Enfilade

From Bloomsbury:

Susanna Avery-Quash and Barbara Pezzini, eds., Old Masters Worldwide: Markets, Movements and Museums, 1789–1939 (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1501348143, $130.

As a result of the Napoleonic wars, vast numbers of Old Master paintings were released on to the market from public and private collections across continental Europe. The knock-on effect was the growth of the market for Old Masters from the 1790s up to the early 1930s, when the Great Depression put an end to its expansion. This book explores the global movement of Old Master paintings and investigates some of the changes in the art market that took place as a result of this new interest. Arguably, the most important phenomenon was the diminishing of the traditional figure of the art agent and the rise of more visible, increasingly professional, dealerships; firms such as Colnaghi and Agnew’s in Britain, Goupil in France, and Knoedler in the USA, came into existence. Old Masters Worldwide explores the ways in which the pioneering practices of such businesses contributed to shape a changing market.

Susanna Avery-Quash is Senior Research Curator (History of Collecting) at The National Gallery London. Barbara Pezzini is a prolific writer on European Old Masters and British art of the period 1830–1970; she has previously worked in curatorial, research, and archival projects for The National Gallery, National Trust, and The Burlington Magazine.

C O N T E N T S

List of Figures
Series Editor’s Introduction, Kathryn Brown
Foreword, Gabriele Finaldi
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

Introduction, Susanna Avery-Quash and Barbara Pezzini

Part I: Developing European Networks, 1780–1894
1  The European Market for Italian Old Masters after Napoleon — Robert Skwirblies (Technische Universität Berlin)
2  Old Masters from Rome to London: Alexander Day and Pietro Camuccini — Pier Ludovico Puddu (Palacký University, Czech Republic)
3  Selling Old Masters in Britain, France, and the Netherlands: The Networking Strategies of John Smith — Julia Armstrong-Totten (Independent Scholar, USA)
4  A Web of Agents: Buying Old Masters for the National Gallery, London — Susanna Avery-Quash (National Gallery, UK)

Part II: Gaining International Visibility and Expertise, 1850–1909
5  Old Masters versus Modern Art in Parisian Auctions — Léa Saint-Raymond (Université Paris Nanterre)
6  Agnew’s from Modern Art to the Old Masters — Barbara Pezzini (Independent Scholar, UK)
7  Taste or Opportunity? Durand-Ruel and Spanish Old Masters — Véronique Gerard Powell (Independent Scholar, France)
8  Authority and Expertise in the Old Master Market: Bode and Duveen — Catherine Scallen (Case Western Reserve University)
9  Scholar, Dealer, and Museum Man: Robert Langton Douglas in the International Old Master Market — Imogen Tedbury (Royal Holloway, University of London)

Part III: Casting a Wider Web, 1900–1939
10  A Missed Opportunity? Goupil and the Old Masters — Agnès Penot (Independent Scholar, USA)
11  Knoedler and Old Masters in America — Inge Reist (The Frick Collection)
12  Trust, Friendship, and Politics in the Old Master Market: Duveen and the State Art Collection of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia — Jelena Todorovic (Faculty of Fine Arts, Serbia)
13  Negotiating Old Masters for the Melbourne National Gallery — Monique Webber (The University of Melbourne and Monash University Art Design and Architecture)
14  The Distant Old Masters of South Africa — Jillian Carman (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)

Select Bibliography
Author Biographies
Index

From Cambridge UP:

Tom Stammers, The Purchase of the Past: Collecting Culture in Post-Revolutionary Paris c.1790–1890 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 370 pages, ISBN: 978-1108478847, $120.

Offering a broad and vivid survey of the culture of collecting from the French Revolution to the Belle Époque, The Purchase of the Past explores how material things became a central means of accessing and imagining the past in nineteenth-century France. By subverting the monarchical establishment, the French Revolution not only heralded the dawn of the museum age, it also threw an unprecedented quantity of artworks into commercial circulation, allowing private individuals to pose as custodians and saviours of the endangered cultural inheritance. Through their common itineraries, erudition, and sociability, an early generation of scavengers established their own form of ‘private patrimony’, independent from state control. Over a century of Parisian history, Tom Stammers explores collectors’ investments—not just financial but also emotional and imaginative—in historical artefacts, as well as their uncomfortable relationship with public institutions. In so doing, he argues that private collections were a critical site for salvaging and interpreting the past in a post-revolutionary society, accelerating but also complicating the development of a shared national heritage.

Tom Stammers is Associate Professor in Modern European Cultural History at the University of Durham. He is a historian of modern France, specialising in visual and material culture; he works frequently with museums and heritage organisations, including collaborating on exhibitions, and is a regular contributor to arts reviews like Apollo.

C O N T E N T S

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Collection, Recollection, Revolution
1  Amateurs and the Art Market in Transition, c.1780–1830
2  Archiving and Envisioning the French Revolution, c.1780–1830
3  Book Hunting, Bibliophilia, and a Textual Restoration, c.1790–1840
4  Salvaging the Gothic in Private and Public Spaces, c.1820–1870
5  Royalists versus Vandals, and the Cult of the Old Regime, c.1860–1880
6  Allies of the Republic? Inside the Sale of the Century, c.1870–1895
Conclusion: The Resilience and Eclipse of Curiosité

Bibliography
Index

From Reaktion Books:

Jason Whittaker, Divine Images: The Life and Work of William Blake (London: Reaktion Books, 2021), 392 pages, ISBN: 978-1789142877, £25 / $35.

Although relatively obscure during his lifetime, William Blake has become one of the most popular English artists and writers, through poems such as ‘The Tyger’ and ‘Jerusalem’, and images including The Ancient of Days. Less well-known is Blake’s radical religious and political temperament, and that his visionary art was created to express a personal mythology that sought to recreate an entirely new approach to philosophy and art. This book examines both Blake’s visual and poetic work over his long career, from early engravings and poems to his final illustrations to Dante and the Book of Job. Divine Images further explores Blake’s immense popular appeal and influence after his death, offering an inspirational look at a pioneering figure.

Jason Whittaker is Head of the School of English and Journalism at the University of Lincoln. His books include William Blake and the Myths of Britain (1999) and Blake 2.0 (2012).

C O N T E N T S

Introduction: This World is a World of Imagination and Vision
1  Early Life and Work
2  Visions of Innocence
3  A New Heaven is Begun
4  Lambeth and Experience
5  A New System of Mythology
6  Night Thoughts and the Four Zoas
7  England’s Pleasant Land
8  Creating Systems
9  Final Visions
10  Death and Resurrection: The Legacy of William Blake

Bibliography

From the École nationale supérieure d’architecture Paris-Malaquais:

Aurélien Davrius, Metz royale et impériale: La cathédrale, la mémoire et l’amnésie (Bordeaux: Éditions William Blake & Co, 2020), ISBN: 978-2841032303, 28€.

Ville libre d’Empire, protectorat de facto du royaume France à partir de 1552, puis incorporée en 1648, Metz se voit annexée au Second Reich en 1871, avant de redevenir française en 1918. C’est l’histoire d’une ville de l’entre-deux qui se lit dans l’architecture messine. Le quartier de la Neue Stadt, bien sûr, rappelle ce passé germanique; la «gothisation» de la cathédrale à la fin du XIXe siècle aussi. Partant de l’exemple de l’entrée principale de la cathédrale Saint-Étienne remaniée par le Reich, cette étude vise à relever le caractère symbolique que Metz avait revêtu pour la monarchie française et qu’elle revêtit de nouveau, mais cette fois pour la monarchie impériale prussienne, au-delà du rôle purement stratégique qu’elle jouait pour les deux nations successives.

Louis XV, au milieu du Siècle des Lumières, chargea son architecte Jacques-François Blondel d’aménager les abords de la cathédrale, en créant trois places et en construisant un portique monumental, véritable ex-voto à la gloire du Prince, en style classique. Un siècle plus tard, Guillaume II fera démonter cette entrée, jugée trop française, pour effacer le souvenir de l’ancienne puissance dominante. C’est un portail néo-gothique qu’il fait édifier sur les dessins de son architecte Paul Tornow, digne de la haute culture du Second Reich. Le kaiser se fit représenter lui-même sous les traits du prophète Daniel, statue intégrée dans le décor du portail. Guillaume II tenta d’effacer et de remplacer Louis XV.

Afin de mieux comprendre les luttes de pouvoir entre France et Allemagne qui se nouèrent à Metz, à travers les œuvres d’architecture, cette étude se propose d’élargir la question à l’ensemble du contexte franco-allemand, de la fin du XVIIIe siècle au début du XXe. Les travaux de la cathédrale de Metz n’offrent qu’une pièce d’un puzzle beaucoup plus vaste, dont on peine à saisir tous les tenants et aboutissants. Il faut faire remonter cette rivalité à l’époque des armées napoléoniennes occupant et humiliant la Prusse, de la récupération de la figure de Vercingétorix par Napoléon III, de l’appropriation d’un certain style architectural par Guillaume II, mais aussi des chantiers d’achèvement des cathedrales de Cologne ou d’Ulm. Sur la base d’une riche iconographie, des articles de presse de l’époque ou encore de fonds archivistiques peu exploités, c’est un double portrait de la ville de Metz qui s’offre au lecteur: une ville à la fois royale et impériale.

S O M M A I R E

Partie I : Metz royale
• Metz et la politique royale d’embellissements
• Le portique de la cathédrale : un monument royal pour symboliser le Prince
• Un portique classique pour une cathédrale gothique
• Blondel théoricien et architecte d’un gothique des Lumières

Partie II : Metz impériale
• « Architecture allemande » (Goethe, 1772)
• Du gothique au classique, et retour : menaces sur l’œuvre de Blondel
• Paul Tornow, le « Viollet-le-Duc de Metz »
• Une gothisation du gothique
• Le Kaiser et l’équerre
• La fabrique d’un art national
• Gothique français contre gothique allemand : l’architecture comme enjeu national

Sade died on this day, December 2, in 1814 at the Charenton Asylum; from Princeton UP:

Alyce Mahon, The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020), 296 pages, ISBN: 978-0691141619, £38 / $45.

How the notorious author of The 120 Days of Sodom inspired the surrealists and other avant-garde artists, writers, and filmmakers

The writings of the Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) present a libertine philosophy of sexual excess and human suffering that refuses to make any concession to law, religion, or public decency. In this groundbreaking cultural history, Alyce Mahon traces how artists of the twentieth century turned to Sade to explore political, sexual, and psychological terror, adapting his imagery of the excessively sexual and terrorized body as a means of liberation from systems of power.

Mahon shows how avant-garde artists, writers, dramatists, and filmmakers drew on Sade’s ‘philosophy in the bedroom’ to challenge oppressive regimes and their restrictive codes and conventions of gender and sexuality. She provides close analyses of early illustrated editions of Sade’s works and looks at drawings, paintings, and photographs by leading surrealists such as André Masson, Leonor Fini, and Man Ray. She explains how Sade’s ideas were reflected in the writings of Guillaume Apollinaire and the fiction of Anne Desclos, who wrote her erotic novel, Story of O, as a love letter to critic Jean Paulhan, an admirer of Sade. Mahon explores how Sade influenced the happenings of Jean-Jacques Lebel, the theater of Peter Brook, the cinema of Pier Paolo Pasolini, and the multimedia art of Paul Chan. She also discusses responses to Sade by feminist theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Sontag, and Angela Carter.

Beautifully illustrated, The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde demonstrates that Sade inspired generations of artists to imagine new utopian visions of living, push the boundaries of the body and the body politic, and portray the unthinkable in their art.

Alyce Mahon is Reader in Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Surrealism and the Politics of Eros, 1938–1968 and Eroticism and Art.