Volume 17: Issue 2 (2025)

This special issue of the JHNA is devoted to investigating the rise, use, and visual impact of colored grounds stemming from research born from the Down to the Ground database.

Down To The Ground: The Impact Of Colored Grounds On Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish Painting

Editors’ Greeting

H. Perry Chapman, Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Alison M. Kettering, Bret Rothstein, Joanna Woodall

The Hidden Revolution of Colored Grounds: An Introduction

Maartje Stols-Witlox, Elmer Kolfin

Why Colored Grounds Matter: The Evolving Research on Colored Grounds in Dutch Paintings (1580–1720)

Elmer Kolfin

Colored Grounds in French Paintings before 1610: A Complex Spread

Stéphanie Deprouw-Augustin

Prepared and Proffered: The Role of Professional Primers in the Spread of Colored Grounds

Moorea Hall-Aquitania

The Role of the Colored Ground in Rembrandt’s Painting Practice

Petria Noble

Laying the Ground in Still Lifes: Efficient Practices, Visual Effects, and Local Preferences Found in the Collection of the Mauritshuis

Marya Albrecht, Sabrina Meloni

Representation versus Reality: Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts’s Depiction and Use of Colored Grounds

Anne Haack Christensen

Under the Microscope and Into the Database: Designing Data Frameworks for Technical Art Historical Research

Moorea Hall-Aquitania, Paul J. C. van Laar

Remaking Colored Grounds: The Use of Reconstructions for Art Technical and Art Historical Research

Maartje Stols-Witlox, Lieve d’Hont

Past Issues