Markets for the Macabre: Uncovering New Contexts for the Art of Death in Europe, 1450–1550
Supervisor: Dr Jessica Barker
Advisor: Dr Felix Jäger
How were images of death and decay used to make sense of life during a period of social, cultural, religious and political upheaval? My project investigates the extraordinary demand for macabre art in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe. Studies of the art of death are typically confined to sacred spaces and the religious concerns of salvation, humility and funerary ritual. My research, however, will demonstrate the full power of late medieval and early modern engagement with mortality by highlighting a much broader array of macabre art, such as playing cards and rosary beads, used in diverse contexts like the bedroom, the banquet hall and the town square. Although our own period is similarly marked by pandemics, technological revolutions and wars, Western culture now rejects bodily decay. My project challenges contemporary endeavours to defy ageing and death, as I argue that late medieval and early modern Europeans embraced macabre art to enrich and enhance their lives.
Bio
Alongside my PhD, I work as a Prints and Drawings Study Room Assistant at the Courtauld Gallery. I am also a founding member and co-convenor of the Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group, which hosts termly events on the history of the book and the art of illumination at the University of Oxford and beyond.
Education
2024– PhD History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art
2022–2023 MSt History of Art and Visual Culture, University of Oxford (Distinction)
2019–2022 BA History of Art, University College London (First-Class Honours)
Awards and grants
2026 BAA travel grant, British Archaeological Association
2026 Cannon-Lowden travel grant, Courtauld Institute of Art
2025 Enhance Research England conference grant, Courtauld Institute of Art
2022 Dean’s List for academic excellence in the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences, University College London
2022 Humfrey Wine Prize for the highest final-year dissertation mark in History of Art, University College London
Work experience
2026 Teaching Assistant, BA1 Foundations 1 (Autumn semester), Courtauld Institute of Art
2024– Prints and Drawings Study Room Assistant, Courtauld Gallery
2022 Research Assistant for Dr Jacopo Gnisci, co-director of the ITIESE project, University College London
Publications
2025 ‘La Mort à la mode : une Danse macabre en ivoire’, in La Danse macabre des Saints-Innocents : 1425-2025. Sources, contexte, postérité, ed. by Ilona Hans-Collas, Didier Jugan and Danielle Quéruel (Vendôme: Éditions du Cherche-Lune, 2025), 386–404
Talks
2026 ‘Markets for the Macabre: An Investigation into Elite Demand for the Art of Death in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe’, Kunstgeschichtliche Forschungen 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte
2026 ‘Death in Play: Macabre Imagery in the Colleoni Tarot (1456–1458)’, Courtauld Second-Year PhD Symposium, Courtauld Institute of Art
2026 ‘What’s in a Game? Memento Mori Imagery in Renaissance Tarot’, Courtauld Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium, Courtauld Institute of Art
2025 ‘Donning Death: Memento Mori Ivories as Fashion Accessories’, British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Conference, online
2025 ‘Death’s Anatomy: Macabre and Diseased Bodies in the Wellcome Apocalypse’, Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group, University of Oxford
2025 ‘La Mort à la mode : une Danse macabre en ivoire’, 21st International Congress of the Association Danses macabres d’Europe, École du Louvre
2025 ‘Mori male times: Mortality, Medicine and the Macabre in the Wellcome Apocalypse’, International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds
2023 ‘Gargoyles: A French (Re)Invention’, Worcester College History Society, University of Oxford
Other academic activity
2026 Co-convenor, with Alex Bispham, of the Courtauld Second-Year PhD Symposium
2024 ‘Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture’ Summer Course for the Study of the Arts in Flanders
2024– Co-convenor of the Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group
2023 Introduction to Medieval Manuscripts at the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes
Research interests
Late medieval and early modern conceptions of the body
Associations between the languages of dance, social performance and painting in late medieval and early modern Europe
Word/image relationships in manuscripts and early printed books
Visualisations of time and restorations of the past in nineteenth-century literature, art and architecture
