Hilda Groen wins Duparc Prize for master's thesis on Chinese wallpaper

Last year she graduated from the RMA Art History programme, but last week Hilda Groen won the Duparc Prize of the Mauritshuis. Groen won the prize for her master's thesis 'Glimpses of the Unfamiliar World. An Inquiry Into the Eighteenth-Century Chinese Wallpapers at Country House Oud Amelisweerd in Bunnik'. According to the jury report, Green's thesis gives a great picture of the international taste of the eighteenth-century Dutch.

Chinoiserie in Oud Amelisweerd

Groen's thesis focuses on the Chinese wallpaper paintings in the Oud Amelisweerd country house. Groen discovered that, unlike in England for example, the wallpaper in the Netherlands was applied in representative or semi-public areas of the house, rather than in the more informal rooms. The style was called 'chinoiserie', a cross-cultural decorative style, in which Chinese and European style elements were united.

An exemplary thesis

The jury is highly enthusiastic about Green's thesis: "She has approached her subject very thoroughly and from different angles. The jury typifies this thesis as exemplary in terms of the question, theory, historiography and illustration material. The subject is innovative and the researcher has done a great deal of work."

The Mauritshuis awards the Duparc Prize for the best art history master's thesis in the field of the visual arts in the Netherlands between 1400 and 1800. The prize is named after the museum's former director Frits Duparc and was established upon his departure in 2008.