Enfilade

From The Lewis Walpole Library:

Emma Hamilton Dancing
The Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, CT, October 2013 — April 2014

Curated by John Cooper

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Emma Hamilton (1761?–1815) first performed the Attitudes in Naples in the 1790s. The twelve neoclassical engravings of the Attitudes by Frederick Rehberg published in 1794 and 1797 and the twelve parodies of the same attributed to James Gillray and published by Hannah Humphrey in 1807 will be the centerpieces of the exhibition. Hamilton’s embodied performances will be presented alongside prints and illustrated books representing a range of social and theatrical dancing in Europe that will include contemporary images of the Neapolitan dance the Taranatella, Greek dance from William Hamilton’s volumes on antique vases, social dances including the Minuet, Cotillion, Quadrille, Allemande and Waltz, as well images of the classical ballet. The exhibition will present a new context for the Attitudes and will open up a new space in which to imagine the connections between art history and performance in Europe before the twentieth century.

The exhibition is curated by John Cooper, a Clare-Mellon Fellow in the History of Art and Graduate Research Assistant at the Yale Center for British Art.