San Diego Museum of Art Acquires Portrait by Mengs
As noted at ArtDaily
Anton Raphael Mengs, "Don Luis de Borbón," 1750-51 (San Diego Museum of Art)
The San Diego Museum of Art announces its newest addition to the permanent collection. An eighteenth-century painting by Anton Raphael Mengs, a portrait of Don Luis de Borbón, is now displayed among the Museum’s world-renowned collection of Spanish art.
“Although Spanish art is one of the Museum’s strengths, the collection has not had a Spanish painting made between the 1650s—the date of our late Zurbarán and early Murillo—and 1795, the date of our great portrait by Goya. This portrait by Mengs, the leading artist in Spain in the 1760s and 70s, begins to fill that gap. More importantly, the Don Luis de Borbón will hang proudly alongside our works by Goya and Pompeo Batoni, giving us a spectacular display of European portraiture from the later eighteenth century” says John Marciari, Curator of European Art at The San Diego Museum of Art.
Mengs (1728-1779) was famous throughout Europe during his lifetime. In the 1740s and 50s he divided his time between Dresden and Rome, winning major commissions for both portraits and fresco paintings in both cities. In Rome, he was also closely associated with the archaeologist and writer Johann Joseph Winckelmann, and their research into Greek art made them key figures in the rise of Neo-Classicism. Despite his importance as a theoretician and as a history painter, however, Mengs was most accomplished in the field of portraiture; the Don Luis de Borbón displays his delicacy and refined touch in the genre.
From 1761 onward, Mengs spent much of his time in Spain and was eventually named Primer Pintor (First Painter) and executed portraits of the royal family. Don Luis (1727-1785), the younger brother of King Charles III, had been destined for a career in the church and was named Cardinal at age eight, although he later renounced that office and became the Count of Chinchón. Living in semi-exile outside of Madrid, he became an important patron of the arts and was responsible for commissioning, for example, Francisco de Goya’s first major works.
Marciari will lecture on this painting, telling the story behind the acquisition and giving more details of the fascinating lives of both Mengs and Don Luis, on Saturday, February 11th, at 10:30 a.m.
Exhibition: Making the News in Eighteenth-Century France
From Carleton University:
Making the News in 18th-Century France
Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, 13 February – 15 April 2012
Curated by Stéphane Roy
In 18th-century France, the dramatic rise in the production and rapid dissemination of prints played a key role in the creation of modern political culture. Prints helped people grasp the nature of newsworthy events both near and far, covering a wide range of historical moments, from the taking of Québec City in 1759 or the storming of the Bastille in 1789, to seemingly anecdotal acts of virtue performed by members of the monarchy or everyday individuals. Despite (or because) of the variable time lag involved in their making, printed images shaped public opinion as much – if not more – than the printed word, giving visual and tangible meaning to abstract yet politically-charged ideas and concepts such as “tyranny” or “patriotism.” Making the News presents approximately 40 prints made in France from 1770 to 1820, looking at their representation of actual events and the ways in which they fashioned how the French perceived their own place in History. Woven into a narrative linking history and art history, literature and journalism, politics and image-making, these objects will shed new light on art and ideas in the era of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Bound to the possibilities of centuries-old printmaking techniques, the 18th-century public’s relation to visual information echoes, in many ways, our own experience in the digital age, concerned with access to and transformation of content. Making the News ultimately prompts us to examine our current practice of looking, understanding and consuming the news.
Lemoyne’s Annunciation on Loan to the National Gallery
From the National Gallery:
François Lemoyne, The Annuncation, 1727
François Lemoyne, The Annuncation, 1727
National Gallery, London
On Loan from Winchester College
According to Saint Luke’s Gospel, the archangel Gabriel announces to the Virgin that she will give birth to Jesus. This depiction of the subject is signed and dated 1727, the year the artist was awarded a prize for history painting by Louis XV. It may have been commissioned by the then headmaster of Winchester College where it was installed in 1729. Its painted arched top suggests an arched frame was originally intended.
November 2011 Issue of ‘Art History’
Eighteenth-century offerings from the November 2011 issue:
Andrei Pop, “Sympathetic Spectators: Henry Fuseli’s Nightmare and Emma Hamilton’s Attitudes,” Art History 34.5 (November 2011): 934-57.
Henry Fuseli, "The Nightmare," 1781, exhibited in 1782 at the Royal Academy of London (Detroit Institute of Arts)
Abstract: Henry Fuseli’s painting The Nightmare (1782), unusual in the artist’s oeuvre and in the painting of its time as the public visualization of a private mental state, can be made sense of in light of late eighteenth-century practices and theories of privacy and of the agency that minds can exert on the world on on each other. By comparison with another dream-like performance, Emma Hamilton’s Attitudes, and informed by David Hume’s theory of sympathy, which was designed to explain the social communicability of mental states, a reading of The Nightmare emerges which shows that it did not aim to make visible dream imagery, but to induce spectators to have or feel as if they had an analogous experience. The painting is thus typical of the formative stage of a modern understanding of public life as a contingent
association of private lives.
Andrei Pop studied art history at Stanford and Harvard Universities and is a postdoctoral fellow at the Universität Berlin. The present essay is part of Neopaganism, a book in progress on the cultural politics of classicism. His article on Fuseli and tragedy will appear in the March 2012 Art Bulletin. His translation, together with Mechtild Widrich, of Karl Rosenkranz’s Aesthetics of Ugliness (1853) is forthcoming.
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Steven Adams, “Amateurs and Revolutionaries in Eighteenth-century France,” Art History 34.5 (November 2011): 1042-46.
Review of Charlotte Guichard, Les Amateurs d’art à Paris au XVIII siècle (Paris: Champ Vallon, 2008); Laura Auricchio, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard: Artist in the Age of Revolution (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2009); and Rolf Reichardt and Hubertus Kohle, Visualizing the Revolution: Politics and the Pictorial Arts in Late Eighteenth-century France (London: Reaktion Books, 2008).
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Marion Endt-Jones, “Commemorative Reconsiderations,” Art History 34.5 (November 2011): 1053-56.
Review of Diana Donald and Jane Munro, eds., Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science, and the Visual Arts (New Haven and London: Yale Center for British Art, 2009); and Andrew Graciano, ed., Visualizing the Unseen: Imagining the Unknown, Perfecting the Natural: Art and Science in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008).
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Editor’s Note: At February’s CAA meeting in Los Angeles, there is an entire session, sponsored by the Midwest Art History Society, on the subject of The Nightmare. -CH.
Icons of the Midwest: Henry Fuseli’s Nightmare
Wednesday, 22 February, 12:30–2:00
Chairs: Laura Gelfand (Utah State University) and Judith Mann (Saint Louis Art Museum)
• Salvador Salort-Pons (Detroit Institute of the Arts), Living with Fuseli’s Nightmare
• Beth S. Wright (University of Texas at Arlington), ‘As I Was Perpetually Haunted by These
Ideas’: Fuseli’s Influence on Mary Shelley’s Mathilda and Frankenstein
• Scott Bukatman (Stanford University), Dreams, Fiends, and Dream Screens
Early Registration for CAA Ends Friday
Early registration for CAA’s 100th Annual Conference, taking place February 22–25, 2012, in Los Angeles, ends this Friday, December 16, 2011. To secure the lowest rates, register for the conference and book your travel accommodations today!
Call for Papers: Two Study Days on Montfaucon
As noted at Le Blog de l’ApAhAu:
L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures de Montfaucon : genèse et réception
Bibliothèque Carré d’Art de Nîmes, 12 October 2012
Médiathèque du Grand Narbonne, 22 March 2013
Proposals due 15 April 2012
This second edition of Montfaucon's "L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures" is available from the Manhattan Rare Book Company for $13,000. Click on the photo for more information and images from the plates.
La publication à Paris en 1719 des 10 volumes de L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figuresa constitué un véritable événement éditorial, avec un chiffre de tirage imposant au regard de l’histoire du livre, et plus particulièrement du livre illustré – dans sa version finale, augmentée de 5 volumes de suppléments, l’ouvrage intègre plus de 1300 planches reproduisant œuvres d’art, monnaies, objets et monuments de l’Antiquité. Ce succès en concrétise un autre : celui, intellectuel, du long travail de collecte et d’érudition mené par le bénédictin dom Bernard de Montfaucon pour rassembler dans un monumental « musée de papier » les connaissances de l’époque sur l’Antiquité.
La place remarquable occupée par cette « histoire visuelle » dans l’évolution de l’antiquarisme et de ses réseaux en Europe est indiscutable : au xviiie siècle comme au xixe encore, nombreux sont ceux qui citent le languedocien Montfaucon et s’y réfèrent, explicitement ou implicitement, pour construire et étayer leur propre regard sur le passé, soit au travers d’une filiation soit en se démarquant de leur modèle. Dans le même temps, l’influence de l’ouvrage déborde le champ de l’histoire, infléchi par les deux disciplines émergentes de l’archéologie et de l’histoire de l’art, pour s’exercer aussi dans le domaine littéraire, une part de son rayonnement aujourd’hui encore sous-estimée.
Les deux journées d’études envisagées se donnent pour objectif de réévaluer la place de l’œuvre de Montfaucon dans l’histoire des idées et des savoirs, à la croisée des champs de l’histoire, de l’archéologie, de l’histoire de l’art et de la littérature ; elles proposent de mener une réflexion sur la genèse et les réceptions de l’AERF depuis sa parution. La première de ces deux journées, qui portera sur l’élaboration et la publication de l’œuvre, se déroulera à la Bibliothèque Carré d’Art de Nîmes le vendredi 12 octobre 2012 : il s’agira de contextualiser l’entreprise de Montfaucon en clarifiant son arrière-plan intellectuel (vie culturelle, littéraire et savante au début du xviiie siècle ; Montfaucon et la congrégation de Saint-Maur ; sources et références de l’AERF) et en examinant l’ouvrage en lui-même (intentions, genre, démarche scientifique, méthodes à l’œuvre, représentation véhiculée de l’Antiquité). La seconde de ces journées, qui s’intéressera aux réceptions, jusqu’à nos jours, de l’AERF, se déroulera à la Médiathèque du Grand Narbonne le vendredi 22 mars 2013 : y seront précisées les influences directes ou obliques de l’œuvre sur des ouvrages et/ou démarches ultérieures, à partir d’une réévaluation de son audience (public visé/public réel, réception critique, « autorité » de l’auteur, etc.).
Les propositions de contribution (300 mots environ) sont à adresser avant le 15 avril 2012 à Véronique Krings, Université de Toulouse, PLH ERASME (vkrings@mail.com) et Magali Soulatges, Université d’Avignon, IRCL Montpellier III (magali.soulatges@univ-avignon.fr).
Le souci de favoriser une approche pluridisciplinaire du sujet (par les historiens, archéologues, historiens de l’art et littéraires) guidera le choix des communications retenues.
Call for Articles: Eating Together
I’m afraid there’s not much time for this one, but interesting enough that I wanted to pass it along. -CH.
Special Issue of Museums & Social Issues on Eating Together
Articles or Prospectuses due by 20 December 2011
Hanoverian Table Setting (Photo from M. Ford Creech Antiques, click on the image to visit the site)
The deadline is approaching for submitting articles or reviews for the next issue of the journal Museums & Social Issues (published by Left Coast Press, Inc). Tentatively titled Eating Together, the issue will examine the intersection of museum practice and access to and changing traditions associated with food. We would like to highlight programing and exhibits exploring food access, eating practices, sustainability, preservation of heritage seeds, traditional cuisines, culinary science and other creative uses of food. We are also interested in articles from outside the museum field, dealing with research, theory or innovative projects that connect people and communities to practices of eating.
Please submit full articles (ideal) or well developed prospectuses to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com:80/msi by December 20, 2011. For more information, contact the editor at MSIuw@uw.edu or Morriss8@uw.edu.
Stefania Van Dyke
Museum Studies & Practice
Left Coast Press, Inc.
museums@lcoastpress.com
1787 U.S. Coin Fetches $7.4 Million
From CoinWeek (12 December 2011) . . .
Blanchard and Company places world’s most valuable gold coin – the Brasher Doubloon for a record $7.395 million . . .
This rare numismatic treasure is considered America’s first and most important gold coin. It was purchased from John Albanese, founder of Certified Acceptance Corp. (CAC), and the transaction is the single highest price ever paid for a coin in a private transaction. It is truly unique as there is only one known example. . .
The Brasher Doubloon with the punch on the breast was minted in 1787 by Ephraim Brasher, a silversmith and goldsmith in New York City, and it contained $15 worth of gold at the time of its minting. Brasher made a small number of gold coins that historians today believe were intended for public circulation. . . .
The full article is available here»
Additional coverage is available at The Daily Mail.
HBA Publication Grant
Historians of British Art Publication Grant
Proposals due by 15 January 2012
The Historians of British Art (HBA) invites applications for its 2012 publication grant. The society will award up to $750 to offset publication costs for a book manuscript in the field of British art or visual culture that has been accepted by a publisher. Applicants must be current members of HBA. To apply, send a 500-word project description, publication information (name of journal or press and projected publication date), budget, and CV to Renate Dohmen, Prize Committee Chair, HBA, brd4231@louisiana.edu.
Exhibition: French Drawings in Grenoble
Jean-François-Pierre Peyron, “Curius Denatus refusant les présents
des ambassadeurs Samnites,” XVIIIe siècle, Musée de Grenoble
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Currently on display at the Musée de Grenoble, as noted by Hélène Bremer . . .
L’idée et la ligne – Dessins français
Musée de Grenoble, 5 November 2011 — 12 February 2012
Après la présentation de ses plus belles feuilles italiennes, le musée de Grenoble met en valeur son extraordinaire fonds de dessins français. De la Renaissance à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, les plus grands artistes répondent présents. Nicolo dell’Abate, appelé pour travailler à Fontainebleau, offre une introduction magistrale à un parcours graphique qui puise ses sources en Italie. Laurent de la Hyre, Simon Vouet, Philippe de Champaigne, Patel, Charles Mellin, Charles Alphonse Dufresnoy ou François Perrier illustrent brillament les tendances d’une école française qui s’affirme et prend peu à peu son indépendance face à l’Italie. Le Brun, Noël Coypel, Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne, Louis de Boulogne et Charles de la Fosse poursuivent les avancées sous Louis XIV. La partie la plus riche et paradoxalement la moins connue de cette collection concerne le XVIIIe siècle : Boucher, Pierre ou Huber Robert viennent marquer le triomphe de la couleur et de la nature. Feuillet après feuillet, un pan entier de l’histoire de l’art française se dessine
sous nos yeux.
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Catalogue: Guillaume Kazerouni, Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée, Jérôme Delaplanche and Pierre Rosenberg, L’idée et la ligne: Dessins français du musée de Grenoble, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Somogy éditions d’art, 2011), 240 pages, ISBN: 9782757204818, €35.
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