Symposium | Bouchardon and His Contemporaries
Left: Gilles Demarteau after Edme Bouchardon, Model Posing for ‘The Genius of Summer’, ca. 1740s–50s (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2015.PR.58). Right: Edme Bouchardon, The Genius of Summer, 1745 (Paris: Grenelle Fountain).
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In February, I noted the symposium; here’s the schedule:
Bouchardon and His Contemporaries
The Getty Center, Los Angeles, 2 April 2017
Organized in conjunction with the exhibition Bouchardon: Royal Artist of the Enlightenment (J. Paul Getty Museum, 10 January — 2 April 2017), this symposium explores the relationships that Bouchardon (1698–1762), an extraordinarily talented sculptor and draftsman, had with his contemporaries (artists, patrons, and connoisseurs). It also investigates the diffusion and reception of his oeuvre. Bouchardon’s career as a sculptor appears exceptional in several respects when compared to that of other artists active during the eighteenth century in France, England, or Italy. Atypically, most of his work (whether drawn, printed, modeled, cast, or carved) related to three-dimensional objects in a wide range of scales, from small gems to monumental sculpture, such as the Grenelle Fountain.
The human body was a constant subject of interest to Bouchardon. He explored its inner structure by conceiving and publishing a treatise on artistic anatomy, and he devised a very personal and elaborate aesthetic of the body that subtly blended his passion for antiquity and his commitment to the truthful depiction of nature. His experiments in the graphic arts and his interest in human expression also led him to make grotesque depictions of the human figure in the genre of caricature. Bouchardon’s masterpieces, especially those staged in public spaces, such as the Grenelle Fountain and the Equestrian Monument to Louis XV, had a critical impact on the artist’s contemporaries. In this regard, the reception and portrayal of these artworks through drawings and prints made by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin during the two decades that followed Bouchardon’s death are particularly enlightening.
P R O G R A M M E
10:00 Welcome by Thomas Gaehtgens (The Getty Research Institute)
10:05 Introductions: Anne-Lise Desmas (The J. Paul Getty Museum) and Édouard Kopp (Harvard Art Museums)
10:10 Morning Session
Moderator: Guilhem Scherf (Musée du Louvre)
• Malcolm Baker (University of California, Riverside), Some Ways of Carving out a Sculptural Career: Bouchardon, Roubiliac, Pigalle
• Anne-Lise Desmas, Bouchardon and Early Modern Sculptors in Rome
• Kristel Smentek (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Bouchardon, P.-J. Mariette, and the ‘Pure Taste’ of the Antique
• Katie Scott (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Modelling Water: Bouchardon and the Fountain at the rue de Grenelle
12:30 Lunch
2:30 Afternoon Session
Moderator: Juliette Trey (Musée du Louvre)
• Monique Kornell (University of California, Los Angeles), Bouchardon’s Unusual Anatomy Book for Artists: L’anatomie nécessaire pour l’usage du dessein [1741] in Context
• Ewa Lajer-Burcharth (Harvard University), Bouchardon’s Body
• Édouard Kopp, Bouchardon, Caricature, and the Grotesque
• Perrin Stein (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Activating Public Space: Bouchardon through the Eyes of Saint-Aubin
Call for Papers | Baroque Parish Churches and Their Decoration
From H-ArtHist:
Die Barocken Pfarrkirchen und ihre Dekoration
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, 23–25 October 2017
Proposals due by 30 April 2017
Im Rahmen der Forschungsgruppe „Baroque Ceilling Painting in Central Europe (BCPCE)“ veranstaltet das Institut für Kunst- und Musikhistorische Forschungen der ÖAW gemeinsam mit dem Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, dem Königgrätzer Landkreis und dem Verein Omnium von 23. bis 25. Oktober 2017 in Wien ein Symposium zu den malerischen Ausstattungen von Pfarrkirchen katholischer und lutherischer Konfession. Die Veranstaltung greift damit ein in der kunsthistorischen Forschung sehr stiefmütterlich behandeltes Thema auf, standen doch bisher vor allem die zum Teil weitgespannten Dekorationen der Kloster- und Wallfahrtskirchen im Zentrum des Interesses.
Die Analyse der wandfesten Malereiausstattungen—gleichsam als Kerngeschäft der BCPCE—macht in diesem Fall nur im Rahmen einer breiten historischen Kontextualisierung Sinn. Allgemeinhistorische und kirchenhistorische Rahmenbedingungen sind als Voraussetzung ebenso zu diskutieren wie theologische und liturgische Aspekte. Der Zeitraum ist durch die Konfessionalisierung im 16. Jahrhundert einerseits und die josephinischen Reformen im späten 18. Jahrhundert vorgegeben; der geographische Raum mit dem zum Großteil habsburgisch regierten Mitteleuropa sowie mit Mitteldeutschland—also mit wesentlichen Teilen des Alten Reichs.
I Rechtliche Situation und institutionelle Organisation
Grundlegend ist hier die Frage nach der kirchenrechtlichen Entwicklung der Pfarrkirche und ihrer Funktion im Laufe der Zeit. Die katholische Kirche macht einen Unterschied zwischen den (den Stiften inkorporierten) Klosterpfarren und den bischöflichen Pfarren. Gab es zwischen Bistum und Stift Auffassungsunterschiede und Konflikte (etwa in Bezug auf Kirchensteuer, Pfründe, Stolgebühren)? Anders liegen die Verhältnisse bei protestantischen Pfarrkirchen: Es gibt lediglich Kirchen mit Gemeinde und solche ohne Gemeinde. Eine kirchenrechtliche Unterscheidung existiert zwischen den Bauten nicht. Der weltliche Landesherr ist gleichzeitig oberster Bischof, von ihm getroffene Regelungen sind nur für seine Landeskirche verbindlich. Welche Rolle spielten die Landesfürsten in der Organisation des Pfarrkirchenwesens? Welche Auswirkungen hat die Organisation des religiösen Lebens in den Pfarren (Bruderschaften und die von ihnen vorgenommenen Stiftungen) auf Architektur und Ausstattung der Pfarrkirchen bei Katholiken, Lutheranern und Reformierten?
II Räume der Herrschaft
Der funktionelle Radius und damit die angesprochene Öffentlichkeit von Pfarrkirchen sind im katholischen Bereich wesentlich weiter gefasst als bei Schlosskapellen, Bischofs- oder Ordenskirchen. Dies führt zur prinzipiellen Annahme, dass die Pfarrkirchen in vielleicht höherem Ausmaß als die anderen Kirchentypen Orte von Überlagerung vielfältiger Ansprüche auf Herrschaft gewesen sein könnten. Auf dieser Annahme basierend ergibt sich eine Reihe von Fragen: Existieren Herrschaftsinteressen und entsprechende Strategien von Seiten der Orden, der bischöflichen Kanzleien bzw. der protestantischen Patronatsherren in Bezug auf die Pfarren und der mit ihnen verbundenen
Rechte? Welche Rolle spielt katholischerseits die Pfarrkirche in der fein abgestimmten Hierarchie der Kirchenbauten von der Bischofskirche bis zur kleinen Filialkirche. Welche Auswirkungen haben Interessen der kommunalen Verwaltung, aber auch der Landesherren für Architektur und Ausstattung, im Besonderen der Deckenmalerei? Werden von der Obrigkeit andere Interessen kommuniziert als in den großen Wallfahrts- und Klosterkirchen? Im lutherischen Bereich stellt sich die Frage nach der Einflussnahme auf die Kirche und ihre Ausstattung durch die Gemeinde, den Patronatsherrn oder auch den Landesherrn.
III Räume der Theologie
Gerade mit dem Medium der Decken- und Wandmalerei sollten im Rahmen der Tagung an Hand ausgewählter Fallstudien zu katholischen und lutherischen Pfarrkirchen die theologischen, liturgischen und territorialen Konfessionsspezifika und ihre künstlerischen Reflexe beleuchtet werden. Etwa: Hat die unterschiedliche Auffassung von der Heiligkeit des katholischen bzw. protestantischen Sakralraums Auswirkung auf die formale Beschaffenheit der Pfarrkirchen? Ergeben sich daraus Tendenzen einer Normierung oder Typisierung von Architektur und Ausstattung? Man weiß, dass das lutherische Bekenntnis zur Realpräsenz Christi am Altar ihren (katholisch anmutenden) Niederschlag im Altarbau der lutherischen Pfarrkirche gefunden hat. Ist diese göttliche Realpräsenz auch in der Deckenmalerei reflektiert? Oder bleibt letztere didaktisch der Auslegung des Wortes verpflichtet? Öffnet sich in der lutherischen Pfarrkirche die Decke in den Himmel gleich der katholischen, oder findet man dort lediglich ein Bild des Göttlichen? Gibt es in den katholischen Pfarrkirchen spezifische, an der Deckenmalerei manifeste Programme oder entsprechen sie weitestgehend den Themenbereichen in den Ordens- und Bischofskirchen? Ist die jeweilige Ordensspiritualität in den Ausstattungen der Pfarrkirchen fassbar?
IV Räume der Vergangenheit und ihre Neuausstattung
Ein spezifisches Problem der barocken Ausstattung von Pfarrkirchen mit Malerei und Skulptur besteht im signifikanten Umstand, dass es im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert keineswegs flächendeckend zu Neubauten von Pfarrkirchen gekommen ist. Aus verschiedenen Motiven heraus wurden ältere, vorwiegend spätmittelalterliche Bauten weiter als Pfarrkirchen benutzt und barock ausgestaltet. Dabei konnte sich die Neuausstattung nur auf Bereiche konzentrieren, die nicht in direkten Konflikt mit der mittelalterlichen Substanz gerieten: Die Wand- und Deckenmalerei spielt deshalb im Verhältnis zu Hoch- und Seitenaltären eine nur geringe Rolle. Diese Reduktion erforderte zugleich eine Konzentration auf bestimmte Themen. Die entsprechenden Forschungsfragen und Fallbeispiele sollten sich hier auf die Konflikte und Synergien richten, die sich aus der Koexistenz von Mittelalter und Barock ergaben. Dieser Koexistenz verschiedener Ausstattungen setzt der josephinische Kirchenbau mit seiner strikten Normierung von außen und innen ein deutliches Ende.
Abstracts für Vorträge, nicht länger als eine halbe Seite, gemeinsam mit einem kurzen Curriculum, bis spätestens 30. April 2017 zu senden an Herbert Karner, Herbert.Karner@oeaw.ac.at, und Martin Mádl, madl@udu.cas.cz.
Exhibition | Canaletto and the Art of Venice
Press release (14 December 2016) from the Royal Collection Trust:
Canaletto and the Art of Venice
The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London, 19 May — 12 November 2017
The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, 11 May — 21 October 2018
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 5 December 2018 — 24 March 2019
In 1762 the young monarch George III purchased virtually the entire collection of Joseph Smith, the greatest patron of art in Venice at the time. Thanks to this single acquisition, the Royal Collection contains one of the finest groups of 18th-century Venetian art in the world, including the largest collection of works by Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto.
Through over 200 paintings, drawings, and prints from the Royal Collection’s exceptional holdings, Canaletto and the Art of Venice presents the work of Venice’s most famous view-painter alongside that of his contemporaries, including Sebastiano and Marco Ricci, Rosalba Carriera, Francesco Zuccarelli, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, and Pietro Longhi and explores how they captured the essence and allure of Venice for their 18th-century audience, as they still do today.
Joseph Smith (c.1674−1770) was an English merchant and later British Consul in Venice, a post dealing with Britain’s maritime, commercial, and trading interests. He had moved to Italy in around 1700 and over several decades built up an outstanding art collection, acting as both patron and dealer to many contemporary Venetian artists. Smith was Canaletto’s principal agent, selling his paintings to the wealthy Grand Tourists who were drawn to Venice’s cultural attractions. His palazzo on the Grand Canal became a meeting place for collectors, patrons, scholars, and tourists, where visitors could admire his vast collection and commission their own versions of Canaletto’s views to take home.
One of the most important of Smith’s commissions from Canaletto was the series of 12 paintings of the Grand Canal, which together create a near complete journey down the waterway. Canaletto’s sharp-eyed precision makes these views seem powerfully real; yet he rearranged and altered elements of each composition to create ideal impressions of the city. Two larger paintings are of festivals, including the ‘Sposalizio del Mar’, or ‘Wedding of the Sea’, which took place on Ascension Day and attracted crowds of British visitors. The Grand Canal was a subject frequently captured by Canaletto, including in a series of six drawings, among them Venice: The central stretch of the Grand Canal, c.1734. Intended as works of art in their own right, rather than as preparatory studies for paintings, the drawings are carefully constructed and rich in tone and detail.
Alongside the grand public entertainments, Venice boasted a thriving opera and theatre scene, especially during carnival season. The need to create stage sets within a very short period of time provided plentiful employment for Venetian artists. Both Marco Ricci and Canaletto worked for the theatre, where they learned how to manipulate perspective to heighten drama. The exhibition includes several of Ricci’s designs for the Venetian stage, such as A room with a balcony supported by Atlantes, c.1726. Marco Ricci also produced caricatures of opera singers, such as the drawing of the internationally famed castrato Farinelli, which were circulated among Joseph Smith and his fellow Venetian collectors and opera aficionados.
Rosalba Giovanna Carriera, A Personification of Winter, ca. 1726, pastel on paper (London: Royal Collection Trust, 400647).
On display together for the first time are personifications of the Four Seasons by Rosalba Carriera, whose pastels were highly prized by European collectors. They were intended to be hung in private domestic spaces, such as dressing rooms, bedrooms, or small antechambers. Carriera was one of the first artists to develop a commercial relationship with Joseph Smith, and her sensual pastel of Winter, c.1726, an allegorical female figure wrapped in furs, was one of the most admired works in Smith’s collection.
Canaletto, Marco Ricci, and Francesco Zuccarelli all contributed to the development of the genre known as the capriccio—scenes combining real and imaginary architecture, often set in an invented landscape, to create poetically evocative works. Ruins of ancient Rome in both Ricci’s Caprice View with Roman Ruins, c.1729, and Zuccarelli’s pastoral Landscape with Classical Ruins, Cattle and Figures, c.1741–42, convey a sense of the irrevocable loss of a great age.
There was a major revival in printmaking in Venice in the 18th century, with many publishers recruiting established artists, such as Giovanni Battista Piazzetta and Antonio Visentini, to provide designs for their publications. Joseph Smith was an enthusiastic print collector and one of the major supporters of contemporary printmaking in Venice. Smith financed and directed the Pasquali press, which contributed to the circulation of Enlightenment ideas, such as those of Isaac Newton, and imported banned foreign texts into Venice, including the work of Voltaire. Visentini was the chief draughtsman for the press, providing many hundreds of pen and ink drawings of initials and tailpieces, several of which will be on display in the exhibition.
The catalogue is distributed by The University of Chicago Press:
Lucy Whitaker and Rosie Razzall, Canaletto and the Art of Venice (London: Royal Collection Trust, 2017), 320 pages, ISBN: 978 190974 1409, $60.
Note (added 22 November 2018) — The posting was updated to include dates for Edinburgh and Dublin.
Exhibition | La Serenissima: Celebrating Venice
From the press release for the exhibition:
Sérénissime! Venise en fête, de Tiepolo à Guardi
La Serenissima: Celebrating Venice, from Tiepelo to Guardi
Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris, 25 February — 25 June 2017
Curated by Rose-Marie Herda-Mousseaux and Benjamin Couilleaux
In the eighteenth century, the political and economic stability of the Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia gave rise to the last golden age of Venice, which would end with the Napoleonic conquest of 1797. This last chapter of a millenary history was marked by an unprecedented deployment of public and private events. Festivities, celebrations, regattas, and other spectacles set the tempo of city life and attracted the curious from all over Europe. Much more than simple amusements, these festivities were part of a political and religious pageant designed to promote Venice. Immortalized by some of the great names in painting—Tiepolo, Guardi, Longhi—they created a lasting impression and made known the charms of the City of the Doges throughout Europe. Over forty paintings, engravings, and drawings from prestigious French and European collections are presented to the public, bringing to life once again, for the duration of the exhibition, the opulence of the Most Serene Republic of Venice in the Age of Enlightenment.
The exhibition layout focuses on four themes related to Venetian celebrations:
Festivities Large and Small
Dance and music were highly esteemed by Venetian society, among both the aristocracy and the people.
From City to Stage
In the eighteenth century, the commedia dell’arte achieved unprecedented popularity, in particular with playwright Carlo Goldoni. Opera also benefited from majestic settings, the most famous of which is still La Fenice.
Power as Spectacle
Both secular and sacred institutions in the Most Serene Republic encouraged the crowds to attend major festivities that crystallized the image of Venice as a powerful and sumptuous city. Receptions for foreign princes, notably French, also provided an opportunity to organize extraordinary celebrations on Piazza San Marco or the Grand Canal.
At the Carnival
What would Venice be without its carnival? Dating from the Middle Ages, this colorful masked festival brought together an eighteenth-century cosmopolitan crowd that loved the open-air fairground attractions as much as it did the more discreet amusements of the Ridotto, the ancestor of the casino.
Rose-Marie Herda-Mousseaux and Benjamin Couilleaux, Sérénissime: Venise en fête, de Tiepolo à Guardi (Paris: Editions Paris Musées, 2017), 176 pages, ISBN: 978 27596 03428, 30€.
Symposium | Neo-Classical Gilt Bronze
Detail of a Table by Etienne Levasseur, ca.1785–87; gilt-bronze mounts by an unidentified maker
(London: The Wallace Collection, F319).
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From The Furniture History Society:
‘In the True Spirit of Corinth and Athens’: Neo-Classical Gilt Bronze
The 41st Annual Symposium of the Furniture History Society
The Wallace Collection, London, 6 May 2017
To coincide with the international interest in gilt bronze in 2016/17 and the three exhibitions devoted to Pierre Gouthière and his contemporaries in New York (The Frick Collection), Paris (Musée des Arts Décoratifs), and London (The Wallace Collection), this year’s Furniture History Society symposium is devoted to European gilt bronze of the neoclassical period (1770–1830), a time when the passion for the Antique world affected all aspects of artistic production. Speakers from the US, France, Britain, Russia, and Spain will present the latest research on a variety of topics, including aspects of design, production, and patronage. Gilt bronze is a subject that often presents more questions than answers, and recent scholarship has unearthed fascinating insights into this often overlooked art form and the symposium promises to be an important and illuminating day for anyone interested in bronze d’ameublement. It is being hosted at The Wallace Collection, which will stay open for FHS members after the symposium to allow them to see the exhibition Gilded Interiors: French Masterpieces of Gilt Bronze. The day will be chaired by Philip Hewat-Jaboor.
Tickets must be purchased in advance, and early booking is recommended. Fee: £50 for FHS members/£30 for members under 30/ All non-members: £65 with a reduction of £5 if joining the FHS, Ticket price includes morning coffee and afternoon tea. A light lunch will be available for FHS members in the Meeting Room at The Wallace Collection at a cost of £20, to include a glass of wine. Tickets for lunch must be purchased at least 7 days in advance from the Events Secretary or online. The Wallace Collection Restaurant will be open for bookings, and there are plenty of local cafés and restaurants. Tickets can be booked on-line via the FHS website (members only) or via the Events Secretary, e-mail: events@furniturehistorysociety.org.
• Joseph Godla (Chief Conservator, The Frick Collection), ‘Twenty Fingers on Each Hand’: A Study of Pierre Gouthière’s Techniques
• Charlotte Vignon (Curator of Decorative Arts, The Frick Collection), Pierre Gouthière: Bringing a Virtuoso Chaser and Gilder back into the Light
• Anne Forray-Carlier (Curator, 17th & 18th century Decorative Arts, Musée des Arts Décoratifs), In the Context of Neo-Classical Gilt Bronze: The Relationship between Gouthière and Dugourc
• Helen Jacobsen (Senior Curator, Wallace Collection), Gilded Interiors: The Antique as a Design Source for French Gilt Bronze
• Diana Davis (Independent Decorative Arts Researcher), Matt and Burnished Gold: The Regency Taste for Gilt Bronze
• Wolfram Koeppe (Curator, European Sculpture & Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum), An Enduring Mystery: Bronze Manufacturing in Vienna, 1775–1825
• Olga Bazhenova (Curator, Metal, Sculpture & Stone, Pavlovsk-Palace Museum, St Petersburg), The Secrets of Russian Bronze
• María Jesús Herrero Sanz (Curator of Sculpture, Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid), Between Neo-Classicism and Antiquity: French Bronzes and Palace Furnishings at the 18th-Century Spanish Court
Exhibition | Gilded Interiors: French Masterpieces of Gilt Bronze
Jean-Baptiste Lepaute, Mantel clock, detail, 1781
(London: The Wallace Collection)
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From the press release for the exhibition:
Gilded Interiors: French Masterpieces of Gilt Bronze
The Wallace Collection, London, 4 May — 30 July 2017
Curated by Helen Jacobsen
Often designed by leading architects and modeled by important sculptors, gilt bronze was used to create beautiful yet functional objects such as clocks, candelabras, and firedogs and to decorate and embellish highly refined furniture and porcelain. This exhibition showcases luxurious artworks commissioned and owned by the wealthiest patrons and collectors, including leading figures of pre-revolutionary France like Marie-Antoinette, the duc d’Aumont, and the comte d’Artois as well international patrons such as the Prince of Wales (later George IV). Artists such as Pierre Gouthière, François Rémond, and Claude Pition, who ran the finest chasing and gilding workshops, created beautiful works, equal in expense and craftsmanship to some of the greatest paintings and sculpture of the period.
Largely drawn from The Wallace Collection, home to one of the world’s most important collections of French eighteenth-century gilt bronze, these exceptional objects include the exquisite perfume burner by Gouthière once owned by Marie-Antoinette and a pair of candlesticks made for the French Queen to celebrate the birth of her son. The Wallace Collection works will be shown alongside loans from other world-class collections including drawings from the Bibliothèque Municipale in Besançon.
The exhibition will feature drawings by Pierre-Adrien Pâris, one of the foremost architects and interior designers of the period. His highly-detailed works, never before seen in the UK, illustrate how buildings from ancient Rome were used as a fertile source of design for gilt-bronze masterpieces and reveal how the antique world provided artists with contemporary ideas for architecture and decorative art. Architects and designers who travelled to Rome took inspiration from the classical ruins with which they were surrounded and their drawings of architecture and Antique monuments provided the basis for some of the greatest gilt-bronze works ever created.
Gilded Interiors: French Masterpieces of Gilt Bronze will be an opportunity for visitors to engage more fully with these magnificent works, which will be given centre stage in the special exhibition galleries. Well-lit and with the works fully visible ‘in the round’, the exhibition will enable the viewer to experience these works of art in a different way, allowing the exquisite beauty and technical accomplishments of these pieces to be properly admired and enjoyed.
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From I. B. Tauris:
Helen Jacobsen, Gilded Interiors: Parisian Luxury and the Influence of Rome, 1770–1790 (London: Philip Wilson, 2017), 112 pages, ISBN: 978 178130 0589, £20 / $30.
The Wallace Collection has an internationally-renowned collection of French eighteenth-century art but perhaps lesser known today is their stunning collection of gilt-bronze objects. These bronzes d’ameublement—from clocks and mounted Sevres porcelain to wall lights and candelabra—epitomise the levels of luxury achieved in Parisian interiors. Highly expensive and expertly wrought, they illustrate the heights of skilled craftsmanship achieved by French bronze workers in the eighteenth century as well as showcasing the wealth and connoisseurship of their owners. Lavishly illustrated with new photography, this publication will be a book of ‘highlights’ to include the very best of what the Wallace Collection has to offer in this field.
Helen Jacobsen is senior curator and curator of French eighteenth-century decorative arts at the Wallace Collection.
Research Seminar | Sigrid de Jong on British and French Architecture
From the Paul Mellon Centre:
Sigrid de Jong, Dialogues across the Channel: British and French
Architects on Architectural Experience, 1750–1815
Paul Mellon Centre, London, 22 March 2017
Thomas Sandby, Receipt for a Set of Six London Views (Design for a Bridge), ca. 1758, pen and black ink and gray wash, incised for transfer on medium, moderately textured, cream laid paper mounted on thick, moderately textured, cream laid paper (Yale Center for British Art, B1977.10.5).
The notion that buildings are foremost objects to be experienced and that the intended experience of buildings should guide their design became a key concept in the period 1750–1815. At that time, Paris and London, the main centres of cultural debates, went through major urban and architectural developments. In my research project, entitled “Experience and Design: The Emergence of Architectural Experience in Paris and London, 1750–1815,” I argue that architectural experience emerged there as a crucial new element. The project examines how the relationship between experience and design evolved: how eighteenth-century architects described their observations on buildings in their writings; which theoretical concepts they used to translate these into design theories for their lectures at the academies of architecture; and how they used them in their designs of buildings. This research seminar focuses on some of the dialogues of British and French architects across the Channel in the context of public architectural debates and on some key projects in eighteenth-century London and Paris that are exemplary for the interactions between experience and design. Wednesday, 22 March 2017, from 6:00 to 8:00pm. Registration information is available here.
Sigrid de Jong is an architectural historian at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Since 2016 she conducts a research project on “Experience and Design: The Emergence of Architectural Experience in Paris and London, 1750–1815,” funded by NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). Her previous postdoctoral research was on primitivism and architectural theory in the NWO-VIDI project “The Quest for the Legitimacy of Architecture 1750–1850,” with Maarten Delbeke. She obtained her PhD in art and architectural history at Leiden University in 2010. Her book Rediscovering Architecture: Paestum in Eighteenth-Century Architectural Experience and Theory (based on her PhD thesis) was published by Yale University Press in 2014. Together with Caroline van Eck she is the editor of the Companion to Eighteenth-Century Architecture (series editor Harry Mallgrave, Wiley-Blackwell, to be published in 2017).
Exhibition | Poussin to David: French Drawings at the Albertina
Jacques-Louis David, The Combat of Diomedes, 1776
(Vienna: Albertina)
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Now on view at the Albertina:
Poussin to David: French Drawings at the Albertina
Poussin bis David: Französische Zeichnungen der Albertina
Albertina, Vienna, 25 January — 25 April 2017
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Boy with a Broken Egg, ca. 1756 (Vienna: Albertina).
Whether poetic love stories or mythological epics, whether atmospheric portrait studies or picturesque ruins—today, the masterpieces of French Baroque art are more enthralling than ever. 70 major works selected from the Albertina’s rich holdings of drawings sweep visitors into the dreamy and multi-layered cosmos of French art from the Baroque and Rococo periods: the works on display include Nicolas Poussin’s breath-taking free landscape studies as well as Claude Lorrain’s light-drenched depictions of nature, and playful masterpieces by François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard likewise assume their rightful places here, as do the lovely scenes of Jean-Baptiste Greuze. The crowning conclusion of this showing, which reflects two centuries of French art, is provided by the imposing creations of Jacques Louis David.
Christine Ekelhart, ed., From Poussin to David: French Drawings at the Albertina (Munich: Hirmer, 2017), 176 pages, ISBN: 978 37774 28369, $45.
Salon du Dessin 2017
From the press kit for the fair:
Salon du Dessin 2017
Palais Brongniart, Paris, 22–27 March 2017
The Salon du Dessin is a made-in-France success that is admired around the world. For an entire week, it brings together art lovers, collectors, novices, and museum curators interested in drawings, whether old masters, modern or contemporary. During that week, the Salon du Dessin is the epicentre of Paris’s cultural scene, attracting an intellectual community delighted to share with the public its passion for knowledge and the excitement of discovery.
Even curators from major museums make discoveries at the Salon du Dessin. The art of drawing requires great connoisseurship, and it has now been rediscovered by a wider public thanks to the Salon du Dessin and its off-site events, which help neophytes acquire greater understanding by providing access to museum reserves.
The fair website is available here»
Poster Image: Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, Detail of a Drapery Study, 1806 (Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts).
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From H-ArtHist:
Salon du Dessin Symposium: De David à Delacroix, II
Palais Brongniart, Paris, 22–23 March 2017
Under the direction of Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat
L’exposition du Grand Palais, De David à Delacroix: La peinture française de 1774 à 1830 (1974–75), et l’exposition de dessins qui la complétait, avaient permis de redécouvrir bon nombre de peintres et d’oeuvres couvrant un pan de l’histoire de l’art, allant du Serment des Horaces de David à La Liberté guidant le peuple de Delacroix.
Depuis 1974, de multiples dessinateurs ont fait l’objet d’études novatrices que ces XIe et XIIe Rencontres du Salon du dessin se proposent d’enrichir. Sous le titre De David à Delacroix: Du tableau au dessin, les communications de cette deuxième session offrent, plus de quarante ans après cette exposition qui a fait date, une relecture de l’oeuvre graphique de plusieurs des principaux artistes français et étrangers de l’époque de Louis XVI à la Révolution de juillet.
W E D N E S D A Y , 2 2 M A R C H 2 0 1 7
• Nicole Willk-Brocard (Docteur ès lettres, Paris), Noël Hallé, F-G Ménageot, J.-A. Renard et J.-B. Restout
• Pierre Rosenberg (Président directeur honoraire du musée du Louvre, Paris), Dessins de David (II)
• Yuriko Jackall (Conservateur, National Gallery of Art, Department of French Paintings, Landover, Maryland), Greuze éclipsé?: Considérations autour de ses dernières années
• Marie Yvonneau-Fournier (Doctorante, Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris), Jacques-Philippe Caresme (1734–1796), dessinateur licencieux?
• Andreas Stolzenburg (Chief Curator Prints & Drawings, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hambourg), François-Marius Granet, Franz Ludwig Catel und die Mönchs-Romantik in Rom um 1815
• Jan Gorm Madsen (Historien de l’art, chercheur indépendant, Frederiksberg), Drawings by the Danish Artist C.W. Eckersberg from His Parisian Sojourn, 1810–13
• Florence Viguier-Dutheil (Conservateur en chef du Patrimoine, Directrice du musée Ingres, Montauban), Les dessins d’Ingres, un monde à part
T H U R S D A Y , 2 3 M A R C H 2 0 1 7
• Rosalba Dinoia (Docteur en histoire de l’art, chercheur indépendant, Rome), L’énigmatique Stratonice: Un cadeau inédit de Calamatta à Ingres
• Dominique de Font-Réaulx (Directrice du musée national Eugène-Delacroix, Paris), Taches colorées et notes poétiques, Eugène Delacroix dessinateur et écrivain
• Françoise Heilbrun (Conservateur en chef honoraire au musée d’Orsay, Paris), Paul-Arthur Cheramy (1840–1912) et Etienne Moreau-Nélaton (1859–1927): un collectionneur de Delacroix peut en cacher un autre
• Bénédicte Savoy (Professeure, Technische Universität Berlin) et David Blankenstein (Historien de l’art, Berlin), Paris-Berlin 1800: L’album de Frédéric Christophe d’Houdetot
• Guillaume Kazerouni (Responsable des collections anciennes de peintures et dessins, musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes), Un carnet de calques inédit de Léon Cogniet au musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes
Exhibition | Drawing Gold and Silver: Odiot
‘Snake handles’ dish, attributed to Charles-Jean-Alexandre Moreau, creator of the model; drawing attributed to Auguste Garneray, draughtsman in Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot’s workshop, ca. 1810; graphite, pen and grey ink, grey and sepia wash on paper (Paris: Les Arts Décoratifs).
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Now on view at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs:
Drawing Gold and Silver: Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot
Dessiner l’or et l’argent: Odiot (1763–1850), orfèvre
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 8 March — 7 May 2017
Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot (1763–1850) became one of the most successful and prolific gold and silversmiths during the Empire and Restoration periods. He received several important royal commissions from the courts of Europe, including a sumptuous table service, a dressing table for empress Marie-Louise, and a cradle for the King of Rome.
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs has an exceptional collection of 33 silverware pieces and—acquired in 2009—176 original drawings from Odiot’s workshop, classified as important works of heritage by the Ministry of Culture’s Consultative Commission on National Treasures. On display for the first time, this exhibition reunites Odiot’s design drawings with the executed pieces, demonstrating his creative process, as well as his formal development and experimentation. Dating from the first quarter of the 19th century, these drawings are superbly executed in graphite and pen and enhanced with ink wash, watercolor, and gouache.
The drawings illustrate the various stages of a piece’s creation, from the initial sketches to the final detailed drawings presented to clients. On sheets of paper often measuring more than one meter high, tableware, dressing tables, and desks pieces are represented to scale, displaying the splendor and refinement of the art of living in the early 19th century. The drawings also propose different versions of the same model, offering alternatives for applied ornaments, handles, etc. Each drawing reveals an ornamental repertoire that became Odiot’s hallmark that he repeatedly employed in varying combinations from the beginning of the Empire period to the end of the Restoration. Only ten of the drawings are signed by colleagues of Odiot, including draughtsmen Auguste Garneray (1785–1824) and Adrien-Louis-Marie Cavelier (1785–1867), and the silversmith Jacques-Henry Fauconnier (1779–1839). The drawings also feature the names of prestigious clients such as Count Demidov, Countess Branicka, and members of the Imperial Family, including Madame Mère (Napoleon’s mother), Empress Marie-Louise, and Jerome I of Westphalia. These 176 drawings complement the Museum’s collection of 31 bronze models, a sugar bowl, and ‘Venus’s breast and butterfly’ bowl in vermeil, all by Odiot.
Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot, ‘Venus breast and butterfly’ bowl, ca. 1810–20; silver-gilt, hammered, cast, chased and engraved (Paris: Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris / photo: Jean Tholance).
The forms of the bronze models are as varied as the drawings: tea urns, soup tureens, dishes, wine coolers, oil cruets, saltcellars… Their handles, legs, and applied decoration incorporate an ornamental vocabulary derived from Antiquity. In addition to the central theme of the procession of Bacchus, Odiot’s pieces and drawings incorporates other iconographical figures such as of Hebe, Ceres, Leda, Venus, Adonis, Flora, and allegories of Victory. Snakes, swans, and mermaids lend their sinuous forms to handles, while monopod winged sphinxes and lion’s paws were better suited as legs. The foliated friezes framing the piece’s main body are decorated with panthers, reeds, vine branches, ears of wheat, and dolphins.
In 1835, Odiot donated 31 models to the Chambre des Pairs (Upper House of the French Parliament) for posterity and to serve as models for his successors. The models were initially displayed in the Musée du Luxembourg, which was, in the 19th century, devoted to painting and sculpture by living artists. In 1852, the models were transferred to the storerooms of the Louvre where they were gradually forgotten.
Simultaneously, initiatives were taking place to create the Musée des Arts Décoratifs during the second half of the 19th century. The museum of the ‘beautiful in the useful’ opened in 1882 with the goal of encouraging links between art and industry by providing models and references for workers and artisans. As there was a clear connection between Odiot’s motives and those of the new museum, Odiot’s models were put on permanent loan to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 1892. In 1907–08, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs commissioned Christofle to gold and silver-plate these models in order to give them the appearance of silver. In 2016, the models were officially added to the inventory of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
These models were executed with great finesse. Their components, assembled by a system of nuts and bolts, were chased to heighten the relief decoration and provide contrast between matte and reflective surfaces. As a result of recent scientific analysis by the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, the pieces, previously described in Odiot’s terminology as bronze, are, in fact, made of brass. The rare opportunity to showcase the Museum’s collection of Odiot silver alongside the drawings creates a unique dialogue in the history of decorative arts.
The Silversmith Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot’s Designs for Silver and Gold exhibition explores this dialogue between a piece’s initial conception on the drawing board and the finished work in Jean- Baptiste-Claude Odiot’s workshop. A selection of approximately 100 drawings, exhibited for the first time, will be displayed alongside 33 pieces of silver, revealing this great silversmith’s creative process. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue of the collection and interactive digital media.
Audrey Gay-Mazuel and Julie Ruffet-Troussard, Odiot: Un atelier d’orfèvrerie sous l’Empire et la Restauration (Paris: Les Arts Décoratifs, 2017), 240 pages, ISBN : 978 2916914 688, 45€.
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