Main Focus
- Sensory studies, Smell studies
- Sensory heritage, Olfactory heritage
- Technical art history
- Relationship between the arts and the senses (18th–20th Century)
- History of art criticism (18th–20th Century)
Research Project
Italian Varnishes in the Sensory Heritage of the Nineteenth Century
Publications (Selection)
- “The Sweet Scent of Early-Modern Varnishes”, Recipes Project: Food, Magic, Art, Science and Medecine, 2022, URL: https://recipes.hypotheses.org/19573.
- (with Davy Carole et al.), “The Pigments of the Painter Fleury Richard (1777–1852), a Model for Multidisciplinary Study”, Heritage 5, 2 (2022), pp. 1276-1294, DOI: 10.3390/heritage5020066
- “The Olfactory Education of Young Women in Nineteenth-century France”, Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 51,7 (2022), pp. 727–743, DOI: 10.1080/00497878.2022.2116581
- “A Good Eye, Taste and Flair: The Sensory Skills of the Fin-de-siècle Collector”, in Scents of Value. Smells and Social Life in English, French, and German Literature (1880-1939), ed. Frank Krause and Katharina Harold, London, 2021, pp. 197–209.
- “Detail and Texture: Edmond Fierlants’ Reproductions of the ‘Flemish Primitives’ and their Reception”, Oud Holland: Journal for Art of the Low Countries, 133, 2/3 (2020), pp.165–179, DOI: 10.1163/1875-0176-1330304004
Curriculum Vitae
Érika Wicky received her PhD in Art History (2011; University of Montréal, Canada) and has completed two Master’s degrees (in Literature and Theatre Studies; University of Bordeaux, France). Her doctoral dissertation was published under the title Les Paradoxes du détail: Voir, savoir, représenter à l’ère de la photographie (2015). She has pursued postdoctoral research in Canada (FQRSC/Figura, 2011–2014) and Belgium (FNRS, 2015–2018). During two European fellowships in France (EURIAS, 2018–2019 and Marie Sklodowska-Curie IF, 2019–2021), she investigated the history of olfactory culture (18th–20th century), a topic on which she has published widely and co-organized several international conferences including Mediality of Smells(University of Oxford, 2018), resulting in an eponymous edited collection (2022), and the forthcoming The Perfumer: The Evolution of a Figure since the Renaissance based on a conference at the Centre de recherche du Château de Versailles (2021). She is a member of the board of the Société d’études romantiques et dix-neuvièmistesand a member of the scientific committee of the Osmothèque, The World’s Perfume Archive.