Nicole Gasparini Casari

PhD Student

Thesis: Mediating Elements: Courtly Femininity and Ecological Awareness in Parisian Garden Pavilions (c. 1690 – c. 1730)

Supervisor: Professor Katie Scott                             Advisor: Professor Joanna Woodall

Funded by: The Courtauld Scholarship


Education

2021- present: PhD candidate, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, U.K.

2018 – 2019: Master in History of Art, Special Option: Art, Object, Sense: Crossings in Anthropology and Art History. The Case of Eighteenth-Century France, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, U.K.

2016 – 2017: Erasmus Exchange Programme, University College London, London, U.K.

2014 – 2017: Bachelor in Arts in Literature and Cultural Heritage, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Italy

Teaching Experience

Associate Lecturer – BA1 Topic Course “Architecture and Identity”, Courtauld Institute of Art (Autumn Term 2024/25)

Teaching Assistant – BA1 Foundations, Courtauld Institute of Art (Spring Term 2023/24)

Teaching Assistant – BA2/3 Elective Module “Architecture in London”, University College London (Spring Term 2023/24)

Teaching Assistant – The Courtauld Summer University (July 2023; July 2024)

‘The Outside Is Inside: Embodiment and the Humoral Theory in the Early Modern Period’, The Courtauld Summer School 2023

‘Performing Gender Identities: Normative Femininity in Baroque Paintings in the Courtauld Collection’, Summer School 2022

Conferences

Title TBC, “Elemental Thinking: New Approaches to Art and Landscape”, Association for Art History, AAH Annual Meeting (University of York), (forthcoming) 8-10 April 2025.

‘Relaxing Yet Exciting: Vegetable gardens, rest and drogues in early eighteenth-century Parisian country retreats’, “Plants and Revolution”, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, ASECS 55th Annual Meeting (Online), (forthcoming) 28-29 March 2025.

‘Real, Painted, and Performed: Air at the Pavillon de l’Aurore 1671–1715’, “Visual and Material Cultures of Air in Early Modern Courts”, The Renaissance Society of America, RSA Boston 2025, (forthcoming) 20-22 March 2025.

‘Unearthing Garden Connections: Horticulture and Soft-Paste Porcelain in 1700-1715 Garden Pavilions’, “Material and Visual Culture in the 17th and 18th Centuries Seminar Series”, MVC Research Cluster, University of Edinburgh (Online) 9 October 2024.

‘Snack, Host, Rest, Repeat: Marie-Adélaide de Savoie, duchesse de Bourgogne, at the Ménagerie de Versailles (1696-1712),’ The Third Year Research Student Symposium (The Courtauld Institute of Art), 16 May 2024.

‘Permeable Bodies: bathing and drinking practices at the Pavillon des Eaux Minérales of Chantilly 1729-1733,’ “Europe c.1580-c.1730: Telling Histories, Imagining Futures” Academic Colloquium (The Courtauld Institute of Art) 27 October 2023.

‘Unearthing Ecological Awareness: A Posthumanist Perspective on Soft-Paste Porcelain in c. 1690- 1710 Parisian Gardens’, “The Global Table in the 18th Century” (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon) 17 October 2023.

‘Permeable Surfaces: The Pavillon de Blois at Bougival (1711-1715) through Water as Ornament, Symbol and Element,’ The Second Year Research Student Symposium (The Courtauld Institute of Art) 10 May 2023.

‘The Tapestries Collection of the Duke and the Duchesse du Maine: A Locus for Gender Appropriation and Translation in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris,’ Weaving Cultural and Personal Memory Academic Symposium (New Hall Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge) 28 April 2022.

Grants

RSA – Kress Travel Grant, 2025

Francis Haskell Memorial Fund, 2024

Mary Vidal Award, Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art & Architecture (HECAA), Spring 2024

Enhance Research England Grant (UKRI), Courtauld Institute of Art, 2023; 2024

Work Experience

2025: Curator, Private Collection, U.K.

2023 – 2024: Cataloguer of Fine Arts and Chattels, Private Collection, U.K.

2022: Research Assistant, Dr Ketty Gottardo and Prof Guido Rebecchini, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, U.K.

2021: Curatorial Intern, Dr Eva Fischer-Hausdorf, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen, Germany

2020: Assistant Project Manager, Combat Prize 2020, Livorno, Italy

Citations