Edward Town

Career summary

Prior to joining the Making Art in Tudor Britain Project in 2011, I studied History of Art at the University of Nottingham before going on to a Master’s degree at the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 2010 I completed an AHRC sponsored collaborative PhD with the University of Sussex and the National Trust on the early-seventeenth century transformation of Knole House in Kent.

Areas of interest / research

My research focuses on the artistic, artisanal, and architectural practices of late-medieval and early-modern London.  I am particularly interested in the social and cultural make-up of London during this period, and have undertaken a large amount of research to reconstruct the working lives of a number of lesser known artists and artisans working in the city at this time. I also have a keen interest in material culture of the period and in particular, the household furnishings of citizens and court elites. As such, much of my research involves uncovering new information about decorative painting, decorative plasterwork, and carved woodwork and sculpture of the period.

Details of books/publications relating to your work on British portraiture

‘Whilst he had his perfect sight’ – New information on John de Critz the Elder’, The Burlington Magazine, CLIV, July 2012, pp. 482-486.

‘Display and Splendour – Knole, Kent’, Country Life, October 31, 2012, pp. 36-43.

With Catherine Daunt, ‘Sets and the City – Workshop Practice in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean London’, to be published alongside other papers from the Renaissance Workshop 2012 symposium held at the British Museum (forthcoming 2013).

‘To Knole and then To Penshurst – Networks of Patronage at two Jacobean Country Houses’ – to be published alongside other papers from the Intellectual Life of the Country House held at Sussex University (forthcoming 2013).