The history of the Gorham Manufacturing Company is intertwined with that of Providence and Rhode Island. This uniquely local story has provided the opportunity for the RISD Museum to learn from the experiences of community members who have intersected with Gorham's legacy.
This seven-foot-tall Christ would have been suspended above an altar or screen, the juxtaposition of his damaged body and calm, downward gaze reminding those below him of both his humanity and his divinity.
A colossal Romanesque head in the RISD collection has yet to be securely identified, but the sheen of his nose suggests that it was rubbed by many penitent hands during the course of this sculpture’s life.
This late fifteenth-century Virgin and Child was created with subtlety, flexibility, and portability in mind. These features were central to its medieval use—and its use at the RISD Museum.
Devotional representations of Saint Barbara, a Christian martyr whose legend extended across both Western and Eastern medieval worlds, flourished in fourteenth-century Europe. An examination of the Providence Saint Barbara reveals a sculptural tradition with a complex and colorful practices of medieval devotion to the cult of saints.
During the Fall of 2015, Sheila Bonde’s graduate students in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University undertook an investigation of the wood sculptures in the RISD Museum collections. This multi-author paper includes some of their findings.
The American and European jewelry collection at the RISD Museum, part of the Decorative Arts and Design Department, is made up of more than 800 works, including necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and rings from the medieval period to present day.
A student in a RISD course on pan-African aesthetics, inspired by a photograph in the collection, explores Black youth occupying space in movements from La Sape to Noirwave.
RISD student Tito Crichton-Stuart analyzes Robert Mapplethorpe’s exoticisation of the black body and proposes potential acquisitions that could serve as counterpoints in the collection
Unfinished paintings by Eastman Johnson, John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt reveal new techniques that emerged in France in the second half of the 19th century.
A rare female artist, Diana Mantuana's engraving of Atilius Regulus in a Barrel plays an important role in the history of the practice of printmaking and its reception in Renaissance Italy.