Dr David Howarth

History of Art: School of Arts, Culture and Environment (ACE)
The University of Edinburgh
20 Chambers Street
EH1 1JZ
Scotland
United Kingdom

Fax: +44 (0) 131 650 8019

David Howarth is the Head of History of Art. He has established an international reputation for his studies of patronage, collecting and taste in Europe in the early modern period.

His first book was a study of the pioneer collector in England, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel (1585-1646): Lord Arundel and his Circle (Yale, 1985); published in conjunction with a major exhibition on Arundel held at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford which Howarth co-curated with Nicholas Penny: Thomas Howard Patron and Collector. Howarth's Images of Rule (London and Berkeley, 1997), provided an overview of the relationship of art and politics in early modern Britain and it has become established as a standard work on the cultural history of Renaissance Britain. Short-listed for the Longmans History Prize and the History Today Prize, it was recognised in the TLS for its formidable distinction 'in its aim of providing a survey of recent writing on visual culture in Tudor and Stuart England.'



Prior to that Howarth edited a series of essays to mark the seventieth birthday of the pre-eminent art historian of Stuart England, Sir Oliver Millar, Surveyor Emeritus of The Queen's Pictures: the essays were published as Art and Patronage in Caroline England (Cambridge,1993). The collection included contributions from Hugh Trevor-Roper and Michael Jaffé. The presentation of unpublished documents on Van Dyck discovered in March 1999, allowed Howarth to make a significant contribution to the academic conferences held in Antwerp and London in connection with the 1999 exhibition held in those two cities: Antony Van Dyck 1599-1641. Since then he continues to publish important new material on Van Dyck and Rubens.

In 1999 Howarth organised a major international conference in Edinburgh to coincide with the 350th anniversary of the execution of Charles 1. The conference, entitled, 'Charles 1: King and Martyr' was held at the opening of The Royal Collection exhibition at Holyrood Palace, The King's Head. This was organised jointly with the Royal Collection.

A Leverhulme Research fellowship 1999-2000 opened up a new area of research: the discovery of Spanish culture from 1770-1900 with special reference to the growing awareness and appreciation of Golden Age painting both in Spain and in Great Britain. He has published a major article on Sir William Stirling Maxwell, the first historian of Spanish art who anticipated Justi in making the work of Velazquez accessible to a gallery - going public. His fothcoming book on The Invention of Spain, (Manchester, 2006), will 'give a significant new lead to scholars who are interested in analysing the response of British writers, collectors and artists to Spain and Spanish culture' (Nigel Glendinning, author of Goya and his critics).

He would welcome enquiries from those interested in working at graduate level either in the field of cultural studies in early modern Britain or on the discovery of Spain in the nineteenth century.

Selected Publications

Howarth, David. 2005. Rubens and Philip IV: A Reappraisal. Sponsors of the Past: Flemish Art and Patronage 1550-170047-61.

Howarth, David. 2006. The Invention of Spain: Anglo-Spanish Cultural Relations, 1770-1870. Manchester University Press.

Howarth, David. 2006. Spain and the Victorians. Spain and the Victorians: Proceedings of Louvain Conference on 'Art and patronage in 17th Century Flanders'.

Howarth, David. 2006. Charles I's Spaniel? Anthony van Dyck at the English Court. Munuscula amicorum: Contributions on Rubens and his Colleagues in Honour of Hans Vlieghe363-379.

Howarth, David. 2006. A Question of Attribution: Art Agents and the shaping of the Arundel Collection. Your Humble Servant: Agents in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800

Images of Rule, Macmillan and the University of California Press, 1997, 323 pp

The Countess of Arundel as a Patroness and Collector, in Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 10, no 2, 1998, pp 125-137

Mr Morrilt's Venus: Richard Ford, Sir William Stirling and the 'Cosas de Espana', in Apollo, vol.150, no 451, 1999, pp 37-44

Bernini and Britain, in Effigies and Ecstasies: Roman Baroque Design in the Age of Bernini (ed. A. Weston-Lewis) National Gallery of Scotland, 1998, pp 29-37'v

'Van Dyck, Marie de Medicis and a proposed visit to Madrid in 1634', pp175-195 in Société de cour et cortisans dans l'Europe de l'époque modern (XV-XVIII siécle), Pans and Marburg

The Entry Books of Sir Balthazar Gerbier: Van Dyck, Charles I and the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand', in Van Dyck 1599-1999 Conjectures and Reputations, Proceedings of the 1999 quartercentenary Van Dyck Conference, Antwerp