General

Short biography

Maartje's interest in the conservation of paintings and in historical painting techniques began during her MA in Art History from the University of Leiden, where she wrote her master thesis on historical recipes for final varnishes for oil paintings. 

Subsequently, Maartje studied the conservation of paintings and painted objects at the post-graduate five year programme at the Limburg Conservation Institute in Maastricht. As part of her training, she did internships at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and the Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Following her degree in Maastricht, she specialised in the structural conservation of panel paintings during a six-month internship at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge.

Maartje then worked as a paintings conservator in The Mauritshuis, The Hague, and in several private studios in the Netherlands, where shetreated paintingsdating fromthe 16th to the 19th century.

Her continued interest in historical paint recipes led to her involvement in the De Mayerne Programme, a multi-disciplinary five year research programme in the Netherlands, sponsored by NWO. Here, she worked as research associate to Dr. Leslie Carlyle in the HART Project, gathering historical recipes from post-medieval literary sources in order to recreate these recipes in historically accurate reconstructions.

Maartje became lecturer paintings conservation and coordinator for the paintings conservation master at UVA in 2007 and continues her research of historical recipes in her PhD research "Recipes for Preparatory Layers for Oil painting in North West European sources, 1400-1900".

Next to her work as a lecturer, Maartje continues to work as a paintings conservator in her private studio.