Advisory Group

As part of our Picturing Childhood exhibition development process, we formed an advisory group to raise important, relevant and insightful questions and discussions around some of the more sensitive themes in the artworks on display. 

The group comprised of colleagues from across our visitor-facing teams and external invited members with lived experience. 

As a group, we discussed:

• how to develop interpretation around the portrait of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, and His Wife Lady Dorothy Boyle with Three Children by Jean-Baptiste Van Loo
• how our team can have meaningful conversations and confidently engage the public with the subject of childhood and empire
• and what the legacy of this temporary exhibition will be, such as a commitment to research; extending layers of interpretation across our visitor route and future outreach work.

New Research

We commissioned new research into the painting by Jean-Baptiste Van Loo from Dr Edward Town of Yale Center for British Art, USA.

Edward Town is the Assistant Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. He holds a master’s degree from the Royal College of Art, London, a PhD from Sussex University, and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

His research focuses on the production of art in Britain 1500 to 1750. He was an editor and contributor to Painting in Britain 1500-1630 (British Academy/Oxford University Press, 2015) and Marking Time: Objects, People, and Their Lives, 1500-1800 (Yale University Press, 2020) and is the author of numerous articles that have appeared in peer-reviewed journals. 

Exhibition Symposium

We discussed our research in more detail at the exhibition symposium, staged in October 2024.

Learn more about our approach to colonialism research.