Dr. Sandra Bazin-Henry (Member, French Team)
Sandra Bazin-Henry is Maître de Conferences in Early Modern Art History at the University of Franche-Comté (Besançon). She holds a PhD in Art History at the Sorbonne University in 2016 and her thesis won the Prix Bruno Pons in 2017, awarded by the Comité Français d’Histoire de l’Art. It has been recently published by Éditions Faton (2021) and is titled Tromper les yeux. Miroirs dans le grand décor en Europe (xviie-xviiie siècles). Former recipient of bursaries from the École Française de Rome, the Villa Medici, and the Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles, she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the Laboratory of Excellence Creation, Arts, Heritage (Labex CAP) for the past two years. She has participated in several international research programs and her research focuses on various aspects of large decorative schemes in the Europeans Courts Societies in the 17th and 18th centuries, with a particular interest on the relationship between architecture and decoration.
Dr. Frederique Bertrand (Member, French Team)
Frédérique Bertrand has graduate degrees in architecture (architecte D.P.L.G.) and a DESS (post-graduate diploma) in computer science. She is specialized in architectural representation, heritage and cultural engineering, in which she uses digital technologies. She is an associate lecturer at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Villette and a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Marseille in the field of sciences and techniques in architecture. She has participated in several publications (books, articles) on architectural and urban heritage that deal with the embellishment of the city and the staging of water by sculpted fountains in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Prof. Dr. Olivier Bonfait (Coordinator, French Team)
Olivier Bonfait is professor in Early Modern Art at the Université de Bourgogne (Dijon) and at the Ecole du Louvre (Paris). He did his thesis at Sorbonne University on Painting and Society in Bologna during the XVIIth and XVIIth centuries (1992), and published several books on painting in Italy and France (Après Caravage; Poussin et Louis XIV). He obtained numerous scholarships (Académie de France à Rome, The Getty Research Institute, Zentral Institut fur Kunstgeschichte), created various periodicals (Studiolo, Perspective) and curated numerous exhibitions (Le Dieu caché, Maestà di Roma). He is currently president of the CFHA and has an ongoing project on the history of the painting as object at the Institut Universitaire de France. He collaborated on the exhibition Peupler les cieux in 2014.
Dr. Matteo Burioni (Coordinator, German Team)
Matteo Burioni is Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter and University Lecturer at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität. In 2006, he was awarded a Ph.D . from the Goethe-University with a dissertation on Vasari, for which he received a DAAD scholarship for the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa from 1997-1998 and a scholarship from the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut from 2003-2005. From 2005-2008 he was SNFS Post-Doctoral Fellow at ‘eikones’, the National Competence Centre for Research Iconic Criticism at the University of Basle. In 2014, as an assistant at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, he was nominated university lecturer with a study on the reception of Non-European monuments in Early Modern Europe, and research associated at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte. Since 2019 he is coordinating the research project “Corpus of Baroque Ceiling Paintings in Germany” sponsored by the Union of Academies of Sciences of the Federal Republic of Germany. He is co-editor together with Stephan Hoppe und Hubert Locher of the online publication database www.deckenmalerei.eu. Since 2023, he has been a member of the expert committee for archival and cultural assets of the Free State of Bavaria.
Dr. Markus Castor (Member, German Team)
Markus A. Castor studied art history, philosophy and classical archaeology at the universities of Trier, Freiburg im Breisgau and Konstanz and received his doctorate in 1991 with a thesis on colour and space in Diego Velázquez. He was research associate of the German Bundestag and a lecturer at the Institute of Art History of the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg. He worked at the Institute of Italian Studies of the Technical University of Dresden on court art of the Renaissance and Baroque period. Since 2002 he has been coordinating the publication of the Lectures of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture at the German Centre for Art History in Paris and since 2006 he has been the director of research there with a focus on the art of the Ancien Régime. He is co-editor of the Franco-German journal Revue Regards Croisés.
He recently published in connexion with the topic of the projetc : “Versailles, die Galerie des Glaces und die Macht der Bilder – Pneumologische Fernwirkung als Herrschaftsinstrument zwischen Magie und Neuer Wissenschaft“, in: S. Bayer, K. Dickhaut, I. Herzog (Hg.), Lenkung der Dinge – Magie, Kunst und Politik in der Frühen Neuzeit, Frankfurt a. M. 2021, S. 326-361.
Dr. Bénédicte Gady (Member, French Team)
After eight years at the Musée du Louvre working on 17th and 18th century French drawings, Dr. Bénédicte Gady has joined the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, where she is in charge of the Graphic Arts Department, which holds around 200,000 drawings ranging from the 15th to 21st centuries, 350,000 photographs and 400,000 wallpapers. A former fellow of the Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art-Paris, the Académie de France à Rome (Villa Médicis), she dedicated her PhD to The Rise of Charles Le Brun (published in 2010). She has curated or co-curated twelve exhibitions, among which Parisian Ceilings in the 17th Century (Paris, Louvre, 2014), Drawing Versailles. Studies and cartoons by Charles Le Brun (Barcelone-Madrid, 2015-2016), Charles Le Brun (Louvre-Lens, 2016), Drawing without Reserve. Collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris, MAD, 2020).
Prof. Dr. François Guéna (Member, French Team)
François Guéna has been a professor at the Paris La Villette School of Architecture since 1993. After graduating from the school of architecture in 1980, he began studying computer science at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris where he obtained a master’s degree in computer science in 1987 and a doctorate in 1991. He has been qualified to direct research in computer science since 1997 and is currently in charge of the MAACC research team at the UMR MAP CNRS 3495 laboratory. Since the beginning of his research activities in 1982, François Guéna has acquired extensive experience in the use and development of computer tools for architectural design and heritage. He is currently leading several research projects on cognitive activities in architectural design, parametric modeling, algorithmic architecture, collaborative design, 3D reconstruction, etc.
Prof. Dr. Mona Hess (Member, German Team)
Mona Hess has graduate degrees in architecture (Dipl.-Ing.), heritage conservation (M.A.) and a PhD in 3D imaging metrology for cultural heritage from UCL, UK. She has 17-year-experience in interdisciplinary research projects for 3D imaging metrology and digital documentation for cultural heritage buildings and museum artefacts. Since 2017 she is full professor, chairholder for Digital Technologies in Heritage Conservation at the University of Bamberg, Germany (Institute for Archaeology, Heritage Sciences and Art History). She is also co-chair at the Centre for Innovative Applications of Computer Science (ZIAI) and vice-chair at the Centre for Heritage Conservation Studies and Technologies (KDWT) at the University of Bamberg. She holds professional memberships in ICOM and ICOMOS , and is expert member in the CIPA ICOMOS committee for Heritage Documentation.
Dr. John Hindmarch (Post-Doc, German Team)
John Hindmarch has an undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of Cambridge and master’s degrees in Electronic Publishing and Virtual Environments, Imaging and Visualisation from UCL. He also holds an EngD in 3D imaging for cultural heritage institutions, also from UCL, and has worked on 3D public engagement projects with the Science Museum and Courtauld Institute in London, UK. He has previously taught on the digital humanities master’s programme at UCL and is currently a research associate at the University of Bamberg, Germany, where he teaches on the M.Sc in Digital Technologies in Heritage Conservation.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Kirchner (Member, German Team)
Studied art history, history, and philosophy in Bonn, Berlin, and Paris. Doctorate (Promotion) from the Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn with a thesis on “L’expression des passions: Ausdruck als Darstellungsproblem in der französischen Kunst und Kunsttheorie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts.” After working in the museum and exhibition sector, served as assistant at the Kunsthistorisches Institut der Freien Universität Berlin. From 1993 to 1995, was a postdoctoral fellow (Habilitationsstipendiat) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Habilitation (German postdoctoral degree) at the Freie Universität Berlin on the topic of “Der epische Held: Historienmalerei und Kunstpolitik im Frankreich des 17. Jahrhunderts.” After teaching as a visiting associate professor in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, appointed chair of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art History at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg in 1999 and, in 2002, took over as chair of Early Modern and Modern Art History at Goethe Universität in Frankfurt. Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles in 2011/12. Has taught as visiting professor at European and North American universities. Member of several academic advisory boards. Since February 1, 2014, director of the German Center for Art History Paris (Max Weber Stiftung).
Max Kristen B.A. (Student Assitant, German Team)
Max Kristen is a student of Computer Science at LMU Munich. He worked at several project at LMU Munich, inculding ARTigo (www.artigo.org) and iART.
Dr. Blanche Llaurens (Post-Doc, French Team)
Blanche Llaurens is a postdoctoral researcher. She is a specialist in works on paper and developed a particular interest in the mobility and migration of artists in the early modern period. In December 2021, she received her PhD from Poitiers University with a thesis on the migration of Dutch and Flemish printmakers to Paris in the early seventeenth century supervised by Prof. Véronique Meyer. She held several curatorial and research positions such as at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris where she worked as a curatorial assistant and at the Bibliothèque nationale de France where she contributed to the upcoming publication of the Hollstein French catalogues. During her doctorate, she earned research fellowships from the Deutsches Forum für Kunsthistorisches in Paris, the Dutch Embassy in Paris (she was awarded the Prix d’Amsterdam in 2017) as well as a Library research grant from the Getty Institute in Los Angeles. She also taught Art History at the University of Rennes as a teaching assistant during the academic year of 2020-2021.
Dr. Matthieu Lett (Member, French Team)
Matthieu Lett holds a doctorate from the University of Lausanne and the University of Paris Nanterre. He is currently a lecturer in the history of art of the modern period at the University of Burgundy. He is a specialist in artistic production in the European princely courts of the 17th and 18th centuries, with a particular interest in France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. He has recently published a monograph on the painter René-Antoine Houasse (Paris, Arthena, 2020). His dissertation will be published in 2022 by Droz (Geneva), with the support of the CRCV, under the title Les escaliers d’honneur dans l’Europe des princes (1670-1760) : architecture et décor d’une pièce d’apparat. His current work focuses on the uses and practices of miniature painting as well as on questions of scale in the work of art. In addition, Matthieu Lett is interested in the contributions of digital humanities to art history, particularly in the field of virtual reconstructions and augmented reality. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Vladimir Nestorov (Post-Doc, French Team)
Doctor in art history from the Université de Bourgogne (Dijon), Vladimir Nestorov defended his thesis in june 2022 under the direction of Olivier Bonfait, entitled « Painting in Paris under the reign of Henri IV and the regency of Marie de Medici (1594-1620 ca.) ». In charge of studies and research at the National Institute of Art History (Paris) from 2016 to 2020, he worked under the supervision of Cécile Scailliérez on the « census of French painting of the XVIth century » poured on the AGORHA database (online). He was a temporary teaching and research assistant at the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne frome 2021 and 2022 and he teaches the history of French painting at the Ecole du Louvre.
Dr. des. Aaron Pattee (Post-Doc, German Team)
Aaron Pattee holds a BA and MA from University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and a Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg. He was awarded full fellowship from the German Excellence Initiative to conduct his research at the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing. The resulting dissertation that he defended in 2021 investigated the placement, construction, and function of four medieval castles at the turn of the 13th century in the city of Kaiserslautern, Germany. To this end, he incorporated multiple digital tools in order to evaluate and disseminate various data sources including Structure from Motion (SfM) Photogrammetry, Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and a Graph Database. As a post-doctoral researcher at the Ludwig-Maxilimians-University in Munich, he is involved not only in the Plafond-3D project as an architectural historian and developer for the database, but also in another project entitled HistKI, or Historical Artificial Intelligence. In addition to his research, he is a Co-Secretary at the Society for Court Studies European Branch, and is a Co-editor of the Journal Burgen und Schlösser.
Florian Zacherl, M.Sc. (Post-Doc, German Team)
Florian Zacherl is a Computer Scientist and worked on the long-term DFG funded project VerbaAlpina . He is reponsable for the Plafond-3D database.
Former Team Members