Wilfried E. Keil was Rome Fellow at the British School at Rome from April to June 2021. During this time he used the BSR's extensive photographic archive to closely examine Robert Mcpherson's original photographs. He made many surprising discoveries including an unknown photographic technique, new provenances and even a nineteenth-century thumbprint. Watch this film to find out more about the importance of experiencing source material up close and personal.

This project was supported by a Rome Fellowship.

Robert Turnbull Macpherson and His Photographic Vedute of Rome

  • Close headshot of man against pine background.

    Wilfried Kiel studied Film and TV Business Administration in Dortmund, and Art History, Philosophy and Classical Archaeology in Munich before receiving his PhD in 2011 at the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg with a thesis on Romanesque beast-columns, published as Romanische Bestiensäulen (Berlin 2018). He has participated in several research initiatives concerned with building archaeology (e.g. Worms Cathedral), inventory and excavations at the Institute for European Art History at Heidelberg University. From July 2011 until June 2019 he was a postdoctoral researcher concerned with script and character as part of a major project entitled ‘Material Text Cultures. Materiality and Presence of Writing in Non-Typographic Societies’. In October 2019 he was a visiting researcher at the Department d`Art i Musicologia of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and in 2020 he habilitated at the University of Heidelberg with a thesis on the presence and restricted presence of inscriptions in medieval architecture and sculpture (publication in preparation), being subsequently appointed a Privatdozent at the University of Heidelberg. From April to June 2021 he was a Paul Mellon Centre Rome Fellow at the British School of Rome working on early photographs of Rome by Robert Macpherson. His research interests are medieval architecture and sculpture, Renaissance sculpture, animal iconography, inscriptions, photography and film. He has written a number of scholarly articles and co-edited three books.