AMSTERDAM.- The Rijksmuseum announced the appointment of Ilona van Tuinen as the successor to Marijn Schapelhouman, who retires this month as Senior Curator of Drawings in the Rijksprentenkabinet.

Van Tuinen — currently the Annette and Oscar de la Renta Assistant Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York — will take up the post of Curator of 16th- and 17th-century Dutch and Flemish Drawings in the Rijksprentenkabinet on 1 February 2018.

Ilona van Tuinen
Van Tuinen (1982, NL) studied art history at the University of Amsterdam (M.A. cum laude, 2009). Prior to her appointment at the Morgan Library (2015), she worked as an Assistant Curator at the Frits Lugt Collection Fondation Custodia, Paris (2014–15), as Assistant Curator at the Leiden Collection, New York (2011–14) and at the Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden (2010–11).

Jane Turner, Head of the Rijksprentenkabinet, said, “We are thrilled that Ilona, following her wide-ranging experience abroad in recent years, will be returning to the Rijksmuseum, where she served as a curatorial intern ten years ago. It is an important responsibility of print rooms today to encourage a new generation of object-based drawings connoisseurs, and she will be a great addition to our team.”

Of her appointment, Van Tuinen remarked, “I am deeply honoured by this appointment as curator of the Rijksmuseum’s world-renowned and rich collection of Dutch drawings. It is an exciting time to work alongside the Rijksmuseum’s ground-breaking and inspiring staff to ensure that Old Master drawings remain a vital part of our cultural history and an essential aspect of the museum visitor’s experience.”

The Rijksprentenkabinet
The Rijksmuseum Print Room is one of the top five in the world. The collection is internationally oriented with a focus on prints and drawings from the Dutch Golden Age. Over the past few years, great efforts have also been made to establish a representative overview of 20th-century Dutch prints and drawings. The collection also includes many important examples of 19th and 20th-century photography. In total, the collection comprises more than 800,000 paper-based works.