Riva Mikhlin Presents at the Bay Area Art History Symposium
Last weekend, Riva Mikhlin ’25 (Economics, Mathematics, Art History) presented her paper “Papal Politics and the Portrait of a Samurai: Hasekura Tsunenaga in Rome” at the Bay Area Undergraduate Art History Symposium. Riva argued that, by presenting the samurai in the European visual language of power, while also including identifiably Japanese elements, the portrait appears familiar enough to be intelligible to a European audience, and foreign enough to impress on the viewer the far reach of the Pope’s authority. The symposium was held at the University of San Francisco (SSF) and Riva was joined by representatives from USF, San Jose and Sonoma State Universities, Stanford University, Saint Mary’s College, University of California, Berkeley, and California College of the Arts.