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The Courtauld Gallery is home to one of the greatest collections of art in the UK and an annual programme of focused exhibitions, displays and contemporary commissions. All housed in a beautiful human-sized gallery at Somerset House.
The Courtauld Institute is a research-led, independent college of the University of London, offering world–renowned programmes in the history, conservation, curation and business of art.
Medieval Work in Progress Seminars
You can find details of all previous and forthcoming Medieval work in progress seminars below.
Join Dr Giosuè Fabiano for this lecture exploring the ingenious ways medieval monks used shifting sunlight, starlight and architectural design to measure the passage of time, revealing remarkable visual alignments and time‑keeping practices embedded ...
Join Dr Anya Burgon for a talk introducing the phenomenon of downscaled worlds in late-medieval culture – from the many images of the salvator mundi with the world in his hands, to prayer nuts, to the ‘atomic’ prayers of the Cloud of Unknowing, and s...
Join Professor Nancy Thebaut for a talk on her recently co-curated exhibition Spectrum of Desire (on view at The Met Cloisters, New York), which explores the diverse - and sometimes unexpected - ways medieval people understood love, sex, and gender.
Join Professor Ladan Akbarnia for this illustrated talk will explore the story and vision behind Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World, a touring exhibition organised by The San Diego Museum of Art and which was on vi...
Join Dr Sophie Kelly for a talk on the making and meaning of medieval croziers in the decades either side of the Norman Conquest. Croziers, the sceptre-like staffs granted to bishops, abbots, and abbesses across Europe as a sign of authority, are one...
Join Naomi Speakman for this talk exploring the British Museum citole as both a musical masterpiece and an ecological artefact, revealing how this 14th-century boxwood instrument reflects the
Join Professor Alexa Sand for a lecture exploring the vibrant world of late medieval manuscripts, where devotional texts, playful marginalia, and performance culture intersect to reveal
Join Dr Michele Luigi Vescovi for the 2025 Annual Lecture of the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, as he delves into the interplay between Romanesque sculpture and water through the study of medieval stone vessels
Join curator Mariam Rosser-Owen as she delves into the use of elephant tusks in Iberian cathedrals and explores their connection to the exquisite crafts practices of Islamic Spain
Join Gabriel Byng for the Paul Crossley Memorial Lecture, reexamining the monastic cloister as a place to be transcended, where the heavenly was made manifest in the everyday lives of monks, friars and nuns.
Dr. Evelin Wetter joins us for a talk on the court embroiderer Hans Plock, examining the material illusionism and technical dexterity behind 16th century sculptural textile
Join Professor Antony Eastmond for a talk on Byzantine enamels, exploring the role they played in twelfth century diplomacy, spreading from Venice to Moscow.
Coinciding with the final days of the exhibition La Serenissima: Drawing in 18th century Venice, this event marks the publication of the volume Venetian Disegno: New Frontiers 1420-1620.
This lecture looks at visual cultures on the threshold to the choir and in the lay church, focussing on the interactions of artistic media such as altarpieces and sacrament houses.
In this Medieval Work in Progress seminar, Marina Aurora Garzón Fernández will speak on the sculptures found in the Santa María la Mayor de Toro (Zamora).
Join Dr Vera-Simone Schulz to hear more about her work on the networks, entanglements, and artistic connections found in portable artefacts of the medieval Afro-Eurasian world.
Professor Elina Gertsman will discuss the Hammelburg Mahzor, a Jewish festival book completed in Lower Franconia in the middle of the fourteenth century.
On the occasion of the Fragmented Illuminations exhibition at the V&A (8 September 2021-8 May 2022), curator Catherine Yvard will explore the history of this collection, and highlight some of the exciting discoveries made while researching for the ex...
