Archival Program Information
For current Research Institute events, please see The Getty Event Calendar

Conference Schedule


Friday and Saturday, May 10–11, 2013
9:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
Museum Lecture Hall, The Getty Center



Friday, May 10, 2013




8:30 a.m. Coffee and Pastries

9:30-11:15 a.m. Welcome, Introductory Remarks, and Session 1



9:30 a.m. Welcome
Andrew Perchuk, Deputy Director, Getty Research Institute
Peter Mancall, Director, USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute

Introductory Remarks
Daniela Bleichmar, Associate Professor of Art History and History, University of Southern California
Meredith Martin, Assistant Professor of Art, Wellesley College

9:45–11:15 a.m. Session 1

Moderator: Joanne Pillsbury, Associate Director, Getty Research Institute

"The Itinerant Lives of Mexican Codices"
Daniela Bleichmar, Associate Professor of Art History and History, University of Southern California

"Trading in the Senses: Exotica On and Off the Early Modern Dutch Marketplace"
Claudia Swan, Associate Professor of Art History, Northwestern University


11:15–11:30 a.m. Coffee Break

11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. Session 2



Moderator: Alka Patel, Associate Professor of Art History, University of California, Irvine

"Diana Transformed: The Case of the Diana Automaton"
Jessica Keating, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Southern California

"Translating, Transporting, and Transforming Mughal History: An Illustrated French Translation of the 'Ain-i Akbari"
Chanchal Dadlani, Assistant Professor of Art History, Wake Forest University


1:00–2:00 p.m. Lunch

2:00–3:00 p.m. Breakout Sessions
Lacquer Without Borders
Led by Arlen Heginbotham, Conservator, J. Paul Getty Museum

This tour through the Museum galleries focuses on examples of Chinese and Japanese lacquer that have been incorporated into French decorative arts and addresses the worldwide exchange of aesthetics, raw materials, and finished goods associated with the lacquer trade.

VOILA—How Science Can Help Establish a Community of Asian Lacquer Researchers
Led by Michael Schilling, Senior Scientist, Getty Conservation Institute

Ever wondered why scientists study cultural heritage? This tour of the Organic Materials Laboratory at the Getty Conservation Institute illustrates the role of science in uncovering the mysteries of Asian lacquer, the topic of a recent workshop for conservators and scientists hosted by the Institute.

Looking East: Rubens's Encounter with Asia
Led by Stephanie Schrader, Curator, J. Paul Getty Museum

This exhibition tells an intriguing story about early trade between Europe and Asia, the trafficking of Asian slaves, a shipwreck, the role of Jesuit missionaries in the East, and an unusual hat. Featuring a masterpiece from the Getty collection, Man in Korean Costume, the exhibition includes important scholarship that illuminates unexplored facets of Peter Paul Rubens's much-celebrated career.

An Evolving Understanding of the Object via Art History and Science: La Roldana's San Ginés
Led by Maite Alvarez, Project Specialist, and Jane Bassett and Brian Considine, Conservators, J. Paul Getty Museum

In the early modern period, materials such as pigments, woods, and dyes traveled across the globe. Scientific advances have enabled these global materials to be more clearly identified; in fact, material identification has became such a part of art history that larger questions are often missed: How do we come to the conclusions we come to? How do we bring out true knowledge rather than conjecture? What are the implications and what is at stake? This session examines Spanish artist La Roldana's polychrome wood sculpture San Ginés and her use of New World materials like cochineal, indigo, and cedar. An interdisciplinary team of scholars arrived at a new understanding of this work through the combined application of art history and science.

From Military Campaigns to Museum Collections
Led by Louis Marchesano, Curator, and Peter Bonfitto, Senior Project Management Coordinator, Getty Research Institute

Napoleon's military expedition in Egypt was a monumental failure, but it provided both the French and the English an opportunity to seize the country's riches. This session presents a variety of publications related to the military campaign, including the multivolume Description de l'Égypte (1809–28), auction catalogs, and museum publications.

Imperial Impressions: Chinese Engravings and French Models
Led by Marcia Reed, Chief Curator, Getty Research Institute

Rare prints from the Getty Research Institute's collections demonstrate the evolution of China's cultural exchange with Europe during the Qing Dynasty.

Facing East: The Western View of Islam in Early Modern Europe
Led by David Brafman, Curator, Getty Research Institute

The Getty Research Institute's rare books and manuscripts from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment display the evolving knowledge of Islamic art and culture in early modern Europe.

Untold Stories: Collecting and Transforming Medieval Manuscripts
Led by Elizabeth Morrison, Curator, J. Paul Getty Museum

For hundreds of years, manuscripts have been bought and sold, hidden and displayed, preserved and rearranged, loved and forgotten, cut into pieces, hung on the wall, and glued into albums. Drawn from the Getty Museum's permanent collection and featuring several outside loans, this exhibition reveals how manuscripts have been refashioned both conceptually and physically and explores the long and eventful history of these books before their arrival at the Museum.

3:15–4:45 p.m. Session 3



Moderator: Stephen Little, Curator and Head of the Chinese and Korean Art Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

"Mirror Reflections: Louis XIV, Phra Narai, and the Material Culture of Kingship"
Meredith Martin, Assistant Professor of Art, Wellesley College

"Coins for Candles: Asian Commodities and the Visual Culture of Spanish America"
Dana Leibsohn, Priscilla Paine Van der Poel Professor of Art, Smith College


4:45–5:30 p.m. Reception



Saturday, May 11, 2013




8:30 a.m. Coffee and Pastries

9:30–11:00 a.m. Session 4



Moderator: Charlene Villaseñor Black, Associate Professor of Art History, University of California, Los Angeles

"From the Rue Saint-Jacques to the Paraguayan Outback: The Itinerant lives of Rococo Decorative Prints in Eighteenth-Century South America"
Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Professor of Art History and Bader Chair in Southern Baroque, Queen's University, Ontario, Canada

"Monumentality in Motion: A Mughal Audience Tent in Late Eighteenth-Century Jodhpur"
Zirwat Chowdhury, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies, University of California, Los Angeles


11:00–11:15 a.m. Coffee Break

11:15 a.m.–12:45 p.m. Session 5



Moderator: Polly Roberts, Professor of World Arts and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles

"Porcelain Objects and Mercantile Aesthetics: Trading Culture in Coastal East Africa"
Sandy Prita Meier, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

"Chairs, Writing Tables, and Chests: On the Postures of Commercial Documentation in the Early Modern Indian Ocean"
Nancy Um, Associate Professor of Art History, SUNY–Binghamton


12:45–2:00 p.m. Lunch

2:00–3:30 p.m. Session 6



Moderator: Sean Roberts, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Southern California

"Classicizing the New: The Publication of the History of the New World (Tarih ül-Hind il garbi el-müsemma bi-Hadis-i nev)"
Avinoam Shalem, Professor of Art History, Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich

"Technology in Paradise"
Mary Sheriff, W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Art History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill


3:30–3:45 p.m. Coffee Break

3:45–5:15 p.m. Closing Roundtable Discussion



Daniela Bleichmar, Associate Professor of Art History and History, University of Southern California
Meredith Martin, Assistant Professor of Art, Wellesley College
Steven Nelson, Associate Professor of Art History, University of California, Los Angeles
Joanne Pillsbury, Associate Director, Getty Research Institute
Gerhard Wolf, Director, Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence


5:15 p.m. Closing Reception