Biography

Jasmin Mersmann is Professor of Early Modern Art History at Freie Universität Berlin. She has previously taught at the University of Arts Linz and at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She has held guest professorships at the Italian Academy at Columbia University and at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She has also been a research fellow at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, the IKKM in Weimar, and the IFK in Vienna. In 2012, she completed her PhD at Humboldt University with a dissertation on Lodovico Cigoli and conflicting concepts of truth around 1600. Her research focuses on the intersection of art history and cultural history in early modern Europe. She is currently working on early modern demonology as well as on questions of ecology, including the history of breeding and grafting.
 

Project Summary

Numerous early modern portraits depict lapdogs in intimate contact with their (predominantly female) sitters. The project investigates the history of these dogs, which became highly fashionable in the sixteenth century. Referred to as Maltese, Bolognese, or spaniels, these small canines functioned as prestige objects and were frequently exchanged as diplomatic or personal gifts. Originating in Bologna—a key center of dog breeding—they spread across European courts. Prized as companions and status symbols, lapdogs were also artistic creations in their own right, deliberately shaped through selective breeding and postnatal bodily modification. The primary breeding goal was diminutive scale; coat color and temperament were likewise subject to careful selection. After birth, puppies’ bodies were further manipulated: noses were broken, tails docked, ears pierced, collars applied, and they were trained and disciplined. The project examines the analogy between breeding and artistic practice through visual representations, written instructions for breeders, and agricultural literature. Investigating these practices opens up a broader inquiry into early modern conceptions of tamed and commodified nature, as well as into notions of transformability and perfectibility in both human and more-than-human animals.