Episode 3:
Connoisseurship and the work of naming
“The search has opened up a world, a sort of creative space for me, a social space, a political space, an economic space that allows me to almost think of the architecture where this portrait then becomes possible.”
In this episode
Erica Moiah James speaks with Oliver Wunsch, an expert in 18th century pastels and associate professor of art history at Boston College, about the history of pastel as a medium and the limits and potentialities of using connoisseurship as a tool to name the artist behind Portrait of a Young Woman. They investigate who the artist of the portrait might be through an attention to materials and technique and think about why these methods are important for naming the woman pictured in this portrait. Erica also discusses what is at stake in potentially naming the unknown woman and the use of nontraditional Caribbean archives as a way of opening up our understanding of the world that this woman was a part of.
TRANSCRIPT
Oliver Wunsch is associate professor of art history at Boston College. He is the author of A Delicate Matter: Art, Fragility, and Consumption in Eighteenth-Century France (Penn State University Press, 2024). His writing has appeared in publications such as the Art Bulletin, Art History, and the Burlington Magazine.
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