A jade lithophone from 18th-century China offers insight to the significant role of ritual music in ancient China—as an essential part of state rite to assert the legitimacy of reign.

The woman in Frank W. Benson's Lady Trying on a Hat has always been a character who caught my eye during visits to the Museum. From her averted gaze to the contrast between her white dress and the black hat, she is poised to play the lead role on the stage that Benson created.

Over the last 2,000 years, Nesmin has been a priest, a mummy, and a museum exhibit. RISD Museum intern Jonathan Migliori discusses Nesmin's influence in his life.

A summer intern creates an article of clothing inspired by the meticulous logistics of collections care.

A summer intern explores the context of ceremonial objects significant to RISD’s past and present.

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.

“Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.”
—Paul Valéry

RISD Museum intern Alicia Valencia (RISD 2015, Furniture) explains how the act of looking closely formed her impressions on Samuel Gragg's Elastic armchair.

In the Middle Ages, several saints were represented as knights in art, making it difficult to identify RISD’s Crusading Saint. This article will explore his possible identities.

Robert Emlen, curator at Brown University, and furniture designer, Timothy Philbrick examine the craftsmanship, features, and significance of the Goddard/Townsend desk and bookcase.

Agrippina the Younger watches as men of the emperor move nearer and nearer to her. They carry weapons. Having survived one attempt on her life, she knows that she will not survive another.

Exploring the process and context behind "Geku", a work created by Pawtucket artist Brian Shure.

Curator Maureen C. O'Brien discusses American drawings and watercolors in the RISD Museum collection

Insights into Ingres's studio practice and clues to his intellectual process

A summer intern reflects on diversity in the museum's Western European galleries and suggesting curatorial strategies for greater visibility

William Stanley Haseltine first studied painting in Philadelphia with the German expatriate Paul Weber, who encouraged him to continue his training in Düsseldorf.Haseltine attended the Univer

A summer intern meditates on the medium of murals and how they appear on RISD’s walls, using Photoshop to understand what is lost when seeing incomplete works out of context.

The Museum recently acquired *Huevos de Los Angeles*, a collaborative work by two RISD alumni, Adam Silverman and David Wiseman. Here the artists describe how they created "eggs" to rival the most coveted variety.

Over the course of his artistic life, Marsden Hartley sought unmediated

A summer intern’s reinterpretation of a 1600s still life painting as lived ritual and faith in the present

A summer intern describes her experience delving into the RISD Museum's databases, searching for human elements

In the January 1920 Bulletin of the Rhode Island School of Design, RISD Museum director L.

Additional resources for the Process Work exhibition

A wooden “do not touch” partition usually separates the period room in Pendleton House from the public. But one Monday in June, that partition was removed, and museum staff peopled the room.