Inken Maria Holubec

Certified conservator of painting at the Restaurierungszentrum der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf / Henkel Bequest since 1994

Inken Maria Holubec, née Hussmann, completed her studies of the restoration and conservation of paintings under Prof Hubert Dietrich at the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna in 1993 with the Magistra Artium degree. She wrote her final paper on the restoration of the wooden panel painting Breakfast Still Life, signed “W. C. Heda, 1634”, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna; with a supplementary study of the theory and practice of retouching in special consideration of the retouching tradition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

It was already as a student that she first encountered technological and conservatorial matters related to the Angelica Kauffman oeuvre within the framework of a student research project on the restoration of a painting by Angelica Kauffman: Cupid nor more shall Hearts betray in the collection of the vorarlberg museum in Bregenz. The results were presented in 1991 in a studio exhibition, accompanied by a publication, at the Vorarlberger Landesmuseum in Bregenz.

Holubec has collaborated on the AKRP since 1997. In 1998, on the occasion of the “Angelica Kauffman Retrospective” in Düsseldorf, Munich and Chur, she submitted the first interim results of her technological and scientific examinations of paintings by Angelica Kauffman and presented them in an aesthetically appealing display in glass cases in the exhibition.

Over the years, Holubec has specialized increasingly in the technological analysis of the underlying surfaces, primers and binding agents in Kauffman’s paintings. She has continued to pursue the questions that arise in that context intensively to this day. Having successfully restored paintings from all periods of Angelica Kauffman’s oeuvre, she has gathered a wealth of experience in the restoration of paintings by this artist.

She regularly accompanies Bettina Baumgärtel on her trips to the artist’s works, and supports Baumgärtel’s art-scholarly research with technological and scientific examinations of the originals, as well as with precise photographic documentations of the paintings and drawings.

Within the framework of the exhibition on Peter Paul Rubens presented at the Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf in 2008, she also – in collaboration with conservator Ilka Meyer-Stork – examined technological aspects of Rubens’s large altarpiece The Ascension of the Virgin Mary.

Selected publications

Doris Hess, Inken Maria Hußmann, Helga Musner : Restaurierungen an Angelika Kauffmann-Bildern, in: Angelika Kauffmann Restaurierungen, Begleitheft zur Ausstellung, Vorarlberger Landesmuseum Bregenz, Bregenz 1991, S. 3-9

Inken Maria Hußmann: Mal- und materialtechnische Untersuchungen einiger Gemälde Angelika Kauffmanns, in: Ausst. Kat. Angelika Kauffmann 1741 – 1807 Retrospektive, hrsg. u. bearb. v. Bettina Baumgärtel, Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf u. a., Ostfildern-Ruit 1998, S. 98-104

Inken M. Holubec: ‘The whole world is angelicamad’: preparatory layers on canvas used by Angelika Kauffmann, in: Preparation for Painting. The Artist’s Choice and its consequences. Contributions to the ICOM-CC Working Group Paintings interim meeting held at the British Museum 31 May-1 June 2007, Joyce H. Townshend, Tiarna Doherty (Hg.) u.a., London 2008, S. 100-109

Inken Maria Holubec und Ilka Meyer-Stork: Der andere Blick – Material und Maltechnik des Gemäldes die “Himmelfahrt Mariae” von Peter Paul Rubens, in: Ausst. Kat. Himmlisch Herrlich Höfisch. Peter Paul Rubens, Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz und Anna Maria Luisa de’Medici, hrsg. u. bearb. v. Bettina Baumgärtel, museum kunst palast Düsseldorf, Leipzig 2008, S. 140-145

Inken Maria Holubec und Ilka Meyer-Stork: Die Himmelfahrt Mariae von Peter Paul Rubens. Ein Meisterwerk künstlerischer Technik und barocker Inszenierung, in: Beiträge zur Erhaltung von Kunst- und Kulturgut, Verband der Restauratoren, Heft 2, Bonn 2012, S. 57-73

Inken Maria Holubec: Paintings on copper by Angelica Kauffmann, in: Conservation of Easel Paintings, Joyce Hill Stoner u. Rebecca Rushfield (Hg.), Abingdon/New York 2012, S. 102

Inken Maria Holubec: Angelica Kauffman and the Neoclassical Picture: Material, Technology and Painting Process, in: Angelica Kauffman, hg. und bearb. v. Bettina Baumgärtel, Exhibition Catalogue Düsseldorf, Kunstpalast, Munich 2020, pp. 30-35