Expedition Zeichnung. Niederländische Meister unter der Lupe mit Dr. Annemarie Stefes

In the organizer's words:

What is it all about?

Artists think with pencil on paper - this is no different today than it was in the 15th to 18th centuries. To uncover the secrets of Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens or Magdalena de Passe, the path leads through their drawings. It is an expedition directly into the creative heart of the draughtsmen and draughtswomen, to their ideas and inspirations, revisions and corrections. Much is only revealed through the intensive, expert interaction between art history, material technology and restoration.

Almost 850 old Dutch, Flemish and Dutch drawings from the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud's Prints and Drawings Collection were scrutinized in a research project lasting several years. Now we want to make the results visible and tangible using the example of 90 Dutch drawings. They will be shown from November 14, 2025 to March 15, 2026 in the exhibition Expedition Drawing, some of them for the first time.

So let us take you on a journey of discovery into the drawn world of Dutch artists, their ideas and pictorial themes, their landscapes and figures, their exploration of great role models and their little tricks to win the favor of potential collectors.

But Expedition Drawing also means a journey into the world of research. How do experts arrive at their findings? How does research work, and what does connoisseurship actually mean? This lecture on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition is also about this.

Who is our guest?

Dr. Annemarie Stefes from Bremen is an expert on old master drawings. She discovered her love of Dutch and Flemish art at an early age. Hendrick Goltzius and Nicolaes Berchem were the subjects of her master's thesis and dissertation respectively. After a traineeship at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and many years as a research assistant at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, she has been working freelance since 2011. After projects in Amsterdam, Vienna and Cleveland, she has been working for the WRM project Expedition Zeichnung since February 2021 and curates the exhibition of the same name.

Price information:

Admission: Exhibition openings are free of charge for all guests!