During this event, the Navez team will present the latest updates of the Navez Project- the FWO-funded research project lead by Ghent University (Department of History) and KBR- the Royal Library of Belgium, in collaboration with GhentCDH, UGent Art History Department, and CLARIAH-VL+. The Navez Project explores the correspondence, social networks, and artistic environment of François-Joseph Navez (1787–1869), a central figure in nineteenth-century Belgian art and art education. Drawing on letters, art works, and other historical sources preserved at KBR and beyond, the project investigates how artists, students, patrons, and institutions were connected through artistic and social exchange. Combining archival research with Digital Humanities methods, the project digitises, annotates, and analyses historical sources to reconstruct the networks surrounding Navez and the nineteenth-century Brussels art world. By mapping these connections, the project aims to gain insight into the impact of Navez’s social and professional networks on his life.
The programme will combine historical case studies with presentations on the project's technical and methodological developments. We will showcase the digital research infrastructure implemented to support this research such as, but not limited to:
- the ATR/HTR workflows implemented to support the transcription of the handwritten letters,
- the data workflows for curating and cleaning related metadata on Navez’s social contacts and works,
- the NLP (NER) tools and the use of LLMs to support the identification of people, places, and art works in these historical materials,
- IIIF enabled annotation platform for showcasing and annotating KBR’s collection of letters.
We will also reflect on the broader relevance of such workflows for archival collections and digital humanities research.
A detailed programme will follow in the fall.
