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The MA in Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors at ³Ô¹ÏÍø offers an exciting opportunity for the hands-on study of European decorative arts in historic interiors at postgraduate level. With a strong focus on Britain and France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it employs a wide range of disciplinary approaches for students to acquire specialist knowledge of architecture, interiors, furniture, silver, textiles and ceramics, of their modes of design and production, and questions of patronage, collecting and display. A key element of this unique course is the emphasis on in-gallery teaching, visits to historic sites and project-based vocational training. Based in London, students are ideally placed to examine some of the greatest collections of European decorative arts in the world, including The Wallace Collection, where curatorial and conservation staff contribute to the teaching. The comparative and international nature of the MA is underlined by a week-long study visit to Paris. The programme provides vocational and rigorous academic training to prepare graduates for careers in museums, auction houses, interior design, antique dealing, and further study.

• To provide students with a range of skills and knowledge which will help them to pursue careers in such fields as museum curatorship, antique dealing and auctioneering, historic house management, teaching and research, interior design
• To provide students with a broad historical and art-historical understanding of the development of the interior in Britain and France 1660-c.1830 and its interrelationship with architecture, painting, sculpture and the applied arts.
• To provide students with a contextual understanding of the ways in which rooms and their furnishings interrelated historically and how the planning, decoration and arrangement of rooms changed in response to changing social conventions.
• To develop students’ general awareness of the interrelationship between Britain and France in terms of style, fashions, patronage and the consumption of visual culture
• To develop students’ awareness of revivalism and the ways in which the nineteenth and twentieth-century re-interpretations of objects and interiors have affected our perception of the eighteenth century
• To encourage an understanding of the consumption, production and marketing of luxury goods as well as of patronage and collecting and of the relationships between function, design and decoration
• To improve and develop students’ visual and critical skills and understanding of issues of connoisseurship through first-hand study of objects, where possible within historic room contexts and through slide tests and photographic analysis.
• To develop students’ critical awareness of historic interiors and their presentation through first-hand study of a wide-range of examples on study trips in England and France
• To develop students understanding of curatorial and conservation issues relating to the care of objects and interiors including such issues as visitor management and health and safety regulations which would be relevant for careers in museums and the heritage.
• To raise students’ awareness of the historical and ethical problems of conserving, restoring, researching and reinterpreting the historic interior and decorative art objects which have particular vocational relevance
• To give students practical experience of researching a topic related to either an historic interior or an object or collection of objects through a project based within a museum or historic house context. The project will call upon a range of historical, curatorial, organisational and presentational skills and aims to instil a basic understanding of the practical principles involved in project research, researching and interpreting an historic property, organising an exhibition within a museum or advising on the conservation and display of objects, which would be of particular relevance to those seeking careers in the museums or built heritage fields
• To train students to work independently to tight deadlines
• To develop students’ ability to argue improve their oral presentational skills through the presentation of seminar papers and of the project
• To train students in academic analysis and argument and research methodologies and improve their writing skills through essays, project and dissertation
• To provide students, through Project and Dissertation, with the necessary skills of independent appraisal of primary sources and secondary literature to carry out independent original research and present that research in an academically correct manner thus equipping equip students to carry out further research.

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• Relevant Subject Benchmark Statement(s) ();
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Please note: This specification provides a concise summary of the main features of the programme and the learning outcomes that a typical student might reasonably be expected to achieve and demonstrate if he/she takes full advantage of the learning opportunities that are provided. More detailed information on the learning outcomes, content and teaching, learning and assessment methods of each course unit/module can be found in the departmental or programme handbook. The accuracy of the information contained in this document is reviewed annually by the University of ³Ô¹ÏÍø and may be checked by the Quality Assurance Agency.