Strawberry Hill Launches Appeal to Acquire Early View of the Villa
Johann Heinrich Müntz, South-East View of Strawberry Hill House, ca. 1755–58,
oil on canvas, 25 × 30 inches.
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From the press release:
Strawberry Hill House & Garden has launched an appeal to raise £85,000 to acquire South East View of Strawberry Hill House by Johann Heinrich Müntz (c.1755–58), a rare contemporary painting that captures Horace Walpole’s Gothic villa at the very moment the Gothic Revival was being born. Commissioned by Walpole himself, the painting offers an extraordinary glimpse of Strawberry Hill before its dramatic transformation of 1759, when the Gallery and Round Tower were added to create the iconic silhouette we recognise today. It is one of only two known oil paintings of the house by Müntz, whose companion view is now held at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.
More than a record, the painting reveals Strawberry Hill in the process of invention. At the time it was made, the Swiss artist Johann Heinrich Müntz (1727–1798) was living and working at the house as Walpole’s artist in residence, contributing directly to its evolving architectural vision. What he depicts is not a finished monument, but a creative experiment taking shape—house and garden emerging together as a new kind of Gothic design.
The painting is currently on short-term loan and will be on display in the Red Bedchamber at Strawberry Hill House from 30 March 2026, where it can be viewed free with general admission.
Painted for Walpole and long kept at his London residence on Berkeley Street, this view of Strawberry Hill has never hung in the house it was created to record. Acquiring it now would bring the painting home for the first time, reuniting a formative moment in Strawberry Hill’s history with the place that inspired it.
Two generous supporters have pledged to match donations to the appeal pound-for-pound, meaning every contribution will go twice as far until the £85,000 target is reached.
Dr Silvia Davoli, Senior Curator, said: “Strawberry Hill was conceived as a complete work of art, where architecture, interiors, landscape and collections were designed to speak to one another. This painting is central to that vision. It is not simply a depiction of the house, but part of the creative process that shaped it. Bringing it back would restore a missing piece of that story—returning it, for the first time, to the place it was made to record.”
More information about the painting is available from Thomas Coulborn & Sons.
Strawberry Hill Launches Appeal to Recreate Shell Seat
Jean-Henri Müntz, View of the Shell Seat and Bridge at Strawberry Hill, 1755, ink drawing
(Yale University, Lewis Walpole Library)
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From the press release (March 2026) . . .
Strawberry Hill House & Garden is launching an appeal to raise £30,000 to recreate the Shell Seat, one of the most visually arresting and evocative features of Horace Walpole’s eighteenth-century garden. Designed as a place for rest, conversation and delight, the Shell Seat formed part of Walpole’s celebrated ‘land of beauties’—a landscape shaped by imagination, sociability and theatrical effect. This ambitious project will employ cutting-edge digital mapping technology from Factum Arte to design and create a faithful, weather-resistant replica based on the original eighteenth-century drawings, ensuring the seat endures for future generations.
The Shell Seat was designed in 1754 by Richard Bentley, Horace Walpole’s close collaborator and later a member of his celebrated ‘Committee of Taste’. Constructed under the direction of architect William Robinson, it took the form of a monumental half-clam shell—a striking example of eighteenth-century fascination with natural forms transformed into architectural ornament. Positioned on Walpole’s ‘sweet walk’ in the south-west corner of the garden, the bench was carefully oriented to frame a breathtaking view of the River Thames. It was both a visual spectacle and a place of sociable retreat, designed to contrast the house’s Gothic ‘gloomth’ with an enlivening garden experience. Its impact was immediate. Writing to George Montagu in 1759, Walpole delighted in the sight of the Duchesses of Hamilton and Richmond and Lady Ailesbury seated together: “There never was so pretty a sight as to see all three of them sitting in the shell.”
The current bench, photographed in December 2025.
The original Shell Seat was lost, likely long before the dispersal of Walpole’s collection in the great sale of 1842. A full-scale replica, constructed in oak using laminated techniques, was installed during the major restoration of Strawberry Hill between 2007 and 2010. After fifteen years exposed to the elements, this replica is now in a serious state of disrepair. Without intervention, the Shell Seat—once a centrepiece of Walpole’s garden design—risks being lost once again.
To secure the future of the Shell Seat, we are working with Factum Arte, internationally renowned specialists in digital heritage documentation and historically informed reconstruction. Using advanced 3D digital mapping, they will create an exact digital record of Bentley’s original eighteenth-century design. This will allow us to produce a new seat that is: faithful to the original, constructed using durable, weather-resistant materials, and designed to endure in the garden for generations to come.
Strawberry Hill House has worked closely with Factum Arte and its sister organisation, the Factum Foundation, a not-for-profit dedicated to digital preservation, for over a decade. Over this time, they have created numerous facsimiles for Strawberry Hill, helping to restore Horace Walpole’s dispersed collection to the house. These include major works such as Joshua Reynolds’s The Ladies Waldegrave, portraits of Horace Walpole and his family, and a wide range of miniatures, drawings, and decorative objects recorded from collections including the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University, the Scottish National Gallery, and the British Museum. The Shell Seat restoration builds naturally on this long-standing collaboration and shared commitment to research-led, imaginative reconstruction.
This restoration will also stand as a lasting memorial to Derek Purnell, who served as Director of Strawberry Hill House from 2020 to 2024, and tragically died last year. Derek believed deeply that Strawberry Hill was not a static monument, but a living, imaginative place where house and garden work together to tell a story. He spoke often of the Shell Seat, recognising it as one of those rare objects that instantly captures the imagination and opens a doorway into Horace Walpole’s creative genius. Restoring the Shell Seat is a fitting tribute to Derek’s vision: not a plaque or a monument, but a living, functional part of Strawberry Hill’s continuing story.
New Book | Spontaneous Objects
From Penn State UP:
Rebecca Zorach, Spontaneous Objects: A Natural History of Art and Its Others (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2026), 286 pages, ISBN: 978-0271100432, $85.
In the late medieval and early modern periods, European artists, theorists, and natural philosophers imagined Nature not simply as a force of reproduction but as an artist in its own right—a creative power capable of generating images, artifacts, and objects of beauty. Tracing this idea from the fifteenth through early nineteenth centuries, Rebecca Zorach challenges assumptions about human artistic genius and intention that have long dominated histories of art and science.
With inspiration from new materialist theory, Zorach reclaims a largely disregarded undercurrent of historical thought about the powers of nature. Through case studies ranging from Renaissance centaurs and snails to Adam Smith’s beaver hat and Kant’s travelers’ tales, Zorach investigates how ideas about nature’s generative power unsettled conventional definitions of image, artifact, and artistic intention. At the same time, Zorach also confronts the violent legacies of a different vision of nature’s power: as European empires expanded, emerging natural philosophies contributed to global colonial imaginaries and racial hierarchies, reframing nature as a force to be classified, controlled, and exploited. In seeking to understand whether and how these views of nature cohere, Zorach excavates how the historical formation of the ‘human’ and the ‘natural’ depends on ideas about artistic production and artistic intention.
A significant contribution to art history, visual culture, and environmental humanities, Spontaneous Objects will engage scholars interested in the intersections of art, science, theology, and colonial modernity.
Rebecca Zorach is Mary Jane Crowe Professor of Art and Art History at Northwestern University. Her books include Blood, Milk, Ink, Gold: Abundance and Excess in the French Renaissance; The Passionate Triangle; Art for People’s Sake: Artists and Community in Black Chicago, 1965–1975; and Temporary Monuments: Art, Land, and America’s Racial Enterprise.
Summer School | Women and Temporalities in Early Modern Europe
From ArtHist.net:
A Place in Time: A Summer School for the Study of
Women and Temporalities in Early Modern Europe
Université de Lille and Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, 6–8 July 2026
Applications due by 30 April 2026
“I’m just a woman, loaded down with household cares; Yet I still love to read good books, though time’s so scarce I seldom can indulge in such a luxury. A man is privileged here as I can never be. […] So while I sit and read, I also scale the fish and sew and mend our clothes while writing verse like this.”
In an answer to an admirer of her work, Dutch writer Aurelia Zwartte (1682–after 1768) somewhat humorously suggested that her daily chores make her free time so scarce that she resorts to writing and mending clothes at the same time. Such explicit acknowledgement of the way gender affects one’s experience of time is not novel in the early-modern period. As books of civility rose in popularity, women’s time became increasingly codified by schedules that ruled their chores and moments of worship, and by theories and guidelines about each stage of their lives. Oftentimes, the aim was to keep them constantly busy to uphold the respectability of the household and avoid impure thoughts.
Simultaneously, alternative ways for women to spend their time were explored by male and female advocates alike in the context of a European querelle des femmes. As one of the central themes of the querelle, conversations around women’s education raised the crucial question of how women should spend their time. Education treatises and European philosophy were sites of debate over how women’s time should be divided among their chores, intellectual pursuits, and spiritual life. Widowhood was also a moment that, perhaps most of all, raised the question of how women with greater jurisdictional freedom could orient their lives and time while avoiding idleness. In short, women’s time was scarcer than men’s, as English writer Mary Astell aptly concluded: “we cannot […] suffer the least minute to escape us” (Astell 1697, p. 80).
This sense of urgency points to a differentiated experience of time depending on one’s gender and class, but also to an awareness of this gender and social gap. And while they were especially numerous in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, women in power were equally conscious of their limited agency over their own time, as they were often under more scrutiny or placed in precarious political positions as regents or appointed governors, acting not only as temporary agents but also as intermediaries between a masculine power and the people they governed. Maria de’ Medici suffered from this in exile, as she struggled to control her image and legacy through reminders of her ties to power, portraying herself as the regent of France, widow of a king and “mother of three crowns.” In doing so, she presented herself as the link between past and future power, emphasising her indispensable role by appropriating two symbolically powerful stages of a woman’s life, motherhood and widowhood.
Likewise, research has often underlined how crucial Habsburg women were in the family’s strategies of political alliances as well as their awareness of their role in perpetuating its power and image. In Madrid, Queen Elisabeth of France’s devotion to the Virgin echoed the rhythm of her own maternity to showcase her role in the perpetuation of the dynasty and her predecessor’s legacy.
These considerations point to the potential of research where questions of gender, time, and power intersect, especially for the early modern period. While certain frameworks offer promising insights into a plurality of temporal experiences informed by one’s social milieu, they often overlook gender as a determining factor. However, in the past few decades and with the centrality of time in queer studies, several contributions have centred the relationship between time and gender. Adaptations of these frameworks to case studies have proved particularly fruitful in demonstrating women’s references to different temporalities to assert their legitimacy and power. Such an approach could reveal alternative ways of exercising power by intervening in time on a different level—waiting, temporising, retiring, etc, which would highlight manifestations of agency even in actions or situations that modern researchers may overlook.
The goal of this summer school, organised with the support of the Institut du Genre, the FNS/Sinergia project Capturing the Present in Northwestern Europe, 1348–1648 and HARTIS (Université de Lille), partnered with the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, is to help doctoral students develop an interdisciplinary reflection on the intersection between gender and time in the early-modern period. Our approach combines the results of the project AGENART: La agencia artística de las mujeres de la Casa de Austria, 1532–1700 with ongoing research within the project Capturing the Present in Northwestern Europe, 1348–1648. With the help of invited keynote speakers, workshops around secondary literature, primary written and visual sources (notably from the Palais des Beaux-Arts’s collections), and discussions around the candidates’ research, we aim to foster interest in this framework and complexify approaches to gender studies and key themes such as the question of agency or the inscription of women in history. This summer school will be structured around three main themes:
Theme 1 | Rhythmic Lives
This theme proposes a conceptualisation of time as a question of rhythm, which makes it possible to conceptualise differentiated experiences of time as defined individually and externally. How were biological rhythms conceptualised culturally? What other rhythms were imposed on women, and were they sites of negotiation? How were women’s lives divided and conceptualised, and how did women personally engage with these abstract categories? What social factors weighed in on the definition of normative rhythms? How did women negotiate their own rhythms or suspension in normative rhythms? Crucial to this theme is questioning temporalities often conceptualised as a-historical, such as ageing or pregnancy, which in turn challenges bioessentialist views of women’s lives.
Theme 2 | Thinking in the Long Term
This theme centres women’s engagement with the sometimes distant past or future, and notably questions of heritage and legacy. How did women’s strategies of self-imaging incorporate the past and the future? To what extent were they sensitive to their relationship to history, and how did that play into the way they chose to spend their time? Were they aware of the precariousness of their power or situation, and did they look for other ways to make it last or build a legacy? What conflicts did they encounter in doing so, and did they have agency over their own image? Were there attempts at writing a history or anthology of important women, and if so, on what terms? What biases do primary sources present for us when reconstituting the lives or works of early-modern women?
Theme 3 | Time and Power
This theme investigates the extent to which gender intervened in women’s power over various temporalities. Did women’s specific modes of accessing power engender different possibilities of negotiating with time? Were there cases in which gender did not matter? Were there cases of time-sensitive competition with men of similar power? Were political hierarchies reflected in differentiated experiences of time?
Activities and Outputs
• Presentation (10 minutes) followed by a 20-minute discussion for each participant
• On-site discussions around objects in the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, notably in the graphic arts and numismatic collections, with a presentation of the collections by each curator
• Keynote presentations, notably by Dr Catherine Powell-Warren
• Reading workshop and methodological discussion
• Publication of each participant’s bio and written presentation on the Capturing the Present in Northwestern Europe, 1348–1648 project website.
Funding: lunch, coffee breaks, and dinners are covered by the organisers for all participants. We encourage participants who are not based in Lille to ask their institutions to cover transportation and accommodation.
This summer school is open to both doctoral students and master’s students who wish to pursue a PhD, specialising in the human sciences and the early modern period, with no requirements in terms of nationality or institution. Both English and French will be spoken.
Applications, in English or French, should be sent before 30 April 2026 to both Agathe Bonnin (bonninagathe@gmail.com) and Léon Rochard (leon.rochard@univ-lille.fr), with the following, in PDF format:
• CV (maximum three pages)
• A description of the current research project, thesis, or dissertation (max. 3 500 characters) with an indication of the potential interest of this summer school to the project
• An abstract for a presentation connected to one or several of the three proposed themes (max. 3 500 characters). It can be a case study, a methodological interrogation, a paper project…
The selection committee will inform the candidates of their decision in early May 2026.
Tasting and Discussion | The Worlds That Chocolate Made
From Eventbrite:
The Worlds That Chocolate Made: A Tasting and Discussion
Tara Zanardi and Daniel Corpuz, as Facilitated by Adrian de León
Espacio de Culturas, New York University, 10 April, 3–5pm
Let’s talk Chocolate! Join Espacio de Culturas for an afternoon of delicious chocolate tasting while learning about its origins and history. On select Fridays throughout the semester, we offer programs that are hands-on and interactive under the title of ‘Fridays on the Patio’. These programs are free and open to the public with registration.
This event is in collaboration with SULO: The Philippine Studies Initiative at NYU, and includes a guided chocolate tasting, where you will be able to try chocolate crafted by Daniel Corpuz, a Filipino chocolatier based in New York City. The event will also feature a conversation with Tara Zanardi, a professor at Hunter College, who will explore the history and geopolitics of chocolate as they relate to the Americas and Philippines. The conversation will be facilitated by Adrian de León. Join us to appreciate the flavors of chocolate while also gaining insight into the systems that shape its production and accessibility—discovering the worlds that chocolate created.
Daniel Corpuz is a pastry chef and chocolatier based in New York City who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, achieving his Associates Degree in Baking and Pastry and his Bachelor’s Degree in Food Business Administration in 2019. After working in Michelin restaurants like The Modern, One White Street, and The Clocktower, Daniel shifted to work primarily with chocolate as a result of the pandemic. This yielded the opportunity to be on Netflix’s School of Chocolate with world renowned Pastry Chef Amaury Guichon. Utilizing his Filipino-American background, he launched Daniel Corpuz Chocolatier. This chocolate brand centers on his upbringing while amplifying his industry experience by incorporating Filipino and Asian ingredients and flavors into his chocolates.
Tara Zanardi is Associate Professor of Art History at Hunter College, CUNY. Zanardi’s forthcoming book, Material Seduction: Charles III, Empire, and the Porcelain Cabinet at Aranjuez, 1760-65 (The Getty Research Institute), examines the king’s porcelain cabinet as a highly political and performative space and problematizes its imagery of empire and chinoiserie. Her current research includes an upcoming exhibition on chocolate, co-curated with Lynda Klich, and a book on the Real Gabinete de Historia Natural (opened, 1776). As Madrid’s first public museum, its global collections showcased the fluidity of art, science, ethnology, and archeology.
Clay Stories: A Ceramics Symposium
From Colonial Williamsburg:
Clay Stories: A Ceramics Symposium
Online and in-person, Colonial Williamsburg, 4–6 June 2026
Colonial Williamsburg is pleased to host the 2026 bi-annual ceramics conference, in collaboration with the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA), for this year’s symposium entitled Clay Stories. Every object has multiple stories layered through time as it passes from raw materials in the hands of makers, to finished vessel, to single owner or multiple stewards, and from useful utilitarian piece to archaeological fragment or prized possession mounted in a collector’s curio cabinet or in a museum’s case. Clay Stories weaves together history and research shared by curators, scholars, archaeologists, and potters.
All lecture presentations will be available on the conference streaming platform for both virtual and in-person registrants through 31 August 2026. Virtual attendees have virtual access to all lectures.
t h u r s d a y , 4 j u n e
12.00 Registration
1.00–6.00 Pre-Conference Bus Tour: Following the Dragon
Generously supported by James D. and Pamela J. Penny
f r i d a y , 5 j u n e
9.30–3.30 Pre-Conference Workshops and Tours
Please visit the pre-conference options page for more details.
4.30 Welcome
4.45 Glories and the Unexpected: Remarkable Ceramics in American Collections — Errol Manners (Independent Arts Dealer)
5.30 Treasure in Jars of Clay: Discovering Ceramic Masterworks in Unlikely Settings — Luke Zipp (Curator and Author, Crocker Farm)
6.15 Opening Reception
s a t u r d a y , 6 j u n e
8.30 Announcements and Updates from Colonial Williamsburg and MESDA — Angelika Kuettner (Curator of Ceramics and Glass, Colonial Williamsburg) and Johanna Brown (Chief Curator and Director of Collections, Old Salem)
8.45 Ceramics from England to Jamestown to Williamsburg — Julie Edwards (Archaeological Officer, Cheshire West and Chester Council)
9.30 Coffee Break
10.15 A ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, or the Life and Travels of a Curator —Leslie Grigsby (Emerita Senior Curator of Ceramics and Glass, Winterthur)
10.45 Jack and Acton: Revealing the Contributions and Presence of Enslaved Potters in the 18th-Century Red Earthenware Industry of Charlestown, MA. — Joe Bagley (City Archaeologist and Director of Archaeology, Boston Archaeology Program)
11.15 Bonnin and Morris: New Discoveries in Philadelphia — Melissa and Matt Dumphy (Citizen Archaeologists)
11.45 Philadelphia Slipware in Context — Debbie Miller (Archeologist and Curator, National Park Service)
Lecture Supported by the Chipstone Foundation (Ceramic in America)
12.15 Lunch Break
2.15 From Hubener to Medinger: Redware Potters of Southeastern Pennsylvania — Lisa Minardi (Editor, Americana Insights)
2.45 Midwestern Harvest Jugs: An Expression of Personal Choice — Wes Cowan (Vice Chair Emeritus, Freeman’s Auction House and Founder, Cowan’s Auctions)
3.15 ‘The Prospects of Obtaining Wealth with Ease’: The Ceramic Assemblage of 17th-Century Drayton Hall — Luke Pecoraro (Director of Archaeology and Collections, Drayton Hall Preservation Trust)
3.45 Coffee Break
4.30 RE-coiling and Master Potter David Drake — Michelle Erickson (Independent Artist)
Presentation supported by Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates
5.30 Closing Remarks — Tom Savage (Director of Educational Conferences and Travel, Colonial Williamsburg
6.00 Closing Reception with Live Entertainment at Shields Tavern
Call for Papers | Court Dining and Sensory Data, 1300–1800
From ArtHist.net:
Hungry for Data: Studying Court Dining and Using Sensory Data, 1300–1800
Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Vilnius, 29–30 May 2026
Proposals due by 10 April 2026
Interested in how data, the senses, and court dining can be studied together?
The workshop Hungry for Data: Studying Court Dining and Using Sensory Data, 1300–1800 invites contributions for a hands-on, interdisciplinary event in Vilnius, 29–30 May 2026. Topics include sensory and spatial approaches to court dining, measurable proxies such as lighting, acoustics, ventilation, circulation, seating and visibility, as well as AI, modelling, and data visualisation. The call particularly welcomes contributions from researchers in history, art and architectural history, heritage studies, heritage science, digital humanities, computer science, geospatial and sensor data analysis, simulation, and AI. Early career researchers are warmly encouraged to apply. Submit an abstract (max 300 words) and a short CV (max 1 page) by 10 April 2026 to email@stephan-hoppe.de and fabian.persson@lnu.se.
Print Quarterly, March 2026
The long eighteenth century in the latest issue of Print Quarterly:
Print Quarterly 43.1 (March 2026)
a r t i c l e s
Conrad Martin Metz, Frontispiece, from Imitations of Ancient and Modern Drawings Engraved and Published by C. M. Metz, 1789, etching and aquatint printed in colour, 360 × 256 mm (London, British Museum).
• Elania Pieragostini, “Conrad Martin Metz and his Imitations of Ancient and Modern Drawings,” pp. 14–26. This article examines the origins, development, and targeted audience of Conrad Martin Metz’s (1749–1827) decade-long project to reproduce drawings held in British collections, aiming to show how art developed over time, starting from Cimabue. Its programmatic introduction addresses key issues such as the disegno–colore debate, the preference for preliminary sketches and the differences between originals and copies. The author summarizes the various collections accessed by Metz, the techniques used to replicate the effects of drawn media, and his business operations and clientele. The project is further discussed in relation to similar print projects of the time.
• Dominika Cora, “New Facts about Russia’s Imperial Portrait Series, 1745–77,” pp. 36–43. This shorter notice discusses the chronology and publication of Johann Stenglin’s (1710/15–76) mezzotints depicting Russian emperors, one of his earliest commissions. The two appendices show how the prints were once believed to be published in six ‘sets’, and how they are organized now in accordance with the new research. The new findings also allow for the correct attribution of the monogram ‘AST’ found on the portraits of Peter the Great, Anna Petrovna, and Catherine I.
n o t e s a n d r e v i e w s
• Armin Kunz, Review of Bryony Bartlett-Rawlings and Naomi Lebens, eds., Placing Prints: New Developments in the Study of Print, 1400–1800 (Brill, 2025), pp. 44–47. Includes an essay by Donato Esposito on Joshua Reynolds’s print collection.
• Andrew Robison, Review of Felix Reuße, Hans Hubert, and Viktoria Gont, eds., Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Vedute di Roma (Städtische Museen Freiburg and Michael Imhof, 2024), pp. 63–65.
• Ellis Tinios, Review of Andreas Marks, Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo: The Definitive Collector’s Edition (Tuttle Publishing, 2024), pp. 65–67.
• Gervase Rosser, Review of Erin Giffin, Early Modern Replicas of the Holy House of Loreto: Translating Space (Routledge, 2025), pp. 83–86.
• Ellis Tinios, Review of John Fiorillo, Hokuei: Master of Osaka Kabuki Prints (Ludion, 2024), pp. 86–89.
o b i t u a r y
David Bindman (1940–2025), pp. 76–77.
Call for Applications | Blue Paper Workshop
From ArtHist.net and the Blue Paper Research Consortium:
Blue Paper Workshop
Moulin du Verger, Puymoyen, France, 3–7 August 2026
Applications due by 15 April 2026
The Blue Paper Research Consortium (BPRC) is pleased to announce a five-day intensive workshop dedicated to the history and manufacture of handmade blue paper. Held at the Moulin du Verger, a working sixteenth-century papermill in the Charente region, near Angoulême, this workshop is a rare opportunity to bridge historical research with material practice. Participants will work alongside a team of specialists to explore pre-industrial papermaking and dyeing methods, drawing on years of interdisciplinary research into Western European blue paper.
This immersive program explores the manufacturing of Western European blue paper and its historical applications in European art. Participants will experiment with traditional techniques, preparing their own reference sheets with various coloring methods.
Objectives
• Discovering traditional Western European papermaking techniques
• Preparing blue dyes from natural colorants
• Identifying papermaking- and dyeing techniques from samples
• Exploring the applications of blue paper by artists in Europe (prints, drawings, pastels, books) before 1800
Cost: 1300 EUR (includes all workshop materials; excludes travel, dinner, and accommodation)
Capacity: Limited to 8 participants to ensure a high-quality learning experience.
Grant Opportunity: Supporting Diversity and Future Professionals
Through the generous support of the Tavolozza Foundation, we are proud to offer six full-tuition grants for the 2026 workshop. The BPRC and the Tavolozza Foundation are committed to ensuring that specialized knowledge in historical paper technology remains accessible to a broad and inclusive community. These grants are intended to support graduate students, junior professionals, and colleagues from under-resourced institutions.
The program aims to
• Expand Access to Specialized Knowledge: Provide emerging scholars and professionals with hands-on training in historical papermaking and dyeing techniques that are rarely accessible through conventional academic programs.
• Bridge the Resource Gap: Provide high-level professional development to those whose institutions may lack the funding for international specialized training.
• Empower Emerging Voices: Support the next generation of paper historians, conservators, and curators by providing direct access to master craftsmen and leading researchers.
• Enrich Scholarly Dialogue: Foster a diverse group of participants whose varied geographic, institutional, and cultural perspectives contribute to a richer exchange of ideas and research.
The grant includes full workshop registration (€1300 value) and daily lunch at the mill. Grant recipients are responsible for travel, accommodation, and dinners. To apply for the grant, please submit:
• Motivation letter explaining how the workshop will benefit your research or professional practice
• Curriculum vitae (maximum 2 pages)
Applications should be sent to Leila Sauvage (leila.sauvage@gmail.com) and Edina Adam (EAdam@getty.edu) by 15 April 2026. Please include ‘Blue Paper Workshop Grant Application’ in the subject line.
In addition to the funded places, two standard registration spots are available at the fee of €1300. Places are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Please contact Leila Sauvage and Edina Adam.
Call for Papers | Women Artists in Italy, 1607–Unification
From ArtHist.net:
Reframing Methodologies: Women Artists in Italy, 1607 to the Italian Unification
Sixth Edition of the Annual International Women in the Arts Conference (AIWAC)
University of Arkansas Rome Center, 15–17 October 2026
Proposals due by 30 April 2026
Following the two exhibitions Roma Pittrice: Artiste al lavoro tra XVI e XIX secolo (Rome, Palazzo Braschi, 25/10/2024 – 04/05/2025) and Donne nella Napoli spagnola: Un altro Seicento (Naples, Le Gallerie d’Italia, 20/11/ 2025 – 22/3/2026), this conference seeks to foster critical reflections on methodologies for the study of women artists. More than fifty years after Linda Nochlin’s seminal question, “Why have there been no great women artists?”, we aim to reassess and critically examine the current state of scholarship on women and gender in the arts.
We invite scholars to present papers addressing any aspect of women artists and their participation in cultural discourses from the early modern to the modern period. The goal is to reconsider and reframe methodological approaches within the discipline. While the field has made significant advances, it has also perpetuated certain narratives and myths that have shaped—at times uncritically—the rhetoric of feminist art history. This conference aims to interrogate these assumptions and to reassess the historiographical and philological foundations of the field.
The year 1607 marks a significant turning point: the Accademia di San Luca in Rome opened its doors to women for the first time, contributing to the professionalization of women artists. In the decades that followed, other Italian cities adopted similar practices. Alongside academies, artistic training was also provided through workshops, which functioned as de facto private academies. Although only a limited number of women were admitted to official institutions—such as the Accademia di San Luca, where women were documented as members from 1607, albeit excluded from life drawing and governance—many women accessed professional training through alternative structures. These included art schools founded by women artists themselves, such as Elisabetta Sirani’s school in Bologna and Virginia da Vezzo’s in Paris. Artemisia Gentileschi likewise maintained a workshop in Naples, where she trained her daughter Prudentia as well as several male artists.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
• Methodological approaches to the study of women artists (past, present, and future)
• Revisiting canonical narratives and persistent myths in feminist art history
• Archival, philological, and historiographical challenges in reconstructing women’s artistic production
• Women artists and artistic training: academies, workshops, and alternative pedagogies
• Professional networks, patronage, and mobility (local, national, and transnational)
• Women artists as teachers, workshop leaders, and agents of artistic transmission
• The role of institutions (academies, courts, convents) in shaping women’s artistic careers
• Gendered access to artistic genres (portraiture, history painting, still life, etc.)
• Women artists and the art market
• Self-representation, authorship, and artistic identity
• Women artists in relation to family workshops and dynastic practices
• Cross-cultural exchanges and the presence of Italian women artists abroad or expatriate women artists in Italy.
• The reception and historiography of women artists from the 17th to the 19th century
• Rethinking periodization: from early modern to modern frameworks
• Digital humanities and new tools for researching women artists
Selected conference papers will be published in the AIWAC Acta Colloquia post-print series, in collaboration with Brepols Publishers, following a peer-review process.
To submit a proposal, please ensure the following requirements are met:
• Abstract: Submit an abstract in English (Word format), with a maximum length of 500 words (excluding author name(s) and contact details).
• Short Biography: Include a brief biographical note of no more than 150 words.
• File Format and Naming: Save the proposal as a .doc file (PDF files will not be considered), using the following naming convention: AIWAC6_Surname.doc
• Curriculum Vitae: Include a short CV.
• Submission Method: Send all materials via email to clollobr@uark.edu and amodesti@unimelb.edu.au.
Submission Deadline: 30 April 2026
Notification of Acceptance: 18 July 2026
Presentation Format: Accepted papers will be allocated a maximum of 20 minutes for presentation.
Funding: Please note that the organizers are unable to provide financial support for travel and/or accommodation expenses for speakers or attendees.
Participation Fee: A conference participation fee will be required. Details regarding the fee will be communicated upon acceptance of proposals.
Notification Policy: Due to the high volume of submissions, only successful applicants will be notified.
Conference Venue and Format: The conference will take place at the University of Arkansas Rome Center and will feature a combination of selected paper presentations and keynote lectures.
Final Program: The complete conference program will be circulated by the end of September 2026.
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