Catriona Wilson, Collaborative art history researcher

Memberships (professional bodies)

Victoria’s Self-Fashioning Network
Women’s Studies Group: 1558-1837
British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
North American Victorian Studies Association
(Re)Gendering Sculpture Research Network

Career summary

As of 2022, I am working to complete my PhD in Art History with Historic Royal Palaces and the University of Warwick as part of the AHRC-funded Victoria’s Self-Fashioning network project, for which I work on Queen Victoria’s ageing.
Prior to this, I obtained my MA in Eighteenth Century Studies collaboratively with King’s College, London and the British Museum. My interdisciplinary thesis looked at glass in eighteenth-century literature & literary/narrative paintings and prints depicting Pamela (such as Richardson’s novel, Highmore’s painting series, and various satirical prints). Before that, I studied English at Somerville College, Oxford.

Prior to my PhD, I have worked in the Natural History Museum & volunteered with the British Museum’s Prints & Drawings department.

Areas of interest / research

My thesis is on Queen Victoria’s ageing in authorised portraiture 1861-1901.
More broadly, my research interests specific to portraiture approximately span the period 1700-1920 and include:

• royal, court and state portraiture
• widowhood
• early photography
• ageing
• disability, impairment, and disability aids
• politician portraits
• children and childhood
• queer/LGBTQ+ references, histories, and identities
• Scottish identity, culture, and artists
• narrativity & biography in portraits