Category: Research

Jan van Eyck’s diptych for Philip the Good - By Emma Capron

A Saxon in Hamburg: a leaf from the lost tournament book of Duke John the Steadfast - By Alexandra Burger

Sibylla von Freyberg’s prayer book - By Clarck Drieshen

Putting a name to a face: ‘Portrait of a lady’ at Parham House - By Bianca Arthur-Hull,Elise Effmann Clifford,Elizabeth Goldring,Sakeenah Teal Montanaro

Frans Hals’s portraits of Jan van de Poll and Duijfje van Gerwen: new identifications - By Jonathan Bikker

A ‘Salvator Mundi’ at Dulwich reconsidered - By Lucy West,Nicole Ryder

A ‘Flagellation of Christ’ in Zagreb from Dirck Santvoort’s Passion series - By Ivan Ferenčak

Germany’s celebration of Caspar David Friedrich’s 250th anniversary - By Christian Scholl

We invite proposals on any topic, but are particularly interested in the following themes:

Curating Turner now: What do audiences want? What do they already know about Turner? What impact does staging a Turner exhibition have on public engagement and attendance?

Turner’s contemporaries: Who were his peers, and who has been overshadowed?

Turner contemporary: Artists inspired by Turner or responding to his legacy in their own work.

Researching Turner in an age of climate crisis / eco-critical turn.

The artist’s bequest / the monograph: What opportunities and challenges come with an artist’s bequest or a concentrated focus on a single figure?

The Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) seeks a distinguished curator, strategic thinker, and collaborative leader as Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs (Chief Curator). Reporting to the Paul Mellon Director of the YCBA, this senior role will be a key member of the YCBA's Executive Leadership Team (ELT), bringing passion, ambition, and vision to one of the country's preeminent collections. The Chief Curator will amplify the reach and impact of YCBA's curatorial and publishing programs, while upholding the museum's artistic vision and direction. A deep appreciation for YCBA's renowned collections-and a commitment to interpreting, activating, and expanding their relevance for today's audiences-will be essential.The Chief Curator will be a leader knowledgeable about institutional stewardship and development, working in close partnership with the Director to build and cultivate excellent relationships with the museum's supporters, advisors, and faculty partners. The successful candidate will be deeply committed to the educational mission of the YCBA, helping to position the museum as a vital teaching and research resource across the university. 

This is an exciting opportunity for an early career researcher to be develop their curatorial practice around British Art (1700-1950). The post holder will have the opportunity to build partnerships in the University of Cambridge and beyond, and participating in research networks such as the Collections-Connections-Communities initiative. We particularly encourage applicants who will seek to bring new perspectives to these collections, including from under-represented audiences and considering collection histories.

The post holder will gain skills and experience in all aspects of curatorial work and museological practice, including temporary displays and exhibitions, communication skills and public programming, and collaborating. They will support the Senior Curator, Prints & Drawings, including with collections enquiries and access, and work with other curators, collections management staff, photographers, the documentation team, conservators, scientists, learning staff and other colleagues across the Museum and the wider University.

Christie’s is delighted to announce the third year of the Christie’s Grant for Nazi-era Provenance Research, supporting the next generation of provenance researchers in this field. The grant will be offered to four recipients (£5,000 each), to fund forward-thinking academic, post-graduate research into subjects related to Nazi-era provenance research and restitution.

In addition, Christie’s will offer two grants of £2,000 each to undergraduates who are studying the Nazi era and restitution-related topics, and who may be considering a future career or study in this area, with a view to deepening their interest in the subject.

The beautiful Anglo-Italian artist Maria Cosway was one of the most talented and dynamic women active in Regency England, but one whose achievements have been largely overlooked. Born in Florence in 1760, she was acclaimed at an early age as both a painter and a musician. She exhibited forty-one paintings at the Royal Academy summer exhibition between 1781 and 1801, and hosted regular musical soirées at the Pall Mall house she shared with her husband, Richard Cosway. They were attended by the political and cultural elite of London. Maria’s extraordinary network of connections to the great and the good of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, included friendships with, among others, Thomas Jefferson, the Prince of Wales, Pasquale Paoli, the artist Jacques-Louis David, the opera singer Luigi Marchesi, the Duchess of Devonshire, the actress and writer Mary Robinson, and members of the Bonaparte family. Estranged from her husband by 1801, Maria Cosway largely gave up painting and reinvented herself as a progressive educator, founding schools for young women: first in Lyon, later in Lodi, Italy. In recognition of her achievements at Lodi, the Emperor of Austria made her a baroness.

The Collections Researcher will support the Senior Curator of Collections & Research with the delivery of the Foundation’s research activities. Your duties will include researching artworks for the catalogue raisonné, in tandem with handling our research and review enquiry services; supporting the Foundation’s programme of scholarly events; contributing content to our digital platforms and other outlets; preparing information for publications; coordinating archive research visits and offering research support.

The Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge seeks to appoint a permanent Assistant Professor in Islamic Art (ca. 1500-ca.1700) of the Safavid and/or Mughal Empires. The Department welcomes applications from specialists in all mediums of art, including painting and the book arts, metalwork, ceramics, sculpture, and architecture. The successful candidate will be expected to take up appointment on or close to 1 October 2025. [...]

The successful applicant will have a unique opportunity to help shape the Department's future. The postholder will contribute significantly to the new MPhil in the Global History of Art and Architecture, launching in 2026-27. To support this programme, the Department is recruiting for permanent posts in Late Imperial Chinese Art and African and Caribbean Modern and Contemporary Art. The successful applicant will be required to teach and examine undergraduates, and to supervise and examine postgraduate work for the MPhil and PhD. It is anticipated that there will be opportunities to collaborate with colleagues across the University, including at the Fitzwilliam Museum (in which Islamic art is well represented) and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

This groundbreaking study interrogates a rich and diverse repertoire of images from all over the world to answer the fundamental question: how are the meanings of images assigned, conveyed and recognized?  

Combining art history, anthropology, philosophy and linguistics, the book expands the field of traditional iconography, which explains what images mean, by introducing new, useful categories that enable us to understand how images mean (meta-iconography). In his study of iconography from a century ago Erwin Panofsky famously discussed what an “Australian bushman” might make of Leonardo’s Last Supper: though unaware of the religious story, the Aboriginal viewer would have known it was a picture of humans eating a meal together. Paul Taylor’s book argues that this gets the question the wrong way round. We only know the painting depicts people at supper if we know it represents a supper. It is through knowing the cultural context that we can interpret the contents of an image. Universal in scope and profoundly topical at a time when artificial intelligence is redefining our visual horizon, this book represents a resource for scholars in a variety of fields and a thought-provoking read for all those interested in art.

This online catalogue is the first attempt to bring together all known oil paintings by Gilbert Spencer, as well as a large selection of his works on paper. It has been created in conjunction with the acquisition of the Gilbert Spencer archive by Arts University Bournemouth, and the subsequent publication of the first monograph on Gilbert Spencer by Professor Paul Gough (with contributions by Sacha Llewellyn and Amanda Bradley Petitgas), Gilbert Spencer: The Life and Work of a Very English Artist (Yale University Press, 2024). The project has been directed by Professor Paul Gough, with content by Dr Amy Lim and website design and build by Rich Tarr. It has been generously funded by a grant from the Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee at Arts University Bournemouth.

Art and diplomacy: the embassy of Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, to Spain and Portugal (1666–68) - By Angela Delaforce

Ribera’s philosophers from the Alcalá collection - By Florent de Vernejoul

Two royal portraits by Reynolds rediscovered in Kassel - By Justus Lange,Martin Spies

A rediscovered painting by Sofonisba Anguissola - By Michael Cole

An unpublished letter by Sir Joshua Reynolds - By Giovanna Perini Folesani

Guardi and the English tourist: a postscript - By Francis Russell

A newly discovered early photograph of Camille Claudel - By Sue Bucklow

Howard Burns (1939–2025)

The award(s) will be held in either the Department of History of Art or the Department of Architecture, which jointly form the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art. The projects will be supervised by one of: Dr Frank Salmon (CSCA Director); Assistant Director Dr Elizabeth Deans (CSCA Assistant Director); and Professor James Campbell.

The successful candidate(s) will have defined their own topics and questions, appropriate to the primary research material available and to the research interests, broadly defined, of one of the three specified supervisors (who should be named in the application), as well as to the CSCA mission statement.

Given the international range of classical architecture of the past 600 years, visual and archival research may involve travel and time spent abroad, for which official permission from the University to Work Away would be needed, in addition to the agreement of the Centre’s Director.

Artistic renderings of the human figure—in portraiture, sculpture, and other media—in a range of allegorical, historical, and religious images often showcase jewelry. The ornaments depicted in such designs offer an abundance of information that not only heightens our understanding of the subject but also provides insights into the imagination of the artist. Jewelry enhances our enjoyment of works of art because it is visually compelling, sensuous, and laden with an array of associations and symbolic meanings.

Bringing together spectacular and significant art objects depicting figures wearing sumptuous personal adornments that define who they are within the specific milieus in which they lived, this richly illustrated and accessible volume represents a novel, interdisciplinary approach to the ways in which jewelry can be studied and understood.

Roles and responsibilities:
-Assist with day-to-day documentation and research of the collection
-Responsible for all curatorial matters relating to the Ottoman world.
-Contribute to (temporary and permanent) display and exhibition development.
-Handle public queries, Educational and Communication Division requests, and scholarly requests.
-Must be able to work within a team, be flexible and self-motivated. Liaise with museum conservators, registrars and other colleagues on a regular basis.
-Other activities as requested by the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs. 

This book considers how art market stakeholders, including art dealers, collectors and agents, have shaped museum collections and affected exhibition practices since the mid-nineteenth century. Based on new archival research and data analysis, it explores the role of dealers not only in selling directly to museums, but in influencing museum collecting priorities, as well as potential donors. It also examines the important but hitherto overlooked contribution of the female curator-agent.

The book is divided into three sections, which address the relationship between art dealers and museums, women as art agents and influencers, and the strategies of entrepreneurial collectors. Featuring contributions from a wide range of international specialists in the market for decorative arts and antiquities, as well as European modernism, The Art Market and the Museum explores the origins and development of the modern Western art market and the global art networks that operated not only in Paris, London and New York, but in cities such as Glasgow, Vienna, Melbourne and Kansas City. It is perfect reading for scholars and researchers on the history of the art market, museum studies and art history more broadly.