The Courtauld Institute of Art’s 23rd Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium invites speakers to consider the nature of medieval collections, the context of their creation and fruition, and their legacy – or disappearance – in the present.
Existing approaches to the subject help to understand the formation, dispersal, and reassembly of groupings of objects. However, broadening the scope of what a medieval collection is can open new paths of exploration. From immense palace networks to single-volume manuscripts, a wide range of objects can pose complex and exciting questions regarding how physical and conceptual similarity and proximity shaped making and meaning in the Middle Ages.
The Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium offers the opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present and promote their research.
Organised by Costanza Beltrami (The Courtauld Institute of Art / The Auckland Project) and Maggie Crosland (The Courtauld Institute of Art) with the generous support of The Sackler Research Forum.
Programme
09.30 – 10.00: Registration
10.00 – 10.10: Welcome
Session 1: Assembled Objects — chaired by Teresa Lane
10.10 – 10.30: Gesner Las Casas Brito Filho (University of Leeds): Níðwundor’, terrible wonder: The Beowulf Manuscript as a compilation about the ‘East’ (Nowell Codex part in British Library Cotton Vitellius A.xv)
10.50 – 11.10: Krisztina Ilko (University of Cambridge): Collecting Miracles: Visualising the Early Saints’ Cult of the Augustinian Friars
11.10 – 11.30: Elizabeth Mattison (University of Toronto/ KIK-IRPA): The Collection as History: Collecting with and on the Reliquary Bust of Saint Lambert in Liège
11.10 – 11.30: Discussion
11:30 – 12:00: TEA / COFFEE BREAK – Seminar Rooms 1 & 2
Session 2: Strategies of Collecting — chaired by Charlotte Wytema
12.00 – 12.20: Noah Smith (University of Kent): The Courtrai Chest: A Matter of Personal Collection
12.20 – 12.40: Oliver Mitchell (The Courtauld Institute of Art): Collecting relics, curating an image: regicide, martyrdom, and the sacrificial kingship of Louis IX in the Sainte Chapelle
12.40 – 13.00: Maria Lopez-Monis (The Courtauld Institute of Art): Collecting the profane: Conversion of earthly objects into reliquaries
13.00 – 13.20: Discussion
13.20 – 14.30: LUNCH (provided for speakers only in Seminar Room 1)
Session 3: Collaborating across media — chaired by Nicholas Flory
14.30 – 14.50: Maria Harvey (University of Cambridge): Across time and space: Byzantin(ising) objects in the hands of the Del Balzo Orsini
14.50 – 15.10: Sophia Ong (Rutgers University/INHA): “Autres petiz Joyaulx et Reliquiaires pendans”: Pendants and the Collecting of Jewelry in the Valois Courts
15.10 – 15.30: Adriana Concin (The Courtauld Institute of Art): Collecting medieval likenesses: Archduke Ferdinand II and his Genealogy of Tyrolian Landesfürsten
15.30 – 15.50: Discussion
15.50 – 16.20: TEA / COFFEE BREAK – Seminar Rooms 1 & 2
Session 4: Spaces of Display — chaired by Harry Prance
16.20 – 16.40: Lesley Milner (The Courtauld Institute of Art): From Medieval treasure room to Renaissance wunderkammer: Sir William Sharrington’s strong room at Lacock Abbey
16.40 – 17.00: Sarah Randeraad (University of Amsterdam): Medii Aevii, Medio Evo, Tempi di Mezzo: ‘Amorphous’ Middle Ages in 19th century Florentine private and public display
17.00 – 17.30: Discussion
17.30 – 17.45: Closing remarks: Joanna Cannon (The Courtauld Institute of Art)
17.45: RECEPTION (Front Hall)
With special thanks to Michael Carter for his contribution and support for the colloquium.
