Exhibition | De Versailles à La Motte Tilly: L’abbé Terray
Press release for the exhibition now on view at the Château de La Motte Tilly:
De Versailles à La Motte Tilly: L’abbé Terray, Ministre de Louis XV
Château de La Motte Tilly, 29 May — 20 September 2015
Curated by Gwenola Firmin and Vincent Bastien
Après Sacres Royaux, de Louis XIII à Charles X au palais du Tau à Reims et Le salon de George Sand à Nohant, en 2014, la troisième exposition du partenariat entre le Centre des monuments nationaux et le château de Versailles se tiendra au château de La Motte Tilly (Aube) du 29 mai au 20 septembre 2015. Cette nouvelle exposition conjointe est consacrée à l’abbé Joseph Marie Terray (1715–1778), ministre des finances de Louis XV, à l’occasion du tricentenaire de sa naissance.
L’abbé Terray et La Motte Tilly
Joseph Marie Terray bénéficie, à ses début, de l’héritage financier de son oncle, premier médecin de la princesse Palatine, belle-sœur de Louis XIV. Nommé abbé de Notre-Dame de Molesme, au diocèse de Langres, en octobre 1764, il devient, le 23 décembre 1769, contrôleur général des Finances de Louis XV. Après le renvoi du duc de Choiseul en 1770, il est l’un des hommes forts du ministère dit du Triumvirat. Incarnation de l’ascension sociale du XVIIIe siècle, talentueux réformateur, grand homme de l’histoire économique et politique du règne de Louis XV, l’abbé Terray, malgré l’appui constant de Madame de Pompadour puis de Madame Du Barry, est très impopulaire. Il mène en effet une politique financière, certes efficace et progressiste, mais aussi brutale et autoritaire. Le ministre occupe finalement la prestigieuse charge de directeur des Bâtiments du Roi en août 1773. Mais, un an plus tard, il démissionne avec l’avènement de Louis XVI et se retire à La Motte Tilly, tout en rêvant secrètement d’être rappelé au gouvernement.
Son domaine de La Motte Tilly, parfait exemple de l’architecture du XVIIIe siècle, est sa résidence de 1748 à son décès en 1778. La demeure et son parc, comprenant aujourd’hui près de 1080 hectares, témoignent d’un certain art de vivre au Siècle des Lumières. L’actuel château, élevé à partir de 1755, est l’œuvre de l’architecte parisien François-Nicolas Lancret (1717–1789), le neveu du célèbre peintre de scènes galantes, Nicolas Lancret. L’implication de l’abbé Terray dans les différents chantiers de sa demeure de plaisance s’amplifie à mesure que sa carrière politique prend de l’importance.
L’exposition
Présentée dans les anciens appartements du ministre, l’exposition De Versailles à La Motte Tilly. L’abbé Terray, ministre de Louis XV retrace l’ascension et la vie du maître des lieux, personnage historique parmi les plus influents de la fin du règne de Louis XV mais aussi parmi les plus controversés du XVIIIe siècle. Réunis pour la première fois, des documents d’archives, des objets d’art précieux, des dessins et des tableaux contribuent également à mettre en lumière le domaine de La Motte Tilly, chef-d’œuvre architectural trop longtemps ignoré. L’exposition est enfin l’occasion unique de présenter un somptueux portrait conservé dans les collections versaillaises : l’effigie officielle du ministre tout puissant peinte par Alexandre Roslin à la demande de Terray en 1773. Ce dernier y est figuré au sommet de sa gloire.
L’exposition est rendue possible grâce au prêt d’œuvres des collections du musée national de Versailles et de Trianon, ainsi qu’aux concours généreux du musée du Louvre, de l’abbaye de Chaalis, de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, de la Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles, des Archives nationales, des Archives départementales de l’Aube et de plusieurs collections particulières.
Ce parcours historique est conçu par Gwenola Firmin, conservateur, en charge des peintures du XVIIIe siècle au château de Versailles, assistée de Vincent Bastien, docteur en Histoire de l’art, chargé de mission.
Le partenariat entre le CMN et le château de Versailles
Le partenariat établie en 2013 entre le CMN et le château de Versailles instaure un dialogue entre des collections trop souvent méconnues et des hauts lieux du patrimoine national. Des expositions temporaires conjointes permettent aux deux institutions d’unir leurs ressources afin de donner au plus grand nombre la possibilité de découvrir ou de redécouvrir quelques pages de l’Histoire de France. En 2014, les expositions Sacres royaux, de Louis XIII à Charles X au palais du Tau à Reims et Le salon de George Sand au domaine de Nohant ont attiré au total près de 76 000 visiteurs.
Gwenola Firmin and Vincent Bastien, De Versailles à la Motte Tilly: L’abbé Terray, Ministre de Louis XV (éditions du Patrimoine / Centre des Monuments Nationaux, 2015), 48 pages, ISBN: 978-2757704714, 12€.
The full dossier de presse is available as a PDF file here»
Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire Joins Winterthur as Associate Curator
As reported last week at Art Daily:
Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library announced that Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire, Ph.D., will join the Museum July 13, 2015, as Associate Curator of Fine Art. Dr. Delamaire will be responsible for curating the Museum’s collection of nearly 5,000 prints, paintings, and sculpture from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. In addition to her curatorial responsibilities, Dr. Delamaire will teach in University of Delaware’s graduate level Winterthur Program in American Material Culture.
“Stephanie joins the Winterthur curatorial department as the Associate Curator of Fine Art to oversee an important and growing part of the collection,” said Dr. David Roselle, Director of Winterthur. “We are confident that Stephanie will soon make Winterthur’s substantial collection of prints, paintings, maps, photographs, and sculpture be an added attraction for the many persons who visit our well known decorative arts collection.”
Linda Eaton, the John L. and Marjorie P. McGraw Director of Collections and Senior Curator of Textiles, said, “With a background both in the arts and the sciences, Stephanie brings a wide range of experience to Winterthur. We look forward to seeing where her fresh eye and keen mind will take her as she works with our collection, which includes iconic works of art by important artists such as Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley, among others.”
Dr. Delamaire earned her Ph.D., in Art History from Columbia University, where she also worked as a lecturer in the Department of Art History and Archaeology. She also holds a master’s degree in Egyptian Archaeology from l’Ecole du Louvre. While her studies began in France, her interests turned to American art, and her primary field of expertise is the history of American art from the Colonial era to World War I. In particular, Delamaire has investigated how translation developed in 19th-century American art with the expansion of the publishing industry and the formation of an American school of painting. Her research has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Caroline and Erwin Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon, the American Historical Print Collectors Society, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
In addition to her research, Dr. Delamaire served on the advisory committee for the preparation of the exhibition New Eyes on America: the Genius of Richard Caton Woodville at The Walters Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, and as the curatorial research assistant for the New-York Historical Society exhibition Group Dynamics: Family Portraits & Scenes of Everyday Life at the New-York Historical Society.
Galleries Reopen at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum
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From the Bavarian National Museum:
Barock und Rokoko
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, open from 9 July 2015
Seit dem 9. Juli 2015 ist der zum Englischen Garten gelegene Westflügel des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums nach mehrjähriger Sanierung wieder für den Besucher zugänglich. Auf rund 1500 m² werden mehr als 600 einzigartige kunst- und kulturhistorische Glanzstücke des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts in neuem Licht präsentiert. Skulpturen, Möbel, Gemälde, Uhren, Porzellan, Goldschmiedewerke, Prunkwaffen und Tapisserien künden von Vorlieben, Alltag und Entwicklungen jener Epoche.
Im Hauptgeschoss des Museums wird damit der kunst- und kulturhistorische Rundgang fortgesetzt, der sich in erster Linie an bayerischen Kurfürsten Maximilian I., Ferdinand Maria, Max Emanuel und Karl Albrecht und ihren Kunstvorlieben orientiert. Erstmals präsentiert sind große Teile der Kunstsammlung des Kurfürsten Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz, dessen Kunstschätze aus Düsseldorf und Mannheim um 1800 nach München kamen. Bei den nun neu ausgestellten Werken handelt es sich um einen Großteil der Objekte, die das Haus Wittelsbach dem Museum kurz nach dessen Gründung 1855 übergeben hat.
Ein eigener Saal widmet sich Facetten des barocken Gartens und dem von der Natur inspirierten Kunsthandwerk. Ein weiterer Raum, das sogenannte Landshuter Zimmer aus dem Stadtpalais der Freiherren von Stromer in Landshut, veranschaulicht die Wohnwelt des Adels im 18. Jahrhundert. Einen weiteren Schwerpunkt der Sammlung bilden schließlich die Skulpturen des Barock und Rokoko, allen voran die Werke von Johann Baptist Straub und Ignaz Günther.
In der Vermittlung beschreitet das Museum neue Wege. Medienstationen mit Touchscreens ermöglichen den Besuchern spannende Blicke hinter verschlossene Schranktüren oder auf tickende Uhrwerke.
Additional images are available here»
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The catalogue, published by Sieveking Verlag, is available from Artbooks.com:
Renate Eikelmannn, Barock und Rokoko: Meisterwerke des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (München: Sieveking Verlag, 2015), 248 pages, ISBN: 978-3944874364, 25€ / $45.
The collections of Baroque and Rococo art at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum are among the most important in Europe. Many of the works created by the international artists and craftsmen represented at the museum are outstanding achievements. Sculptures, furniture, paintings, clocks, porcelain objects, goldsmith work, sumptuously decorated weapons, and tapestries bear witness to the tastes and trends of the era. The succession of rulers who had a profound impact on Bavaria between the Thirty Years’ War and the French Revolution provides the chronological focus for this catalogue of selected works: Bavarian electors Maximilian I, Ferdinand Maria, Max Emanuel, and Karl Albrecht, as well as Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm, whose art collection arrived in Munich by way of family succession. The publication also includes a look at the domestic environments of the nobility and the eighteenth-century passion for gardens. Baroque and Rococo sculptures constitute a cornerstone of the museum’s collections, especially works by Munich sculptors Johann Baptist Straub and Ignaz Günther. Their masterpieces, produced for churches and monasteries as well as for aristocratic patrons, are now considered quintessential examples of southern German Rococo.
Call for Nominations | Eldredge Book Prize
Call for Nominations: 2016 Charles C. Eldredge Prize
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is now accepting nominations for the 2016 Charles C. Eldredge Prize. The prize is awarded annually by the Museum for outstanding scholarship in the field of American art. A cash award of $3,000 is made to the author of a recent book-length publication that provides new insight into works of art, the artists who made them, or aspects of history and theory that enrich our understanding of the artistic heritage of the United States. The Eldredge Prize seeks to recognize originality and thoroughness of research, excellence of writing, clarity of method, and significance for professional or public audiences. It is especially meant to honor those authors who deepen or focus debates in the field, or who broaden the discipline by reaching beyond traditional boundaries.
Single-author books devoted to any aspect of the visual arts of the United States and published in the three previous calendar years (2013, 2014, 2015) are eligible. To nominate a book, send a one-page letter explaining the work’s significance to the field of American art history and discussing the quality of the author’s scholarship and methodology. Nominations by authors or publishers for their own books will not be considered. The deadline for nominations is December 1, 2015. Please send them to: The Charles C. Eldredge Prize, Research and Scholars Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012. Nominations will also be accepted by email: eldredge@si.edu or fax: (202) 633-8373.
Further information about the prize may be found here»
New Book | Concepts of Value in European Material Culture, 1500–1900
From Ashgate:
Bert De Munck and Dries Lyna, eds., Concepts of Value in European Material Culture, 1500–1900 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 304 pages, ISBN: 9781472451965, $135.
In contemporary society it would seem self-evident that people allow the market to determine the values of products and services. For everything from a loaf of bread to a work of art to a simple haircut, value is expressed in monetary terms and seen as determined primarily by the ‘objective’ interplay between supply and demand. Yet this ‘price-mechanism’ is itself embedded in conventions and frames of reference which differed according to time, place and product type. Moreover, the dominance of the conventions of utility maximising and calculative homo economicus is a relatively new phenomenon, and one which directly correlates to the steady advent of capitalism in early modern Europe. This volume brings together scholars with expertise in a variety of related fields, including economic history, the history of consumption and material culture, art history, and the history of collecting, to explore changing concepts of value from the early modern period to the nineteenth century and present a new view on the advent of modern economic practices. Jointly, they fundamentally challenge traditional historical narratives about the rise of our contemporary market economy and consumer society.
Bert De Munck is a Professor in the Department of History at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is a member of the Centre for Urban History at the same university and Director of both the interdisciplinary Urban Studies Institute and the Scientific Research Community (WOG) ‘Urban Agency. Setting the Research Agenda of Urban History’. His publications include Innovation and Creativity in Late Medieval and Early Modern European Cities (2014, co-edited with Karel Davids); Gated Communities? Regulating Migration in Early Modern Cities (2012, co-edited with Anne Winter); Technologies of Learning: Apprenticeship in Antwerp from the 15th Century to the End of the Ancien Régime (2007); and Learning on the Shop Floor: Historical Perspectives on Apprenticeship (2007, co-edited with Hugo Soly and Steven L. Kaplan).
Dries Lyna is an Assistant Professor of History at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. His areas of interest include the history of urban economies, material culture and art markets of the Low Countries, from the late seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. He has received fellowships and awards from the Fulbright Commission, the Getty Research Institute, the International Economic History Association and the Belgian American Educational Foundation. His publications include Art Auctions and Dealers: The Dissemination of Netherlandish Art during the Ancien Régime (2009, co-edited with Filip Vermeylen and Hans Vlieghe) and Art Crossing Borders: The International Art Market in the Age of Nation States, 1760–1914 (forthcoming, co-edited with Jan Baetens).
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C O N T E N T S
1 Locating and Dislocating Value: A Pragmatic Approach to Early Modern and Nineteenth-Century Economic Practices, Bert de Munck and Dries Lyna
Part I Expanding Markets and Market Devices
2 Labelling with Numbers? Weavers, Merchants and the Valuation of Linen in Seventeenth-Century Münster, Christof Jeggle
3 Words of Value? Art Auctions and Semiotic Socialization in the Austrian Netherlands (1750–1794), Dries Lyna
4 From a ‘Knowledgeable’ Salesman towards a ‘Recognizable’ Product? Questioning Branding Strategies before Industrialization (Antwerp, Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries), Ilja Van Damme
5 Golden Touchstones? The Culture of Auctions of Paintings in Brussels, 1830–1900, Anneleen Arnout
Part II Conventions, Material Culture, and Institutions
6 The Justness of Aestimatio and the Justice of Transactions: Defining Real Estate Values in Early Modern Milan, Michela Barbot
7 Vehicles of Disinterested Pleasure: French Painting and Non-Remunerative Value in the Eighteenth Century, Tomas Macsotay
8 Usefulness, Ornamental Function, and Novelty: Debates on Quality in Button and Buckle Manufacturing in Northern Italy (Eighteenth to Nineteenth Centuries), Barbara Bettoni
Part III The Old and the New
9 Façon de Venise: Determining the Value of Glass in Early Modern Europe, Corine Maitte
10 The Veneer of Age: Valuing the Patina of Silver in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Helen Clifford
11 The Value of a Collection: Collecting Practices in Early Modern Europe, Adriana Turpin
Index
Display | American Made
John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), The Western Brothers, 1783, oil on canvas, 50 × 62 inches (The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens)
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From The Huntington:
American Made: Selections from The Huntington’s Early American Art Collections
The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Gardens, San Marino, CA, 5 September 2015 — 4 January 2016
While a portion of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art is closed for expansion and reinstallation, 25 selections from among the earliest works in the collection are spotlighted in a temporary installation, focusing on masterworks in various media that were made between 1700 and 1868. Paintings by the most influential American artists of the period, such as Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, and Frederick Edwin Church, are joined by representative furniture, silver, and sculpture from the colonial, Federal, and Civil War periods.
Exhibition | Canaletto’s Vedute Prints
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), La Libreria. V. (The Library,
Venice), ca. 1740–44. Etching on laid paper (Hood Museum of Art,
Dartmouth College: Gift of Jean Weil in memory of Adolph Weil Jr.,
Class of 1935, PR.997.5.37)
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Press release (13 July 2015) for the exhibition now on view at the Hood Museum of Art:
Canaletto’s Vedute Prints
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama, 10 January — 8 March 2015
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1 August — 6 December 2015
Beginning August 1, 2015, the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, will present an exhibition of thirty etchings from the museum’s collection that represent a nearly complete set of Venice-inspired prints by Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697–1768). Known as Canaletto, the artist is famous for his luminous, sweeping views of the Grand Canal and Piazza San Marco. The Vedute, a series of prints he made in the early 1740s, reveal another, often more modest, side of Venice. These scenes are intimate in scale and depict an extraordinary variety of subject matter, encompassing both real and imaginary views, from urban portraits to bucolic landscapes. This exhibition presents the full range of Canaletto’s Vedute project while celebrating the legacy of Adolph J. ‘Bucks’ Weil, Dartmouth Class of 1935, an astute and generous collector who assembled this remarkable suite of etchings and over his lifetime amassed one of the most impressive collections of Old Master prints in the country.
Mr. Weil’s many extraordinary gifts to the Hood include exceptional prints by such artists as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas van Leyden, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacques Callot, and Francisco Goya. The Vedute etchings were donated to the museum by Jean K. Weil, following the wish of her late husband. Through this exhibition devoted to Canaletto, the Hood is honored to highlight an important facet of Mr. Weil’s distinguished collection in recognition of the one hundredth anniversary of his birth.
It is difficult to imagine an artist more intimately associated with a city than Canaletto. For centuries, his name has been synonymous with topographical cityscapes of Venice known as vedute (views). His meticulously detailed paintings of such familiar vistas as the Grand Canal and Piazza S. Marco celebrate the city’s stunning beauty and became coveted mementoes for English gentlemen to bring home from the Grand Tour. Given his fame as a landscape painter and the demand for his trademark Venetian scenes, it is remarkable that he turned, albeit very briefly, to a new medium and format for his art.
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal), Title Plate, Vedute Series, ca. 1744, etching on laid paper (Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College: Gift of Jean Weil in memory of Adolph Weil Jr., Class of 1935; PR.997.5.22)
In the early 1740s, Canaletto embarked on a project to create a series of etchings dedicated to (and most likely financed by) Joseph Smith, the British consul to the Venetian Republic, who acted as his agent on behalf of foreign collectors. Unlike his painted views of Venice, the Vedute prints present an unexpected side of the artist and offer an alternate window into eighteenth-century Venetian life. Creative and at times whimsical, the scenes are often pastiches of real places and imaginary views. With few exceptions, they are not of the expected landmarks but show the more humble, everyday aspects of the city, such as modest dwellings and little byways; others are fantasies, ranging from elaborate caprices to intimate backyard scenes and wild landscapes. The Vedute prints thus reveal an unknown artist and a hidden city and its environs, beyond the vision packaged for tourists and outsiders.
Canaletto, after years of precisely transcribing the glory of Venetian tourist sites, clearly delighted in the creative freedom of this project, combining disparate elements to create a romantic portrait of the Venice he knew so well. With unfamiliar etching tools in hand, he flourished with newfound spontaneity and economy of line. Even in the few recognizable Venetian scenes included in the series—La Libreria, for example—Canaletto downplays the soaring architecture to focus on the activities of everyday Venetian life, such as children playing, nuns promenading, and merchants haggling.
Offering creative combinations of fantasy and reality, inventive conflations of the romantic past with a precarious present, and a peek at the domestic side of Venice, the Vedute represent a significant departure from Canaletto’s previous work. Equally, they reveal an unexpected virtuosity in a medium that was entirely new to the artist. The reason for Canaletto’s shift to printmaking at the peak of his fame as a landscape painter remains unclear. In part, the Vedute prints may have been an answer to the artist’s critics and detractors, who favored a more imaginative, rather than topographical, approach. For all of their inventiveness and skillful yet spontaneous execution, they are now considered some of the finest examples of etching of the eighteenth century.
The Canaletto exhibition is complemented by an installation of eight late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American etchings of Venice by James McNeill Whistler and his circle, all of them drawn from the Hood’s collection. Whistler, who greatly admired Canaletto, was a major influence in the development of the late nineteenth-century American etching revival.
Canaletto’s Vedute Prints will be on view at the Hood from August 1 through December 6, 2015. It is accompanied by a twenty-page booklet with essays by former Hood Assistant Curator for Special Projects Sarah G. Powers and Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Curator of Collections Margaret Lynne Ausfeld. The booklet was co-published with the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, located in Mr. Weil’s hometown of Montgomery, Alabama, where a version of the exhibition was on view in the spring of 2015. The MMFA also benefited from donations from Mr. Weil’s outstanding collection of prints, including several impressions of Canaletto’s Vedute etchings.
To celebrate the exhibition, Frederick Ilchman, Chair, Art of Europe, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will deliver a lecture titled “Viewing Eighteenth-Century Venice with Canaletto and Casanova” in the Hood Museum of Art Auditorium on Friday, October 23, at 5:00pm. A reception will follow in Kim Gallery. Dartmouth College Studio Art Professor Louise Hamlin will also give a lunchtime gallery talk titled “Canaletto from an Artist’s Perspective” in the exhibition gallery on Tuesday, October 6, at 12:30pm.
This exhibition was organized by the Hood Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama, and generously supported by the William Chase Grant 1919 Memorial Fund.
Art Fair | Ceramics and Arts du Feu
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Next month in Paris:
8ème Parcours de la Céramique et des Arts du Feu
Paris, 22–27 September 2015
This year, participants will gather in the heart of the French capital, mainly within the Carré Rive Gauche, 75007 Paris. This event will last six days, from Tuesday 22 September until Sunday 27 September 2015, from 11am to 8pm, with an evening opening on the first day and closing at 6pm on the Sunday. The twenty-four participating French and European specialist antique dealers and gallery owners come from Paris, London, Rome, Brussels, etc. and are all members of the Association des Spécialistes de la Céramique de Collection. They will be offering quality pieces from all civilisations and all periods, within a wide price range, and specially set aside for this event. Encouraged by the participating dealers and with the warm support of museum curators, the Association des Spécialistes de la Céramique de Collection, whose aim is to promote ceramics and Arts du Feu, will be organising two days of lectures.
The cultural project of the 8th circuit will be celebrating the Adda Collection on the fiftieth anniversary of its sale by auction at Palais Galliéra, Paris, in 1965. This historic event lasted a whole week and saw the dispersal of exceptional pieces of Italian Majolica, items of Hispano-Mauresque origin, Chinese and Middle-Eastern ceramics, glass and enamels.
Lectures will be given on Wednesday 23 September 2015 on the following subjects: the transformation of the market for Italian Majolica over the last 50 years and the evolution in prices, and the scientific advances in attributions over the same period. Vincennes and Sèvres sculpture of the 18th century will be honoured with two lectures on this theme on Thursday 24 September, coinciding with the exhibition at Sèvres, Cité de la Céramique.
The 8th circuit of Ceramics and Arts du Feu is open to all: enthusiasts, art lovers, curators, historians and anyone tempted by this ceramic feast. You will discover not only rare and magnificent Italian majolica, faience, Chinese terracotta and porcelain, Iznik and Middle-Eastern ceramics, Meissen and Sèvres porcelain, but also enamels and antique and modern glass, not forgetting contemporary ceramics.
We are particularly grateful to our participating colleagues who run galleries specialising in the 20th and 21st centuries. They are numerous this year: Galerie Jean d’Albis, Galerie Arcanes, Galerie France de Forceville, Galerie Michèle Hayem, Lefebvre & Fils, Galerie Dumonteil, Gendras Regnier.
Earliest Topographical View of Niagara Falls
Thomas Davies, An East View of the
Great Cataract of Niagara, 1762
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From Art Daily (21 August 2015). . .
The very first eyewitness representation of Niagara Falls, a 1762 topographical watercolour by Thomas Davies, is at risk of being exported from the UK unless a buyer can be found to match the £151,800 asking price. In order to provide a last chance to keep it in the UK, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has placed a temporary export bar on the watercolour by Captain Thomas Davies, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara.
The topographical watercolour of Niagara Falls by Captain Thomas Davies provides the very first accurate portrait of this iconic landscape, which has become one of the most recognisable views in the world. It was also the earliest inclusion of Niagara’s ever-present rainbow. Captain Thomas Davies was highly regarded as a military artist and collector, and this watercolour and Davies’ career was testament to Britain’s global role in the eighteenth century.
Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said, “This watercolour painting not only provides us with the first glimpse of Niagara Falls, but it also sheds light on Britain’s achievements in eighteenth-century exploration, military and topographical art. I hope that the temporary export bar I have put in place will result in a UK buyer coming forward and that the watercolour will be available for all to better understand Britain’s global role in the eighteenth century.”
While there are many examples of military artwork in the eighteenth century, military artist drawings of North America during this century are rare. Davies was the first military artists to record Niagara falls, and this particular watercolour is important in the study of the history of British military, topographical art and exploration. The watercolour previously belonged to Peter Winkworth, who had built an extensive collection of artwork of Canadian scenes.
Vaizey took the decision to defer granting an export licence for the watercolour following a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), administered by Arts Council England. The RCEWA made their recommendation on the grounds of it’s close association with our history and national life, and its significance for the study of Britain’s history in the fields of eighteenth-century exploration, scientific and military endeavour.
RCEWA Member Christopher Wright said, “The significance of the work of the draughtsmen produced by the Military Academy at Woolwich has only come to be fully appreciated by a nonspecialist audience in the last few decades. That Captain Thomas Davies should have produced the first scientifically and topographically accurate portrayal of the greatest natural wonder of North America at the very moment that Wolfe’s victory at Quebec had brought the whole of the continent’s eastern landmass under British control at once gives him a pre-eminent place in the Woolwich tradition. However, most of his work has already left these shores. Davies produced three views of Niagara. An East View of the Falls, arguably the most important of the three, is the only one now remaining in this country.”
The decision on the export licence application for the watercolour will be deferred for a period ending on 18 November 2015 inclusive. This period may be extended until 18 February 2016 inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds to purchase the watercolour is made at the recommended price of £151,800 (inclusive of VAT).
Exhibition | Murat, King of Naples
Now on view in Naples:
Murat re di Napoli: A passo di carica
Il Palazzo Reale, Naples, 19 May — 29 September 2015
Dal 19 maggio al 29 settembre 2015 nel Salone d’Ercole del Palazzo Reale di Napoli si terrà un’interessante mostra sul decennio francese a Napoli ed in particolare sul periodo di regno di Gioacchino Murat (1767–1815).
La mostra è organizzata dalla Soprintendenza Beni ai Architettonici di Napoli, assieme con l’Ambasciata di Francia in Italia ed il Consolato francese a Napoli in occasione del bicentenario della morte di Gioacchino Murat e sarà uno degli appuntamenti più importanti a Napoli tra la primavera e l’estate del 2015.
Murat re di Napoli. A passo di carica, propone in mostra oltre 150 pezzi molti dei quali provengono da collezioni di musei francesi e vengono esposti per la prima volta in Italia: tra questi due famose spade quella a lama ricurva che Murat impugna nella campagna d’Egitto e la spada cerimoniale da “Maresciallo dell’Impero.”
Tante le opere interessanti tra dipinti, incisioni, porcellane, miniature che consentono di ricostruire il “Decennio francese” quando dal 1806 due re francesi si succedettero sul trono del Regno di Napoli. Il primo fu Giuseppe Bonaparte, fratello di Napoleone che regno fino al 1808 quando poi andò in Spagna: gli seguì suo cognato Gioacchino Murat, che regnò fino al 1815. In quel periodo Ferdinando IV di Borbone fuggiva in Sicilia per poi riorganizzare la riconquista del suo regno. Il 13 ottobre 1815 Murat fu catturato e fucilato dai reparti borbonici a Pizzo Calabro ed il Regno di Napoli ritornò in possesso di Ferdinando IV di Borbone, che l’8 dicembre 1816 cambiò nome e prese il titolo di Ferdinando I, re del nuovo Regno delle Due Sicilie.
La mostra, che non a caso si chiama Murat re di Napoli. A passo di carica celebra, attraverso interventi multimediali e pannelli esplicativi, l’intenso cambiamento che si ebbe a Napoli in quel periodo. La città subì infatti una grande modernizzazione e fu ridisegnata dai progetti e dalle trasformazioni urbanistiche volute dal giovane sovrano. Nel decennio tra l’altro ci fu l’abolizione della feudalità, l’introduzione dello Stato moderno e del Codice civile, la creazione di un’organizzazione moderna dello stato con nuove intendenze, tribunali, uffici provinciali e la riforma dell’Università in cui, attraverso la Scuola di Ponti e strade, fu creata anche l’attuale Facoltà di Ingegneria.
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