MA History of Art
Special Options
2024/25
![A still life composition in graphite and watercolour showing a table setting with a display of apples, a bottle and glass to the left and the back of a chair.](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/d.1948.sc_.111-aspect-ratio-16-9-940x0-c-default.jpg)
Course Overview
Status
Applications Open
Location
Vernon Square Kings Cross, London WC1X 9EP (during The Courtauld Connects project)
Duration
9 months, full-time
Awarding body
University of London
Intake
200 - 250 students per year
Special Options 2024/25
You can either make a general application for the MA, or you may indicate your preferred Special Option(s). Many applicants choose to make a general application for the MA in History of Art at the Courtauld. If you do this we will match your application to a Special Option that matches your interests and has space. Alternatively you may indicate your preference for up to three Special Options, tailoring personal statements in relation to each Special Option.
Our Special Options change from year to year as we seek to refresh and expand our offer.
We aim to confirm these at least twelve months in advance, and will always contact applicants immediately in rare instances where changes have to be made. In 2024/5 we are especially pleased to include new or returning Special Options, including Art and Empire in the Indian Ocean World, c.1800–1900, Architectural Legacies of Empire at Home and Abroad, c.1620- c.1920, Violent Materials: Art and War in the Early Modern World, ca. 1500–1800, Court and Commerce: Arts of Islam and the Great Mongol State, 1206-1368 and The Surrealist Century: Mediums, Madness, Magic and the Manifesto of Surrealism (1924).
![](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Dublin-Castle-2-scaled-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-scaled-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/View-of-the-European-Factories-at-Canton-aspect-ratio-16-9-4-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Detail of ‘Ten Thousand Countries Come to Court’, (Wanguo laichao tu), Qianlong period, Qing artist, The Palace Museum, Beijing, China.](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Whiteman-Qing-1-636x1024-1-aspect-ratio-16-9-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![A landscape scene with vivid colours, with a blue sky, red centre strip, blue sea and sand. There are five figures, three women and two men, walking towards the sea in the bottom left corner. They are wearing business clothes.](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Mileeva-Bulatov1_WEB-1.jpg2000-1024x799-1-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpeg)
![Lubaina Himid Dreaming has a Share in History 2016, Hollybush Gardens, London](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Lubaina-Himid-Dreaming-has-a-Share-in-History-2016-Hollybush-Gardens-London-scaled-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-scaled-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Mosaic of the empress Zoe, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey, c.1050](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/HSI-zoe-1-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910, 92 x 65,5 cm, Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow (formally collection of Ivan Morozov).](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Murray-pic-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.png)
![Study for the Lower Left Section of the 'Disputa', Raphael, c. 1508-09, (280 mm x 416 mm), Pen and brown ink, over traces of black chalk on right and stylus on the left, the outlines pricked, © Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt-am-Main](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Nethersole-2disput5-1024x680-1-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Detail of ‘Snail Action (piece 1 of 2)’, 1972, Géza Perneczky, Courtesy of the artist and Chimera-Project Gallery, Budapest, Hungary.](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Kemp-Welch_fig_2-2a-copy-1024x706-1-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Domed Mausoleum of Üljeitu, Sultaniyya, Iran, begun 1313 Photo from Wikimedia: Zenith210 at English Wikipedia](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Solt_dome_1-aspect-ratio-16-9-416x0-c-default.jpeg)
![](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Kaprow1-scaled-aspect-ratio-16-9-scaled-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Republikanische Automaten (Republican Automatons), George Grosz, 1925 © The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Estate of George Grosz](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dr-Robin-Schuldenfrei-exp-mod2-aspect-ratio-16-9-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Image-1-liu-chuang-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.png)
![Rasheed Araeen. A Retrospective, installation view, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2019.Photo: Ivan Erofeev © Garage Museum of Contemporary Art](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Wilson-F7A8151-1024x683-1-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Examining wall paintings in the crypt of Chartres cathedral.](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Examining-wall-paintings-in-the-crypt-of-Chartres-cathedral-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Stellar lantern vault, c. 1387–1438. Founder’s Chapel, monastery of Santa Maria da Vitória, Batalha, Portugal. Photo: © Jessica Barker](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Barker-image-2-741x1024-1-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Franz von Stuck, Dissonance, 1910, Villa Stuck](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Dissonanz_by_Franz_von_Stuck_1910-scaled-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-scaled-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Boulevard des Capuchines, Claude Monet, 1873-74. Oil on canvas, (80.3 cm × 60.3 cm), © Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Peters-Corbett-Claude_Monet_1873-74_Boulevard_des_Capucines_oil_on_canvas_80.3_x_60.3_cm_Nelson-Atkins_Museum_of_Art_Kansas_City-760x1024-1-aspect-ratio-16-9-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Ajamu, from the series Circus Master. (1997) Black and white photograph, 23 x 23 cm.](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/indie-new-image-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Nash Option Banner](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Nash-Option-2-1024x621-1-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpg)
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![](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Lee-Lozano-Peel-Diptych-1964-Oil-on-canvas-300-x-165cm-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Marcel Duhamel, 'Our Colleague Benjamin Péret Insulting a Priest' (photograph 1926)](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/gavin-ma-images-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.png)
![](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Fig.-5-scaled-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-scaled-416x0-c-default.jpg)
![Sonia Delaunay and Blaise Cendrars, The Prose on the Trans-Siberian Railway, 1913.](https://courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Levitt-Delaunay-prose-722x1024-1-aspect-ratio-16-9-1-416x0-c-default.jpg)