A student in a RISD course on pan-African aesthetics, inspired by a photograph in the collection, envisions future possibilities of Black hairstyling.

RISD Museum’s important Greek inscription dates to the period when Rome dominated the Eastern Mediterranean.

Why is an Etruscan situla, or pail, one of the most important objects in RISD's ancient collection? We examine its form, decoration, and context to understand its unique place in European archaeology.

A glimpse into the lives of international merchants in Canton, China.

A summer intern peeks into the Museum’s hidden corners and examines its architectural quirks.

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.

This article explores the concept of purity in criticisms of Inuit prints by briefly introducing the history of printmaking in Cape Dorset and looking at 1970s Western art historians' expectations of Inuit art.

Five works on paper in the RISD Museum’s collection follow the arc of Charles Burchfield’s career, introducing and reprising themes that reveal his desire for artistic unity with nature.

Childe Hassam, a successful young book and magazine illustrator, made his first trip abroad in 1883, disembarking in Great Britain then making a wide sweep through France, Holland, Switzerlan

Curatorial intern Anthony Stott explores the journey of the myths of Ovid—from text to visual medium—in three objects in the neoclassical galleries.

This rare example of Gorham's "Mythologique" flatware service was purposefully left unfinished as they are samples, combining elaborate hand-worked detail with mechanized brute force.

In 1969, artist Andy Warhol was invited to curate an exhibition at the RISD Museum using works from the permanent collection that were not on view, but in storage.

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.

This article argues that Simon the Pharisee would have been viewed as an explicitly Jewish character by sixteenth-century viewers.

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. 

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.

Egungun costumes are usually created from a wide variety of carefully chosen fabrics ranging from exquisite samples of local handwoven aso ofi to exotic fabrics imported from aro

For Yorùbá-speaking peoples in West Africa, cloth is equated with their most precious possession, children.

John Steuart Curry's images of the circus provide us with an insider's look at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1930s.

Understanding historic frames and how to care for them can be a complicated matter.

This past summer, with a focus on design thinking, the students were asked What is useful? as a starting point for their group design.