Student Library Research Award | Wellesley College
Length of velvet, Italian, 15th century, Silk velvet brocade with silk and gold-colored metallic thread, silk and gold-colored metallic woven looped fringe, and silk woven fringe, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Mary L. Smith Fund, 58.22, https://www.mfa.org/Award given to the 300-level research project Material Performance and the Sensory Experience: Use and Production of Velvet in Fifteenth Century Renaissance Italy. Centered on a fifteenth-century length of violet velvet in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the paper discusses how the textile was produced, used, repurposed, and viewed. This approach took an interdisciplinary approach that investigated Italian trading markets, the economic status of silk, gender roles, and material culture. Through this in-depth research process, I found a particular fascination with undervalued and underrepresented feminine mediums, such as textiles and thread.
Available to view through this link
Chinese, Sea sculpture from the Ca Mau shipwreck, ca. 1725, porcelain painted with cobalt blue under transparent glaze (Jingdezhen ware), Davis Museum, The Dorothy Johnston Towne (Class of 1923) Fund, 2007.67Digital Tour “Ships of Power, Objects of Desire: Artistic Exchange in Maritime Trade” | Davis Museum
With the guidance of Dr. Yuhua Ding, I conducted object-based research on thirteen objects in the Davis Museum collections. I connected seemingly disparate objects of various mediums and origins from vast trade routes to form a comprehensive digital tour on colonial powers, maritime trade, and cultural and artistic dialogue, titled “Ships of Power, Objects of Desire: Artistic Exchange in Maritime Trade.” Parts of the process allowed me to delve into the research of the movement of objects around the globe through Chinese Junk, and the influence of Chinese porcelain on changing local cultural iconography and cyclical artistic exchanges.
Available to view through this link