Art and Matronage: G. E. Street, the ‘Buffalo Girls’, and the Gothic Revival between London and Rome

In this seminar Alex Bremner will explore the female patronage of religious architecture in the context of the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival. With nearly all professional architects being male during this period, it is usually assumed that building design was attributable to masculine powers of creative genius. But where female patrons were involved, what influence over the design process were they entitled (or even expected) to exercise? How does the engagement between architect and patron in this context affect our understanding of attribution during this period? Looking at the activity of Jane Emily Monk and her sister, Penelope, this paper will consider their involvement as wealthy patrons of the architect George Edmund Street, in particular his designs for St James the Less, Pimlico (1859-61), and All Saints’, Rome (1880-7).

Alex Bremner is Professor of Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Imperial Gothic: Religious Architecture and High Anglican Culture in the British Empire, c.1840-1870 (2013), Architecture and Urbanism in the British Empire (2016), and Building Greater Britain: Architecture, Imperialism, and the Edwardian Baroque Revival, c.1885-1920 (2022). He is currently completing a new history of Victorian architecture for Oxford University Press.

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Scientific Organization: Tommaso Zerbi