Dr Elsje van Kessel
Senior Lecturer in Art History
Research areas
I am an art historian specialising in western European art in a global context during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. My work is driven by the question how people in the past gave meaning and attributed value to works of art and material culture at the time they were made and long afterwards. I have published extensively on art in Renaissance Italy, particularly Venice, and on the long history of display. My current research focuses on the circulation of art objects on the early modern oceans, and I teach various modules in relation to this work. I also have a strong research and teaching interest in portraiture.
My research has been widely published. My first monograph The Lives of Paintings: Presence, Agency and Likeness in Venetian Art of the Sixteenth Century (published by De Gruyter in the series Studien aus dem Warburg-Haus, 2017) was nominated for the Karel van Manderprijs, the prize for best publication of the Association of Netherlands Art Historians (VNK). This book examines how people in Titian’s Venice interacted with sacred and secular paintings in their daily lives. I am the editor, with Caroline van Eck and Joris van Gastel, of The Secret Lives of Art Works (Leiden University Press, 2014), and have published articles in leading journals including Art History, Viator, Journal of the History of Collections, and Renaissance Studies.
I am currently working on my second monograph, which focuses on the oceanic journeys of early modern art objects, especially those travelling within the Portuguese maritime empire. What happened to objects on board ships when they crossed the dangerous oceans, and how did their fates intersect with early modern empire-building, colonisation, and the extraction of resources? This project has received generous support through fellowships at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study and the Leverhulme Trust.
I received my PhD (cum laude) from Leiden University in 2011 and joined the School of Art History at St Andrews in 2012. Beyond St Andrews I am a member of the editorial board of ArtHist.net and sit on the Conference Committee of the UK’s Association for Art History. I have recently joined the board of the Iberian and Latin American Visual Culture Group ARTES. At St Andrews I coordinate the interdisciplinary network for material culture Talking Things.
I warmly encourage prospective PhD students to get in touch with innovative projects in the areas of Italian and Iberian art and material culture of the period 1500 to 1700.
PhD supervision
- Andrea Verganti
- Louis Edmanson
Selected publications
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Open access
Stone liquidities: On gems, bodies, and value in early modern shipwreck
van Kessel, E., 28 Nov 2023, In: Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 53, 2, p. 77-92Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Reflecting (on) Objects
van Kessel, E., 12 Dec 2023, In: Art History. 46, 4, p. 817-821Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review › peer-review
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Open access
The making of a hybrid body: Corpus Christi in Lisbon, 1582
van Kessel, E., 19 Aug 2020, In: Renaissance Studies. 34, 4, p. 572-592Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
The inventories of the Madre de Deus: tracing Asian material culture in early modern England
van Kessel, E., Jul 2020, In: Journal of the History of Collections . 32, 2, p. 207-223 17 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Emerging canon, contested histories: global art historians in conversation
van Kessel, E., Gusella, F. (Editor), Priyadarshini, M. (Editor), Marcaida Lopez, J. R., Babaie, S., Groundwater, A. & Murray, C., 29 Nov 2021, Edinburgh: The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities . 30 p. (Institute occasional papers; no. 23)Research output: Book/Report › Book
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Longing for the past: Eichendorff's Marmorbild, historical experience, and the sexuality of the masterpieces room
van Kessel, E. J. M., 16 Jan 2019, Sculpture, sexuality and history: encounters in literature, culture and the arts from the eighteenth century to the present. Funke, J. & Grove, J. (eds.). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 57-79 23 p. (Genders and sexualities in history).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
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The lives of paintings: presence, agency and likeness in Venetian art of the sixteenth century
van Kessel, E., 24 Apr 2017, Berlin: de Gruyter. 347 p. (Studien aus dem Warburg-Haus; vol. 18)Research output: Book/Report › Book
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The secret lives of art works: exploring the boundaries between art and life
van Eck, C. (Editor), van Gastel, J. (Editor) & van Kessel, E. (Editor), Jan 2014, Leiden: Leiden University Press. 411 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
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How to Make an Image Work? The Presentation of the Miraculous Christ Carrying the Cross at San Rocco in Venice
van Kessel, E., 2012, In: Studiolo. 9, p. 12-25Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Staging Bianca Capello: Painting and Theatricality in Sixteenth-Century Venice
van Kessel, E., 2010, In: Art History. 33, 2, p. 278-291Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review