Virginia Girard

Virginia is a Ph.D. candidate focusing on the art and environment of early modern Europe. Her dissertation recovers localized myths and folklore associated with the climate and geology of late medieval Flanders to consider their influence on the development of the landscape genre. Virginia’s other research interests include sixteenth-century printmaking and the history of science, 1400-1700. She has presented her research at the International Conference for Netherlandic Studies, the Renaissance Society of America Conference, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the IFA-Frick Symposium.

Prior to starting the Ph.D. program, Virginia completed her M.A. with distinction at the Courtauld Institute of Art and her B.A. (summa cum laude) at Cornell University. She has held positions at the Courtauld Institute’s Witt and Conway Library, Pace Gallery, and the Anderson Collection at Stanford University. Virginia was named a Riggio Fellow in Art History by Columbia University (2021-22), and her research has been supported by the American Association for Netherlandic Studies and the Kress Foundation.

Virginia is a 2023-24 Theodore Rousseau Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and will be a Visiting Fellow at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Belgium while based in Brussels.

Conference Talks:

“Finding New Meaning in Early Netherlandish Landscapes.” Interdisciplinary​ ​Conference​ ​for​ ​Netherlandic Studies, June 10, 2023.

“To Open a Mountain: Constructing the Priory of Montagne Sainte-Victoire.” Renaissance Society of America Conference, San Juan, PR, March 9, 2023.

“Reimagining the Post-Reformation Landscape through Drawing.” Symposium on Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Drawing, Cleveland Museum of Art, November 4, 2022.

“Toward a Cultural Anthropology of Early Netherlandish Painting.” IFA-Frick Symposium, New York, April 8, 2022.