From Royal Gallery to Silicon Valley: A Renaissance Painting’s 500-Year Journey

When Blake DeMaria, a professor in the Art and Art History Department at Santa Clara University, was approached about a Renaissance painting tucked away in a private Silicon Valley collection, she immediately recognized an extraordinary opportunity for her students.

“I talked to the owner because my own work is in the Italian Renaissance, and this is a Northern Renaissance painting,” DeMaria said. “I looked at it at the end of Spring Quarter last year and said, okay, what if we let the seniors in the capstone curate an exhibition?”

DeMaria and her students have spent the past quarter delving into the art curation world through historic painting. Photo by Dylan Ryu

That suggestion has led to the current Art and Art History Senior Capstone project. A rare variation of the 16th-century painting known as “The Tax Collectors” will go on public display next month, marking its first public exhibition in approximately 175 years. The exhibition is titled “The Tax Collectors: 500 Years and Counting…” and opens March 12 at the de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University.

The painting, dating from between 1525 and 1650, is one of more than 20 surviving variants of “The Tax Collectors” theme created in the 16th century, based on the research conducted by the class. Art historians have attributed various variations to renowned Northern Renaissance artists, including Quentin Messys of Antwerp, who died in 1533, and Marinus van Reymerswale of Zeeland, who died in 1546.

Six students—Anna Cooper ’25, Andrea Hu ’25, Ingrid Kindel ’25, Kelsey Popeo ’25, Nicole Clarke ’25 and Riva Mikhlin ’25—have spent months researching its provenance, artistic significance and complex history for what will be the inaugural faculty-driven exhibition at the museum.

“It’s really interesting because we’re each doing our own research to go in the exhibition catalog, so we’re each writing our own essay on a topic of interest related to the painting,” said Cooper, “And then, in addition to that, we’re working on the literal strategics on getting the exhibition ready.”

As part of the project, the students are publishing an exhibition catalog through Book Baby that will be available on Amazon.

“I’ve always had an interest in curation, so I’m really grateful to have this opportunity, and it really mirrors a professional experience," said Hu ’25, who, alongside Popeo, has done much of the logistical planning for the exhibition. 

For Kindel ’25, who is researching the painting’s frame and hopes to pursue curatorial studies, the collaborative nature of the project has been illuminating. “This has definitely been a really good experience,” she said. “I have more of an appreciation for each aspect of an exhibition.”

The students discovered through analysis that the painting actually depicts money lenders rather than tax collectors, a distinction revealed through study of the ledger visible in the work.

“The words in the ledger are different,” said DeMaria. “They’re converting currencies.” The ledger shows Dutch, Venetian, English, Spanish and French coins.

The ledger isn’t the only difference; the facial expressions of the “collectors” in this variant differ from others. “The tax collectors—they’re scowling, they’re unapproachable, and ours, they’re still not super positive, but they’re at the very least neutral,” said Mikhlin.

The students constructed a detailed timeline for the artwork. By the 1730s, it had joined the Royal Gallery of Dresden collection under Augustus III, king of Poland and elector of Saxony, identifiable by a small number in the corner confirming its inventory.

During World War II, the painting’s journey took a dramatic turn when it was shipped to Brussels by a Jewish banking family who had acquired it in the 19th century.

“In the 1930s, not a great time to be a Jewish banker in Germany. One of the family members is imprisoned, and so they have a very dramatic escape story where in the middle of Christmas Eve, they leave the country at night, and they cross the river to get out,” said Mikhlin. “The painting was shipped out to Brussels ahead of time and then it was kept in a warehouse throughout the war.”

The students have been challenged with balancing respect for the painting’s difficult history in the exhibition. They’ve approached this aspect with particular sensitivity, acknowledging that the grandmother of the current owner had deliberately concealed her Jewish identity after her family’s traumatic escape from Nazi Germany—a common response among Holocaust survivors who later sought to avoid further persecution or discrimination.

Larry Silver, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has published extensively on this painting typology, was surprised when contacted about this variant. According to DeMaria, when she emailed him, he replied, “There’s another one? What? I don't know about this one.”

The exhibition represents significant professional development for the students. “I’ve never had to work on something that’s so many different modalities that we’re kind of working on at the same time at such a fast pace,” Popeo said.

Clarke’s research throughout the class has shifted her perspective on artistic value. “This whole class has changed my whole outlook on the reason that valued things are valued,” she said. “I used to think that it was the person who did it. But what makes these valuable is what we’re doing right now in this class. Us doing this will increase the value of this painting.”

For DeMaria, the exhibition demonstrates what’s possible when students engage directly with historical artifacts. “It’s now being considered the inaugural faculty-driven exhibition at the de Saisset,” she said. “We're hoping that future iterations will have these things.”

The exhibition will feature timelines, maps showing locations of other variants, and a dedicated website where visitors can scan a QR code to access the students' essays and additional educational materials about the painting’s history.

The exhibition offers a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not only to view this centuries-old masterpiece in person, but also the chance to engage with a piece of art with such a rich history spanning continents and conflicts. 

As Popeo reflected on the painting’s enduring significance, she recalled the owner’s poignant observation: “Although it is not always valued in our culture, it’s often the only thing left from the past.”