Impressions of Empire: Works on Paper as Agents of Intermedial Translation and Cultural Exchange.

Athena Art Foundation/Colnaghi Foundation, September 2025

To receive a link to attend the symposium on Zoom, please register on Eventbrite here
To attend in person, please email infoathenaartfoundation.org

Thursday 25th September - IN-PERSON AT COLNAGHI GALLERY, LONDON, AND ONLINE

12.30-13.00 Speakers & guests arrive
13.00 Welcome to attendees

First Session
13.15-13.35 Chloé Glass, Research Associate (Prints and Drawings), Art Institute of Chicago.
Decoding Stefano della Bella’s Etchings
13.35-13.40 Change of speakers
13.40-14.00 Eunice Yu, DPhil Candidate, University of Oxford. Collecting and Constructing National
Identity in Print: Translations of Empire from the Black Sea to the Adriatic
14.00-14.20 Discussion and questions
14:20-14.45 Coffee/tea Break

Second Session
14:45-15:05 Emily Cadger, PhD candidate, University of British Columbia and Adjunct Lecturer at
the University of Western Washington. Political Poppies and Beautiful Books: Illustrated floral-hybrids
as interpreters of Empire in the fin-de-siècle children’s books of Walter Crane
15:05-15:10 Change of speakers
15:10-15:30 Vivian Tong, Lecturer in Chinese Art History at the Hong Kong Baptist University. Images
of Nature in a Global Horticultural Expansion – Sketching a Story of Sino-European Commerce,
Cultural Exchange and Colonial Expansion with Chinese Export Watercolours in the 18th and 19th
Centuries
15:30-15:35 Change of speakers
15:35-15:55 ONLINE Joseph Litts, PhD Candidate in the department of Art & Archeology, Princeton
University. The Plantation Landscapes of Anna Atkins and Anne Dixon
15:55-16:15 Discussion and questions
16:15 16:30 Change of speakers and comfort break

Third Session
16:30-16:50 Linda Mueller, Post-doctoral Researcher at the University of Zurich. Drawing the
Contract: Visualizing Obligation in the Early Modern Mediterranean and Atlantic Worlds
16:50-16.55 Change of Speakers
16:55 – 17:15 ONLINE Gonzalo Munoz-Vera, Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech School of
Architecture. Rediscovering Latin America: Robert Burford’s Panorama of Lima (1834) through the
Eyes of Lieutenant William Smyth
17:15-17:35 Discussion and questions
17:35-17:45 Thank you, contingency
c.17:45 Drinks

Friday 26th September – ONLINE ONLY
11.00-11.10 Welcome to newcomers

First Session
11.10-11.30 Victoria Adams, PhD, the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau. The Art of the
Empire in the ‘Britain of the South’: Works on Paper in the British Art Section of the 1906–1907 New
Zealand International Exhibition
11.30-11.35 Change of speakers
11.35-11.55 Chandni Jeswani, Art and Architectural Historian, focusing on Sacred Spaces and
Cultural Memory. Mapping Kashi: Pilgrimage Cartographies and Colonial Translations on Paper
11.55-12.15 Discussion and questions
12.15-12.45 Break

Second Session
12.45-13.05 Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art, Hood
Museum of Art, Dartmouth. Collecting Portraits to Control Land in 18th-Century British North America
13.05-13.10 Change of speakers
13.10-13.30 Catherine Dossin, Associate Professor of Art History, Purdue University. Harbors of
Power: Maritime Identity and Colonial Ambition in 18th-Century French Prints
13.30-13.50 Discussion and questions
14:00-14:30 Break

Third Session
14:30-14:50 Annemarie Iker, Lecturer in Writing at Princeton University. Cuba and Catalan
Modernisme
14:50-14:55 Change of speakers
14:55-15:15 Ashar (Usher) Mobeen, PhD Candidate, Western University. Palimpsests of the Heavens:
Empire, Epistemicide, and the Papered Sky
c.15.15 Thank you, end of symposium.