BRITISH PRINTED IMAGES TO 1700

Victoria & Albert Museum, Fri 12 – Sat 13 September 2008

Printed images were widely circulated in early modern Britain and they provide vivid and revealing evidence about many aspects of the culture of the period. Yet only recently have historians begun to give them proper attention, and this conference will be one of the first to draw out their significance. Themes will include the importance of printed images for the history of the Reformation and post-Civil War politics, the emergence of new genres like topographical engraving and mezzotint, and the place of prints in the developing consumer market.

Ancillary events include a session for ‘new researchers’ and an display of material from the National Art Library, and there will also be a presentation about the database of British Printed Images to 1700 which is currently being constructed with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)*. The database will make available in fully searchable form a comprehensive corpus of printed images from early modern Britain, mostly from the British Museum but including selected material from the V&A and other collections.

In association with Birkbeck College, University of London. Supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

£110 for 2 days, £55 for 1 day, concessions available
Booking available online at www.vam.ac.uk/tickets or call 020 7942 2211
* The partners are Birkbeck (University of London), the Centre for Computing in the Humanities (King’s College London), the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Programme
Friday 12 September
British Printed Images to 1700
International Conference

Auditorium, Sackler Centre

10.00 Registration

10.30 Antony Griffiths British Museum

The Print in Stuart Britain after Ten Years


10.50 Margaret Aston

Symbols of Conversion:

Proprieties of the Page in Reformation England


11.30 John King Ohio State

Word and Image in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs


12.10 Special display of books from the National Art

Library in the Print Room Education Study Room


13.00 Lunch

14.00 Gill Saunders V&A

‘Paper Tapistry’ and ‘Wooden Pictures’: Printed Decoration in the Domestic Interior before 1700


14.40 Ben Thomas Kent

Noble or Commercial?

The Early History of Mezzotint in Britain



15.20 Tea



16.00 Angela McShane V&A and Clare Backhouse Courtauld,

Top Knots and Lower Sorts: Print and Promiscuous

Consumption in the 1690s


17.00 New Researchers’ Session

David Davis Exeter

Divine Visions or Idolatrous Sights? Images of God

in Protestant prints 1558–1603

Adam Morton York

Living the Life of Antichrist: Representing the

Invisible Nemesis in Early Modern England

Rhian Wyn-Williams Liverpool

The Visual Language of Kingship, 1640–53

Stephen Brogan Birkbeck

The Sovereign Remedy: Images of the Royal Touch

in Restoration England

Rosemary Dixon Queen Mary

Portrait Engravings and the Material Book:

Representing Archbishop Tillotson in Text and Image


Saturday 13 September

International Conference Auditorium, Sackler Centre

10.00 Registration

10.30 Lori Anne Ferrell Claremont, Ca.

The Art in Techne: Diagrammatic Illustrations in Early Modern ‘How-to’ Books

11.10 Alex Walsham Exeter

“Like Fragments of a Shipwreck”:

Printed Images and Religious Antiquarianism in Early Modern England

11.50 Michael Hunter, Katherine Hunt, John Bradley

and Paul Vetch Birkbeck, CCH, and bpi 1700

Demonstration of database for the British Printed Images to 1700 website


12.30 Lunch


13.30 Malcolm Jones Sheffield

The Common Weales Canker Wormes


14.10 Kevin Sharpe Queen Mary

Images of Oliver Cromwell

14.50 Tea


15.20 Justin Champion Royal Holloway

Decoding the Leviathan: Doing the History

of Ideas Through Images 1651–1700

15.50 Round table discussion led by

Mark Knights Warwick, and others