{"id":5269,"date":"2015-07-28T11:46:47","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T15:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/?post_type=profile&p=5269"},"modified":"2026-06-02T12:27:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T16:27:34","slug":"michael-zell","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/haa\/profile\/michael-zell\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Zell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
Email<\/th>\nFall 2026 Office Hours<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
mzell@bu.edu<\/a><\/td>\nTBA<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Michael Zell is a scholar of seventeenth-century Dutch art, with a particular focus on Rembrandt and Vermeer, and teaches European art of the Baroque period, including Global Baroque. He is the author and co-editor of four books and has published numerous articles and essays on a range of topics within early modern Dutch art. His new monograph\u00a0<\/span>Rembrandt, Vermeer, and the Gift in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art<\/i>\u00a0(Amsterdam University Press, 2021) explores the interaction between Dutch gift culture and art, demonstrating how the symbolic economy of the gift mingled with the growing dimension of commerce in Dutch artistic culture. His monograph\u00a0<\/span>Reframing Rembrandt: Jews and the Christian Image in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam<\/i>\u00a0(University of California Press, 2002) relates a theological shift in Rembrandt\u2019s biblical art of the 1650s to his illustration of a Jewish text by Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel in 1655. The interdisciplinary volume\u00a0<\/span>\u2018Ut Pictura Amor\u2019: The Reflexive Imagery of Love in Artistic Theory and Practice, 1500-1700<\/i>\u00a0(Brill, 2017), co-edited with Walter Melion and Joanna Woodall, investigates art and the discourse of love (\u201cas is a picture, so is love\u201d) in early modern Europe, Asia, and Persia, and the volume\u00a0<\/span>Rethinking Rembrandt<\/i>\u00a0(Waanders, 2002), co-edited with Alan Chong, reconsiders Rembrandt and his legacy from a variety of perspectives. Among Professor Zell\u2019s articles and essays are \u201cGraphic Images: Rembrandt\u2019s Printed Nudes\u201d; \u201c<\/span>Liedfde baart kunst:\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Vermeer and the Poetics of Painting\u201d; \u201cRembrandt\u2019s Gifts: A Case Study of Actor-Network-Theory\u201d; and \u201cA Leisurely and Virtuous Pursuit: Amateur Artists, Rembrandt, and Landscape Representation in Seventeenth-Century Holland.\u201d He is currently at work on a project provisionally titled\u00a0<\/span>The Poetics of the Mirror and the Image of the Beloved in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting<\/i>. He has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, two Jeffrey Henderson Senior Fellowships from the BU Center for the Humanities, and a Frank and Lynne Wisneski Award for Excellence in Teaching. Professor Zell serves on the Board of Advisors of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art. He received his PhD from Harvard University.<\/span><\/p>\n

Curriculum Vitae<\/a><\/p>\n

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Selected Publications<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/em><\/td>\nRembrandt, Vermeer, and the Gift in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art<\/em>.
\n<\/strong>Amsterdam University Press, 2021.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nReframing Rembrandt: Jews and the Christian Image in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam.<\/em><\/strong>Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2002.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nUt Pictura Amor: The Reflexive Imagery of Love in Artistic Theory and Practice, 1500-1700<\/em>, co-edited with Walter Melion and Joanna Woodall. Intersections: Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture<\/em>.
\n<\/strong>Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/td>\n\u201cGraphic Images: Rembrandt\u2019s Printed Nudes,\u201d in The Naked Truth: Drawing from Nude Models in the Golden Age.<\/em>
\n<\/strong>exhibition catalogue, Rembrandthuis Museum, Amsterdam, 2016, 87-99 and 168-170. also published in a Dutch edition, Rembrandts naakte waarheid: Tekenen naar naaktmodellen in de gouden eeuw<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n\n

\u201cLiefde baart kunst<\/em>: Vermeer\u2019s Poetics of Painting.\u201d
\n<\/strong>Simiolus<\/em> 35 (2011): 142-164.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n“Rembrandt\u2019s Gifts: A Case Study of Actor-Network-Theory.\u201d
\n<\/strong>JHNA <\/em>(Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art<\/em>) 3:2 (2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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