Stuart Miniatures by Liotard on Offer at TEFAF 2015
Jean-Étienne Liotard, Prince Henry Benedict Stuart (left) and Prince Charles Edward Stuart (right), ca. 1736–38, watercolour and gouache on vellum, 7.4cm high by 5.5cm wide (excluding frame), €275,000.
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From the press release:
Tomasso Brothers Fine Art at TEFAF
Maastricht, 13–22 March 2015
Recognised as leading dealers in the field of European sculpture, Tomasso Brothers Fine Art also specialises in Old Master paintings and objets d’art. At TEFAF 2015 the gallery unveils an exquisite pair of portrait miniatures by one of the most sought-after masters of the genre Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702–1789), which depict Princes Charles Edward Stuart (1720–1788) and Henry Benedict Stuart (1725–1807), last in the lineage of Stuart Kings in Scotland and England. The asking price for these miniature masterpieces is €275,000.
Born to French parents in Geneva, Jean-Étienne Liotard trained in Paris under the miniaturist and printmaker Jean-Baptiste Massé. While in Rome between 1736 and 1738, Liotard was commissioned by the exiled ‘Old Pretender’ James Edward Stuart (1688–1766) to paint portraits of his young sons Princes Charles and Henry. One of the most romantic figures in British history, celebrated in folklore as Bonnie Prince Charlie, Prince Charles Edward Stuart led the final Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 that was to end in defeat on the battlefield of Culloden.
Powerful and compelling imagery of the Stuart royal family—in the form of portrait miniatures, engravings and prints—was dispatched throughout Europe to garner loyalty and raise funds for the Jacobite cause to re-claim the throne of England. Evidence shows these particular miniatures may have been part of a group of three Stuart portraits sent to Vienna to be seen by Empress Elizabeth, wife of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. A miniature of Prince Charles is also recorded as having been sent to Dorotea, Dowager Duchess of Parma and mother of the Queen of Spain. The attribution has been fully endorsed by Professor Marcel Roethlisberger, author of the definitive 2008 monograph on Jean-Étienne Liotard in which they are illustrated.
Dino Tomasso, one of the Directors of the gallery, comments: “We are delighted to be exhibiting two masterpieces by the highly esteemed Jean-Etienne Liotard. This exquisite pair of miniatures is unrivalled amongst Liotard’s Stuart portraits in terms of their quality, and the fact that they are executed on vellum strongly suggests that they were his primary portraits of the young princes.”
Based at Bardon Hall, Leeds, Tomasso Brothers Fine Art was established in 1993. A second gallery was opened in St. James’s, London in 2013. Dino and Raffaello are recognised internationally for specialising in important European sculpture from the early Renaissance to the Neoclassical periods, with particular expertise in European Renaissance bronzes, along with an in-depth knowledge of Old Master paintings and objets d’art. They have promoted and supported, through loans and exhibitions, major international institutions and were one of the sponsors of the landmark show Bronze at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2012. Significant sales have been made to some of the world’s most prestigious museums, including the Bode Museum, Berlin; The Liechtenstein Collection and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Provenance
Possibly James Francis Edward Stuart, Palazzo Muti, Rome: whence Empress Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, wife of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, Vienna, by 1738.
Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, Clonmannon, Ashfrod, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, by 1968.
Private Collection, England.
Published
Marcel Roethlisberger and Renee Loché, Liotard: Catalogue Sources et Correspondance (Davaco 2008), Volume 1, pp. 257–58; Volume 2, cat. 46 & 49.
Related Literature
Edward Corp, The King over the Water: Portraits of the Stuarts in Exile after 1689 (National Galleries of Scotland, 2001), p.73
Additional information is available here»
New Book | The Buildings of Peter Harrison
From McFarland:
John Fitzhugh Millar, The Buildings of Peter Harrison: Cataloguing the Work of the First Global Architect, 1716–1775 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014), 244 pages, ISBN: 978-0786479627, $75.
Perhaps the most important architect ever to have worked in America, Peter Harrison’s renown suffers from the destruction of most of his papers when he died in 1775. He was born in Yorkshire, England in 1716 and trained to be an architect as a teenager. He also became a ship captain, and soon sailed to ports in America, where he began designing some of the most iconic buildings of the continent.
In a clandestine operation, he procured the plans for the French Canadian fortress of Louisbourg, enabling Massachusetts Governor William Shirley to capture it in 1745. This setback forced the French to halt their operation to capture all of British America and to give up British territory they had captured in India. As a result, he was rewarded with commissions to design important buildings in Britain and in nearly all British colonies around the world, and he became the first person ever to have designed buildings on six continents.
He designed mostly in a neo–Palladian style, and invented a way of building wooden structures so as to look like carved stone—“wooden rustication.” He also designed some of America’s most valuable furniture, including inventing the coveted “block-front,” and introducing the bombe motif. In America, he lived in Newport, Rhode Island, and in New Haven, Connecticut, where he died at the beginning of the War of Independence.
Material-culture historian John Fitzhugh Millar has several books to his credit on architectural history, colonial ships, and historic dance; he also runs the historic Bed & Breakfast Newport House in Williamsburg, Virginia.
C O N T E N T S
Preface
1. Carl Bridenbaugh’s Account of Harrison
2. A New Narrative of the Life of Peter Harrison
3. The British Isles and Europe
4. Canada
5. New England
6. The Mid-Atlantic
7. The American South and Atlantic Islands
8. The Caribbean
9. Other Continents–South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia
10. Furniture
Appendices
A. Buildings Attributed to Harrison
B. Student to Teacher
C. Architectural Pattern Books in Harrison’s Library
Illustrated Glossary of Architectural Terms
Bibliography
Index
Enfilade 
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