Staff profile

Studied at Universities of Göttingen, Royal Hollowy, Bonn and Florence for a BA in History of Art and English Philology as well as MAs in History of Art and Renaissance-Studies.

Before starting PhD worked for several years as Manager of Restitution and Provenance Research at the Art Loss Register in London, researching art works and collectibles as well as performing due diligence on large collections.

Research Topic

Modern Jews and Ancient Egypt: Patrons, Collectors and Scholars in Europe c1880-1950 

AHRC-funded collaborative project with the Egypt Exploration Society

This interdisciplinary project aims to explore the role Jewish actors played in the field of Western European Egyptology from c1880 to the aftermath of the Second World War. These academics, collectors, curators, dealers, excavators and patrons can be regarded simultaneously as agents of empire, members of diasporic networks and victims of discrimination and destructive nationalism. My research will map out a network of Jewish actors and analyse how far the common goal of the study of an ancient civilization led to collaborative efforts – both across national borders and between public and private actors – in an era of imperialism and intense geopolitical competition. 

Within this project I propose to use methods from art history and provenance research to examine how the transnational, institutional and intellectual history of Egyptology and collecting of Egyptian artefacts in Western Europe between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth century was shaped by Jewish actors, while giving due consideration to the antisemitic antagonism they had to contend with. While several aspects of this topic have so far been considered in isolation, I propose a historical network analysis that cuts across both European and colonial geographies, and different intellectual, institutional and cultural domains, befitting such a multinational discipline as Egyptology. 

• History of Collecting
• History of the Art Market
• Nazi-Looted Art & Restitution
• Provenance Research