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 91制片厂 to take an MA in Byzantine art, and then a PhD in the art of medieval Georgia in the Caucasus.
Key themes in Antony鈥檚 work centre on the use of art to manufacture, display and manipulate identities on a public stage, especially on the frontiers between religions and cultures.
Antony has taught at The 91制片厂 since 2004; from 2016-2020 he was Dean and Deputy Director. Before that he spent 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.
His most recent book is a study of women and identity in eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus on the eve of the Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century 鈥 the land where three worlds meet.
PhD Supervision
Current Students
- Bella Radenovic, The Making of the Medieval Georgian Icon
- Marija Mihailovic Shipley, Female patronage in thirteenth-century Serbia
- Yeonjoo (Amanda) Hahn, Buddhist Temple Wall Paintings in South Korea: a Conservation Assessment (with Dr Austin Nevin)
- Irakli Tezelashvili, Georgian monumental painting in the twelfth century
Recently completed
2016
- Maria Alessia Rossi, The Golden Age of the Miracle Cycle: 1290 鈥 1340
- Lara Frentrop, Middle Byzantine Metal Bowls with Exotic Imagery
2014
- Niamh Bhalla, Social Histories of the Last Judgement in Byzantine Art
- Maria Paschali, Painting in Fourteenth-Century Famagusta
Previous students
- Anna Christidou, Unknown Byzantine Art in the Balkan Area: Art, Power and Patronage in Twelfth to Fourteenth Century Churches in Albania
- Eleni Dimitriadou, The Lunette Mosaic in the Southwest Vestibule of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople: A Reconsideration
- 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
- Jack Hartnell, Towards an Anatomical Art History: Medieval Objects in the Shared Space Between Art and Medicine
- 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
Research Interests
- Medieval Art in the Caucasus (Georgia and Armenia)
- Byzantine Art in all forms, but especially Byzantine ivories
- Interchange between Christian and Islamic art in the medieval near east
- The study of inscriptions as visual objects
- Art and identity in the middle ages
- Centre and periphery
Recent publications
Books
- The Glory of Byzantium and Eastern Christendom聽(London: Phaidon, 2013)
- Art and Identity in thirteenth-century Byzantium. Hagia Sophia and the Empire of Trebizond聽[Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs: 10] (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004)
- Royal imagery in medieval Georgia (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998)
Edited Books
- The Mosaics of Thessaloniki Revisited (Athens: Kapon Editions, 2017) Papers from the 2014 Symposium at The 91制片厂 Institute of Art. With Myrto Hatzaki
- Byzantium’s Other Empire: Trebizond | Bizans’谋n 脰teki Imparatorlu臒u: Trabzon (Istanbul: ANAMED, Ko莽 脺niversitetesi, 2016)
- Viewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World聽(Cambridge: CUP, 2015)
- Wonderful Things: Byzantium through its art [Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. Publications 16] (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), Papers from the Forty-second Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, London, 20-22 March 2009 (with Liz James)
- The Road to Byzantium: Luxury Arts of Antiquity (London: Fontanka, 2006), Catalogue of an exhibition in the Hermitage Rooms, Somerset House, 30 March – 3 September 2006 (with Robin Cormack and Peter Stewart)
- Icon and Word. The Power of Images in Byzantium. Studies presented to Robin Cormack (Aldershot, 2003) (with Liz James)
- Eastern Approaches to Byzantium [Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. Publications 9] (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001)
Selected essays & articles
Byzantine art | Georgian art | Cross-cultural studies in the Caucasus | Ivories | Inscriptions as art
Byzantine art
- ‘Staging as metaphor: the king鈥檚 body and the theatricality of power鈥 in, Staging the King鈥檚 Body, eds. M. Bacci, et al. (Brepols, 2023)
- ”It began with a picture’: imperial art, texts and subversion between east and west in the twelfth century’, in Subversion in Byzantium, eds. D. Angelov and M. Saxby [Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. Publications: 17] (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 121-43
- 鈥楾he Limits of Byzantine Art鈥, in聽A Companion to Byzantium, ed. L. James (Oxford: Wiley, 2010), 313-22
- 鈥楤eyond Byzantium鈥, in听叠测锄补苍迟颈耻尘, eds. R. Cormack and M. Vassilaki (London: Royal Academy, 2008), 307-14
- ‘Art and the Periphery’, in The Oxford Companion to Byzantine Studies, eds. E. Jeffreys, et al. (Oxford: OUP, 2008), 770-76
- ‘Between Icon and Idol: the uncertainty of imperial images’, in Icon and Word. The Power of Images in Byzantium. Studies presented to Robin Cormack, eds. A. Eastmond and L. James (Aldershot, 2003), 73-85
- ”Local’ Saints, Art and Regional Identity in the Orthodox World after the Fourth Crusade’, Speculum 78/3 (2003), 707-49
- ‘An Intentional Error? Imperial Art and “Mis”-Interpretation under Andronikos I Komnenos’, Art Bulletin 76 (1994), 502-10
Georgian art
- ‘Art on the edge: the church of the Holy Cross, Jvari, Georgia’, Art Bulletin 105/2 (2023), 64-92
- ‘Greeks bearing gifts: The Icon of Xaxuli and enamel diplomacy between Byzantium and Georgia’, in Convivium supplementum: The medieval South Caucasus: Artistic cultures of Albania, Armenia and Georgia, eds. I. Foletti and E. Thun酶 [Exchanges and Interactions in the Arts of Medieval Europe, Byzantium, and the Mediterranean. Seminarium Kondakovianum Series Nova] (Prague, 2016), 88-105
- 鈥楳essages, meanings and metamorphoses: the icon of the Transfiguration of Zarzma鈥, in聽Images of the Byzantine World 鈥 Visions, Messages and Meanings. Studies presented to Leslie Brubaker, ed. A. Lymberopoulou (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011), 57-82
- 鈥楽chwarzmeergriechen, Armenier, Georgier und andere Kaukasusv枚lker鈥, in Kontinuit盲ten und Br眉che: Lebensformen 鈥 Alteingesessene 鈥 Zuwanderer von 500 bis 1500, eds. K. Kaser, et al. [Wieser Enzyklop盲die des Europ盲ischen Ostens: 12] (Klagenfurt: Wieser Verlag, 2010), 305-13
- 鈥楿dabno Monastery in Georgia: The innovation, conservation and reinterpretation of art in the Middle Ages鈥,聽Iconographica. Rivista di iconografia medievale e moderna 7 (2008), 23-43 (with Z. Skhirt鈥檒adze)
- ‘Early Christian Georgian Churches’, in The Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity, ed. R.A. Etlin (Cambridge: CUP, 2022), 1: 225-30
Cross-cultural studies in the Caucasus
- ‘Monumental Painting and the Role of Images in Armenia under the Mongols’, in Art and Religion in Medieval Armenia, ed. H.C. Evans (New Haven & London: Yale UP, 2021), 39-51
- ‘Ani – The Global and the Local’, in Ani at the Crossroads [醿愥儨醿樶儭醿 醿掅儢醿愥儻醿曖儛醿犪償醿撫儤醿溼儢醿擼, ed. Z. Skhirtladze (Tbilisi: Ivane Javakhishvili University, 2019), 1-24
- ‘Other encounters: Popular belief and cultural convergence in Anatolia and the Caucasus’, in Islam and Christianity in Anatolia and the Caucasus, eds. A.C.S. Peacock, et al. (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 183-213
- 鈥楧iplomatic commodities: women and art as imperial gifts in the thirteenth century鈥, in聽Liquid and Multiple: Identities in the medieval mediterranean in the thirteenth century, eds. D. Stathokopoulos and G. Saint-Guillan (Paris: Sorbonne, 2012), 105-33
- 鈥楪ender and patronage between Christianity and Islam in the thirteenth century鈥, in Change in the Byzantine world in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, eds. A. 脰dekan, E. Aky眉rek, N. Necipo臒lu, 1 Uluslararasi Sevgi G枚n眉l Bizans Ara艧tirmalari Sempozyumu / First International Sevgi G枚n眉l Byzantine Studies Symposium (Istanbul, 2010), 78-88
- ‘Art and frontiers between Byzantium and the Caucasus’, in Byzantium. Faith and Power (1261-1557): Perspectives on Late Byzantine Art and Culture, ed. S.T. Brooks [The Metropolitan Museum of Art Symposia] (New Haven & London: Yale, 2007), 154-69
Ivories
- ‘The Heavenly Court, Courtly Ceremony, and the Great Byzantine Ivory Triptychs of the Tenth Century’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 69 (2015), 71-114
- ‘Byzantine Oliphants?’, in 桅喂位慰蟺维蟿喂慰谓: Spaziergang im kaiserlichen Garten: Beitr盲ge zu Byzanz und seinen Nachbarn. Festschrift f眉r Arne Effenburger zum 70. Geburtstag, eds. N. Asutay-Effenberger and F. Daim [Monographien des R枚misch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums: 106] (Mainz: R枚misch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, 2012), 95-118
- ‘The St Petroc casket, a certain mutilated man, and the trade in ivories鈥 in Siculo-Arabic Ivories and Islamic Painting 1100-1300聽, ed. D. Knipp (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2011), 81-97
- ‘Consular diptychs, rhetoric and the languages of art in sixth-century Constantinople鈥, Art History聽33/5 (2010), 742-765
- ‘On Diversity in Southern Italy’, in The Salerno Ivories. Objects, Histories, Contexts, eds. A. Cutler, et al. (Berlin: Reimer Verlag-Gebr. Mann, 2016), 97-109
Inscriptions
- ‘Monograms and the art of unhelpful writing in Late Antiquity’, in Sign and Design. Script as Image in a Cross-Cultural Perspective (300-1600 CE), eds. J. Hamburger and B.M. Bedos-Rezak [Dumbarton Oaks Symposia and Colloquia: 1] (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2016), 213-29
- ‘Textual Icons: Viewing inscriptions in medieval Georgia’, in聽Viewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World, ed. A. Eastmond (Cambridge: CUP, 2015), 76-98
- 鈥業nscriptions and Authority in Ani鈥, in Der Doppeladler: Byzanz und die Seldschuken in Anatolien vom sp盲ten 11. bis zum 13. Jahrhundert, eds. N. Asutay-Effenberger and F. Daim [Byzanz zwischen Orient und Okzident: 1] (Mainz: Verlag des R枚misch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, 2014), 71-84
Recent/major grants
- 2015-18: Getty Foundation Connecting Art Histories network entitled: Islams and Christianities in Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus and their intersections;
- 2012-14: Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship
- 2008-10: AHRC Beyond Text network entitled聽
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