Research Seminars - Hilary 2022
All Seminars are on Thursdays at 5 pm, live online via Zoom
 10 February 2022Dr Catherine Yvard Victoria & Albert Museum, London Fragmented Illuminations: Medieval and Renaissance Cuttings at the Victoria & Albert Museum With over 2000 cuttings from medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, the V&A holds one of the largest collections of this kind in the world. On the occasion of the Fragmented Illuminations exhibition at the V&A (until 8 May 2022), curator Catherine Yvard will explore the history of this collection, and highlight some of the exciting discoveries made while researching for the exhibition. |
 24 February 2022Professor Lynda Mulvin University College Dublin James Cavanah Murphy (1760–1814): Pioneering Architect of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries |
 24 March 2022Dr Anna McSweeney (TCD) and Dr Mariam Rosser-Owen (V&A) Crafting Medieval Spain: The Torrijos Ceilings in the Global Museum Drs Anna McSweeney and Mariam Rosser-Owen will present their work in a new collaborative project which focuses on four monumental wooden ceilings from the Torrijos Palace near Toledo. Created in the 1490s by craftsmen employing Islamic techniques and styles, the talk demonstrates how these features were assimilated into ‘Gothic’ taste in late medieval Spain. The ceilings were dispersed across the world in the early 20th Century. One ceiling, to be redisplayed at the V&A East Stratford has provided the opportunity for an interdisciplinary and international group of experts to re-evaluate its importance against the legacy of Islamic art in Europe and its appeal to a wider contemporary audience. Join Zoom Meeting @ 5 pm |
7 April 2022Hannah Baker PhD candidate, Art & Architectural History, TCD ‘Mildly Deranged’: Sarah Cecilia Harrison (1863–1941) was one of Ireland’s foremost portrait painters and social reformers by the beginning of the twentieth century, becoming the first female city councillor for Dublin in 1912. Why, then, is so little known about her life, and why is she largely absent in Irish historiography? Why when mentioned has she often been dismissed in disparaging terms such as ‘mildly deranged’? Hannah Baker examines Harrison’s influence and her relations with leading figures in Ireland’s art community such as Sir Hugh Lane, exploring her influence upon his controversial art bequest and her own legacy. Join Zoom Meeting @ 5 pm |
14 April 2022Megan Brien PhD candidate, Art & Architectural History, TCD Asylum Endurance: Asylum architecture casts a long shadow over twentieth-century psychiatric hospitals in Ireland, as issues of power, history, and privilege are embedded in these sites. Analysis of the interior of St Brendan’s Hospital, Grangegorman, provides opportunity to understand changing approaches to care that otherwise were not immediately or evenly reflected in the psychiatric hospital’s architecture. Megan Brien will show how visual, discourse, and spatial analysis can uncover a history of the lived interior of St Brendan’s Hospital. Join Zoom Meeting @ 5 pm |