Dr Rembrandt Duits
Deputy-Curator, Photographic Collection
Rembrandt.Duits(at)sas.ac.uk
Rembrandt Duits studied Art History at the University of Utrecht (MA, PhD). He joined the staff of the Warburg Institute in 1999. His research interests include Renaissance art and material culture, with a particular focus on Italy and the southern Netherlands and the relationships between them. He has worked on the representation of luxury fabrics in Renaissance paintings and more recently on collections of Byzantine icons in Renaissance Italy. He has also published on astronomical images in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts.
As part of his work in the Institute’s Photographic Collection, Rembrandt is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database – the instrument used to present digital images from the Photographic Collection and Library on-line, in an arrangement derived from the specialised iconographical classification system of the Photographic Collection. Together with Dr François Quiviger, he teaches options on Renaissance Material Culture and Art & Devotion in the context of the Institute’s MA course Cultural and Intellectual History 1300-1650. He is an editor of the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. On behalf of the Warburg Institute, he participates in the Leverhulme-sponsored international network project Damned in Hell in Cretan Frescoes, concerning representations of Hell in frescoes from the Venetian period on Crete and comparative material from surrounding areas, including Italy. He won the Karel van Mander Prize for his PhD thesis in 2004.
Publications
Books
(edited, together with François Quiviger), Images of the Pagan Gods. Papers of a Conference in Memory of Jean Seznec, London, 2009 (Warburg Institute Colloquia 14).
Gold Brocade and Renaissance Painting. A Study in Material Culture, London 2008.
Articles and essays
‘Byzantine Icons in the Collections of the Medici’, in Byzantine Art in the Renaissance Period, forthcoming 2012.
Reading the Stars of the Renaissance. Fritz Saxl and Astrology, in Journal of Historiography, forthcoming December 2011
‘ “Una icona pulcra”. The Byzantine Icons of Cardinal Pietro Barbo’, in Ph. Jackson and G. Rebecchini (eds), Mantova e il Rinascimento italiano. Studi in onore di David S. Chambers, Mantua, 2011, pp. 127-42.
‘The Waning of the Renaissance’, in R. Duits and F. Quiviger (eds) Images of the Pagan Gods. Papers of a Conference in Memory of Jean Seznec, London, 2009, pp. 21-41.
‘The Survival of the Pagan Sky’, in R. Duits and F. Quiviger (eds) Images of the Pagan Gods. Papers of a Conference in Memory of Jean Seznec, London, 2009, pp. 97-128.
‘Art, Class and Wealth’, in K.W. Woods, C.M. Richardson and A. Lymberopoulou (eds), Viewing Renaissance Art, London and Milton Keynes, 2007, pp. 21-58.
‘Celestial Transmissions. An Iconographical Classification of Constellation Cycles in Manuscripts (8th-15th Centuries)’, Scriptorium, 59, 2005, pp. 147-202.
‘Figured Riches’, JWCI 62, 1999, pp. 60-92.
General academic
‘Illusie en emotie’, in Kunstschrift 2008, 2, pp. 28-33.
‘Kostuums en decors’, in Kunstschrift, 2005, 4, 20-2.
‘Kristallijne kleuren’, in Kunstschrift, 2003, 2, 30-37.
‘Stof tot overpeinzing. Fabric of Vision in de National Gallery’, in Kunstschrift 2002, 4, p. 48.
(with D. Cuypers), ‘Bladgoud op schilderijen, mythes en misvattingen’ , in Kunstschrift 2001, 6, pp. 26-33.
‘Wat is er mis met Gerrit Dou?’, 2000, 6, p. 53
‘Musea in nieuwe kleren’, 2000, 5, p. 53
‘Schilderijen in koninklijke context – de Royal Collection in Londen’, 2000, 4, p. 53
‘De Percival David Foundation in Londen’, 2000, 3, p. 53
‘Het Leighton House in Kensington’, 2000, 2, p. 53
‘De Dulwich Picture Gallery in Londen’, 2000, 1, p. 52
(with J. Peeters), ‘Hofdames in drie dimensies’, in Kunstschrift 1998, 1, p. 6.
‘Het raadsel van de puntmuts’, in Kunstschrift 1997, 5, pp. 39-41.
‘De mouw als statussymbool’, in Kunstschrift 1997, 5, pp. 20-25.