History:
Mercury Institute of Fine Arts has been founded by art historian Zoran Kwak. He has expertise in the field of Dutch and Flemish old masters and has access to a wide network of leading scholars, museum curators, conservators, art dealers and collectors from around the world. Zoran Kwak works in close collaboration with conservator Wassily Khudyakov. When they met for the first time in 2002 at the Dutch University Institute for Art History in Florence it was the start of a long-term friendship. It was clear that they shared a passion for looking at paintings. Since then, they have explored the international art market and come to realize that combining their knowledge and experience would have some benefits. As a result, they have been able to rediscover a number of ‘lost’ old masters.
Mercury Institute of Fine Arts has been founded by art historian Zoran Kwak. He has expertise in the field of Dutch and Flemish old masters and has access to a wide network of leading scholars, museum curators, conservators, art dealers and collectors from around the world. Zoran Kwak works in close collaboration with conservator Wassily Khudyakov. When they met for the first time in 2002 at the Dutch University Institute for Art History in Florence it was the start of a long-term friendship. It was clear that they shared a passion for looking at paintings. Since then, they have explored the international art market and come to realize that combining their knowledge and experience would have some benefits. As a result, they have been able to rediscover a number of ‘lost’ old masters.
 Dr. Zoran Kwak
Dr Zoran Kwak
graduated at Leiden University in the History of Art and Archaeology (1990-1996), and has since been an active researcher and lecturer. From 2002 to 2009 he worked at the Dutch University Institute for Art History (NIKI) in Florence, where he conducted research for the Repertory of Dutch and Flemish Paintings in Italian Public Collections: Rome, Latium and the Vatican. During his work for the repertory Zoran developed as a connoisseur of Dutch and Flemish artists in Italy. He made many discoveries and was able to attribute oil paintings and frescoes, on the basis of provenance research and stylistic analysis, to such well-known artists as Philips Wouwerman, Jan Theunisz. Blanckerhoff and Bartholomeus Spranger. The intriguing richness of their production and the overwhelming impact this stay abroad had on artists from the Northern and Southern Netherlands are the subject of his lectures. In May 2014 Zoran Kwak received his PhD in Art History (cum laude) at the University of Amsterdam with a dissertation on the pictorial tradition, meaning and function of Northern Netherlandish painted kitchen scenes of the Golden Age: ‘Proeft de kost en kauwtse met uw’ oogen’. Beeldtraditie, betekenis en functie van het Noord-Nederlandse keukentafereel (ca. 1590-1650). In his PhD Zoran combined an art-historical method with a broad cultural-historical approach, by interpreting paintings on the basis of farces, table plays, carnivalesque images and texts and other manifestations of the 17th-Century “Laughter Culture”. Besides that he studied kitchen pieces from a socio-economic perspective and adressed art theory and stylistic analysis. In exploring this topic Zoran casts new light on paintings by the 16th-century artists Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer, the ‘late mannerists’ Abraham Bloemaert, Cornelis van Haarlem and Joachim Wtewael, and ‘specialists’ like Pieter Cornelisz. Van Rijck, Cornelis Jacobsz. Delff and Floris van Schooten. Zoran Kwak has worked as a lecturer at various institutions, including the University of Amsterdam, Leiden University and HOVO Nederland (Higher Education for the Third Age). It has always been his goal to arouse public interest for scientific research and education by combining perspectives from different disciplines. The subjects of his lectures include Leiden Painting in the Golden Age and the Dutch and Flemish Artists in Rome from the 16th to the 18th Century. His areas of expertise include: Still Lifes, Landscapes, History and Genre Paintings of the Golden Age; Pictorial Tradition, Meaning and Function of Netherlandish Kitchen Scenes; Painted Food; the 16th- and 17th-Century “Laughter Culture”; Netherlandish Artists in Italy (especially Rome and Latium); Aristic Exchange between the Netherlands and Italy; International Caravaggism; Artistic Self-Representation; Artistic and Economic Competition.
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 Wassily Khudyakov (left) with Flora by Rembrandt van Rijn at Hermitage, Amsterdam
Wassily Khudyakov
was trained as conservator of paintings and icons at the Art Academy of St. Petersburg. In addition, Wassily received practical training at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, at the Museo Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, at the Stichting Restauratie Atelier Limburg (SRAL) in Maastricht and at the Cultural Heritage Agency (Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed). From 2002 to 2007 he worked as conservator of oil paintings and icons at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. For this museum he carried out restorations of works by important artists of different schools, such as Rembrandt, Willem Claesz. Heda, Frans Snyders, Canaletto and Claude Joseph Vernet. Wassily has been employed at the National Museum ‘Paleis het Loo’ in Apeldoorn since 2008, where he worked in close collaboration with conservators of wood, metal and textiles. During this appointment he restored paintings by Gerard van Honthorst, Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt, Philips Wouwerman, Andreas Schelfhout, Thérèze Schwartze, and many other artists in the collections of ‘Paleis het Loo’, the Mauritshuis, the Bonnefantenmuseum and ‘De Geschiedkundige Vereniging Oranje-Nassau’. In 2012-2014 he took part in the restoration project of the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam, an experience that taught him that a cooperation between specialists from different disciplines yields the most fruitful results. This is the famous 17th-century city palace, where the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) is located. Besides working for museums and other cultural heritage institutes, Wassily has performed many restorations for private clients and collectors from around the world. Wassily Khudyakov practises his profession according to the Code of Ethics as set by the European Confederation of Conservator-Restorers’ Organisations (E.C.C.O.). The intervention is therefore always implemented to serve the object, and most interventions are reversible. Since Wassily has been trained in both the Western as well as the Eastern European school, he has a thorough knowledge of the two different approaches. This combination makes his expertise exceptional. Download here the article ‘Taste making southerners and northern innovators. Artistic dialogue between painters of kitchen scenes in the Republic and the Southern Netherlands, ca. 1590-1630’ in: De Zeventiende Eeuw. Cultuur in de Nederlanden in Interdisciplinair perspectief, (thema nummer: Art on the Move), 31, 1 (2015), pp. 211-239:
https://www.de-zeventiende-eeuw.nl/articles/10.18352/dze.10121/ In 2017 Zoran Kwak was involved in the making of the exhibition Slow Food: Dutch and Flemish Meal Still Lifes 1600-1640 in the Mauritshuis. For the catalogue he wrote the essay ‘From Kitchen Scene to Militia Piece: On the Forerunners of the Haarlem Meal Still Life’. See: https://www.mauritshuis.nl/nl-nl/pers/persarchief/2016/slow-foodstillevens-uit-de-gouden-eeuw/ 
Slow Food - Dutch and Flemish Still Lifes 1600-1640
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