MCS Scholarship for collection-oriented research: 'There can be a whole story behind something unimportant'
Would you like to do collection-oriented research, but do not have sufficient resources? Every year, the Museums, Collections and Society (MCS) research group makes several research scholarships available for this purpose. Researchers Elizabeth den Hartog and Marika Keblusek previously received an MCS Scholarship and explain what doors it opened for them.
Elizabeth den Hartog
'I am conducting research on the Breestraat 113 building in Leiden, together with three other scientists (Timo Nijland, Edwin Orsel and Jan Dröge, ed.). In the cellar there is a column with a capital made of limestone that was only used by the Romans. So it is reused Roman material. That makes it a very prestigious piece, and we are trying to find out more about its dating and significance.
With the funds from the MCS Scholarship, I visited some four thousand similar capitals in Westphalia and the Rhineland. By comparing the capital from the Breestraat with the ones I visited, I can date it to around the 1220 – 1230 period.
With this research, we are adding new knowledge to the history of Leiden. What I personally always like about this kind of research is how something as seemingly insignificant as a simple stone leaf capital can conceal a whole story. Knowledge of style and materiality is then very important to get such an object to 'talk'.'
Marika Keblusek
'I am researching the Dutch painter David Bailly, about whose life and work only a small number of art-historical studies have been published. In order to write a biography, more extensive source research at home and abroad was necessary. Last year, I received an MCS Scholarship for the research abroad, in several Italian and especially German archives.
According to previous research, Bailly left for Hamburg in 1609, where he stayed for a year, and then travelled to Rome and Venice. David Bailly's stay in Germany and Italy had never been researched, so the question was what did Bailly do during his years in Germany and Italy? Unfortunately, the local archives gave little evidence of work done by the artist, some of which may have been on commission. However, research in the German archives did lead us to a better idea of the context of the cities and courts where Bailly stayed.
Thanks to the MCS Scholarship, I was able to reconstruct an up-to-date biography, based on the most complete archival research on David Bailly to date. This has resulted in an exhibition at Leiden’s Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal that runs until June 2023. It focuses on the development of the vanitas genre in the city of Leiden. For this, Bailly's life and career have been followed to see how the composition of his masterpiece can be explained.'
The Museums, Collections and Society (MCS) research group is a collaboration between the Humanities and Archaeology faculties. It promotes research and teaching and raises ethical questions regarding the provenance of these collections.