Major renovations, much-discussed exhibitions and current museum related questions. ‘If you want to know what is happening in the art and museum sector in a very up-to-date way, then the 'Museum Talks' lecture series is the thing for you’, says Professor of Art History and organiser Stijn Bussels.

Museum Boerhaave amplifies its collection with original letters and pictures from Einstein and Lorentz. Professor by special appointment Dirk van Delft, also director of Boerhaave, accepted the documents on 12 March.

The spectacular “density” of artworks and architecture in Florence, a designated UNESCO World Heritage site (1982, 2015), reflects a nucleus of some of the most important collecting histories and museums in the world, ranging from the unparalleled Renaissance acquisitions of the Medici dynasty to the…

The Museum enjoys the highest reputation internationally

In this Yearbook you will find some fascinating examples of what was done in 2021, not only by ourselves, but also by our international colleagues.

Alumnus Jelte Liemburg, aged 29, aims to visit every single one of the 500 museums in the Netherlands that take part in the national museum pass scheme.

De tentoonstelling 'Vrijheid, Vetes, Vagevuur' is tot en met 7 mei 2023 te zien in het Fries Museum. De tentoonstelling en de bijbehorende publicatie worden samengesteld door Diana Spiekhout, conservator terpencultuur en middeleeuwen. Spiekhout promoveerde in 2020 aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen…

What do you do with a museum collection full of individual white Nobel laureates at a time when diversity, inclusion and teamwork reign supreme? Ad Maas, professor by special appointment, and researcher Hilbrand Wouters have been awarded an NWO Museum grant to answer that question.

Mariana de Campos Françoso and Amy Strecker published a new article in the International Journal of Cultural Property last week entitled 'Caribbean Collections in European Museums and the Question of Returns'.

Geert-Jan Janse has always been fascinated by the way objects can bring the past closer. On 16 November, he will present a Museum Talk about his work as the director of the Vereniging Rembrandt (Rembrandt Association).

Two researchers from the Faculty of Archaeology have received a grant from the Museums, Collections and Society (MSC) interdisciplinary programme. This grant is for collection-based research. Jason Laffoon is using his grant for research into the origins of Central American turquoise, while Dr Marike…

Nine museums in eight days, and an average of 25,000 steps a day? You must be talking about a trip with the Leiden Art History Association! In July, 20 students and a lecturer travelled to New York to take in all the art, architecture and other high points the city has to offer. We spoke to Joëlle Daems,…

In this Yearbook you will find some fascinating examples of what was done in 2021, not only by ourselves, but also by our international colleagues.

Ten Leiden museums and heritage institutions have curated the online exhibition ‘Carel’s Universe’. They selected objects from their collections that symbolise retiring Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker and the research in Leiden. With direct references, playful associations and the odd nod and wink.

Leiden University opened its doors on Leiden Museum Night, with a whole host of things to see and do at the Academy Building, Hortus botanicus and Old Observatory. Take a look at the photos and see.

Most people would not even consider it, starting a PhD at the age of 62. However, for the former Teylers Museum curator Bert Sliggers it was like a dream that came true: ‘The opportunity I was given felt like a gift, it brought me and Teylers Museum a lot.’

Children are generally not drawn to abstract art, research shows. But how exactly does abstract art affect our emotions? Through empirical research, psychologists from Leiden University are investigating at the Josef Albers Museum in Germany how this form of art can be made more relatable to the world…

Bringing Dominican indigenous collections back to the community

In an article by the New York Times, cultural heritage law specialist Evelien Campfens discusses the difficulties surrounding the ownership of looted art.

Museums have long focused on power, wealth and a few famous figures. But that is changing, says Valika Smeulders, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum. What this change comprises and how it has come about is the subject of her keynote speech at the D&I Symposium on 11 January.

The ninth Museum Night in Leiden will take place on Friday 19 May 2017. This year's theme will be 'About time'. Nine museums are taking part and the city centre will be brightly lit.

The strangest things come out at night. This is the motto of the Leiden Museum Night due to take place on 28 May. Leiden University is once again playing a key part.

University lecturer Laurie Cosmo, having grown up in New York, came to the Hague from Rome, Italy, where she fell under the spell of the Kunstmuseum. ‘I loved the building even before I worked at Leiden University.’

The plan was to research the years surrounding the creation of the signature H.P. Berlage building of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, but due to the lockdown, University Lecturer Laurie Kalb Cosmo has hardly been able to visit museums. Yet she succeeds in continuing her research for the Museums, Collections…

Roderick Bouman is collection manager of the Leiden Hortus botanicus. He keeps track of which plants there are in the garden, where they come from and makes sure visitors can find the right information about them. ‘We are like a regular museum,’ says Bouman. ‘Except that our objects are alive. That…

Museum Night on Saturday 28 May is a good opportunity to discover the unique museums in Leiden. Thirteen museums will open their doors and give visitors the chance to experience these locations in a different light.

Leiden researchers have made an important contribution to the successful ‘Beyond the Nile’ exhibition in the American J. Paul Getty Museum. They also contributed to the exhibition volume that will be presented to Rector Magnificus Carel stolker on 5 September.

A rejuvenated Naturalis opens its doors to the public on Saturday 31 August. Many researchers from Leiden University also work at the Naturalis research centre. Their workplace has also undergone a major facelift, and museum visitors can now watch their every move.

This project investigates diversifying and democratizing heritage through practices of “home-making”. We propose to research ‘home-making’ as a non-binary practice of combining memories of roots and routes, dwelling in the present, and desires for the future.

One of the highlights during the fieldwork in Schoningen lead by Prof. dr. Thijs van Kolfschoten in 2013 was the opening of the museum and research center paläon on June 24. To the realisation of the museum, the Faculty of Archaeology made ​​a significant contribution. Many of the results of the research…

What does a 19th-century exhibition of traditional utensils from the province of Zeeland tell us about the current rise of populism? A lot, Ad Maas will say in his inaugural lecture.

On Tuesday 7 December, Wouter Kalf gave a lecture on how All Knowlegde starts with intuïtions for the Studium Generalis series co-hosted by the Museum de Lakenhal. The lecture was in Dutch.

Replicas of artworks by world-famous artist and political activist Banksy are being exhibited at several locations in Amsterdam without the permission of the anonymous graffiti artist. Dirk Visser, Professor of Intellectual Property Law, says this is ‘clearly copyright infringement’.

Educators in European science museums sometimes think rather differently about the definition of an 'authentic' object. They think carefully about how they present those objects to teach visitors something or make them curious. This was shown in research by the Science Communication & Society department.…

It was not light, but its absence that caught Stephanie Noach's attention a few years ago. With her research on darkness in art, she aims to show how darkness can question and sometimes even undermine colonial imagery.

Natalia Grincheva (2020). Museum Diplomacy in the Digital Age. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-8153-6999-8, 164 pp., £27.99 (paperback).

How are people of color represented in art collections? And do young people of color feel that museum collections reflect their norms and values? Developmental psychologist Carolien Rieffe is invited to serve on the Expert Group ‘Musea bekennen kleur’ because of her knowledge of children and young p…

Under the title “New insights from old collections”, the archaeological research was introduced on the Museum’s news page.

Where does the urge to collect come from? What are the explicit or underlying reasons for gathering large amount of objects?

In the civil war in Syria, the country's cultural heritage is also under threat. There have been further acts of vandalism in Palmyra and many of the city's museums have been looted. Leiden archaeologist Olivier Nieuwenhuijse's Focus Raqqa project aims to make a digital inventory of the plundered archaeology…

On a thursdaymorning our students were guided around a new exhibition in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo. This exhibition displayed photographs and documents from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Western Arabian Peninsula.

This summer, the COBRA Museum will be focusing on Moroccan art. 'The other story' exhibition presents for the first time Moroccan modernism in the Netherlands. The Netherlands Institute Morocco (NIMAR) contributed to its exhibition

The Decolonising Collective Leiden is a platform for staff and students interested in exploring strategies to foster pluralistic, diverse, and decolonised knowledge production at Leiden University. While many discussions about decolonisation are ongoing in discrete spaces across the University, there…

Here you will find previous reports, publications, and resources of the Decolonising Collective. Click on the links to download the documents.