Department of Art History and Art Conservation Graduate Theses
Recent Submissions
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Rembrandt in the Country House: The Collecting and Display of Dutch Pictures in England c. 1700-1850
The history of collecting paintings attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn in England is especially rich, and scholars have been examining the artist’s reception in that country for some time. These inquiries often take the form ... -
Paisley, Scotland’s Nineteenth-Century Shawl Designers: Innovators or Imitators?
Facilitated by increased trade between Asia and Europe, handloom-woven shawls from the Kashmir region of the Indian subcontinent became desirable clothing for Europeans connected with trade in India during the mid-eighteenth ... -
An Investigation of the Susceptibility of Acrylic Emulsion Paints to Biodeterioration by Mould: Developing a Methodology for the Study of Microbial Activity on Modern Paints
The biodeterioration of cultural heritage is a considerable concern for cultural institutions as the material variety within heritage objects provides diverse ecological niches for microorganisms to colonize. Due to limited ... -
Masculinity and Exile: The Art of Benvenuto Cellini
This dissertation analyzes sixteenth-century European exile through the lens of masculinity, taking as its case study the Florentine goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini. Drawing on a range of primary texts from the ... -
Collective Memory in Transition: Macdonald, Cornwallis and Statue Removal in Canada
This thesis documents the 2018 removals of the John A. Macdonald statue in Victoria, British Columbia and the Edward Cornwallis statue in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Writings on memory by Maurice Halbwachs and Pierre Nora form ... -
Taste and Ambition: Dutch Artists and Their Collections of Works on Paper
This dissertation is a study of Dutch artists as collectors of prints and drawings in the seventeenth century. The presence of works on paper in artists’ workshops and their use as visual reference tools and objects for ... -
Heretics and Martyrs: Picturing Early Anabaptism in Visual Culture of the Dutch Republic
This dissertation explores the representation of early Anabaptism and Mennonitism in the visual culture of the Dutch Republic (1585-1795). Polemical and satirical imagery critical of Anabaptism circulated alongside artworks ... -
Characterization the Laser Cleaning Effects on Sandstone From the Canadian Parliament Building
Laser cleaning has been used in the rehabilitation and conservation program of the Canadian Parliament Buildings in order to remove the black crust on sandstone surfaces. This study was carried out to characterize the ... -
Art Botany in Nineteenth-Century Design Reform, 1830-1865
“Art Botany in Nineteenth-Century Design Reform, 1830-1865” investigates the relationship between developments in botanical morphology and the increasingly codified principles of design reform, the state-sponsored movement ... -
All About Eve and Other Stories: Representations of Eve in French Romanesque Sculpture
Traditionally unclothed, the figure of Eve made a sudden appearance on highly visible areas in the interior and exterior of European churches, built during the great architectural efflorescence of ca. 1100, now characterised ... -
Humour and Humilitas: Wall Painting in the Palaces and Castles of Henry III of England (r: 1216-1272)
This dissertation examines Henry III of England’s residential wall painting patronage, its relationship to the king’s unique views of kingship, and the role of wall painting in the fashioning of thirteenth-century Plantagenet ... -
Faces of the Courtroom: How the Visual Elements of Portraiture Contribute to the Construction and Communication of Courtroom Sketches
The purpose of this study is to interrogate the composition and influence of courtroom sketches from an art historical perspective with the aim of demonstrating not only their importance in the public’s understanding of ... -
The Horse-Drawn Omnibus in Victorian Visual Culture
In nineteenth-century Britain, the omnibus, a horse-drawn public bus, profoundly changed the nature of urban space. It was the first mass public transport technology in London and as such, fulfilled the mobility needs of ... -
Netherlandish Painting in Portugal: Trade, Reception, and Impact Around 1500
My doctoral work examines the reception, imitation, appropriation, and transformation of Netherlandish painting in Portugal around the turn of the sixteenth century through a study of surviving documents, visual evidence, ... -
On the Road to Rome: Ephemera and Experience in Queen Christina's Italy
In the Fall of 1655, Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689)-the former ruler of a Lutheran nation-crossed into the Papal States as Pope Alexander VII Chigi's (1599-1667) most important Catholic convert. Her arrival was his ... -
Nationalism and Pre-Raphaelite Art
Recent scholars of Pre-Raphaelite art have focused on the history of women, material culture, and social context. An area that has received little attention is the concept of nationalism and national identity. This thesis ... -
Art and Nature at the Court of Francesco I de’ Medici: Coral, Rock Crystal, Lapis Lazuli, and Shells
This dissertation considers the relationship between art and nature in Florence under Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici (1541-87) through an investigation of four materials: coral, rock crystal, lapis lazuli, and shells. ... -
The Social Practice of Crafting: Gender, Class, and Race in Western Craft
This study provides an analysis of Western amateur crafting as a social practice that is informed by a complex matrix of historical, social, cultural, ideological, and economic influences. A historical overview of amateur ... -
Interiority Complex: The Intimacy of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Elles
Nineteenth-century Paris witnessed a proliferation of representations of prostitution, including extensive visual imagery of women of ill repute. Completed in 1896 and comprised of a cover, frontispiece and ten colour ... -
The Art of Arctic Sovereignty: Towards Visualizing the North as Canadian, 1927-1974
This dissertation deals with what I call the “visual culture of Arctic sovereignty” by attending to the political context of representations of the Arctic and Subarctic regions in Canadian modern art between 1927 and 1974. ...
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