Directory of Research and Expertise

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Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

Early Modern, History, History of art

Research keywords:

Early Modern Italy, Visual and Material Culture, Race, Representation, Decorative Arts, Portraiture

Regions:

Europe

Summary of research interests and expertise:

The Matter of Race in Early Modern Italy:1500-1700 is a three-year project supported by a British Academy postdoctoral fellowship. Over the course of the project, I will examine the development of constructions of race in Italy from the sixteenth to the beginning of the eighteenth century through the lens of the materials used by artists and craftsmen to depict people of African descent. Combining the resources of the Menil photographic archive at the Warburg Institute with extended periods of research in archives and museum collections in Italy, the project will explore how the use of materials such as lacquer, gold, marble and bronze can provide a unique insight into the development of early modern ideas about race, skin colour and the human body.

My wider teaching and research interests cover the African diaspora in Europe between 1500-1800, conceptions of race and the body, and the literary and material cultures of early colonial encounters.

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date	Details
01-Nov-2021	‘Serving as Ornament: Material Representations of the African Body in Early Modern English Interiors and Gardens’, British Art Studies (November 2021). Journal articles
01-Oct-2021	‘A Portrait of Philippe de la Motte: Huguenot Minister and Clothier of Southampton’, Huguenot Society Journal Journal articles
01-Feb-2021	Book Review: Ingrid Falque, Devotional Portraiture and Spiritual Experience in Early Netherlandish Painting (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2019), The Burlington Magazine Review
01-Jan-2016	Object Study: A maiolica drug jar with portrait of an African man, in Catherine Richardson, Tara Hamling, David Gaimster (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Material Culture in Early Modern Europe (Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2016), pp. 226-227. Chapters

Research Projects & Supervisions

Research projects:

Details
The Matter of Race in Early Modern Italy: 1500-1700 Warburg Institute Project period: 26-Sep-2022 - 25-Sep-2025 Research interests: History, Language and Literature (Italian)

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