Category: Research

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

The Bader Collection is the strongest holding of Old Masters in any Canadian university art gallery, and the most comprehensive collection of authenticated paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn and his circle in any institution within Canada. Comprised of over 500 paintings, sculptures and works on paper that span the fourteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, the collection contributes fundamentally to the study and enjoyment of early modern European art in Canada and abroad.

A result of the highly discerning eye of Dr Alfred Bader (1924-2018), The Bader Collection has brought international stature and renown to Agnes’s collections.

We are looking for a detail-oriented individual with excellent organisational skills to support the Managing Editor with the delivery of Tate’s peer-reviewed online journal, Tate Papers. Demonstrating excellent written and verbal communication skills as well as a broad knowledge of digital platforms, you will fact-check and copy-edit research texts and upload them to the Tate website.

You will also be responsible for updating the Tate Research webpages and supporting the Managing Editor to create and deliver content for social media and newsletters.

This role requires a meticulous individual who can effectively manage deadlines and is passionate about art, its history and sharing research online. 

Established to inspire the development and publication of innovative object-based scholarship, the winning entrant will receive a prize of £1,000, with publication in The Burlington Magazine’s annual issue dedicated to Northern European Art, plus a one year print and digital subscription.

We seek previously unpublished essays of 1000–1500 words from early career scholars worldwide.

This is defined as within 15 years of their most recent post-graduate degree. Submissions should be in English and should include candidate’s CV, all as a single PDF.

-Cataloguing a Contemporary Music Archive
-Cataloguing Printed Scores and Libretti in the Bunnett Muir Musical Theatre Trust Archive
-Craft and Natural Materials in Exhibition Design
-Developing a Digital Research Repository for the V&A
-Developing Frameworks for Born-Digital and Hybrid Collections
-Henry Cole’s travel diaries: knowledge, acquisitions and networks
-Investigating Functional and Multi-Sensory Objects in the Young V&A Collection
-Ludwig Gruner: Art Advisor to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Cataloguing and contextualising a collection of drawings and photographs
-Methodologies of audience-led collections research with children, young people and families
-Provenance Research on Ethiopian Objects
-Provenance Research on Southeast Asian Art Collections at the V&A
-Provenance Research on the NAL’s Acquisition of German Books During the Nazi Era
-Surveying and Cataloguing Roger Fenton’s Photography Collection
-Zero Waste Approaches to Exhibition Making