Alexa J. McCarthy

Alexa J. McCarthy joined The Leiden Collection in 2016, after holding positions at Christie’s Auction House and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Department of Drawings & Prints. While at The Leiden Collection, Alexa managed projects surrounding the Online Collection Catalogue, and contributed to the research and documentation of the Collection. She wrote entries for the exhibition catalogues Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt (Paris, Musée du Louvre, 2017), Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection (Beijing, National Museum of China, 2017), and The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection (Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum). Alexa holds a BA in Art History from Bowdoin College and an MA in the History of Art focusing on Titian and the Venetian school from The Courtauld Institute of Art in London. She obtained her PhD from the University of St Andrews in 2022. Her dissertation, “Carta azzurra / blauw papier: Drawing on blue paper in Italy and the Netherlands, ca. 1450-ca. 1660” explores the origins and impetus behind the use of blue paper in the early modern period.