Lieve Watteeuw

Lieve Watteeuw (1959) studied restoration and conservation of graphic materials at the HICOREB in Ghent (1985-1989), a course which she supplemented in 2002 with study in Art History at the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven).

As an independent conservator-restorer of manuscripts she has had some ‘monuments’ of the parchment past on her workshop table for conservation, such as the Codex Eyckensis, the Van Hulthem Manuscript, and a precious14th-century illuminated book of hours once owned by the Duc de Berry, the two last-mentioned preserved in the Royal Library of Belgium. In 2003, after six years of research, conservation work was completed on the Chroniques de Hainaut (Brussels, Royal Library, Manuscripts Section, KBR 9242, Mons and Bruges, ca. 1458), a manuscript that was the centrepiece of the exhibition Illuminating the Renaissance in Los Angeles and London.

Current conservation projects in which she is involved are those of the Hennessy Hours (Brussels, Royal Library, Manuscripts Section, KBR II 158, ca. 1520), a manuscript in the Ghent-Bruges style with miniatures ascribed to Simon Bening, and the richly illuminated Mayer van de Bergh Breviary (Antwerp, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Ghent-Bruges, ca. 1520).

Lieve Watteeuw is a scientific collaborator (conservation) in the Manuscripts Section of the Royal Library of Belgium. For the duration of her doctoral research (2003-2007) she is also attached to the Conservation Department of the Royal Institute for the Study and Conservation of Belgium’s Artistic Heritage (KIK-IRPA) in Brussels. Her doctoral research focuses on the medieval illuminated manuscript in the history of restoration theory and practice in the collections of (present-day) Belgium.

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