Guest Lecture: Heather Dalton - 'Exotica, Symbols of Sanctity, and Allegories of Sound, Light and Air: White Australasian Cockatoos in Medieval and Early Modern European Art'

Australasian cockatoos were traded into Europe centuries earlier than parrots from the Americas because their movement was not contingent on European trade routes, but on the sea and overland routes that brought spices and other goods west from the ports of Southeast Asia via the Middle East. This lecture looks at images of white cockatoos in religious artworks, portraits, and still lifes – exploring not only how their symbolic meaning shifted from the 13th to the 18th centuries, but how onlookers’ responses to such images changed.