Arts Faculty News

On behalf of the Midlands Arts and Humanities Futures Network, Professor Rachel Moseley argues for the importance of a co-ordinated approach across the education sector to secure the future of these disciplines.

Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships 2026 – expressions of interest invited for fellowships hosted in the Faculty of Arts

The Faculty of Arts at the University of Warwick encourages outstanding postdoctoral scholars to apply to the Leverhulme Trust’s Early Career Fellowships scheme, for Fellowships starting in the 2026/27 academic year. The scheme offers three-year Fellowships for early career researchers within four years of submission of their PhD, and Fellows are expected to complete a significant piece of original, publishable research during their tenure.

The Faculty is running an internal selection process to identify a small number of truly excellent candidates to put forward to the Leverhulme Trust.

Prospective applicants must submit an Expression of Interest containing the following information to the Faculty of Arts Research Strategy, Funding and Contracts team (artsprojsupport@warwick.ac.uk) by 5pm on Friday 21 November 2025:

· A short description of their proposed project (maximum 2 A4 pages).

· A copy of their CV (maximum 2 A4 pages).

· The names of three referees. Please note that referees will not be asked to provide a statement at this stage.

· Applicants may indicate interest in being hosted by a particular Department, School or Centre in the Faculty, or interest in working with a particular academic mentor, as part of their EOI. However, they should note that in the first instance the selection process will be led at Faculty level in order to identify the strongest candidates.

Candidates should consult the Guidance for Applicants on the Leverhulme Trust’s website prior to submitting an Expression of Interest.

The University will support successful candidates in the development of full applications, the deadline for which is 19 February 2026. For any queries about the scheme or internal process, please contact Alan Ashton-Smith (Alan.Ashton-Smith@warwick.ac.uk).

A previously unknown miniature portrait of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton – Shakespeare’s patron and possible lover – has been discovered in a private collection.

The owners contacted art historian Dr Elizabeth Goldring, honorary reader at the University of Warwick, after reading her book Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist, as they suspected the tiny portrait in their collection might be the work of the renowned miniaturist, and also wished to identify the sitter.

The painting has now been confirmed as a work by Nicholas Hilliard (c.1547-1619), Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite portraitist, with the subject identified as Henry Wriothesley (1573-1624). The miniature’s style indicates it was painted in the early 1590s.

“The Earl’s pearl earring, bracelets, beautifully embroidered clothing and long hair held close to his heart may present an initial impression of a woman, but this is a faithful representation of Wriothesley’s appearance,” explains Dr Goldring. “A noted patron of the arts, Wriothesley was celebrated by his contemporaries for his androgynous beauty and his love of poetry and drama. He was known, too, for his vanity and for the great pride he took in his appearance, especially his long hair.”

Shakespeare dedicated two lengthy erotic poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, to the Earl of Southampton, and Wriothesley has long been conjectured to be the beautiful, androgynous ‘fair youth’ to whom many of Shakespeare’s sonnets are addressed, with some scholars suggesting that the youth was Shakespeare’s lover. Intriguingly, a small but significant detail on the reverse of this miniature offers a fascinating potential clue to the nature of Wriothesley’s personal relationship with Shakespeare.

“Miniatures were inherently private artworks that were frequently exchanged as love tokens,” said Dr Goldring. “This miniature is pasted onto a playing card, which is customary for the time. The reverse of this playing card was originally a red heart, but most unusually, the heart has been deliberately obliterated and painted over with a black arrow. It could, arguably, be a spade - but I think it more strongly resembles a spear, the symbol that appears in Shakespeare’s coat of arms.

“It’s impossible to say when this deliberate defacement took place, but it was certainly done with a purpose. One tantalising interpretation might be that Shakespeare was the original recipient of the miniature but returned it to the Earl at some point - perhaps around the time of Southampton’s marriage in 1598 - with his personal mark firmly obscuring the heart. Such a scenario would help to explain why and how the miniature remained in a branch of the Southampton family for hundreds of years.”

Dr Goldring, in partnership with art historian Emma Rutherford and literary scholar Professor Sir Jonathan Bate, has spent the last 8 months authenticating and researching the exquisite oval artwork, measuring just two and a quarter inches in height.

The discovery of the miniature adds a striking new dimension to the mystery of Shakespeare’s muse – and sheds fresh light on one of the most enigmatic relationships in literary history.

A University of Warwick epigraphy expert has collaborated with Google DeepMind to evaluate ‘Aeneas’, an AI model that reimagines Roman inscriptions.

Co-authoring a paper published in the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal Nature today, Alison Cooley, Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick, has played a key verification role in developing the first artificial intelligence (AI) model for contextualising ancient inscriptions.

"How did Sir Walter Raleigh invent the potato?” In this 10-Minute Talk, Rebecca Earle FBA takes up Philomena Cunk’s question to explore the global history of the potato and explain why we should care. Speaker: Professor Rebecca Earle FBA