Adam Sammut is a historian of early modern art, with a particular interest in Flemish Baroque painting in its global and local architectural contexts. His current monograph project, Rubens and Islam, is conceived as a transnational, multimedia study of a canonical European artist, embracing cross-cultural contact with the geographies and peoples of North Africa, the Ottoman Levant, and Safavid Persia. In 2025, Adam won the inaugural Burlington Magazine听Prize听for Research on South Netherlandish Art for his shorter notice
Adam received his PhD from the University of York (2021). His dissertation, Rubens and the Dominican Church in Antwerp, was . Prior to joining 91影视, Adam was Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress, Washington DC (2018), Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of York (2021-24), and . With Tomasz Grusiecki (Queen’s University Canada), he was the lead organiser of the British Academy Conference , hosted at York in 2025. Adam has contributed to several exhibitions, most recently at Het Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch.
Representing area studies on the executive board, Adam is Honorary Visiting Fellow in the Department of History of Art at York, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS).
Teaching
- BA1 Topic 鈥 Architecture and Identity: London鈥檚 Public Buildings; c. 1620 鈥 c. 1820
- Histories Seminars: Artists, Radicals, Mystics: European Art, 1760鈥1830
- Critical Debates: Migrations
- Approaches: Monuments and Memory
- BA3 Special Option: Art and Empire in Eighteenth Century London
- Examining Exhibitions
Research interests
- Flemish art, 1500-1640
- British art, 1600-85
- Ottoman and Safavid art
- Early modern art in a global context
- Architecture
- Material culture studies
- Costume and textiles
- Cabinets of curiosities
- Environmental humanities
- Classical reception (Rome and Egypt)
Publications
Monographs
- Rubens and the Dominican Church in Antwerp: Art and Political Economy in an Age of Religious Conflict. Brill鈥檚 Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History, 67. Leiden: Brill, 2023. Reviews: Barbara Uppenkamp, Renaissance Quarterly 78, no. 2 (2025), 554鈥55; Hans Vlieghe, Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews (June 2025).
Articles
- 鈥淧ainting a prince of Tunis: Rubens鈥檚 鈥楳ulay Ahmad鈥 reconsidered鈥. Burlington Magazine 168, no. 1480 (July 2026): 699鈥703.
- 鈥淲ith a little help from his friends: Rubens and the acquisition of Caravaggio鈥檚 Rosary Madonna for the Dominican church in Antwerp鈥. Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 70 (2020): 123鈥62.
- 鈥淢aarten van Heemskerck鈥檚 Eight Wonders of the Ancient World: Contesting the Image in an Age of Iconoclasm鈥. Dutch Crossing 46, no. 1 (2022): 27鈥49.
- 鈥淭he Portraits of Scottish Kings at the Palace of Holyroodhouse Reconsidered鈥. Review of Scottish Culture 26 (2014): 123鈥31.
Book chapters
- 鈥淣o More Heroes: Rubens, Tunis, and the Failures of Empire鈥. Habsburgs in Tunis. Edited by Avinoam Shalem and Alina Payne. Berlin: De Gruyter, forthcoming.
Exhibition catalogues
- Rubens, Van Dyck and the Splendour of Flemish Painting. Edited by J煤lia T谩trai et al., 116鈥19, catalogue nos. 1鈥2. Budapest: Museum of Fine Arts, 2019.
Reviews
- Raffaella Morselli and Cecilia Paolini, eds., Rubens e la cultura italiana 1600鈥1608. Rome: Viella, 2020. Renaissance Quarterly 76, no. 2 (2023): 673鈥75.
- The Phoebus Foundation鈥檚 鈥淏ehind the Scenes鈥 exhibition, St Paul鈥檚 church, Antwerp. Vidimus 138 (February 2022).