Unlocking The Barred Gate and rediscovering Evelyn De Morgan through Technical Art History and Conservation with painting conservator Alexandra Earl.
This talk presents new technical and art historical research into the work of Evelyn De Morgan, focusing on The Barred Gate (c. 1919), an unfinished oil painting from the artist’s late career. Through a combination of scientific investigation and archival research, Alexandra’s presentation offers fresh insight into De Morgan’s material choices and painting techniques.
Detailed examination of pigments, varnish layers, preparatory sketches and previously overlooked archival sources reveals an artist of remarkable experimentation and intellectual ambition. The talk also explores the complex conservation treatment of The Barred Gate following damage sustained in a fire, demonstrating how conservation practice can illuminate the histories of neglected or underappreciated works.
By bringing together technical art history and conservation practice, this research contributes to the growing reassessment of nineteenth-century women artists and offers a compelling case for Evelyn De Morgan’s renewed place within the wider Pre-Raphaelite circle.
Alexandra Earl is a paintings conservator with a special interest in nineteenth-century British art, particularly the Pre-Raphaelites. Trained at The Courtauld Institute of Art, she has contributed to conservation and research projects at institutions including Tate, the University of Oxford and the Houses of Parliament. She holds an MA in Technical Art History from the University of Glasgow and a BA in Art History from The Courtauld.
Alexandra has undertaken technical examination and conservation treatments of works by some of Britain’s most celebrated artists, including Evelyn De Morgan, J. M. W. Turner and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She is currently a PhD candidate in Preservation Studies at the University of Delaware and serves as a pre-doctoral conservation fellow at the Delaware Art Museum, where her research focuses on the analysis and conservation of paintings by Simeon Solomon.