Enfilade

The eighteenth century in the current issue of Print Quarterly:

Print Quarterly 36.1 (March 2019)

S H O R T E R  N O T I C E

Donatella Biagi Maino, “Gaetano Gandolfi’s Album of Prints by Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo,” pp. 45–54. Focusing on a little known album of prints assembled by Gaetano Gandolfi (1734–1802), the article explores the relationship between Bolognese and Venetian art in the second half of the eighteenth century, with a particular emphasis on the generative role of the works of Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo.

N O T E S  A N D  R E V I E W S

• Angela Nikolai, Review of the exhibition catalogue, Zeichenunterricht: Von der Künstlerausbildung zur ästhetischen Erziehung seit 1500 (Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich, 2017–18), pp. 63–64. “On its 150th anniversary, the Graphische Sammlung ETH Zurich hosted three exhibitions, the last of which presented and drawings related to artistic training since the sixteenth century” (63), focusing on Italian, Dutch, and German engravings and etchings from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. “The selection ranges from reproductive prints of antiquities and painted academy scenes to anatomical prints or sheets from drawings books” (64).

Chinese Bird-and-Flower wallpaper at Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, ca. 1752, woodblock-printed outlines with the colours added by hand (David Kirkham / National Trust).

• Ming Wilson, Review of Emile de Bruijn, Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland (London, Philip Wilson Publishers, 2017), pp. 64–66. Drawing on the archives of the National Trust and on works still in situ, this volume establishes a chronology charting what kind of wallpaper was in fashion in the British Isles from 1740 onwards. “It is no exaggeration to say that this book is a comprehensive listing of all Chinese wallpapers known to be in existence today and an indispensable reference work on the subject, with a history of British interior design thrown into the bargain” (66).

• Armin Kunz, Review of the exhibition catalogue, Copy.Right: Adam von Bartsch: Kunst Kommerz Kennersschaft (Kunstsammlung der Universität Göttingen, 2016), pp. 66–68. The 31 essays “assembled in this volume present welcome additions to these final chapters in the long-neglected history of the reproductive print” (68).

Kitagawa Utamaro, The Courtesan Onitsutaya Azamino Tattooes Her Name and the Word ‘inochi’ (Life) into the Arm of Her Lover Gontar, a Man of the World, ca. 1798–99, woodblock print (Boston: MFA).

• Ellis Tinios, Review of Sarah Thompson, Tattoos in Japanese Prints (MFA, Boston: 2017), pp. 68–69. “Thompson’s concise and informative introductory essay explores the meaning of tattoos in Japanese society. . . Large-scale body tattoos appear to have originated in the late eighteenth century among ‘bandits’ and were then taken up by petty criminals, firemen, and others on the margins of society. The practice was banned in the 1810 with little effect” (68).

• Desmond-Bryan Kraege, review of Rolf Reichardt, ed., Lexikon der Revolutions-Ikonographie in der europäische Druckgraphik, 1789–1889, 3 volumes (Münster, Rhema, 2017), pp. 70–71. “The fruit of extensive documentary research in the collections of almost 50 European institutions,” this publication “provides a good complement to an encyclopaedic work that is set to become an indispensable reference for students of print culture and political art during the long nineteenth century” (71).

• Exhibition catalogue, Hélène Iehl and Felix Reusse, eds, La France, Zwischen Aufklärung und Galanterie: Meisterwerke der Druckgraphik​ / La France au siècle des Lumières et de la galanterie: Chefs-d’œuvre de la gravure (Michael Imhof Verlag, 2018), p. 92. “This exhibition catalogue celebrates the gift to the museum in Freiburg, Germany, from the local collector Joseph Lienhart, of his collection of French prints of the eighteenth century formed since the 1970s” (92). [Noted under ‘publications received’.]

Anonymous artist after a drawing by Robert Bonnart, published by Nicolas Bonnart I, Portrait of Catherine Thérèse de Matignon, Marchioness of Seignelay, Wearing Fontange, a Black Veil and Mantua with a Blue Petticoat, 1690–96, hand-coloured etching and engraving, 290 × 196 mm (London: British Museum).

• Anthony Griffiths, review of Pascale Cugy, La Dynastie Bonnart: Peintres, Graveurs et Marchands de Modes à Paris sous L’ancien Régime (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017), pp. 103–05. The Bonnart family “are one of the few producers that have given their name to a genre: in the nineteenth century ‘Bonnarts’ became a term used to define the full length men and women in fashionable clothing standing against a plain or a simple background” (103). This book focuses on the production of the Bonnart family over a century, shedding new light on eighteenth-century France not only from an artistic point of view, but also from a social and legal one.

• Mark McDonald, review of exhibition catalogue, Ceán Bermúdez: Historiador del arte y coleccionista ilustrado (Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, 2016), pp. 106–11. Drawing upon a rich variety of sources, this catalogue focuses on one of the most eclectic and interesting figures of the Spanish Enlightenment: the art collector, patron, writer, and historian Juan Augustín Ceán Bermúdez (1749–1829). “Ceán is often described as the first historian of Spanish art and his writings include translations, catalogues, and descriptions of art collections” (106). With five chapters and 158 individual entries, this publication from the 2016 exhibition in Madrid “presents groundbreaking scholarship and is the most complete study of this fascinating figure” (106).