Inaugural Lecture of Professor Erin Griffey

Venue: University of Auckland B201 | 10 Symonds Street, Auckland

Lecture hall: Lecture Theatre 201-440

Time: 6-9 pm

The Faculty of Arts and Education invites you to join us in celebrating Professor Erin Griffey's achievements by attending her inaugural lecture.

From Cleopatra to Grace Kelly, the power of female beauty – socially and culturally, if not politically – has been recognised across time and place. For queens in early modern Europe like Elizabeth I, the stakes were exceptionally high. The explosion of portraiture meant greater visibility for the elite; the influx of textiles, gemstones and precious metals from global trade and expansion fuelled luxury consumption; and the advent of print saw the widespread circulation of medical texts, cosmetic recipes and engraved portraits. At the same time, bodily vulnerability was heightened by the threat of infectious diseases like the plague, smallpox and syphilis. Understanding, managing, adorning and representing the body took centre stage.

This talk unites four sites of research from across my career: early modern court portraiture, material culture, cosmetics and gender studies. In reading queens’ portraits through dress, jewellery and cosmetic recipes, it demonstrates the importance of material magnificence and ‘natural’ beauty and their associations with social status, moral virtue, physical health and dynastic promise. Moreover, the ‘beauty queen’ of early modern Europe was not a superficial, self-serving role but a healthy, fertile, virtuous royal woman who could secure the dynasty.

About the speaker:

Erin Griffey

A fifth-generation Floridian educated at Trinity College, Connecticut, and the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, Erin Griffey has taught art history at the University of Auckland since 2002. She is an award-winning author and teacher, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, London. Internationally recognised for pioneering interdisciplinary work on Queen Henrietta Maria and early modern women’s cultural agency, she has shaped scholarly understanding of female patronage, material culture and beauty culture. Her publications include On Display: Henrietta Maria and the Materials of Magnificence at the Stuart Court (2016), Facing Decay: Beauty, Aging and Cosmetics in Early Modern Europe (2025), and the edited volumes Henrietta Maria: Piety, Politics and Patronage (2008) and Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe (2020). She is also the editor and co-author of Early Modern Court Culture (2022), which is going into a second, expanded edition (forthcoming, 2027). Collaborative and cross-disciplinary research is central to her work, which has involved curating three exhibitions in New Zealand: The Power of Portraiture (2008); Legacy: The Norrie Collection (2009); and No Free Man: To No One Deny Justice (2015). Her cross-faculty collaboration has extended to Science, where she co-led the Beautiful Chemistry Project with Chemistry colleagues Professor Cather Simpson and Dr Michél Nieuwoudt (2019–23), reconstructing Renaissance beauty recipes in the lab. She is working on a new book tentatively entitled Beauty Queens: Court Portraits and Cosmetic Practices at the Tudor and Stuart Courts.

Think GREEN! - registration is for catering purposes only, no need to print out your ticket

Getting to the venue: The Faculty of Arts and Educations' buildings are conveniently located at the heart of the University's City Campus and are easily accessible via many forms of public transport. For further information on public transport schedules, visit the Auckland Transport website. For those driving in, further information on parking options can be found here.

Anthony van Dyck, Henrietta Maria, 1636, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York