Stuart L.A. Moss

Removed and Recontextualized: Monastic Art and the Bavarian Secularisation of 1803

PhD supervisor: Dr. Allison Stielau (Primary), Professor Richard Taws (Secondary)
Working title for PhD: Removed and Recontextualized: Monastic Art and the Bavarian Secularisation of 1803 

close up black and white image of a young man in a white tshirt

My PhD research focuses on the circumstances and consequences of the removal and dispersal of large numbers of art works during the dissolution of Bavarian monasteries in 1803. In particular, I investigate what the changing status and meanings inscribed in these works, now found in museums across the world, can tell us about the complex relationships of early museum officials, scholars and the art market in the first half of the nineteenth century.  

In 1803 the small German state of Bavaria was reeling from the military defeats and territorial losses incurred during conflicts with Napoleonic France. The Bavarian government sought to replenish its coffers by means of an act known as the ‘Säkularisation’, the seizing of the property of the ancient monasteries in its territory, many of which could look back on more than six hundred years of history. Vast numbers of silver and gold artefacts, jewels, paintings and prints seized from them were sold at auction, thereby sending previously ecclesiastical possessions into private and public art collections in Germany and abroad, where they remain to this day. Using inventories and documents from the Bavarian State Archives, I investigate this event of secularisation for the unique insight it gives us both about the function of art within the monastic collections of the eighteenth century, and the ways in which those functions changed as artworks moved onto the nascent art market and into non-sacred contexts.  
 
My PhD is fully funded by a London Arts and Humanities Partnership (AHRC) Studentship (2023 -2026). 

Conference Papers:

  • “ ‘Schöne Kunstsachen aller Art.’ Decorative art at the Munich secularisation sales 1803-1807,” The Commerce & Circulation of Decorative Arts 1792-1914: Auctions, Dealers, Collectors and Museums, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, 25-27 September 2024.
  • “Between pragmatism and perfection: curatorial strategies in the Bavarian Painting Collections under Johann Christian von Mannlich (1741-1822),” Association for Art History (AAH) Conference 2025, University of York, 9-11 April 2025.
  • “Material Memories: A Rococo abbot’s staff and the Bavarian secularisation of 1803,” German History Society (GHS) Conference 2025, University of Loughborough, 4-6 September 2025. 

Other talks:

  • “Notes of  a Journey to Vienna and back: Transcribing and Contextualising Henry Cole’s Travel Diaries through Germany, 1851 & 1863,” V&A Research Institute (VARI), 28 January 2025.
  • “Who’s buying? The Munich secularisation sales (1803-1807) and its audiences,” 16th Workshop on Early Modern German History, German Historical Institute London (GHIL), 6 June 2025. 
     

Teaching

2024-25: Postgraduate Teaching Assistant on the BA Dissertation/Long Essay Modules HART0118/0119/0120. 
 

Professional Experience

  • PhD Placement Researcher (2024-2025) at the Victoria and Albert Museum working on Henry Cole’s personal diaries of two journeys to Germany in 1851 and 1863. Funded by a LAHP Research Extension Fund Award.  
  • Curatorial & Research Assistant (2016-2023) to the international research project Bilderfahrzeuge. Aby Warburg’s Legacy and the Future of Iconology (2016 – 2023)
  • Translator (2019) (German to English), Anke te Heesen, “Exposition Imaginaire. On Aby Warburg’s use of display panels,” in Joanne W. Anderson, Mick Finch and Johannes von Müller (eds.) Image Journeys. The Warburg Institute and a British Art History (Passau: Dietmar Klinger Verlag, 2019) 13-28.
  • Co-curator (2018), Metadata. How we relate to images, exhibition by the international research project Bilderfahrzeuge, Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins, 10 January – 3 February 2018  
  • Co-curator (2014), Impress - Print Making Expanded in Contemporary Art, MA Curating the Art Museum exhibition, The Courtauld Gallery, 20 June - 20 July 2014 

Contact: stuart.moss.23@ucl.ac.uk 

RPS Profile

Qualifications 
MA History of Art, UCL, 2019 (Distinction) 
MA Curating the Art Museum, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2014 (Merit)