Events

Five Sibyls Seated in Niches: the Babylonian, Libyan, Delphic, Cimmerian and Erythraean by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510)

Secrets of the Sibyls – Sandro Botticelli, Filippino Lippi and artistic practice in Florence

The Christ Church Sibyls, two paintings each showing five sibyls (sibyl = female prophet) have intrigued scholars and visitors alike. They were created by two of the most ingenious artists of the Florentine Renaissance: Sandro Botticelli and Filippino Lippi.

Cover illustration of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland translated into Russian by Vladimir Nabokov, Berlin 1923

Pictures and Conversations: the Jon A. Lindseth Lewis Carroll Collection

4 February–17 April

Upper Library, Christ Church

Exhibition

The exhibition showcases some of the highlights of the magnificent Jon A. Lindseth Lewis Carroll Collection, recently donated to Christ Church. Manuscripts, rare editions and photographs explore Carroll’s life and work and enduring impact and legacy.

This is the first time the collection has been displayed in the UK.

Hester play poster depicting a classical painting of Queen Esther

Play: The Enterlude of the Godly Queen Hester

28 March

Research Centre, Thatched Barn, Christ Church Meadow

Concert / Performance

Unperformed since the 16th century, this play about Old Testament Queen Esther satirises the fall of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, right-hand man of Henry VIII.

Written in 1529, the play is now performed by a boys’ company as it would have been half a millennium ago, and it comes to Christ Church – a college that this year marks 500 years since its foundation by none other than Cardinal Wolsey.

Painting of Thomas Hardy © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums and Libraries Collections

Special Interest Event — Thomas Hardy Literature and Context

3–6 April

Christ Church

Workshop / Course

Join us for this Special Event as we explore some of Thomas Hardy’s best-known fiction and poetry, and its contexts, in the company of leading experts on his work. Issues such as sexual equality, university access, finding a basis for Christian faith in the modern world, and the complex relationships between death and desire, the past and the present, the place of Nature, the supernatural and archaeology remain as relevant today as they were in Hardy’s own time.

Detail from Christ carrying the cross by Mattia Preti, Christ Church

Passion on Paper

7 April–16 June

Christ Church Picture Gallery

Exhibition

Western art developed in conjunction with the pictorial needs of the Christian church. At the heart of the Christian faith is the Crucifixion and the so-called Passion, the deeds and days leading to it.

This exhibition brings together drawings from the Renaissance and the Baroque from the gallery’s collection and explores how artists depicted the complex themes of love, betrayal and pain found in these stories.

Unknown, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Christ Church

Imagining Wolsey: The Invention of an English Cardinal

18 June–22 December

Christ Church Picture Gallery

Exhibition

Marking the 500th anniversary of the initial founding of Christ Church by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1525, this exhibition will present a range images of the Cardinal from an anonymous Tudor oil portrait to Jonathan Pryce’s representation of him in Wolf Hall.

Without a firmly-secured contemporary portrait of Wolsey, posterity was given a free hand to imagine a Cardinal whose humble beginnings led to a stellar ascent and ended in a dramatic fall from grace and lonely death.