2013 Attingham Course: French Eighteenth-Century Studies
From The Attingham Trust:
Attingham Course: French Eighteenth-Century Studies
The Wallace Collection, London, 14–18 October 2013
Applications due by 12 July 2013
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French Eighteenth-Century Studies is a new course organised by The Attingham Trust on behalf of the Wallace Collection. Based at Hertford House, this intensive, non-residential study programme aims to foster a deeper knowledge and understanding of French eighteenth-century fine and decorative art and is intended primarily to aid professional development. A day at Waddesdon Manor, Ferdinand de Rothschild’s former country house, will help broaden the scope of the course still further.
The academic programme will provide privileged access to the world-class collections of furniture, paintings, sculpture, textiles, metalwork and porcelain in these two collections. The group will be limited to fifteen people to allow for detailed, object-based study, handling sessions and a look at behind-the-scenes conservation.
Study sessions and lectures will be led by Dr. Christoph Vogtherr, Director of the Wallace Collection, and the relevant curatorial staff; other international authorities and the curators at Waddesdon will provide further specialist teaching. The Course Director is Dr. Helen Jacobsen, Curator of French eighteenth-century Decorative Arts at the Wallace Collection.
Exhibition | Des couleurs et du papier: France, Allemagne, Italie
From the Bibliothèque Mazarine:
Des couleurs et du papier: France, Allemagne, Italie (1700–1850)
Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, 2 April – 7 June 2013
Curated by Nadine Férey-Pfalzgraf, Florine Levecque, and Marc Kopylov
À la croisée de l’imagerie populaire et des papiers de tenture, un foisonnant univers graphique a vu le jour dans les ateliers des cartiers, dominotiers et graveurs d’images entre 1700 et 1850.
Les papiers dominotés imprimés à la planche de bois et rehaussés au patron, ont souvent servi de couverture d’attente aux livres brochés ; aussi, éphémères et fragiles, sont-ils rarement parvenus jusqu’à nous, quelques objets attestant également de leur utilisation dans les arts mobiliers ou décoratifs. En revanche, les papiers dorés gaufrés ou dorés vernis d’outre-Rhin, appréciés des relieurs pour habiller les gardes des livres de grande valeur, ont été plus largement conservés, protégés à l’intérieur des volumes.
Fort prisés au 18e siècle, ces papiers assuraient le succès des artisans les plus talentueux, qui n’hésitaient pas à signer leur production, cas rare à une époque où l’anonymat était de rigueur dans les petits métiers : on connaît ainsi les ateliers Sillé au Mans, Sevestre Leblond à Orléans, « Les Associés » à Paris ; Leopold à Augsbourg et Eckart à Nuremberg ; Bertinazzi à Bologne et Remondini à Bassano, qui finit par occuper une position de quasi monopole en Italie.
Panorama significatif des productions françaises, allemandes et italiennes au 18e siècle, l’exposition présente une sélection de papiers provenant des fonds de la Bibliothèque Mazarine et de la Médiathèque Louis Aragon du Mans, complétés par des prêts de collectionneurs privés. Elle prolonge et illustre les travaux pionniers d’André Jammes, et les recherches récemment publiées par Christiane et Marc Kopylov (Éditions des Cendres). Elle doit aussi susciter de nouvelles découvertes.
Community Libraries: Connecting Readers in the Atlantic World
From the University of Liverpool:
Dr Mark Towsey has been awarded £36,225 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to develop a two-year international research network on Community Libraries: Connecting Readers in the Atlantic World, 1650-1850. Together with his partners at Loyola University Chicago, the Newberry Library (Chicago), and the Dr Williams’s Library (London), Mark will host three workshops on the cultural history of libraries in the long eighteenth century, seeking to establish a dynamic, longer-lasting, multi- and interdisciplinary research forum to investigate the role of libraries in shaping communities in the past.
The first event, to be held at the Liverpool Athenaeum Library in August 2013 or January 2014 will explore the role of libraries in the Atlantic World; the second, to be held in Chicago in June 2014, will workshop the use of digital technologies in deepening our understanding of historic reading communities and the social impact of the printed word; the third, to be held in London in January 2015, will assess the role of libraries in community formation, asking whether historical models of library provision and administration can be adapted to meet the challenges faced by community libraries in the digital age, and in an age of financial austerity.
Further information on the network, its aims and objectives, and its planned activities, will soon be found on the History department’s research projects webpage. If you would like to find out more about the network, or would like to take part, please contact the project leader on Towsey@liv.ac.uk.
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