Exhibition Team
Publication date: 19 January 2023 - 12:33
Exhibition Team
Biographies
Gregor J.M. Weber, Head of Fine and Decorative arts, Rijksmuseum
Gregor J.M. Weber is co-curator of the exhibition Vermeer. He is Head of the Fine Arts Department at the Rijksmuseum since 2009. He studied art history at universities in Cologne, Aachen and Utrecht. Between 1994 and 2004 Weber served as curator of Italian painting at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, and from 2004 to 2009 as director of the Gemäldegalerie in Kassel. He has worked as a lecturer at various institutions, including the University of Bamberg, which appointed him honorary professor in 2005. His academic publications take a broad approach and address art theory, iconography and stylism. On Vermeer he published a book about the Woman in Blue reading a Letter (2013) and Johannes Vermeer. Faith, Light and Reflection (2023). He was the curator of many exhibitions including Late Rembrandt (2015) and Rembrandt & Velázquez (2019). The exhibition Vermeer marks the end of his professional career.
Seeing so many Vermeer paintings together will be a magnificent and emotional moment. His work has always had a mysterious aura about it. How on earth was he able to paint these miracles of light and colour?
Gregor J.M. Weber
Pieter Roelofs, Head of Paintings and Sculpture at the Rijksmuseum and
co-curator of the exhibition
Pieter Roelofs is co-curator of the exhibition Vermeer. In 2006 he started as curator 17th century Dutch paintings in the Rijksmuseum. Since 2018 he is head of paintings and sculpure. He curated exhibtions in the Rijksmuseum and in other museums. He published on a variety of subjects from the Middle Ages until the 21th century. He is a member of the jury of the successfull Dutch TV show Project Rembrandt (NPO/NTR) and in 2023 also in De Nieuwe Vermeer (The New Vermeer) (NPO/Omroep MAX).
Bringing together so much of Vermeer’s work has never been possible before. Doing so has also enabled us to carry out yet more research into this master painter of Delft. Museumgoers, Vermeer lovers, researchers and fellow professionals will now all be able to get closer to Vermeer than ever before.
Pieter Roelofs
Taco Dibbits, General Director
Taco Dibbits has been the Rijksmuseum’s General Director since 2016. He studied art history at VU University Amsterdam and the University of Cambridge, joining the Rijksmuseum in 2002 as a curator of 17th-century painting. In 2006 he was appointed Head of Fine and Decorative Arts, and two years later he became the museum's Director of Collections. Prior to joining the Rijksmuseum, he was the Director of the Old Masters department at Christie’s in London. Since joining the Rijksmuseum, Mr. Dibbits has played a key role in developing the layout of the new Rijksmuseum, guiding the museum’s acquisition activities and establishing the exhibition programme.
Ige Verslype, Paintings conservator
Ige Verslype is involved in the technical research of Vermeer's paintings. She studied Art History at the University of Utrecht and was trained as a paintings conservator at the Stichting Restauratie Atelier Limburg (SRAL) in Maastricht. She has been working as a paintings conservator at the Rijksmuseum since 2004. In 2010-2011 she researched and restored Johannes Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter on which she published in the Rijksmuseum Bulletin in 2012. From 2017 to 2020 she was part of the international supervisory committee for the restoration of Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at the Open Window (Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen). Ige Verslype was one of the researchers within the project: Counting Vermeer: Using Weave Maps to Study Vermeer's Canvases, of which a monograph appeared in the series RKD Studies in 2017. She is a PhD candidate at TU Delft and involved in the technical research and restoration treatment of The Night Watch.
Anna Krekeler, Paintings conservator
Anna Krekeler is involved in the technical research of Vermeer's paintings. She studied art technology, conservation and restoration at the University of Fine Arts in Dresden, Germany. She has been working as a paintings conservator at the Rijksmuseum since 2007. In 2013-14, Krekeler researched the painting technique of Rembrandt's late works for the Late Rembrandt exhibition and its accompanying catalogue. In 2017, she collaborated on the macro-X-ray fluorescence research of Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at the open Window (Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen). From 2018 to 2020 she researched Pieter de Hooch's painting technique using advanced imaging techniques, in preparation for the exhibition Pieter de Hooch – From the Shadow of Vermeer at Museum Prinsenhof Delft. The research resulted in a publication in the accompanying catalogue. Currently, she is also involved in the technical research and restoration treatment of The Night Watch.
Annelies van Loon, Scientist
Annelies van Loon is a research scientist at the Rijksmuseum and the Mauritshuis and involved in the technical research of the paintings by Vermeer. She specializes in microscopic analyses of paint samples and the application of non-invasive imaging techniques to paintings. She also applies these techniques within Operation Night Watch. Annelies graduated with a MA in chemistry from the University of Amsterdam, a post-graduate diploma in paintings conservation from the Stichting Restauratie Atelier Limburg (SRAL) in Maastricht, and a PhD in chemistry from FOM Institute AMOLF/ University of Amsterdam on Color changes and chemical reactivity in seventeenth-century oil paintings. From 2012 to 2016, she was project leader and head researcher of the NWO Science4Arts projects PAinT and REVISRembrandt. In 2017, she collaborated on the macro-X-ray fluorescence research of Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen). Recently, she was member of the international team that researched Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (The Girl in the Spotlight). She contributed as (co-)author to the many scientific publications about this research.
Francesca Gabrieli, Scientist
Francesca Gabrieli is involved in the technical research of Vermeer's paintings. She graduated with a BA in Chemistry, MA in Physical Chemistry and a PhD in Chemical Science Applied to Cultural Heritage (2015) from the University of Perugia and CNR-ISTM. In 2016-2019 she did a PostDoc at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Gabrieli has been working as a scientific researcher at the Rijksmuseum since 2019 and is responsible for the Reflectance Imaging Spectroscopy (RIS) technique. By performing this technique, in 2019-2020, Francesca contributed to the research into Pieter de Hooch's painting technique for the exhibition Pieter de Hooch - from the Shadow of Vermeer in Museum Prinsenhof Delft. She is also responsible for RIS for Operation Night Watch.
