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Dr. Annemarieke Willemsen

Curator Netherlands Medieval Department

tel:  +31 (0)71 5163 168
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Annemarieke Willemsen (1969) studied Art History & Archaeology at Radboud University Nijmegen, where she received her Ph.D. in 1998 for a thesis about late medieval children's toys. From 1993, she participated in various exhibition projects, including the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Since 1999 she has been working at the National Museum of Antiquities as curator of the Medieval Department. There she is responsible for all finds from Dutch soil from the post-Roman era. Her interest focusses particularly on material culture (as a phenomenon as well) and daily life in the Middle Ages, with an emphasis on the child and play in the past. Her trademark is the combination of sources: objects, images and texts, always in 'connection' with one another. In terms of subject matter, Annemarieke is ‘omnivorous': a Late Middle Ages specialist who at the National Museum of Antiquities is mainly occupied with Merovingian and Carolingian assemblages, who also published on the Romans and Vikings and also knows the objects from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Expertise

• Objects of daily use from the Roman era until the 17th century.
• Material culture, daily life and the use of various types of sources.
• Play, toys, school and family in Roman, medieval and early modern times.

Key research projects

• Medieval children's toys (1994-1998)
• Roman toys (1999-2002)
• The Vikings in the Netherlands (2003-2005)
• Schools and Pupils in Western Europe, 1300-1600 (2001-2007)
• The Material Culture of Student Life, 1200-1600 (2008-)

Representative publications 

• Kinder delijt, middeleeuws speelgoed in de Nederlanden, Nijmegen 1998 (Ph.D.-thesis).
• 'Images of Toys, The Culture of Play in the Netherlands around 1600', in: J.B. Bedaux/R. Ekkart (eds.), Pride and Joy, Children's Portraits in the Netherlands 1500-1700, Ghent/Amsterdam 2000, p. 61-71.
• 'Playing with Reality, Games and Toys in the Oeuvre of Hieronymus Bosch', in: J. Koldeweij/ B. Vermet/ B. van Kooij  (eds.), Hieronymus Bosch, New Insights Into His Life and Work, Rotterdam 2001, p. 192-199.
• Vikings! Raids in the Rhine-Meuse Delta 800-1000, Utrecht 2004 (exhibition catalogue).
• Back to the Schoolyard, The Daily Practice of Medieval and Renaissance Education, Turnhout 2008.
• Dorestad, een wereldstad in de Middeleeuwen, Zutphen 2009 (exhibition catalogue).
• Late medieval bling-bling, A collection of decorated leather and metalbase mounts in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden', in: H. Clevis (ed.), Medieval Material Culture, Studies in Honour of Jan Thijssen, Zwolle 2009, pp. 55-81.

Representative exhibitions

• Medieval Mystery (2003)
• Down Town. Discover urban archaeology of the Netherlands (2004)
• Vikings! (Bonn, Utrecht and Roskilde, 2005-2006)
• Dorestad. Medieval Metropolis (2009)

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