Keynote Address by Dr. Melanie Gifford

Dr. Melanie Gifford, a Research Conservator for Painting Technology within the Scientific Research Department at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, will deliver her talk, “Reattribution of an early work by Willem van Aelst: the role of technical studies”, which addresses the use of technical evidence to reattribute a Dutch 17th century still-life. After long being attributed by Willem Kalf, Dr. Gifford, through the employment of scientific techniques, reattributed the painting Willem van Aelst; a finding that was originally made in the context of the exhibition on Van Aelst in 2013. Dr. Gifford has furthered this research by examining the fruition of both of these artists’ personal styles from their time spent, in the earliest portion of their careers, within a circle of Paris-based painters in the 1640s and 1650s