Dr. phil. Eckart Marchand
Academic Assistant
Eckart Marchand studied History of Art, with subsidiary subjects Classical Archaeology and Eclesiastical History, at the Universities of Berlin, Bonn, and Basel. He completed both his master degree (lic. phil.) and doctorate at Basel University. He was an occasional student at the Warburg Institute (1993-1998), part-time lecturer in History of Art at UCL (1998-99, 2001-03), Director of the UCL History of Art Summer School (2002-2003) and Lecturer in Italian Renaissance Art at the University of Reading (2003-2007). Since 2008 he has been working in the Warburg Institute Archive, and is presently collaborating on the edition of Aby Warburg's collected writings.
Dr Marchand's doctorate studied the representation of gestures in fifteenth-century images of saints, famous men and portrait figures, engaging with issues such as patronage, the status of the artist, requirements of devotional practices, and patterns of pictorial composition [published as "Gebärden in der Florentiner Malerei: Studien zur Charakterisierung von Heiligen, Uomini Famosi und Zeitgenossen im Quattrocento" in 2004].
He is presently working on a book project (scheduled for 2013), studying the functions and status of plaster casts in artists' studios c. 1400-1800. In the context of this research he has organized a series of conferences on plaster casts in collaboration with other scholars (Reading 2005 / Oxford 2007 [proceeds published, see publications] / Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2010). He is also interested in materiality studies and presently preparing an article on the material associations of wax, plaster and clay in Renaissance Italy.
Dr Marchand has also collaborated on a critical edition of journals and sketchbooks by the English sculptor John Flaxman from his tour to Italy (1787-1794). This has been published in the Walpole Society in 2010.
Publications