Ingrid Greenfield

Ingrid Greenfield

Berenson Fellow
Cannibalism and Collecting: Material Cultures of Consumption in Italy and Africa, 1450-1650
2016 - 2017 (September-December)
Ingrid Greenfield

Biography

Ingrid Greenfield’s primary areas of research are the visual and material cultures of early modern Italy and Africa, and the history of collecting and display of African arts from the Renaissance onward. In particular, her work focuses on the exchanges between sub-Saharan Africa and the Italian peninsula in the long sixteenth century, and the collecting of foreign materials by elites in both regions. Ingrid received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Chicago, and most recently served as visiting assistant professor at the University of Florida.

Project Summary

This project brings into focus the slave trade’s role in driving material exchange—direct and indirect—between Africans and Italians in the early globalization of trade relationships. Images, objects, and texts circulating in this period reveal how cultural practices and value systems in both regions shifted to accommodate the influx of luxury goods from unfamiliar visual traditions.