Curriculum Vitae

Dr Weixuan Li

Rijksmuseum
Hobbemastraat 22, 1071 ZC Amsterdam
weixuan.li[at]rijksmuseum.nl
w.li [at] uva.nl

Current position

Mellon Research Fellow | Rijksmuseum  (2025-present)
Lecturer in Global Arts, Culture, and Politics | University of Amsterdam  (2023-present)
 

Education
2018-2023

University of Amsterdam – Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands

PhD in art history - Cum laude (top 5%)

Dissertation – Painters’ Playbooks: Deep Mapping Socio-spatial Strategies in the Art Market of Seventeenth-century Amsterdam
Funded within the NWO research project: Virtual Interiors as Interfaces for Big Historical Data Research: Spatially enhanced publications of the creative industries of the Dutch Golden Age.

Promoters: Prof. Charles van den Heuvel, prof. Julia Noordegraaf
Co-promoters: dr. Marten Jan Bok and dr. Claartje Rasterhoff

Awards: Erasmus Dissertation Prize 2024, Amsterdam School of Historical Studies Dissertation Award 2023-2024; (shortlist) Jan van Gelder Award 2022-2023.

2016-2018

University of Amsterdam 

Research Master in Arts of the Netherlands (Cum lAUDE)

Thesis project — Deciphering the art and market in the Dutch Golden Age: Insights from digital methodologies
Supervisors: dr. Marten Jan Bok, and dr. Claartje Rasterhoff.
Awards: Best Thesis within the Faculty of Humanities 2019, De Zeventiende Eeuw Werkgroep Scriptieprijs

2011-2014

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Dual MA-Msc, City planning and Transportation

Research focus: Urban Economics, Spatial Analysis, Advanced GIS and SQL, Data Management
Full scholarship from the SMART project and the Transit Lab from the Department of Civil Engineering

2006-2011

Peking University, Beijing

Dual Be-ba in Urban and Regional Planning & Economics

Experienced in urban and architectural design in 3D, graphic design from multiple design studios

  • PhD (cum laude, Top 5%) in Art History, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam
    Dissertation    : Painters’ Playbooks: Deep Mapping Socio-spatial Strategies in the Art Market of Seventeenth-century Amsterdam
    Funded by the NWO project: Virtual Interiors as Interfaces for Big Historical Data Research: Spatially Enhanced Publications of the Creative Industries of the Dutch Golden Age.
    Focus    : Innovations in early modern Dutch art markets
    Methods    : Digital mapping, data-driven analysis, 3D modelling
  • Research MA (cum laude) in Arts of the Netherlands, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam
    Thesis: Deciphering Art and the Market in the Dutch Golden Age: Insights from Digital Methodologies
  • MSc City Planning and Transportation Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge MA
    Focus    : Urban economics, spatial analysis, GIS, data management, demand modelling
  • BA in Economics and Urban Planning, Peking University, Beijing
    Experienced in urban and architectural design in 3D, graphic design from multiple design studios

Employment

  • 2025 – present:  Mellon Research Fellow, Rijksmuseum, NL
  • 2023 – present:  Lecturer, Global Arts, Culture, and Politics, University of Amsterdam, NL
  • 2023 – 2025:       Postdoctoral Researcher, Leiden University, NL
  • 2017 – 2018:        Pre-Ph.D. Fellow, Creative Amsterdam: An E-Humanities Perspective, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam
  • Summer 2017:    Research and Curatorial Fellow in European Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • 2014 – 2016:        Senior Consultant, Steer Group, Boston MA, USA 
  • 2013 – 2014:        Research Associate, Mass Transit Railway Corporation Ltd., Hong Kong, China | Department of Civil Engineering, MIT, Cambridge MA, USA 
  • Summer 2011:    Short-term consultant, The World Bank  

Major Grants & Fellowships

  • 2026 – 2028       Marie-Curie Fellowship: € 216,240 (Ranked top 5.6% out of over 10,000 applications) deferred to 2026 due to the Rijksmuseum Fellowship.
  • 2025 – 2026       Rijksmuseum Mellow Fellowship: € 50,000  (chosen out of 100+ applications)
  • 2025:                   Dutch Research Council (NWO) Rubicon Grant:  €159,171  (the only humanities project awarded that round, withdrawn due to the Rijksmuseum Fellowship and Marie-Curie Fellowship)
  •  2021:                   Rembrandt Association, Claudine de With Grant: €2,500 (in support of dissertation writing).
  • 2017 – 2018:       CREATE Amsterdam Pre-PhD Fellowship: € 25,000 (0.5fte researcher at UvA).

Awards

Teaching

Obtained the Dutch University Teaching Qualification (BKO) 
  • Fall 2025 MA lecture course: Critical Perspectives on Data & AI – Concepts (with dr. Houda Lamqaddam)
  • Spring 2025 & 2026 MA seminar course: Embedded Research Project (within the MA program Cultural Data and AI, UvA), including 3 MA-thesis supervisions. 
  • Spring 2025 BA2 seminar course: Archival Revolution: Applying Digital Tools to Render the Invisible Visible, with Dr Selena Savic,
  • Spring 2024 & 2025 BA2 lecture course: Digital Heritage (Core Lecture course for art history students, 100+ students)
  • Spring 2024 & 2025 BA1 seminar course: Digital Literacy and Archival Research (with dr. Annet Dekker, dr. Selena Savic, and dr. Anna Weinreich)
  • Spring 2024 MA seminar course: A Digital Lens: New Tools for Interpreting Early Modern Art and Culture
  • Spring 2024 BA2 lecture course: AI & Humanities  (with an interdisciplinary teaching team) 
  • Fall 2023, 2024, & 2025 BA1 excursion course: Visual Literacy (excursions in the Rijksmuseum)
  • Spring 2023 BA2 survey course: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century (with dr. Elmer Kolfin) 
  • Spring 2022 MA seminar course: Painters, Art Lovers and the Market for Paintings 1590-1700 (with dr. Piet Bakker) 
  • Spring 2018, 2019, 2021 & 2022 MA seminar course: Digital Methods and Source Criticisms in (Art) History (with prof. Charles van den Heuvel) 
  • Fall 2017 & 2018 MA seminar course: De digitale stad  (with dr. Clé Lesger, prof. Lex Bosman, and prof. Gabri van Tussenbroek) Nominated for Onderwijsprijs (Education Award) for MA classes at UvA 
  • Fall 2017 BA2 seminar course: Cultural and Artistic Networks in the Dutch Republic, University of Amsterdam (with dr. Marten Jan Bok) 
  • (Guest lecture) Fall 2021 Research MA course: Digital Perspectives, Utrecht University, invited by prof. Thijs Weststeijn 
  • (Guest lecture) Fall 2018 MA course: Digital Humanities: The Digital Scholar of Pre-modern Sources, Utrecht University, invited by prof. Mariken Teeuwen 
  • (Guest lecture) Fall 2018 Digital Humanities and Social Analytics Minor course: Digital Humanities Today, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, invited by dr. Erika Kuijpers 

Publications

Monograph

  • 2025 Li. W., Painters’ Playbooks in the Art Market of Early Modern Amsterdam, Routledge, UK. (Open Access here)

Peer-reviewed scholarly publications

  • Li. W., ‘Spatial Reading of Inventories: A New Approach to Reconstructing Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam Interiors‘. Histories. 2025, 5(1)13: 1-21. DOI: 10.3390/histories5010013
  • Li. W., Van der Deijl, L., ‘Bidloo’s and Lairesse’s Anatomia Humani Corporis (1685)’, in Noorman, J., and Dietz, F. (eds.) Moving Objects: Subtitle Exploring the Materiality of the Dutch Republic Across Disciplines, University of Amsterdam Press, 2024, pp. 27-54.
  • Li. W., ‘Mapping Uncertain Knowledge in Digital Art History’, Journal for the History of Knowledge, Special Issue Mapping
    Uncertainties.     2024, 5: 131-152. DOI:10.55283/jhk.13998
  • Li. W., Piccoli, C., ‘Placing Value in Domestic Interiors: 3D Spatial Mapping of Pieter de Graeff and Jacoba Bicker’s Home Art Collection‘. BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review. 2024; 139(2): 4-37. DOI: 10.51769/bmgn-lchr.13880
  • Li. W., Piccoli, C., ‘Boedelinventarissen als bron voor reconstructie van interieurs,’ in Alle Amsterdamse Akten, Jaarboek Amstelodamum, 2022, 144-151. 
  • Van den Heuvel, C., Van Tussenbroek. G., Noordegraaf, J., and Piccoli, C., Li, W.,‘Virtual Interiors en de gelaagde stad. Een inkijk in een digitaal lab voor een ruimtelijke geschiedenis van Amsterdam’, Stadsgeschiedenis, 2022:136-149. 
  • Li, W., ‘A Network of Iconography: Tracing the Evolution of Iconography in History Paintings in the Dutch Golden Age’, Early Modern Low Countries. 2021; 5(2): 216-249. DOI: 10.51750/emlc11334 (One of the journal’s most viewed articles since 2021)
  • Li, W., ‘Spotting specialists: A digital approach to contemporary concepts of genre and specialisation’, in Osnabrugge, M. (ed.) Questioning Pictorial Genres in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Art: Definitions, Artistic Practices, Market & Society,  Brepols Publishers, 2021:43-71. (Book available here) 
  • Li, W., ‘The Hands Behind De Lairesse’s Masterpieces: Gerard de Lairesse’s workshop practice,’ Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 2020; 12(1): 1-27. DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2020.12.1.4
  • Li, W., ‘Innovative Exuberance: Visualizing the fluctuations in painting production in the 17th-century Northern Netherlands’, Arts, Special Issue: Art Markets and Digital Histories, 2019 8(2), 72. DOI: 10.3390/arts8020072 (got almost 10,000 downloads and assigned as readings in multiple international universities)
  • Li, W., Feng, C. C., and Zhao, F. F., ‘Influence of rail transit on nearby commodity housing prices: a case study of Beijing Subway Line Five’, Acta Geographica Sinica 66.8 (2011): 1055-1062 (in Chinese).

Exhibition Catalogue Articles

  • Li, W., ‘Paintings for the People: Mass Consumption and Display in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam’, Dealing in Splendour: A History of the European Art Market, exhib. cat., Liechtenstein Palace, Vienna, 2026: 151-171.
  • Li, W., ‘Display Art in Seventeenth-century Amsterdam Homes’, Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time, exhib. cat., H’Art Museum (formerly Hermitage Museum Amsterdam), WBooks, 2025: 48-55.

Conference proceedings, book reviews, and online publications

Conferences

Organisation of Panels and Workshops

  • (11 Jul. 2024) [With Lauryn Smith] ‘ Embracing the digital age’, panel at Historians of Netherlandish Art Conference 2024, Cambridge/London, UK.
  • (20 Apr. 2021) [With Sandra van Ginhoven etc.] Panel: Early Modern Digital Art History: Computation as Methodology, RSA Virtual 2021 (online) .
  • (29 Jul. -2 Aug. 2019) Workshop leader in Network & Map workshop in Network Analysis + Digital Art History: A Getty Advanced Workshop, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
  • (11 Jul. 2019) [With Alex Butterworth, etc.] Panel discussion: Complex Space-Time, DH 2019: Digital Humanities Conference, Utrecht.

 Presentations and invited talks (selected)

  • (1 Nov. 2025) ‘Strange Ship on Chinese Shore: A Chinese Painting in a Dutch Cartographic Mode’, Rijksmuseum Symposium, Amsterdam.
  • (15 Oct. 2025) ‘A spatial approach to understanding artistic innovation: Painters’ location choices and the market development in 17th-century Amsterdam’, Digital Art History – Methods, Practices, Epistemologies 5: Critical Approaches to Sources in (Digital) Art History 2025, Zagreb, Croatia.
    (15 Oct. 2025) [With Sofia Baroncini] ‘When but not where: considerations on the underrepresentation of the place of creation in art datasets’, Digital Art History – Methods, Practices, Epistemologies 5: Critical Approaches to Sources in (Digital) Art History 2025, Zagreb, Croatia.
  • (21 Mar. 2023) ‘The Montias Database: Exploring 17th-Century Dutch Domestic Interiors Digitally’, Frick Art Reference Library Talk (online, recording available here)
  •  (2-4 Jun. 2022) [With Chiara Piccoli] ‘Place and value inside domestic interiors: the case of Pieter de Graeff and the affluent burghers in Amsterdam’, Historians of Netherlandish Art conference 2022, Amsterdam/The Hague 
  •  (11-12 May 2022) ‘(Deep) mapping uncertainties of artists’ locations in 17th-century Amsterdam’, Workshop Mapping Uncertainties, Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, Rome
  • (12 Apr. 2022) [With Lucas van der Deijl] ‘Bidloo’s and Lairesse’s Anatomia Humani Corporis (1685)’, Object Colloquium, Amsterdam Centre for Studies in Early Modernity
  • (3 Feb. 2022) ‘Mapping 17th-century art market in Amsterdam: Space and Strategy’, CREATE salon: Creative Industries: Then and Now (online, recording available here) 
  • (1-3 Jul. 2021) ‘Mapping the social-economic network of Artists in early modern Amsterdam’, Historical Network Analysis conference (online) 
  • (16 Jun. 2021) ‘A Peek behind Closed Doors: Displaying and Dealing Art in Rembrandt’s Amsterdam’, Rembrandt in Amsterdam exhibition symposium, National Gallery of Canada (public lecture online, recording available below) 
  • (3 Jun. 2021) [With Eric Jan Sluijter] “Holland’s last epidemic of plague (1663/4) and the decline of the art of painting,” Historians of Netherlandish Art Pandemic session (online) 
  • (10 Feb. 2021) ‘Spatial Reading of Inventories: Producing and displaying arts in seventeenth-century Amsterdam’, Groningen Research Webinars: Art History and Visual Material Culture (online, recording available here) 
  • (23 Sep. 2020) ‘3D-Visualizations as tools to understand the painting business in Golden Age Amsterdam’, CREATE Salon: Applying 3D-visualisations to historical research (online, recording available below)
  • (10 Jul. 2019) [With Chiara Piccoli and Charles van den Heuvel]‘Embracing Complex Interfaces Linking Deep Maps and Virtual Interiors to Big Data of the Dutch Golden Age.,’ DH 2019: Digital Humanities Conference, Utrecht 
  • (6-7 Jun. 2019) ‘Comprehending the concepts of genre and specialization in the eyes of seventeenth-century connoisseurs: a digital approach’, The Contribution of Artistic Genres to the Construction of the Dutch Golden Age conference, Haarlem 
  • (29-30 Jan. 2019) ‘Artists and the Creative Urban Space’, Mobility Creates Master: Database for research symposium, National Museum of Fine Arts, Stockholm, Sweden 
  • (5-6 Nov. 2018) ‘The Amsterdam Hands in De Lairesse’s Paintings: A Quantitative Approach’, International Conference Many Antwerp Hands, Rubenianum Antwerp, Belgium 
  • (20-21 Sep. 2018) ‘Beyond Location: Deep mapping artist’s workshops in the early modern Amsterdam’, Spatial Humanities 2018 conference, Lancaster, UK 
  •  (2-4 Jun. 2018) [With Claartje Rasterhoff, Ivan Kisjes, and Kasper Beelen] ‘Measuring Innovation in the Art and Book Market during the Dutch Golden Age’, Digital Humanities Benelux 2018 conference, Amsterdam

Valorization and in press

Grants and Awards

  • 2026-2028 Marie-Curie Fellowship (€ 216,240, two years)
  • 2025 Rijksmuseum Mellow Fellowship (€ 50,000, one year)
  • 2025 NWO Rubicon €159,171 (withdrawn due to the Rijksmuseum Fellowship and Marie-Curie Fellowship)
  • 2024 Erasmus Dissertation Prize (€ 3000) 
  • 2024 Amsterdam School for Historical Studies Dissertation Award 2023-2024 (€ 500)
  • 2024 (shortlist) Jan van der Gelder Award 2022-2023
  • 2022 University of Amsterdam Three-Minute Thesis Pitch competition:  second place (€ 500)
  • 2021 Claudine de With Beurs -Vereining Rembrandt (€ 2500)
  • 2020 De Zeventiende Eeuw Werkgroep Scriptieprijs 2018-2020 (€ 500)
  • 2019 Best thesis in the Faculty of Humanities 2018-2019, University of Amsterdam (€ 1500)
  • 2018 (Nominated) Onderwijsprijs (Education Award) for MA classes at UvA 
  • 2017-8 Pre-PhD fellowship (0.5 ft, one year), University of Amsterdam 

Honors/Scholarships

  • 2013 Transit Lab Scholarship, MIT 
  • 2012 Contribution to the Intellectual Life, MIT 
  • 2012-3 Department of Urban Planning, SMART scholarship, MIT 
  • 2010 Peking University President Scholarship 
  • 2009 Robin Li Scholarship Professional

Service and Leadership

Editorial & Professional Governance

  • 2025 – Present: Steering Committee Member, Cultural AI Lab (multi-institutional consortium in the Netherlands)
  • 2021-2024: Board Member, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art Digital Advisory Board
  • 2019-2022: Organizer, Art History Research Colloquium, University of Amsterdam
  • Peer reviewer of journals including Oud Holland, BMGN: Low Countries Historical Review, Journal of Semantic Web, JHNA

Affiliations

  • Member of Historians of Netherlandish Art (HNA) 
  • Member of Renaissance Society of America (RSA) 
  • Member of International Art Market Studies Association (TIAMSA) 
  • Member of Historical Network Research Community (HNR) 
  • Member of the N.W. Posthumus Institute 
  • Member of Time Machine Organization, Amsterdam Chamber: Amsterdam Time Machine 
  • Member of Creative Amsterdam: An E-Humanities Perspective (CREATE), University of Amsterdam 
  • Member of DH Lab, KNAW Humanities Cluster

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Research