Conference | Animating the 18th-Century Country House
From The National Gallery:
Animating the 18th-Century Country House
The National Gallery, London, 5 March 2015
When we visit a Georgian country house and wander through its interiors, the impression we get is of a moment frozen in time. In fact the country house was anything but a static, unchanging entity. This one-day scholarly conference encourages fresh thinking about 18th-century country houses as environments that were always evolving, animated by interactions between objects and people.
The conference will look at the ways in which objects, when placed on display within a particular space, entered into different kinds of dialogue with the contents, decoration and associations of that space. It will also explore the ways in which the evolving environment of the country house, and the forms of display found within it, were experienced; by those who lived in the house, by those who visited as tourists or invited guests, and by those who engaged vicariously through the process of ‘armchair travel’.
Organised by the National Gallery, Birkbeck (University of London), and the Paul Mellon Centre, the conference is designed for art historians and scholars of 18th-century fine and decorative arts, architecture, and garden history; curators and custodians of historic houses; and the general public interested in historic houses of the period.
• Buying, collecting and display: the purchase, commissioning, inheritance, gifting of works of art, furniture, books and other materials; picture hangs; room arrangements.
• The country house as a complete environment: the total effect of the 18th-century country house, and the ways in which its various elements—works of art, furniture, decorative schemes—worked together to create a complete experience.
• The country house and visitor experience: country house tourism; visitor experience of houses and gardens; the multifarious literature related to country houses, including guidebooks, regional guidebooks, and periodical articles.
Book tickets here»
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P R O G R A M M E
10.00 Registration
10.30 Welcome and Introduction by Nicholas Penny
10.45 Panel 1: Buying, Collecting and Display
Chair: Jonathan Yarker
• Silvia Davoli, Paul Mellon Centre Research Curator at Strawberry Hill and Susan Walker, Head of Public Services at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, ‘Horace Walpole’s Strategies as a Collector and the Movement of Objects at Strawberry Hill over Fifty Years’
• Karin Wolfe, Research Fellow at the British School at Rome, ‘New Rome Animates Old Britain: The Contemporary Art Acquisitions Made in Rome by John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter (1648–1700), for Burghley House’
• Jon Stobart, Professor of Social History at the University of Northampton, ‘Remaking an English Country House: Craftsmen, Furnishings and Taste at Stoneleigh Abbey in the 1760s’
12.15 Lunch break
13.15 Panel 2: The Country House as a Complete Environment
Chair: Sebastian Edwards
• Richard Johns, Lecturer in History of Art at the University of York, ‘Mind the Step: Animating the Country House Staircase’
• Laurel O. Peterson, doctoral candidate in the History of Art at Yale University, ‘Decorating for the Decorated: Louis Laguerre’s Murals in the Saloon at Blenheim’
• Alison Yarrington, Professor of Art History, Dean of the School of Arts at Loughborough University, ‘Light, Camera, Action: The 6th Duke of Devonshire and the Evolution of Chatsworth’
14.45 Refreshment break
15.15 Panel 3: The Country House and Visitor Experience
Chair: Stephen Lloyd
• Anthony Geraghty, Senior Lecturer in History of Art at the University of York, ‘Experiencing Castle Howard’
• Stephen Bending, Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Southampton, ‘Experiencing the Country House Pleasure Garden’
• Jocelyn Anderson, Visiting Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art, ‘Visitors’ Experiences and Travellers’ Writings: The 18th-Century Country House as Tourist Attraction’
16.45 Closing comments and thanks from Susanna Avery-Quash, Research Curator in the History of Collecting, National Gallery and Kate Retford, Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Art, Birkbeck, University of London
Call for Papers | Disseminating Dress: Britain and the Fashion World
From the conference website:
Disseminating Dress: Britain and the Fashion World
University of York, 28–30 May 2015
Proposals due by 15 January 2015
Disseminating Dress is a three-day international and interdisciplinary conference that explores how ideas and knowledge about dress have been shared, sought and communicated throughout history.
In bringing together academics, curators and industry professionals, this conference is an invitation for interdisciplinary discussion concerning methods of communicating concepts of what someone should, could, or would wear. Dress has been demonstrated to be central to the creation, expression, and subversion of cultural and national identity. However, what remains relatively unexplored is how these ideas were conveyed and perceived. If fashion is the result of a mixture of innovation and emulation, then we need to ask how these new ideas came to be circulated around and between societies.
From the London of the Blitz to Renaissance Italy, men and women have both sought out and been instructed in what to wear, forming personal, social and cultural aesthetics, while driving trade and mercantile success. This conference welcomes a broad interpretation of how dress has been disseminated throughout history, and will be an open forum for work undertaken from a variety of disciplinary and professional viewpoints.
Disseminating Dress invites proposals for 20-minute papers that explore the manifold media, methods, perceptions and motivations driving fashion dissemination across history. Paper topics might include, but are certainly not limited to, the following methods and media for transferring fashion ideas and information:
• Correspondence and social networks
• Global networks for trade and cultural exchange
• The written word—including novels, journals, and fashion magazines
• Costume books, home sewing patterns, and other instructional sources
• Visual and material culture, including both fine art and popular culture
• Advertising, the role of fashion designers, and branding
• Famous persons, from court culture to modern celebrities
• Film, television, the Internet, and modern social media including MMS-ography
• The history of taste, and the influence of outside cultural forces such as developments within architecture and the decorative arts on fashion
Abstracts of 250 words in length, with an accompanying 100-word biography should be sent to disseminatingdress@gmail.com no later than 15th January 2015.
Confirmed Keynote Speakers
Christopher Breward, University of Edinburgh & Edinburgh College of Art
Peter McNeil, University of Technology, Sydney, & University of Sweden
Marcia Pointon, University of Manchester
Jennie Batchelor, University of Kent
Ulinka Rublack, University of Cambridge
Anna Reynolds, The Royal Collection
Organised by: Anna Bonewitz (University of York), Serena Dyer (University of Warwick), Sophie Littlewood (University of York), Jade Halbert (University of Glasgow), and Elizabeth Bobbitt (University of York).
Supported by: The Paul Mellon Centre; and The British Art Research School, The Humanities Research Centre, The Centre for Modern Studies, The Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, and The Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, University of York.
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