Art History Graduate Student Receives Willson Center’s Graduate Research Award

Emily DuVall, current Art History graduate student, has received the Janelle Padgett Knight Graduate Award from the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. This award designation goes to the top-ranked recipient of the Willson Center’s Graduate Research Award. Using these funds, DuVall will travel to Paris over winter break to study the chateaus and works of art that will be discussed in her Master’s thesis.

In her consideration of the myth of the goddess Diana in the French Renaissance court, DuVall focuses on the imagery and symbolism of the royal hunt as used by both King Francis I and his son, King Henry II. She links Diana and the royal hunt with royal authority and privilege. To prove this assertation, she will be examining works on paper at the Louvre and the Bibliothèque nationale de France as well as investigating the decorative program of Château de Fontainebleau, Francis I’s favorite royal hunting lodge.

DuVall will defend her Master’s thesis, under the advisement of Dr. Shelley Zuraw, in the spring.