Professor Wager specializes in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century art and material culture. Her research focuses on the social, political, and material significance of the transmission of images in the early modern world. Wager’s current book project is a study of the relationship between the eighteenth-century French artist François Boucher, the royal mistress Madame de Pompadour, and the aesthetics of translation. Wager has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants from institutions including the Mellon Foundation and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. From 2012 to 2014, she held the Samuel H. Kress Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. In 2015, Wager was curator of the exhibition “Madame de Pompadour, Patron and Printmaker” at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Her recent publications include the article “The earliest known version of Madame de Pompadour’s ‘Suite d’Estampes’ rediscovered" in The Burlington Magazine (April 2017), and the essay "Amorous Pursuits" in the exhibition catalogue Casanova: The Seduction of Europe (2017). Wager holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Art History & Archaeology at Columbia University, where her dissertation was entitled “Boucher’s Bijoux: Luxury Reproduction in the Age of Enlightenment.” She graduated magna cum laude from Columbia College with a B.A. in French and art history.
