Virginia Girard

Virginia is a Ph.D. candidate focusing on the art and environment of early modern Europe. Her dissertation recovers localized myths and legends associated with the climate and geology of late medieval Flanders to consider their influence on the emergence of the landscape genre. Her broader research interests include sixteenth-century printmaking and the history of science, 1400-1700. 

Virginia’s research has received support from the National Committee for Art History, the American Association for Netherlandic Studies, the Kress Foundation, and the King Baudouin Foundation. She has presented her research at conferences of the Renaissance Society of America and the Arbeitskreis Niederländische Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte, and at institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Frick Collection. 

Virginia furthered her dissertation research as a Theodore Rousseau Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2023-24), and is currently a Samuel H. Kress Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (2024-26). Before pursuing her Ph.D., Virginia completed her M.A. with distinction at the Courtauld Institute of Art and her B.A. (summa cum laude) at Cornell University.