Department of History of Art, University of York

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Department of History of Art, University of York

The official page for the Department of History of Art at the University of York http://www.york.ac.uk/history-of-art/

09/05/2026

MA students at the History of Art Department, University of York, worked on a new curatorial display this semester. They explored themes of Making and Memory as part of their module on ‘The Modern Woman: Fashion and Global Modernities since 1780’. The key exhibit is a 1913 silk satin wedding dress which the Royal Museums of Scotland kindly donated to us as a study object. The mounting was challenging. The fragile state of the silk did not allow for much prep work for reasons of conservation. The small (corseted) waist of the original wearer challenged even our smallest mannequin. The result, however, brought this beautiful dress to life! Well done students! Information of the opening of the display to follow.

30/04/2026

We are very grateful to Emily Lanigan-Palotai, Collections Manager, for hosting us at Chester Cathedral. Emily gave the students a careers talk about working in the heritage sector, and our second-year student Scarlet gave a presentation on the work she has been doing at the cathedral, as she is currently on placement there, as part of her Curating and Art History degree. Emily set a ‘treasure hunt’ focusing on the monuments/memorials in the cathedral, which provided plenty of scope for discussion at the end of the morning. After lunch, we all met up at the Grosvenor Museum, where highlights spanned the centuries, ranging from Roman artefacts to the 16th-century German ceramic owl cup found in the Roman ruins, to William Acton’s 1930s ‘Portrait of Loelia, Duchess of Westminster’.

16/04/2026

Please come along to Rococoa Club this coming Wednesday, we have some special guests! 🐾 It’s the perfect chance for a midweek break as we come to the end of the semester and a great opportunity to see our new student space! Hot drinks, biscuits and puppy pets provided. Extra points if you bring your own cup ☕️🍪

14/04/2026

Can parfum convey political positions? Absolutely. A scent can be ‘your rallying cry in a bottle’ – in the past as today.

In 1820 Paris, you could buy this bottle featuring Napoléon’s only child, nine-year old Napoléon François Charles Joseph Bonaparte. Here, he is identified as the Duke of Reichstadt; the title he carried during his Viennese exile. The little parfum bottle - marketed one year before his father’s death in exile on St Helena - was unmasked Bonapartist propaganda in the age of the Bourbon restoration.

Today, you can shop online for President Trump’s ‘Victory 45-47’ at $ 249 per bottle; a fragrance line that was launched via license to mark both his presidential terms. Curiously both parfums articulate imperial aspirations.

The young Duke of Reichstadt represented a beacon of hope – however remote or sentimental - for those who saw the Bonaparte legacy as the only authentic guardian of the principles of the French Revolution.

Not only owning, but also wearing the Duke of Reichstadt parfum was a recognizable olfactory marker of your pollical leanings. The bottle contains ‘l’eau de violette’; the violet was the clandestine symbol of all Bonapartists. Wearing a violet made it easy to identify each other without overtly defying the restored Bourbon monarchy.

Trump’s parfum is anything but subtle and clandestine. The flacon is a gold statuette that oscillates between portraying Trump as a god-like emperor and a gilded Michael Jackson souvenir figurine. The lead slogan appeals to buyers as ‘Patriots Who Never Back Down, Like President Trump. This Scent Is Your Rallying Cry In A Bottle’.

In 1820 Paris - as today - parfum produces non-verbal, olfactory allegiances and makes money too. However, while the creator of the Reichstadt parfum – the Laugier perfumery – may have hoped to animate an old client base of French and foreign liberals opposed to the reactionary forces that had shaped the new European order…. the buyers of Trump’s fragrance stand in an altogether different political spectrum of ‘revolutionary’ force.

08/04/2026

Anthony Geraghty’s lecture “Wren, Vanbrugh, and Hawksmoor: the minds that made the English Baroque”, which he presented as the inaugural lecture in memory of Sir Howard Montagu Colvin at St John’s College, Oxford is now available online! Watch here: youtube.com/watch?v=P2lkNgnIVsc

02/04/2026

We’re recruiting for our 2026/27 Department Reps! If you’re interested please submit you application form (🔗 in our bio) by 24th April 2026. You can also find out more about the role by contacting the engagement team at York SU.

01/04/2026

Richard McClary presented his paper “Medieval Kashan Ceramics: Mina’i and Lajvardina” at Mimar Sinan Gűzel Sanatlar Üniversite in Istanbul this week! The event was opened by Rector Prof Dr Ahmet Sacit Açikgözoğlu and Richard’s lecture was kindly translated by Research Assistant Nafiz Küçükdağdelen from the Department of Art History

Üniversitemizde Sanat Tarihçisi Dr. Richard P. McClary’nin anlatımıyla “Orta Çağ Kâşân Seramiği Mina’i ve Lajvardina” konferansı düzenlendi. Rektörümüz Prof. Dr. Ahmet Sacit Açıkgözoğlu’nun konuşmasıyla başlayan ve Sanat Tarihi Bölümünden Arş. Gör. Nafiz Küçükdağdelen’in çevirisiyle ilerleyen konferans teşekkür belgesi takdimiyle sona erdi.

25/03/2026

Hanna Vorholt will be presenting an online lecture: Grid as Ground: Ruled Lines and Manuscript Images on Friday 17 April, 12:00-13:30 EDT (5pm BST, but do check!) The event will be hosted by the Penn Library, University of Pennsylvania. Register on the Penn Library website, or in today’s stories.

Most printed and electronic documents, like this one, show text organized along invisible horizontal and vertical lines. In medieval Europe, where the primary text technology was the manuscript, lines formed visible grids on the parchment or paper surface. Scholars have examined the resulting patterns and analysed their role in the layout of the written text. While manuscript images were frequently executed on the same ruled surfaces as the written text, their relationship to the ruling has rarely been the subject of research. Hanna Vorholt’s forthcoming book Grid as Ground provides the first sustained analysis of this topic across the wide range of image types encountered in manuscripts, from tables, maps, and diagrams, to figural imagery across different domains of learning. The lecture introduces the project and some of the opportunities this analysis presents for humanities research on lines and grids as tools for cognition, creativity, and control.

24/03/2026

Last Wednesday 18th March was the 800th anniversary of the canonisation of St William of York by Pope Honorius III. A commemorative Evensong in York Minster was followed by the launch of a new book by Professor Christopher Norton and Professor Sarah Brown, ‘The St William Window at York Minster - Rediscovering a Miraculous Narrative’. The book is the fruit of thirty years’ work on this remarkable medieval stained glass window! The launch was in the presence of the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds, Marcus Stock. Many congratulations to Sarah and Christopher!

Visitors to York Minster can discover St William’s story in stone and stained glass with a new trail, ‘St William of York: His Life and Legacy’. Ask at the Welcome Desk in York Minster for a free guide exploring St William’s legacy at York Minster. More information and further events are listed on the website.

19/03/2026

History of Art York Students had a great workshop at the Victoria and Albert Museum Storehouse East at Stratford, London, last week. We looked at different garments that told stories about fashion and time in the 1820s, female motoring and fashion, the rubber revolution in the mid-nineteenth century and Charles James’ revolutionary puffer jacket from 1937 whose design was inspired by both, the aerodynamic curves of luxury cars and eiderdown duvets for beds! We thank the Head of Collection, Kate Parsons, for supporting our visit so pro-actively and generously.

The rest of the afternoon we studied historic cosmetic articles in the V&A’s jewelry collection before visiting the Marie Antoinette exhibition.

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