Education
She attended Bronxville High School (graduating in 1948) and Wellesley College (class of 1952). She followed Freedberg to Harvard, where she did her Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy under his supervision.
She attended Bronxville High School (graduating in 1948) and Wellesley College (class of 1952). She followed Freedberg to Harvard, where she did her Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy under his supervision.
Born Janet Pearson Cox in Bronxville, New York to Vernon Cox, a schoolmaster at Saint Bernard"s School in Manhattan, and Mary Bostwick Cox, a Wellesley College graduate in Art History. Though she was working as a model and preparing for a career in fashion merchandising, her encounter with Sydney J. Freedberg, her professor at Wellesley, convinced her to follow a career in art history. (The other Fellows appointed in that year were Eric Cochrane, Curtis Shell, John Freccero, and David Herlihy) She held appointments at I Tatti again in 1975-1976 and 1990-1991.
Her dissertation, The Drawings of Pontormo, was published as a book (2 volumes) in 1963.
Her later books include: Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Artist Bronzino"s Chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio.
The Collections of Francois I: Royal Treasures. And Giulio Romano. She co-curated the 1999 exhibition The Drawings of Bronzino at the Metropolitan Museum of Artist
She taught at Wellesley, then soon after graduation worked as a curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings of the Art Institute of Chicago.
She then became lecturer at the Frick Collection before being hired, on the recommendation of Leo Steinberg to teach Italian Renaissance art at Hunter College. She remained at Hunter College for over forty years, and later taught also the Graduate Center of the City University of New New York She received the title of Distinguished Professor from the City University of New New York
Foreign her work on Francois I, the French government awarded her a knighthood, naming her a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
In 1961-1963 she was a member of the first class of Fellows to Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies.