More on Meissen — Chance to Win at Apollo Magazine
Apollo Magazine’s weekly competition:
We are pleased to announce that our new competition prize is The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain 1710–50 by Cassidy-Geiger, Sebastian Kuhn and Heike Biedermann (The Frick Collection, $275), to coincide with our just published July/August issue, which celebrates the 300th anniversary of the Meissen manufactury’s foundation. The Arnhold porcelain collection is one of the most important great prewar Meissen collections to have survived intact. Uniquely, most of the pieces date from the first decades of the royal factory, established by August II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, in 1710. The collection features a broad range of early work – much of it experimental, including table and chocolate services; figures; European porcelains and Asian ceramics.
For your chance to win, simply answer the following question:
In what year did Johann Joachim Kändler become Modellmeister at the Meissen factory?
Email your answers to offers@apollomag.com using ‘Meissen’ as the subject of your email. Only answers received before midday on 7th July will be entered into the competition draw.
Good luck!
Selections from the Prado Library
From the Prado:
Bibliotheca Artis: Treasures from the Museo del Prado Library, 1500-1750
Prado, Madrid, 5 July — 17 October 2010
Curated by Javier Docampo, Head of Library, Archive and Documentation at the Museo Nacional del Prado
Giuseppe Galli Bibiena, (1696-1756), "Architetture e prospettive... ," 1740 (Cerv/708)
The Museo del Prado Library, presently installed in the Casón del Buen Retiro, houses an important Old Books Holdings, notably increased the past years thanks to the acquisition of the José María Cervelló library and the Daza-Madrazo family library. The exhibition will show forty books and manuscripts dated between 1500 and 1750, as well as a group of eight paintings from the museum’s collection (Titian, El Greco, Velázquez, etc) which will reveal different connections between the bibliographical fund and the paintings collection.
The exhibition is made up of three sections. The first one, Bibliotheca artis, shows the basic landmarks of the European artistic bibliography from the most important renaissance treaties (Alberti, Leonardo, Dürer) up to the fundamental works form the Spanish Golden Age (Pachecho, Carducho, García Hidalgo, Palomino). The second one, Bibliotheca architecturae is devoted to architectural treaties conceived as a defined typology among art books and it comprises early editions of the Vitruvio up to great Italian and European renaissance treaties (Palladio, Serlio, Vignola, Delorme, Dieteterlin). Some books from public festivities will be included (royal admissions, canonizations…) conceived as an irreplaceable testimony of the disappeared ephemeral architectures. And finally, the section Bibliotheca imaginis which focuses on the role that books play as a work tool and as a source of inspiration for artists. From the artists’ portrait repertoire to the drawing drafts, baroque emblem books or the albums with reproductions of works of art, the whole will show the importance of illustrations in books in the building of the visual European imaginary of the Modern Age.
Porcelain at Bonhams
Press release from Bonhams:
A Naples, Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea cup and saucer Circa 1790-1800 Estimate: £3,500 - 4,500
The fantastic Procida Mirabelli di Lauro collection of Italian porcelain is to be auctioned at Bonhams, New Bond Street on Tuesday 6th July. This Italian single-owner collection, the most comprehensive of its type to ever come on to the market, is expected to fetch £300,000-500,000. Among the highlights of the sale are four plates from the Servizio del’Oca made for King Ferdinand IV’s private use, estimated to sell for £5,000 – £8,000, a rare Doccia perfume bottle, circa 1745-50, estimated to sell for £4,000 – £6,000 and a collection of Doccia snuffboxes, circa 1790, estimated to sell for £5,000 – £12,000. Also on offer are several documentary pieces from the Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea, amongst them a plate with a view of Virgil’s Temple, signed by Antonio Cioffi.
The collection comprises over 100 pieces and was assembled by Roberto Procida Mirabelli di Lauro from the early 1960s until his death in 2009. It includes highlights of Neapolitan porcelain of exceptional diversity and range of objects, from rare 16th century Venetian maiolica to precious late 18th century Doccia porcelain and French and Italian snuff boxes. Many of the pieces have been published in the standard literature on the subject. (more…)
Call for Essays: Rhetoric of Violence
The Rhetoric of Violence in the Early Modern Era
Special Issue of Cahiers Shakespeare en devenir-Shakespearean Afterlives
Abstracts due by 30 November 2010
We invite submissions for the 2011 issue of Cahiers Shakespeare en devenir-Shakespearean Afterlives. These might include essays (6000-7000 words including notes) for the issue proper, and review-essays (2-3000 words) or reviews of plays or exhibitions (1000-1500 words) for the issue’s supplement L’Oeil du spectateur.
The 2011 issue of the journal is dedicated to interdisciplinary and monodisciplinary approaches to the theme of violence against body and soul in literature and the arts, from the Renaissance to the Long Eighteenth Century. Focusing on the theme of the tormented body, this issue will offer a different insight on verbal and visual representations of violence in both theoretical and practical terms. It will concentrate on the analysis of how violence was presented to the early modern public and also on the iconoclastic consequences of both violence and its representations: “Of course violence at once shocked and repelled people by its brutality. But it also fascinated many because it so contradicted religious precepts and social norms” (Ruff, 2001: 28). Violence needs to be considered as a means of constraint, and as a form of political and aesthetic subversion and resistance to the excessive forms of regulation of which it was the instrument. We will consider papers on Shakespeare and/or his contemporaries (literature and performance studies), on early modern literature and the arts in England, Europe, The East and the New World, on the paragone of violence in Early Modern works of art, and on the representations of Renaissance violence and violent topics in subsequent eras. Targeted disciplines: English Literature, Comparative Literature, Theatre studies, Performance studies, Cinema studies, History of Ideas, History of Arts, Philology. Topics might include (non exclusive list): (more…)
Hans Turley Prize in Queer Eighteenth-Century Studies
Submissions due by 15 August 2010
The Hans Turley Prize will be awarded annually for the best paper on a topic in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer Studies delivered at the ASECS annual meeting by a graduate student, an untenured faculty member, or an independent scholar. In addition to recognition, the prize will carry a modest cash award. The prize committee will consist of senior (and therefore ineligible) faculty members of the ASECS Lesbian and Gay Caucus, which Hans Turley helped to found.
Submissions for the Turley Prize must be sent directly to the ASECS office, PO Box 7867, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109 or by email to asecs@wfu.edu. The deadline for submitting papers delivered at the 2010 Annual Meeting is August 15, 2010. The prizewinner will be notified after the committee has made its decision and recognized at the following year’s annual meeting as well as in the summer or fall news circular.
Meissen Part II: The Larger European Context
The Fascination of Fragility: Masterpieces of European Porcelain
Ephraim-Palais, Berlin, 9 May — 29 August 2010
This unique exhibition paints a vivid picture of 18th-century European porcelain. The entire spectrum of European porcelain is on show, from elegant French court porcelain and English wares to German and Italian porcelains with their bright colours and bold forms. For this exceptional show the Ephraim-Palais has been turned into a magical ‘Porcelain Palace’. When presented in such an international context, the collected masterpieces of the most famous Berlin manufactory, the KPM, also develop their own special charisma.
This special exhibition in Berlin is part of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden’s tercentenary celebrations commemorating the invention of European hard-paste porcelain. The exhibition – organised in association with the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin – encompasses around 500 objects, including about a hundred porcelains from the holdings of the Porzellansammlung of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Porcelain wares from the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin held in the Stadtmuseum Berlin as well as items on loan from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Musée national du Céramique in Sèvres complete the exhibition.
The exhibition places Meissen Porcelain within the context of European porcelain culture. Particular attention is therefore paid to masterpieces from other European manufactories . Outstanding objects are on display from each of the approximately 50 manufactories. The exhibition focuses on the specific features of the products of each manufactory, as well as showing the shared elements which gave rise to a common tradition. Both the influence of Meissen por-celain on the wares produced by other manufactories and the effect of other Euro-pean manufactories on the Saxon products is clearly illustrated.
Exactly 300 years ago, August the Strong established the first European hard-paste porcelain manufactory in Meissen. Thereafter, Meissen porcelain swiftly became an indispensable status symbol for the European aristocracy. Until the middle of the 18th century, the Meissen manufactory was the leading force in porcelain design, setting standards for table and dining culture and laying down the entire repertoire of forms and styles of decor. From the mid-18th century onwards, there was a boom in the production of porcelain. Newly established manufactories entered into serious competition with Meissen. They emancipated themselves from the dominance of Meissen and introduced their own innovations. Meissen gradually lost the upper hand to Berlin and Sèvres, which now took over the leading role in Europe.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by E. A. Seemann Verlag Leipzig: The Fascination of Fragility. Masterpieces of European Porcelain by Ulrich Pietsch and Theresa Witting (eds.). Price: 49.90 Euro.
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