Doctoral Placement

Main Purpose:
As best exemplified by the V&A’s own Cast Courts and cast production, in the nineteenth century, new technologies for reproduction such as plaster casting, electrotyping and photography began to play an important role in the institutional development of art history, archaeology and conservation, and the development of networks between European private and public collections. Due to their comparatively small size and portability, Fictile Ivories - plaster casts of medieval and Baroque ivory carvings - played a particularly important role in this story about networks, exchanges, and learning.
- Object-focused research: provenance of fictile ivory collection
- Collections Management: online cataloguing system, object handling, documentation - Public engagement: writing/presenting for different audiences (e.g. cataloguing, blogging, work-inprogress sessions)

Potential applicants should be aware that there this role will require certain physical capacities to access the collections in question.

Possible outputs of the placement

Enhanced catalogue records for a portion of the fictile ivory collection
- Re-organisation of storage of the fictile ivory collection - Webpage on fictile ivory collection, co-authored with SCP team, to sit within the Sculpture pages on the V&A website
- Depending on the interests of the student, a possible WIP or article on an aspect of the fictile collection i.e. history of collecting, Medieval 19th C revival, or fictile ivories as a reproductive technique
- A study session with external research partners

Closing date: 17 July 2023