Between Surface and Spirit: Drawing, Absence, and Spectrality in Victorian Britain (Working Title)
My doctoral research investigates nineteenth-century British drawing as a medium uniquely positioned to negotiate tensions between visibility and invisibility, belief and doubt, and matter and spirit, with particular attention to spectral and supernatural imagery. Focusing on drawings shaped by Gothic and imaginative literature, Spiritualism, occult inquiry, and broader supernatural culture, my work explores how Victorian draughtsmen employed the physical affordances of drawing 鈥 its materials, techniques, and processes 鈥 to mediate experiences of loss, disenchantment and haunting. Approaching the supernatural through the lens of medium specificity, the project examines drawing not simply as a vehicle for representation, but as an intimate material practice through which the unseen could be imagined, recovered, or made momentarily present.
This project is supervised by Dr Caroline Levitt, advised by Dr Tom Young and supported by the . Alongside my academic research, I’m a Curatorial Assistant at the Royal Academy of Arts, and have held roles at the Ashmolean Museum (University of Oxford), National Gallery and Sotheby鈥檚, delivering complex projects across valuations, research, and digital engagement.
Publications
- French, Gianna. 鈥淐orrection to the Cataloguing of a Watercolour by Thomas Stothard RA (1755鈥1834) at Magdalen College, Oxford.鈥 Notes & Queries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, April 2026.
- French, Gianna. 鈥淪ubstrate, Spectre, Subtraction: The Material and the Macabre in Dante Gabriel Rossetti鈥檚 Early Drawings.鈥 The Journal of the British Association of Paper Historians, no. 137 (January 2026): 1鈥5. London: The British Association of Paper Historians.
- French, Gianna. 鈥淜indred Spirits: Reframing Elizabeth Siddal鈥檚 A Woman and a Spectre.鈥 The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, n.s. 34 (Fall 2025): 4鈥19. Toronto: York University.
- French, Gianna. 鈥淚n the Shadow of Certainty.鈥 In The Visual Commentary on Scripture, edited by Ben Quash. London: The Visual Commentary on Scripture Foundation, September 2025.
Research Interests
- Eighteenth and Nineteenth-century British drawings
- Nineteenth-century artists鈥 materials, with a particular emphasis on paper
- Hauntology & Spectrality
- British folklore, magic and the occult
- Victorian Gothic
- History of Belief
- Material Culture
Conference Papers
- 鈥淲hen Text Becomes Trace: Drawing as Threshold in Rossetti鈥檚 Works after Poe and Goethe.鈥 Beyond the Threshold: Liminal Spaces and the Gothic Imagination. The Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, February 2026.
- 鈥淢aterial Hauntings: The Sensory Afterlife of Rossetti鈥檚 The Raven.鈥 Beyond the Visual: Full Body in British Art History 鈥 Past, Present and Future. Association for Art History Autumn Symposium, London, October 2025.
- 鈥淎 Visual S茅ance: Materializing the Spectral Imagination in Pre-Raphaelite Drawings.鈥 Folklore and the Senses. The Folklore Society Annual Conference, in collaboration with the Department of Folklore and Ethnology, University College Cork, Ireland, June 2025.
Grants & Awards
- Tavolozza Foundation PhD Scholar, 2023鈥2029
- Eve Borsook Legacy Fund, 2025
- Friends of the 91自拍 Institute Fund, 2025
- UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), 2024, 2025
- Association for Art History, 2024, 2025
Memberships & Affiliations
- Association for Art History
- British Art Network
- British Association for Victorian Studies
- 91自拍 Institute Graphic Arts Group
- Emerging Researchers in British Art
- Hauntology & Spectrality Research Group (York St John University)
Education
- MA Christianity & the Arts, King’s College London in association with the National Gallery (2017鈥2018)