Work in Progress Seminar

On 19 January 2016 Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly and Ewa Kociszewska (Oxford) gave a lunchtime ‘Work in Progress’ seminar to curators and research staff at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The title was: Queens Consort, Cultural Transfer and the Potency of Objects.

Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly outlined the project’s research questions which ask in what way the consort – almost always a foreigner at her marital court – could act as either an agent, an instrument or a catalyst of cultural transfer and what role objects played in her self-presentation and self-understanding.

Ewa Kociszewska spoke about her work on Marie-Louise de Gonzague de Nevers, Queen of Poland (1611-67) and presented her as an example of a cultural encounter between east and west.

Dr Joanna Marschner from Kensington Palace, which like the V&A is one of the project’s official partners, took part in the lively discussion.