Antony Eastmond

Antony Eastmond

Professor

Former affiliations
 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8353-6721

  • Strand, Somerset House

    WC2R 0RN London

    United Kingdom

1994 …2024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Overview

Antony Eastmond read history at Oxford and whilst there he became increasingly intrigued by the possibilities of using art and material culture to write history. This was confirmed when he came to The Courtauld to take an MA in Byzantine art, and then a PhD in the art of medieval Georgia in the Caucasus.

Key themes in Antony’s work centre on the use of art to manufacture, display and manipulate identities on a public stage, especially on the frontera between religions and cultures.

Antony has taught at The Courtauld since 1995, after nine years in the art history department at the University of Warwick where he was Head of Department in his last two years.

His research is divided between topics in Late Antique and Byzantine art and topics relating to the Caucasus (Georgia and Armenia), and relations between the Christian and Islamic cultures there.

He has just completed Tamta's World, a study of women and identity in eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus on teh eve of the Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century - a region known as the land where three worlds meet. He is now preparing a history of art in Georgia.

Research interests

  • Byzantine Art in all forms, but especially Byzantine ivories
  • Interchange between Christian and Islamic art in the medieval near east
  • Medieval Art in the Caucasus (Georgia and Armenia)
  • Art and identity in the middle ages
  • Centre and periphery

Teaching

  • BA History of Art Year 1: Classical and Byzantine
  • MA History of Art: Byzantium and its Rivals: Art, Display and Cultural Identity in the Christian and Islamic Mediterranean

PhD Students

Current

  • Bella Radenovic, Georgian icons
  • Marija Shipley, Helena 'of Anjou' and Serbia in the thirteenth century
  • Irakli Tezelashvili, Georgian patronage in the twelfth century

Recently completed

  • Lara Frentrop, ‘Middle Byzantine Metal Bowls with Exotic Imagery’
  • Maria Alessia Rossi, ‘The Golden Age of the Miracle Cycle: 1290 – 1340’
  • Emma Rogers, ‘Art and Architectural Decoration in Italy from the Tenth to the Thirteenth Century and its Relationship with Islamic and Byzantine Art and Culture’
  • Eleni Dimitriadou, ‘The Lunette Mosaic in the Southwest Vestibule of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople: A Reconsideration’ (2010)
  • Stefani Gerevini, ‘Objects, Treasuries, Cities: The Importation and Appropriation of Byzantine Artworks and Relics in Santa Maria della Scala in Siena and in San Marco in Venice in the Fourteenth Century’ (2010)
  • Anna Christidou, ‘Unknown Byzantine Art in the Balkan Area: Art, Power and Patronage in Twelfth to Fourteenth Century Churches in Albania’ (2010)
  • Jack Hartnell, ‘Towards an Anatomical Art History: Medieval Objects in the Shared Space Between Art and Medicine’ (2013) (with John Lowden)
  • Niamh Bhalla, ‘Social Histories of the Last Judgement in Byzantine Art’ (2014)
  • Maria Paschali, ‘Painting in Fourteenth-Century Famagusta’ (2014)

Current & Recent Exhibitions and Projects

  • Curator: Byzantium’s Lost Empire, exhibition for the Koç Foundation at the Research Centre for Anatolian Civilizations, Istanbul, June 2016

  • Curatorial committee of Byzantium 330-1453, Royal Academy of Arts, November 2008 

  • Co-curator The Road to Byzantium: Luxury Arts of Antiquity, exhibition in the Hermitage Rooms, Somerset House 30 March – 3 September 2006

Professional Affiliations

  • Member of the Governing Board of the Courtauld Institute, 2015 

  • Member of the Advisory Council, Warburg Institute, 2014-19 

  • Board member, management committee of the Marjory Wardrop Trust (University of Oxford), 2011-18 

  • Hon. Secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies 1996-2010 

  • Member of the Board of the Association International des Études Byzantines [AIEB], 2006-10 

  • London Committee of XXI International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London August 2006 

  • Board member of Friends of Academic Research in Georgia (2006-12)

Media

  • Article for World of Interiors magazine to advertise the exhibition Byzantium’s Other Empire (June 2016) 
  • Interview with the Economist over the conversion of the church-museum of Ayasofya in Trabzon into a mosque (subsequently cited in English-language papers in Turkey), 2013 
  • Interview with Rustavi 2 (Georgia, TV) about Oshki church in Turkey and archival materials about it held in the Conway Library at the Courtauld, 2011 
  • Interviews with CNN, Novonite.com (Bulgaria) and Pravda (Slovakia) about the discovery of relics of St John the Baptist at Sveti Ivan, Bulgaria. 2010 
  • Interviews for BBC Radio 4 on Byzantium (for series Byzantium by Bettany Hughes) 2009 
  • 'Christians and Muslims in Trebizond: The Decoration of the Church of Hagia Sophia', Byzantine Studies Conference. Abstracts 22 (1996), p. 66 
  • 'Church of St Hripsime, Armenia', in 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die, ed. M. Irving (London, 2008) 
  • 'The churches of medieval Georgia', in The Cambridge World History of Religious Architecture, ed. R.A. Etlin (Cambridge: CUP, 2016) 
  • 'Islamic Wallet', in The Courtauld Gallery Masterpieces (London: Scala, 2007), pp. 14-15 
  • 'Patronage and Collecting / Museums and Institutions', in MacMillan Dictionary of Art, ed. J. Turner (London, 1996), pp. 331-32

Grants

2015-16 

Getty Connecting Art Histories project 

2014 

AGLeventisFoundation: conference grant 

2012-14 

LeverhulmeMajor Research Fellowship 

2008-10 

AHRC Network grant:Beyond Text 

2006-7 

AHRC matching leave grant 

2006 

[various sources] conference to accompany Byzantium 300-1453 exhibition at the Royal Academy, London 

2003 

British Academy Visiting Professorship 

2002 

publication subventions:Russell Trust; M. Alwyn Cotton Foundation 

2001 

AHRB matching study leave grant 

2001 

British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara / Humanities Research Centre Warwick fieldwork grant 

2000 

[various sources] for conference in Tbilisi on desert monasticism [published 2001] 

1999 

[various sources] for conference at Warwick Eastern Approaches to Byzantium  

1995  

British Academy Exchange with the Georgian Academy of Sciences 

1997-2000 

INTAS grant: rescue survey of the monasteries in theGarejadesert, Georgia. This resulted in the publication of 3 monographs, 3 articles and an international conference (published in 2001). 

1994 

publication subvention from MarjoryWardropTrust, Oxford 

1989-92 

AHRB 3 year studentship 

1988-91 

various travel grants from Sotheby's, MarjoryWardropTrust, Oxford, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara 

Education/Academic qualification

Royal Imagery in the Medieval Kingdom of Georgia 786-1213, The Courtauld Institute of Art

1989 → 1992

The Courtauld Institute of Art

1987 → 1989

St Anne's College, Oxford

1984 → 1987

External positions

University of Warwick

2002 → 2004

University of Warwick

1995 → 2002

Courtauld Institute of Art

1993 → 1995

Leverhulme Study Abroad Scholarship

1992 → 1993

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