Staff Profile
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Curator of Asian Art
rachel_saunders@harvard.edu / 617-496-9268
Ph.D., Harvard University
M.A., University of London
B.A. (Hons.), University of Oxford
Rachel Saunders is responsible for the Japanese collections at the museums. She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University (2015) and is a specialist in medieval narrative and sacred painting. Saunders has recently curated the exhibitions Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection (2020) and Prince Shōtoku: The Secrets Within (2019). She was previously a member of the Japanese department of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2004–11), where she worked extensively with early modern rare books. She has held fellowships at the University of Tokyo (2011–14) and at the National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), in Washington, D.C. (2014–15).
Recent Publications
「ハーバード大学美術館所蔵聖徳太子二歳像に秘められた意味」(“Secrets of the Sedgwick Shōtoku”). In 佐野みどり先生古稀記念論集刊行会編.『造形のポエティカー日本美術史を巡る新たな地平』(The Poetics of Form: New Horizons in Japanese Art History), ed. Sano Midori Festschrift Committee, trans. Ando Chihoko, 71–86. Tokyo: Seikansha, 2021.
Saunders, Rachel, ed. Catalogue of the Feinberg Collection of Japanese Art. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Art Museums, 2021.
Saunders, Rachel, and Yukio Lippit. Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Art Museums, 2020.
“Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection.” Orientations 51:1 (Jan.–Feb. 2020): 20–33.
“Secrets of the Sedgwick Shōtoku.” Impressions 40 (January 2019): 90–105.
「玄奘三蔵像研究〜釈迦十六善神図を中心に」(“The Iconography of Xuanzang in Medieval Paintings of the Assembly of Shaka and the Sixteen Protective Deities”). Kajima Journal of Art History 31 (2014): 226–38.
「語り出す絵画〜十四世紀の日本の絵巻にみる玄奘三蔵物語をめげって」(“Textual Acoustics in the Genjō Sanzō-e”). In 佐野みどり偏. 『中世絵画のマトリックス II』(The Matrix of Medieval Japanese Painting II), ed. Sano Midori, 451–82. Tokyo: Seikansha, 2014.