COVID in the Collections
by DAPP Tours
For millennia the visual arts have helped humans to better understand, communicate about, and respond to diseases and their impact on society, from healing sutras and medical treatises to depictions of medieval saints believed to cure the plague. This selection of objects from the Harvard Art Museums' collections was compiled as a resource for faculty across disciplines who will be teaching courses inspired by or related to the current COVID-19 crisis. Spanning cultures and time periods, this broad range of material can help enhance understanding of the history, science, and responses to pandemics and disease over time. Topics include: infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, malaria, plague, polio, cholera, smallpox, syphilis, tuberculosis, etc.); epidemiology; medicine, healing, cures; quarantine; public health initiatives and awareness; mourning and memorials.
Master of the Life of Saint Agnes
Saint Roch and Saint Anthony Abbot with a Donor
PaintingsPietro Testa
Three Lucchese Saints Interceding with the Virgin for the Victims of the Plague
PrintsCarlo Maratti
After Domenico Cerrini
Saint Charles Borromeo Praying to Liberate Milan from the Plague
PrintsJean Audran
After Pierre Mignard
Saint Charles Borromeo Adminstering the Communion to the Plague Stricken
PrintsJohann Jacob Frey
After Pietro da Cortona
Saint Charles Borromeo Interceding for the Plague-Stricken
PrintsPaulus Pontius
After Peter Paul Rubens
Saint Roch Interceding for the Sick with the Plague
PrintsPaulus Pontius
After Peter Paul Rubens
Saint Roch Interceding for the Sick with the Plague
PrintsFrançois de Poilly the Elder
After Pierre Mignard
Carlo Borromeo Administering the Communion to the Plague-stricken
PrintsFineleaf Fumitory Folio from a manuscript of Khawass al-ashjar (De materia medica) by Dioscorides
ManuscriptsMedicine Buddha (Chinese, Yaoshi Rulai) Seated on a Lotus Pedestal and Holding a Small Medicine Jar in His Left Hand
Sculpture"The Former Deeds of Bodhisattva Medicine King," Chapter 23 of the Lotus Sutra (Hokekyō)
CalligraphyCopy of the Book of Medicinal Herbs (Materia Medica) by Ken'i Ajari (active 1072-1145) (Yakushushō)
ManuscriptsSection of the Gandavyūha section of the Avatamsaka-sūtra (Kegon-kyō) written over a Hakubyō Narrative Drawing (Menashi-kyō)
CalligraphyAnonymous Germany (Augsburg) 1476
Two Monks Burying a Woman; Monk at a Loom with a Young Maiden
PrintsUnknown Artist
Struchnos Plants (painting with text, recto and verso), from a De Materia Medica of Dioscorides
ManuscriptsWarrior and Physician with the Plant Kestron (painting, recto; text, verso), folio from a manuscript of the De Materia Medica of Dioscorides
ManuscriptsVerbascum Plants (painting with text, recto and verso), illustrated folio from a manuscript of the De Materia Medica of Dioscorides
ManuscriptsAttributed to Prince Son'en
Process of Buddhist Festivals and Funeral Address (Raun kōshiki)
Manuscripts