(In)Visible Faces: The Politics of Portraiture and Social Change, 1700—the Present

The 2025-2026 Ray Smith Symposium features a 2-day hybrid conference that focuses on portraiture, the British empire, and the visual legacies of imperial portraiture in our current times. Building on a recently discovered 18th-century portrait of a Mrs. Seaforth painted by acclaimed artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the symposium will analyze portraiture, textile trade, and the East India Company on the first day, before shifting to print culture, photography, media, and social justice on the second day. Bringing together art historians, historians, curators, art and textile conservators, and communication scholars, the symposium will feature keynote lectures by acclaimed art historian Tim Barringer (Yale University) and renowned social psychologist Nilanjana (Buju) Dasgupta (University of Massachusetts Amherst).

Photo: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Tuccia: The Vestal Virgin, 1786, oil on panel, gift of Theodore Newhouse, Syracuse University Art Museum, 1968.329.

Schedule:

Day 1: Thursday, March 26 | 11:30am – 6:30pm

Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, Bird Library 114

Zoom webinar link: https://syracuseuniversity.zoom.us/j/95971910776

11.30am – Welcome Remarks

11:45am - 12:35pm

• Robert Travers, Cornell University

The Return of the Nabob: Richard Barwell and Warren Hastings in 1780s Britain

• Melinda Watt, The Art Institute of Chicago

The Lore and Allure of Woven Air

• Respondent/Moderator | Radha Kumar (History)

12:35pm - 1:20pm

• Debarati Sarkar, CUNY Graduate Center

“My Black Servant Juba”: Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Earliest South Asian Ayah Portrait in Eighteenth-Century Britain 

• Jennifer Germann, Independent Scholar and Affiliated Scholar, Institute for European Studies, Cornell University

Dressing up Dido: Constructions of Gender, Race, and Social Rank in the Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray

• Respondent/Moderator | Irina Savinetskaya (Special Collections Research Center)

1:30pm - 2:30pm – Lunch Break

2:40pm - 3:30pm

• Amelia Rauser, Franklin and Marshall College

Veritable Athenians: How Artistic Dress Became Neoclassical Fashion

• Joanna Marschner, Historic Royal Palaces

Muslin in Western Fashion in the Later Eighteenth Century. Lady Rockingham’s Muslin Sack-Back Dress c.1775: a Case-Study

• Respondent/Moderator | Jeffrey Mayer (Fashion Design)

3:30pm - 4:20pm

• Raphael Shea, Westlake Art Conservation Center

A Considered Approach to the Conservation Treatment of Reynolds’s Tuccia, The Vestal Virgin

• Kirsten Schoonmaker, Syracuse University

Muslin, Magnified: Material Evidence in Local Collections

• Respondent/Moderator | Kate Holohan (Syracuse University Art Museum)

4:20pm - 5:00pm – Tea, Coffee Break

5:00pm - 6:30pm

• A Suitable Ornament: Reynolds, the Royal Academy and the British Empire

Keynote Lecture: Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University

• Respondent/Moderator | Junko Takeda (History)

Day 2: Friday, March 27 | 10:00am – 4:30pm

Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, Bird Library 114

Zoom webinar link: https://syracuseuniversity.zoom.us/j/94795854797

10:00am – Welcome Remarks

10.10am - 11:00am (virtual)

• Adam Eaker, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two New Indian Portraits for the Met

• Alice Insley, Tate Britain
  The East India Company at Tate Britain

To be announced

• Respondent/Moderator | Durba Ghosh (History, Cornell University)

11:00am - 11:50am

• Melissa Yuen, Syracuse University Art Museum

“And every body may know her”: The Display and Circulation of Mrs. Seaforth’s Image as Tuccia, the Vestal Virgin

• Elizabeth Mitchell, McNay Art Museum

Anatomy of an Exhibition: From Reynolds to Warhol and Back Again

• Respondent/Moderator | Romita Ray (Art and Music Histories)

11:50am - 12:50pm – Lunch Break

2:15pm - 3:30pm

• How “Wallpaper” Creates Inequality: A Science-Driven Approach to Change It

Keynote Lecture: Nilanjana (Buju) Dasgupta, Provost Professor and Inaugural Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Respondent/Moderator | Srividya “Srivi” Ramasubramanian (Communications)

3:30pm - 3:35pm – Closing Remarks

3:35pm - 4:30pm – Tea, Coffee, Conversation

Cosponsored by Art and Music Histories. Chemistry. CODE^SHIFT. English. Goldring Arts, Style and Culture Journalism. History. Lender Center for Social Justice. Light Work. Global Premodern Studies. Ray Smith Symposium. South Asia Center. Syracuse University Art Museum. Syracuse University Humanities Center. Syracuse University Libraries. The Alexia at Newhouse. Women’s and Gender Studies. Psychology. The Rubin Family Foundation.