Laura Overpelt

Laura Overpelt  graduated with a BA and MA in the history of the fine arts (Mphil) from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. She did PhD research on Giorgio Vasari’s representation of his workshop practice versus a reconstruction of it based on archival facts, concerning his decorative enterprise in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (1554-1571) at the Open Universiteit (Heerlen, the Netherlands). This project was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (Promoties in de Geesteswetenschappen – NWO) and in 2017-18 she received a stimulation fund for research from the Open Universiteit (Stimuleringsfonds – OU). She will defend her dissertation in the fall of 2018. Laura presented her research on Vasari’s workshop and the relationship of his patron, Cosimo de’ Medici, with the artists in his team at several conferences in Europe and the United States, some of them organized by MAP. Since 2014, Laura is an ambassador of the Dutch University Institute in Florence (NIKI). During her fellowship at MAP, Laura will do preliminary archival fieldwork to write a proposal for a post-doctoral research project, focussing on mapping the vast network of painters who were active in Florence in the ducal era, to get to a better understanding of their careers, apprenticeships, and collaborations.