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.
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.
An eclectic mix of North African, Moorish, Middle Eastern, and Japanese aesthetics, this desk and table are the original creations of Italian designer Carlo Bugatti.
In the flood of digital-ness that comprises our daily experience, it can be easy to forget that most of what all of our complex devices are doing is simply counting. It's no coincidence that the word digital comes from digits, our fingers, that most elementary of counting machines.
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.
There's always more to be discovered: Hidden in plain sight since the 11th century, two inscriptions were found during conservation of the Museum's Dainichi Buddha.
While the sixth-floor galleries are undergoing an extensive renovation, the Museum is carefully studying and conducting conservation work on the monumental 12th-century wooden Dainichi Nyorai Buddha. When the Buddha is returned to its gallery in late spring 2014, it will be stabilized and we'll know much more about the art that went into creating this nearly 10-foot-tall sculpture.
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.
The discovery of these treasures resembles that of a valuable manuscript. They are a new “Codex Africanus,” not written on fragile papyrus, but in ivory and imperishable brass.
During the Fall of 2015, Brown’s graduate students in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture undertook an investigation of the wood sculptures in the RISD Museum collections.