksmuseum since 1990. Trained in art conservation at Winterthur/University of Delaware, she then begun her academic career in art history at the University of Massachusetts. She has worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Marco Grassi Conservation Studio and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum. She has published on Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Fabritius, Frans Hals and Gerard ter Borch. Her main interest lies in close looking and the aesthetic effects of restoration treatments on the authenticity of paintings.

Matthias Alfeld read chemistry at the University of Hamburg and studied for his PhD at the universities of Antwerp and Hamburg from 2008 to 2013 as the recipient of a FWO fellowship. His thesis focused on the development of XRF scanners for the investigation of large areas on the surface of historical paintings. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Hamburg. Since 2015 he has held the Junior Chair at the Laboratoire
d’Archéologie Moléculaire et Structurale of the Sorbonne University in Paris, researching the polychromy of the ancient world.

Koen Janssens studied chemistry at the University of Antwerp, where he was awarded his doctorate in 1989 with his thesis on the computerization of X-ray analyses of fine dust particles. Since 2012 he has been Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Antwerp and this year was appointed Vice Dean of the Faculty of
Sciences.

Joris Dik studied art history and classical archaeology at the University of Amsterdam and was awarded his MA in 1997. In 1995-96 he was a Getty Graduate Intern at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. After returning to the Netherlands, he worked on a PhD in chemistry, graduating in 2003. He currently holds an Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Chair at Delft University of Technology, focusing on materials in art and archaeology. He is a member of the Young Academy of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.