About the authors
Moorea Hall-Aquitania is Curator of Technical Documentation at the RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History in The Hague. Her doctorate “Common Grounds: The Introduction, Spread, and Popularity of Coloured Grounds in The Netherlands 1500-1650” (2025) was part of the NWO-funded Down to the Ground project at the University of Amsterdam. She has an MSc in Technical Art History from the University of Amsterdam (2017) and a BA in Art History and Italian Language (2015) from Vassar College, NY.
Paul J.C. van Laar is a technical art historian based in Cambridge, the United Kingdom. He is currently Research Associate Scientific Research at the Fitzwilliam Museum and Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge. He obtained a cum laude MSc in Technical Art History at the University of Amsterdam (2021) and is currently pursuing a PhD, researching the varied use of the blue pigment smalt in Early Modern Paintings, in a project shared between NOVA Universidade de Lisboa (Research Unit VICARTE: Glass and Ceramics for the Arts), and the University of Cambridge (Fitzwilliam Museum/Hamilton Kerr Institute).