The Visual Culture of Syon Abbey at Lisbon (1594-1861)

FAIN: FT-55204-07

Elizabeth Perry
Framingham State University (Framingham, MA 01702-2499)

This project studies the visual culture of Syon Abbey during a long period of exile in Lisbon following the dissolution of the English monasteries. In Lisbon from 1594-1861, the Bridgettines maintained their English identity and served the recusant English community, while also interacting with the Portuguese and Spanish nobility. A large body of artwork survives from the Lisbon convent: paintings, sculptures, illuminated manuscripts, reliquaries, textiles, metalwork, etc. This grant will fund study of the art objects from the Lisbon convent now in England. The larger project is to reconstruct the visual culture of the Lisbon convent and explore questions of art, patronage, ritual, and identity in this early modern convent.