Category: Research

Dr Alex Surtees, a lecturer in forensic science at the university, said it would ultimately be down to art experts to give the final say - but science could offer helpful clues.

"It’s certainly very exciting," he said.

"If I can be involved in the actual verification on work being a Constable, then I would be very proud."

He added: "This is me helping the art world make a decision."

Armed with Palomino’s text and the preliminary sketch that Velázquez would use as a starting point for his larger painting, Sánchez turned next to Paula García, a student at the Complutense University of Madrid who wrote her thesis on AI applied to contemporary sculpture. Using a blend of history and technology, the two spent over 100 hours reconstructing Velázquez’s Expulsion of the Moriscos. They say 80% of the result is derived from artistic creations and 20% is due to AI. “People always have this natural suspicion about artificial intelligence,” said Sánchez.

Gesina ter Borch (1631-1690) was a Dutch watercolourist and draughtswoman whose work survives primarily in the form of three albums of watercolours and calligraphy, now held at the Rijksmuseum. Despite the fact that her oeuvre is securely attributed and thoroughly catalogued, Ter Borch has surprisingly never been the subject of a dedicated monograph, until now. For the first time, this book highlights Ter Borch’s watercolours and calligraphy in their own right, as well as her work as an art teacher, an archivist, and an artist’s model, and questions a historiography of women’s art that frequently values oil painting over other media, and work for the market over 'amateur' production.

Adam Eaker revisits Gesina ter Borch’s role in the genesis of Dutch 'high-life' genre painting and its construction of gender and social class, comparing her art with that of her brother Gerard, and in so doing allows for a more nuanced understanding of the ideologies and achievements of Dutch genre painting.

In the second Michael and Juliet Rubenstein Lecture on Connoisseurship, Hugo Chapman [Simon Sainsbury Keeper of Prints and Drawings, The British Museum] discusses how he fell under the spell of Raphael's drawings as a student, the ups and downs of working in an auction house, and the challenges of putting a name to every Italian drawing in the British Museum when the collection was digitized. Learn how connoisseurship has become a more collaborative exercise and how close looking can still yield surprising discoveries.

This lecture argues for affinities between Dickens’ prose evocation of Venice and Turner’s oils and watercolours of the city. In 1844, writing from there to a friend, Dickens confided that “I never saw the thing before that I should be afraid to describe. But to tell what Venice is, I feel to be an impossibility”. The same letter also invoked the Venetian paintings of Canaletto, Stanfield and Turner. Accordingly, in composing his Pictures from Italy (1846) Dickens gave a separate chapter to Venice, titled “An Italian Dream”, which shows a radical stylistic rupture from the broadly conventional travel narrative in the rest of the book.

Sofonisba Anguissola (ca. 1532–1625), an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona to a relatively poor noble family, was one of the first women artists to establish an international reputation during her lifetime. This stunningly illustrated monograph explores the evolution of Anguissola’s art from her youth in Cremona through her service as a lady-in-waiting to the Spanish queen Elisabeth of Valois to her later years as a married woman in Sicily and Genoa. Alongside discussions of Anguissola and her work, author Cecilia Gamberini offers a tantalizing exploration of Renaissance court life, detailing how the circles of influence and power operated.

This volume highlights the social, political, and cultural preconditions surrounding Anguissola’s role in the court of King Philip II of Spain and her ascent to becoming an internationally acclaimed painter. Gamberini draws on archival documentation, as well as her own original research, to shine a new light on Anguissola’s life, career, and work in this tribute to a truly groundbreaking artist.

The School of Histories and Humanities at Trinity College Dublin seeks to appoint an Associate Professor in the History of Renaissance Art, based in the Department of History of Art and Architecture. Candidates can have expertise in any area of Renaissance art and must demonstrate an ability to incorporate collections in Ireland in their teaching and research. It is also desirable that candidates should have experience of working with museum collections.

The primary purpose of this post is to contribute to teaching and research in history of art and to administrative activities in the Department and School. The successful applicant will have a proven record of research and publication in the History of Renaissance Art commensurate to the role and will be expected to contribute to both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in this field and to interdisciplinary curricular teaching, supervision, and mentoring.

The focus of this project is on identifying, researching and analysing the provenance, changing status and visibility of about 500 books of prints in the British Library’s collection, using an 1812 unpublished finding list as a starting point.

This project will be jointly supervised by Kate Retford at Birkbeck (Professor of History of Art, School of Historical Studies) and Felicity Myrone at the British Library (Lead Curator, Western Prints and Drawings). The student will spend time with both Birkbeck and the British Library and will become part of the wider cohort of AHRC CDP funded PhD students across the UK.  

“I haven’t succeeded in seeing the Wilkie paintings”, Mr Kidson said. “The Tate says, ‘You can go on a Tuesday morning for one hour and you’re limited to looking at five works’. If the next visit is full up, you have to wait until there’s a free spot. That’s usually about six or seven weeks ahead.

“The last time I tried they said they can make three of these works available, but a further one was not allowed to be seen at all. They didn’t say why not. I originally approached them to see these Wilkies in late November. I returned the application form on Dec 1 and in response to that was offered Feb 3. ‘The public own these works’

“That’s waiting months. I took that spot and then found I couldn’t attend for personal reasons. They said, the next available date is mid-April, but that was too late for my deadlines.”

He added: “The situation is ridiculous because the public own these works. The Tate is playing God with them.”

A newly discovered cabinet miniature by Nicholas Hilliard - BY ELIZABETH GOLDRING,EMMA RUTHERFORD

Phillipo: an Ottoman merchant painted by George Stubbs - BY THEODORE MOULD

A portrait by Richard Westall of the poet Eleanor Porden - BY BARBARA BRYANT

The decoration of the ballroom wing at Buckingham Palace, 1850–56 - BY PETER T.J. RUMLEY

Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of Martha Carr - BY FÁTIMA BETHENCOURT PÉREZ,ERNEST KOWALCZYK

From elite officers to ordinary sailors, the portrayal of naval personnel has been a significant branch of British art for over 500 years. The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich holds the largest collection of naval portraits in the world, including over 600 paintings and many more prints and drawings, spanning from the sixteenth century to the present day.

These portraits reveal how the Royal Navy was viewed at different moments in history and grant us access to individual stories, revealing the concerns and aspirations of people and families caught up in naval affairs. Many are also innovative and important works of art. For centuries, naval portraits have forged, reinforced and challenged ideas of gender, heroism and loyalty. They have functioned as icons of empire, demonstrations of professionalism and personal mementos for loved ones.

While charting the historical evolution of the Royal Navy’s image and explaining the meaning of common naval symbols – from anchors, cannons and swords to uniforms, medals and badges, this book also tells the stories of specific artists, sitters and collectors, and of the places where portraits were made and displayed, from private homes to public exhibitions and ultimately the museum itself.

Not since Edward Wood’s Giants and Dwarfs published in 1868 has the subject been the focus of a scholarly study in English. Treating the topic afresh, this volume offers new insights into the vogue for giants and dwarfs that flourished in late-medieval and early modern Europe. From chapters dealing with the real dwarfs and giants in the royal and princely courts, to the imaginary giants and dwarfs that figured in the crafting of nationalistic and ancestral traditions, to giants and dwarfs used as metaphorical expression, scholars discuss their role in art, literature, and ephemeral display. Some essays examine giants and dwarfs as monsters and marvels and collectibles, while others show artists and writers emphasizing contrasts in scale to inspire awe or for comic effect. As these investigations reveal, not all court dwarfs functioned as jesters, and giant figures might equally be used to represent heroes, anti-heroes, and even a saint.

In a telephone interview, Max Hollein, the museum’s director and chief executive, said the volume of materials an auction house must review gave Simmons the background necessary to take on a review of the Met’s encyclopedic collection.

“He has a vast amount of experience understanding the level of research you need to apply and what timelines you need to set to get to a result,” Hollein said. “He probably had to deal with more issues at Sotheby’s than have many other institutions. You have to vet and scrutinize a huge number of objects. He’s someone who understands the theory but who also has a very practical attitude.”

In 1891, nearly 50 years after the painting was created, a listing in a catalogue claimed the boy was a stowaway whom Windus had met on the steps of the Monument hotel in Liverpool. According to this narrative, Windus took pity on the boy’s condition, employed him as an errand boy and sent his portrait off to a frame-maker’s shop. Serendipitously, a passing sailor spotted it, realised the child was his missing relative – and reunited the boy with his parents.

This charitable tale, with its unlikely happy ending, would have made the portrait more appealing to wealthy Victorian art buyers.

“It’s a wonderful story, but I’m quite sceptical,” said [Kate] Haselden. “This child may have been a native Liverpudlian. Black people have been living in Liverpool since at least the 1730s.”