Dr Catherine Whistler
Dr Catherine Whistler
Supernumerary Fellow in Art History
Research Interests
As a senior curator in the Ashmolean Museum, I am responsible for the collections of Italian and Spanish paintings and drawings and the European textiles collection. My work includes planning exhibitions, gallery displays and new acquisitions, and collaborating with colleagues in museums internationally. Usually I am involved in teaching History of Art students using the museum’s collections, but from 2007-2009 my time was fully given to the Ashmolean’s major transformation. My role mainly focused on the historic neo-classical building: I planned and managed a programme of improvements to the building and to the European art galleries. My research is closely linked to the Ashmolean’s important Italian collections, ranging from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Our recent acquisition of a painting by Titian which originally acted as a cover for a portrait of a noblewoman in the Vendramin collection in Venice has proved a fascinating topic for research. I am currently on sabbatical (until spring 2011) working mainly on the theme of the function and reception of drawing in Venice, c.1500-1800.
Publications
My recent publications include: Venetian Artists in England 1700-1750, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 2004. ‘Giandomenico Tiepolo 1791’, and catalogue entries no.97-101 and 104-116, in Tiepolo, Ironia e Comico, ed. Giuseppe Pavanello, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, 2004. ‘Drawing from the life in Venice from Titian to Tiepolo’, Master Drawings, 42, No.4, 2004, pp.370-96. Co-author, Illustrated Summary Catalogue of Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 2004 (approx. 325 entries on Italian, French and Spanish paintings). ‘L’aspetto mutevole della “Veduta di Dolo sul Brenta” di Oxford’, Arte Veneta, 60, 2003 [published 2005], pp.185-190. ‘Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’ in Francisco Calvo Serraller et al, Enciclopedia del Museo del Prado, Madrid 2006. Essay and catalogue entries in the exhibition catalogue, 40 years of Christ Church Picture Gallery, edited by Jacqueline Thalmann, Christ Church Picture Gallery, 2008. ‘Vedutismo veneziano e mecenati britannici nel ‘700’ in Canaletto, Venezia e i suoi splendori, exhibition catalogue ed. Alberto Craievich and Giuseppe Pavanello, Treviso, 2008, essay pp.44-55, and catalogue entries on Luca Carlevarijs, p.252, and Francesco Guardi, pp.283-84. ‘Titian’s Triumph of Love’, The Burlington Magazine, CLI, August 2009, with a technical appendix by Jill Dunkerton, pp.536-42. ‘Venezia e l’Inghilterra. Artisti, collezionisti e mercato dell’arte, 1700-1750’ in Il collezionismo d’arte a Venezia: Il Settecento, edited by Linda Borean and Stefania Mason, Venice 2009, pp.89-101. ‘Rosalba Carriera e il mondo brittanico’ in Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757) Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, edited by Giuseppe Pavanello, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice 2009, pp.181-206.
Other Information
EXHIBITIONS CURATED: "Opulence and Devotion: Brazilian Baroque Art", Ashmolean Museum 2001-2002, the first exhibition in Britain on this subject. One of a series of exhibitions on Brazilian art and culture in 2001-2002 including shows at the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and MOMA, Oxford. "Graceful and True: Drawing in Florence c.1600", with Julian Brooks, Ashmolean Museum, P&D Colnaghi, London, and Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham, 2003-2004. "Curious Works: English 17th-century Embroideries" with guest curator Mary Brooks, Ashmolean Museum 2004. "Leonardo and Oxford: Discovering the World of Leonardo in Oxford’s Collections". A series of exhibitions and educational activities in collaboration with the Museum of the History of Science, Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford Botanic Gardens and Magdalen College, including the exhibition “Imagining Leonardo” at the Ashmolean, 2006. This was part of the international Universal Leonardo project.
