Enfilade

Selections from Eighteenth-Century Studies 43 (Summer 2010):

Stacey Sloboda, “Displaying Materials: Porcelain and Natural History in the Duchess of Portland’s Museum,” pp. 455-72.

Abstract: Porcelain in eighteenth-century aristocratic collections was associated with both the curious and the foreign. The Duchess of Portland’s Museum contained large amounts of porcelain along with thousands of natural history specimens. The material and geographic plurality of the collection mirrored its totalizing claims to have a comprehensive display of the world’s natural and artificial materials. This essay explores the relationship between porcelain and natural history, arguing that Portland’s collection attempted to bridge conceptual distinctions between science and art in the eighteenth century, and that this project was particularly important to making sense of eighteenth-century female collecting practices and their sociable display.

Dorothy Johnson, “Review Article — The Matter of Sculpture,” pp. 505-08.

• Erika Naginski, Sculpture and Enlightenment (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2009).
• Martina Droth and Penelope Curtis, eds., Taking Shape: Finding Sculpture in the Decorative Arts (Leeds and Los Angeles: Henry Moore Institute and the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008-09).
• Anne Betty Weinshenker, A God or a Bench: Sculpture as a Problematic Art during the Ancien Régime (Bern: Peter Lang, 2008).

Clorinda Donato, “Review Article — Fresh Legacies: Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Enduring Style and Grand Tour Appeal,” 508-11.

• Mario Vevilacqua, Fabio Barry, and Heather Hyde Minor, eds., The Serpent and the Stylus: Essays on G. B. Piranesi (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006).
• Andelka Galic and Vladimir Malekovic, eds. Piranesi: Vasi candelabri cippi sarcofagi tripodi lucerne ed ornamenti antichi, exhibition catalogue, translated into Italian by William Klinger (Zagreb: Museum of Arts and Crafts, 2007).