Alison Harpur

PhD supervisor: Professor Alison Wright
Working title for PhD: 'Visual Culture and the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1445)'

Research Interests

Renaissance Art, Theological Aesthetics, Portraiture, British Art and Collecting

Selected Publications and Papers

'Conversion from Greek to Latin Christianity: Pisanello's medal of the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaeologus', paper delivered at the Renaissance Society of America annual conference, 13-15 & 20-22 April 2021
'From Paris to Ferrara and Florence: Northern Artistic Models for Cultural Interaction between East and West in Fifteenth-Century Italian Art', paper delivered at the Society for Renaissance Studies biennial conference, Sheffield, 3-5 July 2018
'Towards a Theological Methodology of Art History', paper delivered at the conference Faith in the Academy: Theology Among the Disciplines, Society for the Study of Theology postgraduate conference, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, 28-30 August 2017
'Humanism, Humour and Memory: Pisanello's Portrait Medallion of the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaeologus', paper delivered at the Society for Renaissance Studies biennial conference, Glasgow, 18-20 July 2016; revised version delivered at the Prato Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Monash Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Prato, Italy, 13 December 2016
'"Through a Mirror Darkly": The Image of God in the Self-Portraiture of Albrecht Dürer', paper delivered at the conference Images, Icons and Idols, Society for the Study of Theology 4th postgraduate conference, University of Manchester, 9-10 January 2015
'Art, Authority and the Kingston Lacy Judgment of Solomon', National Trust Historic Houses & Collections Annual 2013, published in association with Apollo, pp.46-54
'Connoisseurship and the Written Word: Giorgio Vasari and the Attribution of the Kingston Lacy Judgment of Solomon', Association of Art Historians annual conference, Reading, 11-13 April 2013 (published in a revised form in the National Trust Historic Houses & Collections Annual 2013)
'Between Creation and New Creation: Pneumatology and Self-Portraiture in the Work of Albrecht Dürer', paper delivered at the conference The Holy Spirit in the World Today: Capturing the Imagination of the Culture, St Mellitus College, London, 14-15 March 2013
'Commemoration of the Council of Ferrara-Florence: History, Memory and Cultural Politics in the Chapels of the Palazzo Medici and Palazzo della Signoria', paper delivered at University College London, 11 October 2012
'Raffle at the Rose Tavern: Viviano Codazzi's Arch of Constantine and the Society of the Virtuosi of St Luke', National Trust Historic Houses & Collections Annual 2011, published in association with Apollo, June 2011, pp.32-39
'The Repetition and Transformation of Pisanello's Profile Portrait of Emperor John VIII Palaeologus', paper delivered at the 16th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Student Colloquium, on 'The Medieval Copy', Courtauld Institute of Art, 5 February 2011
'Portraits of the Blathwayts of Dyrham', Arts Buildings Collections Bulletin [National Trust], July 2010, p.14
Review of 'Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence: The Courtauld Wedding Chests', exh., The Courtauld Gallery, 2009, Object: Graduate Research and Reviews in the History of Art and Visual Culture, University College London, no.12, 2010, pp.88-91
'Diplomatic Immunity: The Survival of a Painting from Osterley Park', Arts Buildings Collections Bulletin [National Trust], October 2008, p.12
The British Ambassador's Residence, Washington DC: Works of Art from the UK Government Art Collection, HMSO, 2004 [with Chantal Condron]

Teaching

Postgraduate Teaching Assistant, UCL: Renaissance Art in London (2012)
Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) (2013)