Posted on March 27, 2001 at 9:58 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The UAB Department of Art and Art History has named Anabel Thomas of London, renowned independent scholar of Renaissance art history, as the 2001 Jemison Scholar and guest lecturer.

On April 9, Thomas will speak about two panels from a Renaissance cassone, or bedroom chest, on display at the Birmingham Museum of Art. The chest panels, by 15th-century artist Francesco Pesellino, are adorned with the seven virtues and seven liberal arts.

Thomas will deliver her lecture, “Liberal Arts and Virtues for a Bedchamber? Tracking the Provenance of Non-Canonic Works of Art,” at 8 p.m. Monday, April 9, in the Hulsey Center, Room 317, at 950 13th Street South. A reception precedes the lecture from 7 to 7:45 p.m. in the Mervyn Sterne Library’s Henley Room, at 917 13th Street South.

In partnership with the UAB Department of Art and Art History, Thomas also will speak on Saturday, April 7, during the morning session of the Birmingham Museum of Art’s Kress Symposium. Her April 7 lecture, “Disenfranchising Francesco Pesellino: The Changing Fortunes of an Early 15th Century Florentine,” is part of the museum’s celebration of the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Renaissance Masters at the Birmingham Museum of Art. The symposium is free and open to the public.

Thomas will deliver lectures to art history students and faculty from 1 to 3 p.m. Thursday, April 5, and from 1 to 3 p.m. Tuesday, April 10, in the Hulsey Center, Room 317, at 950 13th Street South. The lectures focus on her latest research of Renaissance nuns who commissioned art for their convents. The lectures are free and open to the public.

The Jemison Scholar program allows the UAB Art Department to invite scholars from around the world to lecture. The Jemison family endowed the program.