Dr Catriona Murray
Sabbatical Fellow November 2019 - January 2020
Home Institution: The University of Edinburgh
Catriona Murray is a historian of early modern British visual and material culture. Her research focuses on the intersections of art and propaganda during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In particular, she is interested in the exchanges between ruler and subject, exploring how images of authority were promoted and received. Her first book, Imaging Stuart Family Politics: Dynastic Crisis and Continuity, was awarded the 2017 Royal Studies Journal Book Prize.
During her fellowship at IASH, Catriona will be working on a new book project, Figuring Stuart Monarchy: Monumental Sculpture and the Royal Image, 1603-1819, which considers the Stuarts’ involved relationship with the monumental image, analysing how sculpture served to mediate royal authority, public loyalty and political opposition. Exploring long-standing issues surrounding the representation and reception of public sculpture at a crucial artistic and political juncture, this project aims to revise the narrative of early modern British art, placing sculpture firmly at its centre.