Prof Victoria Avery

Keeper European Sculpture & Decorative Arts

Victoria Avery has been Professor of European Sculpture, University of Cambridge, since 2024, and the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Keeper of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, since 2010, prior to which she was Associate Professor in the Department of Art History, University of Warwick.

Vicky has led the Museum’s Legacies-themed exhibition programme to date: she was Lead Curator of Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition (21 February–1 June 2025) and Co-Curator of Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance (8 September 2023–7 January 2024). She was Lead Editor of both accompanying exhibition catalogues: Black Atlantic and Rise Up. She has spearheaded new research into the presence of Black Georgians and Victorians in Cambridge, focussing on abolitionist Olaudah Equiano (aka Gustavus Vassa, The African) and his Cambridgeshire family. She is currently researching virtuoso violinist George Bridgtower (1778–1860) and his newly discovered links with Cambridge ‘town and gown’ from the mid-1790s until the mid-1810s, mediated through his friendship with Dr Charles Hague, Professor of Music at Cambridge, ahead of the 250th anniversary of Bridgtower’s birth.

Vicky’s primary field of expertise is European sculpture from 1400 to the present day, especially that produced in early modern Italy. She has researched, lectured and published widely on all aspects of Italian Renaissance sculpture. Her British Academy sponsored Vulcan’s Forge in Venus’s City: The Story of Bronze in Venice 1350–1650 (OUP, 2011), awarded the Premio Salimbeni in 2012, exemplifies her preferred archival and object-based methodologies. Her interdisciplinary Michelangelo Bronzes Research Project focussed on the authorship, patronage, making and meaning of the Rothschild bronzes, and resulted in Michelangelo: Sculptor in Bronze (PWP, 2018). Vicky’s current European sculptural research interests include: materials and materiality, making and commissioning processes, meanings and iconography, collecting and display, provenance and the sculpture art market.

Vicky also has broad knowledge of and interest in the decorative arts of early modern Europe, especially in terms of making, materiality, usage, collecting and display. She has curated numerous research-led interdisciplinary exhibitions, including Treasured Possessions (2015), Madonnas & Miracles (2017) and Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe (2019–2020). These have resulted in several conferences including the CRASSH-funded symposium, Power, Promise, Politics: The Pineapple from Columbus to Del Monte (2020), which has recently been expanded into a multi-author volume, The pineapple from domestication to commodification: Re-presenting a global fruit (Proceedings of the British Academy, 2025).

Vicky lectures and examines regularly for the Department of Art History and the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge as well as undertaking object-based undergrad and postgrad seminars for many other departments.

Publications

Monographs, Exhibition Catalogues and Edited Volumes:

2025 The Pineapple from Domestication to Commodification: Re-presenting a Global Fruit, Proceedings of the British Academy (London: The British Academy distributed by Liverpool University Press), ISBN 9781836245933 [272 pp.]: co-edited with Melissa Calaresu.

2025 Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition (London: Philip Wilson / Bloomsbury), ISBN 9781781301357 [208 pp.]: co-edited with Wanja Kimani.

2023 Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance (London: Philip Wilson / Bloomsbury), ISBN 9781781301234 [192 pp.]: co-edited with Jake Subryan Richards.

2019 Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500–1800 (London: Philip Wilson) [271 pp.]: co-edited with Melissa Calaresu.

2018 Michelangelo: Sculptor in Bronze (London: Philip Wilson) [352 pp.]

2015 Treasured Possessions from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (London: Philip Wilson) [290 pp.]: co-edited with Melissa Calaresu, Mary Laven and Ulinka Rublack.

2015 A Michelangelo Discovery: The Rothschild bronzes and the case for their proposed attribution (Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum) [83 pp.]: co-authored with Paul Joannides.

2011 Vulcan’s Forge in Venus’ City: The Story of Bronze in Venice, 1350–1650 (Oxford: British Academy with Oxford University Press) [496 pp.].

2008 L’Industria artistica del bronzo del Rinascimento a Venezia e nell’Italia settentrionale (Verona: Scripta) [479 pp.]: co-edited with Matteo Ceriana.

2002 Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (London: Gli Ori) [341 pp.].

Book Chapters/Exhibition Catalogue Essays:

2025 ‘The Strozzis’ Bronze Doorknocker’ in Barbara Strozzi in Context, eds Beth Glixon and Wendy Heller (London: Cambridge University Press), 304-12 [9 pp.]: co-authored with Beth Glixon.

2025 ‘The Multi-Faceted Global Pineapple: Motifs, Materialities, and Meanings’ in The Pineapple from Domestication to Commodification: Re-presenting a Global Fruit, Proceedings of the British Academy, eds Victoria Avery and Melissa Calaresu (London: The British Academy distributed by Liverpool University Press), 1-28 [28 pp.]: co-authored with Melissa Calaresu.

2025 ‘Olaudah Equiano and Cambridge’ in Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition, eds Victoria Avery and Wanja Kimani (London: Philip Wilson / Bloomsbury), 86-107 [22 pp.].

2025 ‘Introducing Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African’ in Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition, eds. Victoria Avery and Wanja Kimani (London: Philip Wilson / Bloomsbury), 20-29 [10 pp.].

2019 ‘The Bronzes of San Marco’ in La Basilica di Venezia. San Marco: Arte, Storia, Conservazione, ed. Ettore Vio, 3 vols (Venice: Marsilio Editori), vol. 2, 116-43 [27 pp.]: co-authored with Emma Jones.

2018 ‘Introduction’; ‘Young Michelangelo, bronze and the David for France’; ‘Michelangelo’s bronze Julius II for Bologna’ and ‘Mature Michelangelo and the mastery of metal’ in Michelangelo: Sculptor in Bronze, ed. Victoria Avery (London: Philip Wilson), 1-7; 22-47; 48-79 and 80-105 [88 pp.].

2017 ‘The Sculpture of Degas: Production and Reproduction’ in Degas: A Passion for Perfection, ed. Jane Munro (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), 184-201 [17 pp.].

2016 ‘Material Matters: Bronze and its (non)-employment in the monuments to Venice’s Doges (1475–1625)’ in The Tombs of the Doges of Venice from the Beginning of the Serenissima to 1907, ed. Benjamin Paul (Rome/Venice: Viella), 267-310 [43 pp.].

2015 ‘Alessandro Vittoria and the Art of Carving’ in Making and Moving Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, ed. Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio (Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate), 87-110 [23 pp.] (reprinted in paperback by Routledge, 2021).

2015 ‘“Belo et onorato per onor ancho suo”: Alessandro Vittoria’s Zane Altar Reconsidered’ in Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari: Devotional Spaces, Images of Piety, eds Carlo Corsato and Deborah Howard (Padua: Centro Studi Antoniani), 233-49 [16 pp.].

2013 ‘Campane, Cavedoni, Candelieri and Caramali: Giacomo Calderari (c.1562–1622), bell-maker and bronze-caster of Venice’ in Carvings, Casts and Collectors: The Art of Renaissance Sculpture, eds Peta Motture, Emma Jones and Dimitrios Zikos (London: V&A publishing; 2nd ed. 2014), 236-51 [pp. 15].

2013 ‘“Due incomparabili donzelle”: Catarina and Anna Castelli, Sister Bell-Makers in Eighteenth-Century Venice’ in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Joseph Connors, eds Machtelt Israëls and Louis A. Waldman, 2 vols (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore), vol. I, 654-70 [16 pp.]

2013 ‘La Cappella del Rosario’; ‘78. Profeti e Sibille’; ‘79. Vittorie e rilievi con cherubini’; ‘80. Episodi della vita della Vergine’; ‘83. San Domenico; Santa Giustina’; ‘84. Candelabri’, ‘96. Cancelli’ and ‘97. I ‘frammenti Correr’ in La Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Pantheon della Serenissima. Chiese Veneziane 1, ed. Giuseppe Pavanello (Venice: Marcianum Press), 284-5; 286-7; 288, 288-9; 291-2; 292-3; 325 and 325-6 [pp. 14].

2010 ‘“Ridotta à perfettione”: The Rebuilding of the Cappella di San Sabba in Sant’Antonin and Artistic Practice in late Cinquecento Venice’ in Chiesa di Sant’Antonin: storia e restauro, ed. Tiziana Favaro (Venice: Soprintendenza per i beni architettonici e paesaggistici di Venezia e laguna), 154-79 [25 pp.].

2008 ‘Dalle bocche da fuoco alla vere da pozzo: la produzione artistica dei fonditori d’artigliera di stato nella Venezia del Rinascimento’ in L’Industria artistica del bronzo del Rinascimento a Venezia e nell’Italia settentrionale, eds Victoria Avery and Matteo Ceriana (Verona: Scripta), 303-44 [41 pp.].

2008 ‘Virtue, Valour, Victory: The Making and Meaning of Bronze Equestrian Monuments (ca. 1440–ca. 1640)’ in Praemium Virtutis III: Reiterstandbilder von der Antike bis zum Klassizismus. Symbolische Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme, eds Joachim Poeschke, Thomas Weigel and Britta Kusch-Arnhold. Schriftenreihe des Sonderforschungsbereichs 496; vol. 22 (Münster: Rhema), 199-233 [34 pp.].

2007 ‘The Production, Display and Reception of Bronze Heads and Busts in Renaissance Venice and Padua: Surrogate Antiques’ in Kopf / Bild. Die Büste in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, eds Jeanette Kohl and Rebecca Müller (Münich and Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag), pp. 75-112 [37 pp.].

2007 ‘Alessandro Vittoria’s Socles: Shaping and Naming’ in Display and Displacement: Sculpture and the Pedestal from Renaissance to Post-Modern, ed. Alexandra Gerstein (London: Paul Holberton), 16-32 [16 pp.].

2005 ‘“Giovene di spirito et d’ingegno”: New Light on the Life and Work of the Venetian Renaissance Bronze Caster Marcantonio di Niccolò di Conti (1576–1638)’ in Der Unbestechliche Blick. Festschrift zu Ehren von Wolfgang Wolters Zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstag, eds Martin Gaier, Bernd Nicolai and Tristan Weddigen (Trier: Porta Alba Verlag), 437-63 [26 pp.].

2003 ‘State and Private Bronze Foundries in Cinquecento Venice: New Light on the Alberghetti and di Conti Workshops’ in Large Bronzes in the Renaissance, Studies in the History of Art 64, Symposium Papers XLI, ed. Peta Motture (Washington, D.C.: CASVA, National Gallery of Art), 241-75 [34 pp.].

2003 ‘Alessandro Vittoria: The Michelangelo of Venice?’ in Reactions to the Master: Michelangelo’s Effect on Art and Artists in the Sixteenth Century, eds Francis Ames-Lewis and Paul Joannides (Aldershot: Ashgate), 157-79 [22 pp.].

2001 ‘Nuove fonti archivistiche per il rinnovo cinquecentesco della Cappella del Rosario ai Santi Giovanni e Paolo’ in Alessandro Vittoria e l’arte veneta della maniera, ed. Lorenzo Finocchi-Ghersi (Udine: Forum), 175-97 [22 pp.].

1999 ‘La Bottega di Alessandro Vittoria’ and ‘Alessandro Vittoria collezionista’ in “La bellissima maniera”: Alessandro Vittoria e la scultura veneta del Cinquecento, eds Andrea Bacchi, Lia Camerlengho and Manfred Leithe-Jasper (Trent: Castello del Buonconsiglio), 126-39 and 141-51 [23 pp.].

Journal Articles:

2025 ‘The Cambridgeshire family of abolitionist Olaudah Equiano (or Gustavus Vassa, the African): New biographical light on Susannah Cullen, his wife, and their daughters, Anna Maria and Joanna Vassa (1762–1857)’, Women's History Review, 1-103 [103 pp.]: co-authored with Dawnanna Kreeger. https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2025.2571321

2021 ‘Family matters: Jacopo Sansovino’s Monument to Doge Francesco Venier in San Salvador, Venice’, Colnaghi Studies Journal, vol. 8, 88-113 [25 pp.]: co-authored with Emma Jones.

2012 ‘I bronzi Zen’, Arte, Storia, Restauri della Basilica di San Marco a Venezia: Da Cappella della Madonna a Cappella Zen. Quaderni della Procuratoria, 2012 (Venice: Marsilio Editori), 72-83 [11 pp.].

2004 ‘Unless they were really first class, I did not care to have them’: Lt Col. Boscawen and his collection of sculpture’, Sculpture Journal, vol. XII, 86-98 [12 pp.].

2001 ‘The House of Alessandro Vittoria Reconstructed’, Sculpture Journal, vol. V, 7-32 [25 pp.].

1999 ‘Documenti sulla vita e opere di Alessandro Vittoria’, Studi Trentini di Scienze Storiche, Sezione I, LXXVIII, Supplemento (1999), 175-388 [213 pp.].

Exhibition Catalogue Entries:

2025 ‘Introduction’; ‘1. Oppression and resistance’; ‘Olaudah Equiano’s roots’; ‘The “Africa Trade”’; ‘Life on British Caribbean plantations’; ‘Forms of resistance’; ‘2. The British anti-slave trade campaign’; ‘Breaking through: Black Georgian voices’; ‘Cambridge connections’; ‘Ongoing abolition campaigning’; ‘3. Britain’s colonies in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone’; ‘Nova Scotia: northern exposure’; ‘Sierra Leone: the “province of freedom?”’; ‘4. Revolutions in the Caribbean’; ‘Creation of Haiti: republic and kingdom’; ‘Tipping points: Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica’; ‘Guyana: the Demerara Uprising’; ‘Jamaica: the Emancipation War’; ‘5. Ending British slavery’; ‘Women’s activism’; ‘Freedom at last?’; ‘Celebrating Black Cambridge history’; and ‘Moving forward’ in Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition eds Victoria Avery and Wanja Kimani (London: Philip Wilson / Bloomsbury), 11; 35; 48-9; 50-53; 54-5; 60-3; 75; 76-83; 84-5; 108-111; 113; 114-18; 119-21; 123; 124-9; 144-7; 148-9; 150-1; 153; 154-60; 161-3; 164-9; 175 [68 pp.].

2023 ‘Delftware, punch, Liverpool “shipwares” and visual propaganda’; ‘De Catharina plantation bell’; and ‘Donald Locke’s 1970s Plantation Series’ [co-authored with Brenda Locke] in Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance, eds Victoria Avery and Jake Subryan Richards (London: Philip Wilson / Bloomsbury), 99-103; 158-60; and 161-6 [14 pp.].

2023 ‘Black Atlantic: definition’; ‘Introduction’; ‘Who gets remembered and why?’; ‘1. Glimpses of the world before Atlantic enslavement’; ‘Africa: Akan goldweights’; ‘Indigenous islands in the Caribbean Sea’; ‘Europe: slavery before racism, Blackness before slavery’; ‘2. Cambridge wealth from Atlantic enslavement’; ‘Royal patronage’; ‘Enslavement, anti-Black racism and colour prejudice’; ‘Making money: Durch connections’; ‘Technology for the transatlantic trade’; ‘Warfare between the British, Dutch and Spanish empires’; ‘3. Fashion, consumption, racism and resistance’; ‘Blackness in European art’; ‘Enslavement and fashion’; ‘4. Plantations: production and resistance’; ‘Production, knowledge generation and exploitation’; ‘Plantation violence’; and ‘Shared futures?’ in Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance, eds Victoria Avery and Jake Subryan Richards (London: Philip Wilson / Bloomsbury), 10-11; 12-13; 14-15; 40-41; 42; 48; 56-9; 62-3; 64; 67; 72; 87; 98; 106-7; 108; 125-7; 138-9; 140; 157; and 178-9 [33 pp.]: co-author

2019 ‘Introduction’; ‘Meat and fish on the Tudor table’; ‘Netscher’s portrait of Decker’s pineapple’; ‘Sugar on the table’; ‘Letters from William Perrin’s Jamaican sugar plantations’; ‘Buying and selling food in Cambridge’; ‘Isaac Newton’s food confessions’; ‘Silver for the table’; ‘Ewers and basins’; ‘Cutlery’; ‘Cambridge College plate and Matthew Parker’s silver’; ‘Illuminating the table’; ‘“Give us today our daily bread”’; ‘Benedictions and graces’; ‘The Canon’s Gluttony’; and ‘Catalogue’ in Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500–1800, ed. Victoria Avery and Melissa Calaresu (London: Philip Wilson), 7-9; 38-43; 76-81; 84-7; 88-91; 104-08; 109-111; 146-8; 149-51; 152-3; 154-7; 160-1; 191-93; 194-5; and 248-53 [56 pp.].

2019 ‘Sharing food and charitable giving’ [co-authored with Eleanor Barnett]; ‘Trencher from an accouchement set’ [co-authored with Eleanor Barnett]; ‘The Canon’s Gluttony’; ‘Food and politics’ [co-authored with Melissa Calaresu and Evelyn Strope]; ‘Gillray’s Substitutes for Bread’ [co-authored with Evelyn Strope]; ‘The Uncharitable Monopolizer’ in Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500–1800, eds Victoria Avery and Melissa Calaresu (London: Philip Wilson), 196-7; 213; 227; 228; 229 [pp. 6 pp.].

2018 ‘Sculpture’ in Collecting & Giving: Highlights from the Sir Ivor and Lady Batchelor Bequest (Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum), 72-87 [15 pp.].

2017 ‘Plaquette of St Jerome in the wilderness’ in Madonnas & Miracles: The Holy Home in Renaissance Italy, ed. Maya Corry, Deborah Howard and Mary Laven (London: Philip Wilson), 64-5 [2 pp.].

2015 ‘Preface’; ‘Lidded Jug or Flagon’; ‘Standing Cup and Cover’; ‘Saucer Dish’; ‘Door-knocker’; ‘Tazza’; ‘Mortar’; ‘Travelling Canteen’; ‘Verge Alarm Coach Watch’; ‘Lobed Bowl’; ‘Alcohol’; ‘Snuffbox’; ‘Taking Tea and Snuff’; ‘Tea Bowl’; ‘Teapot’; ‘A Bearded Man Holding Gloves’; ‘Composite Armour’; ‘Powder Flask’; ‘Priming Flask’; ‘Unknown Lady’; ‘Locket with Portrait Miniature’; ‘Fans’; ‘Watches’; ‘Cylinder Musical Coach Watch’; ‘Verge Repeater Watch’; ‘Oval Snuffbox’; ‘Chatelaine with Etui’; ‘Cylinder Watch and Chatelaine’; ‘Sleeping Nymph’; ‘Oil Lamp’; ‘Delftware’; ‘Pineapple Mania’; ‘Covered Sugar Basin’; ‘Still Life with Fruit and Macaws’; ‘Boxed Set of Twelve Fruit Trenchers’; ‘Epergne’; ‘Beadwork Basket’; ‘Sampler’; ‘Money-Box’; ‘The Daughters of Sir Matthew Decker’; ‘Head incorporating Death Mask of Charles Talbot’; ‘Tota Pulchra Es’; ‘Miniature Casket’; ‘Pair of Medal Cabinets for William Draper II’; and ‘Summary Catalogue’ in Treasured Possessions from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. Victoria Avery, Melissa Calaresu and Mary Laven (London: Philip Wilson), x-xi; 19; 20; 21; 34; 35; 41; 62; 63; 71; 76-81; 89; 90-91; 94; 95; 122; 123; 124; 125; 131; 132; 134-5; 140-1; 142; 143; 147; 148; 149; 168; 169; 187-9; 194-5; 202; 207; 208-9; 211; 222; 223; 229; 230-1; 234; 253; 258-9; 262-3; and 264-73 [65 pp.].

2005 ‘Giovanni Francesco Rustici, Mercury Taking Flight’ in Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and the Renaissance in Florence, ed. David Franklin (Ottawa/New Haven and London: National Gallery of Canada with Yale University Press), 72-73 [pp. 2]

2004 ‘Scultore dell’Italia settentrionale, Tondi bronzei del portale di palazzo Castelli-Prosperi-Sacrati’ in Gli Este a Ferrara: Il Camerino di alabastro: Antonio Lombardo e la scultura all’antica, ed. Matteo Ceriana (Ferrara: Silvana), 244-47 [pp. 3].

2004 ‘Alessandro Vittoria, Medal of Francisco de Toledo’; ‘Danese Cattaneo (attributed), Medal of Two Unidentified Young Women’; and ‘Andrea Briosco, called Riccio, Moses with the Features of Jupiter Ammon’ in In the Light of Apollo: Italian Renaissance and Greece, ed. Mina Gregori (Milan: Silvana Editoriale), pp. 155-56 and 160 [pp. 3].

Encyclopedia Entries:

2008 ‘Brazen Images and Sounding Brass: The Significance and Use of Bronze in Christian Contexts’ in The Lion Companion to Christian Art, ed. Michelle P. Brown (Oxford: Lion), 230-31 [2 pp.].

2004 ‘Campagna, Girolamo’ and ‘Vittoria, Alessandro’ in The Encyclopedia of Sculpture, ed. Antonia Boström (New York and London: Fitzroy Dearborn), 238-42 and 1736-40 [8 pp.].

Magazine & Newsletter Articles:

2013 ‘China’s White Gold: Jingdezhen porcelain’, World of Antiques & Art, 2013, 93-98 [6 pp.].

2013 ‘The new display of British glass at the Fitzwilliam Museum’, Glass Circle News, March 2013, vol. 36, no. 1, 32-36 [5 pp.].

2011 ‘Prized Treasures: Masterpieces from the world-famous Habsburg Kunstkammer’, World of Antiques & Art, issue 81, pp. 22-24 [3 pp.].

Blogs:

2025 ‘Rediscovering Anna Maria Vassa’s Grave’: https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/10/29/rediscovering-anna-maria-vassas-grave/

2025 ‘Celebrating Equiano’s Cambridge connections’: https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/blog/2025/10/29/celebrating-equianos-cambridge-connections/

2023 ‘Meet Our “Celebrating Black History in Cambridge” Interns’: principal co-author:
https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/blog/2023/04/14/meet-our-celebrating-black-history-in-cambridge-interns/

2021 ‘The Boat Race Trophies: Showing your Mettle’: https://stories.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/boat-race-trophies/

2021 ‘Making a Masterpiece: Reza Aramesh’s Action 125’: https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/blog/author/vicky-avery/

2020 ‘Powerful, Provocative & Profound: Sensual/Virtual Sculpture at The Fitz’: https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/blog/2020/10/30/powerful-provocative-profound-sensual-virtual-sculpture-at-the-fitz/

2020 ‘Working with Rowan on Feast & Fast’: https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/blog/2020/05/19/working-with-rowan-on-feast-fast/