Articles in The Burlington Magazine consist principally of previously unpublished original research on art of all periods and places. Articles dealing with contemporary art are encouraged, but may be more suited to the journal published on our online platform, Burlington Contemporary. Authors are strongly advised to study a recent issue of the magazine before submitting an article. 

Before submitting an article, please email the Editor, Michael Hall, mhall@burlington.org.uk, with a brief synopsis (no more than 150 words) in English of the proposed article. You will then be informed whether or not the proposal is suitable for consideration by the magazine.

If possible, articles should be in English, but submissions in the main European languages are accepted. When an article is based on unpublished documents, a transcription should appear as an appendix. It is not necessary to provide an English translation of the documents but quotations from the document in the body of the article must be in English.

The magazine’s preferred length for articles is around 3,000 words; articles longer than 5,000 words are rare. The submission of ‘Shorter notices’, which should be no longer than 1,500 words, is encouraged. These word lengths do not include footnotes, which should be as few as possible and consist of references only. Discursive footnotes will be cut. The shorter the article is, the more likely it is to be published promptly.

As a rough guideline, articles of around 3,000 words can have up to ten illustrations.

Articles should be submitted as Word documents (not pdfs) as attachments to an email, which should be sent to the Assistant Articles Editor, Christine Gardner-Dseagu, gardner-dseagu@burlington.org.uk. Do not submit articles by post. The text should include a list of illustrations with their sources. Please send at the same time low-resolution image files of all the illustrations inserted into a separate Word file. Do not send any high-resolution files at this stage. If the article is accepted we will discuss with the author how high-resolution files are to be obtained and what rights need to be cleared.

All articles that are deemed potentially suitable for publication are sent out for anonymous peer review. This process can be lengthy but we endeavour to complete it within four months and to inform the author if there is a delay.

If accepted the article will be edited for the magazine’s house style. The Burlington Magazine uses British orthography and spelling. For general questions of spelling and usage, contributors are referred to The New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, Oxford 2005. Some guidance on our style for references is included in the 'Notes on House style' section.