Browse the visual companion to this episode: https://matterofart.co/ep18

In this episode, we speak with historian and curator Jeremy Reeves about the cultural lives of arms and armour in early modern Europe. Moving beyond the battlefield, the conversation explores what happens when firearms are understood as crafted objects embedded within systems of art, status, technology, and power. Jeremy discusses his research on sixteenth-century French firearms, examining how these objects circulated through courtly culture, collecting practices, diplomacy, hunting, and elite display during a moment of profound technological and social transformation. Together, we consider firearms as works of material culture: objects shaped by specialized craftsmanship, guild structures, decorative practices, and evolving ideas about identity and prestige.

Connect with Liz at Matter of Art on the podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠website⁠⁠⁠⁠: ⁠⁠⁠https://⁠matterofart.co/⁠⁠.

Kunz Lochner (German armorer, 1510–1567), Armor of Emperor Ferdinand I (1503–1564), 1549, steel, brass, leather, Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this episode, I speak with Jen Liu, PhD student at the University of Toronto, about the hidden stories behind baroque bronze sculpture. Focusing on Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Cathedra Petri in St. Peter’s Basilica, as well as other contemporaneous projects in the Vatican, we discuss how large foundry teams—often erased from art historical narratives—were essential to bringing these works into being. Jen’s work as a research assistant on the technical study of Bernini’s bronze multiples has inspired her research and methodology. This conversation challenges the myth of the solitary artistic genius and invites you to rethink authorship, making, and the many invisible hands behind your favourite works.

Check out the Bernini's Bronzes projects: https://berninisbronzes.com/

Connect with Liz at Matter of Art on the podcast ⁠⁠⁠website⁠⁠⁠: ⁠⁠https://⁠matterofart.co/⁠⁠.

Episode art: Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598–1680), Chair of Saint Peter, 1657–66, gilt bronze, St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.

In the heart of Central Park, the Angel of the Waters rises above the Bethesda Fountain—one of New York’s most beloved public monuments. But few know the name of the woman who created it. Emma Stebbins (1815–1882) was the first woman to receive a public art commission in New York City, a celebrated sculptor in her day, and a pioneering queer artist whose legacy was later written out of history.

In this episode, Liz speaks with Dr. Karli Wurzelbacher, Chief Curator at The Heckscher Museum of Art, about Emma Stebbins: Carving Out History—the world’s first exhibition and catalogue devoted to Stebbins’s life and work. Together, they trace Stebbins’s extraordinary career: from her groundbreaking depictions of American laborers to her intimate portrait of her wife, actress Charlotte Cushman, and finally, to the creation of the angel that came to define a city. The conversation explores how Stebbins used the language of neoclassicism to express radical ideas about gender, labour, and love, and how her art, once forgotten, continues to inspire new generations.

Visit Emma Stebbins: Carving Out History at The Heckscher Museum of Art until March 15, 2026, and order the exhibition catalogue: https://www.heckscher.org/stebbinscatalog/.

Connect with Liz at Matter of Art on the podcast ⁠⁠⁠website⁠⁠⁠: ⁠⁠https://⁠matterofart.co/⁠⁠. ⁠

Episode art: Emma Stebbins (American, 1815–1882), Bethesda Fountain, 1870. Bronze and stone, 25 ft. high. New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Photo by David Almeida