Williamsburg Bray School Initiative Launched
Established in 1760, the Bray School educated enslaved and free Black children in Williamsburg, Virginia. This 1921 photo shows the front elevation of the building, subsequently the Dudley Digges House, in its original location on Prince George Street. The school operated in the building from 1760 until 1765. It is likely the oldest extant building in the United States dedicated to the education of Black children. (Earl Gregg Swem/2010 The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
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Press release from Colonial Williamsburg:
A small, white building tucked away on the William & Mary campus once housed the Williamsburg Bray School, an 18th-century institution dedicated to the education of enslaved and free Black children, researchers have determined. Now, the university and Colonial Williamsburg are working together to ensure current and future generations learn about the complex history of what is likely the oldest extant building in the United States dedicated to the education of Black children—and the stories of those who were part of it. The new partnership calls for relocation of the Bray-Digges House to Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area, where it would become the 89th original structure restored by the foundation. It also establishes the Williamsburg Bray School Initiative, a joint venture of the university and foundation to use the site as a focal point for research, scholarship, and dialogue regarding the complicated story of race, religion, and education in Williamsburg and in America.
Dendrochronology analysis of the building’s wood framing in 2020 by Colonial Williamsburg researchers confirms that the structure at 524 Prince George St. once housed Williamsburg’s Bray School, an institution that educated many of the town’s Black children from 1760 to 1774. Suggested for establishment in Williamsburg by Benjamin Franklin, the Bray School’s mission was to impart Christian education to Black children and for students to accept enslavement as divinely ordained.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam was scheduled to join the Williamsburg community for a special event at 5pm Thursday commemorating the history of the Bray School, its rediscovery, and plans for site and interpretation. Due to COVID-19 guidelines, the event was not open to the general public to attend in person but was available virtually via live stream.
“It is hard to overstate the importance of this discovery, of the robust history that will be uncovered through this partnership between William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg” said William & Mary President Katherine A. Rowe. “So much of our history as a nation has gone unrecorded—the history of African Americans, their oppression, and resistance. By studying the legacy of the Bray School students, we will uncover and illuminate some of the most important impacts of education in the story of America.”
Colonial Williamsburg’s initial work to restore and interpret the Bray School’s historic structure is possible in part thanks to a grant of $400,000 from the Gladys and Franklin Clark Foundation. Cliff Fleet, president and CEO of Colonial Williamsburg, said the project is a critical step toward fostering a broader understanding of Americans’ shared history. The grant from the Clark Foundation will allow Colonial Williamsburg to relocate the structure to the Historic Area, and additional funds will be raised to complete the restoration and interpretive work.
“Colonial Williamsburg and William & Mary’s partnership to research, restore, and interpret the original structure of the Bray School is critical to our ongoing work to uncover our common past and expand our understanding of America’s founding,” Fleet said. “We’re very grateful to the Clark Foundation, whose generous support makes this effort possible. We invite guests, the community, and the nation to join us as we continue to pursue and present a more complete story of all who lived in Williamsburg during the Revolutionary era.”
A Virginia Department of Historic Resources marker commemorating the school’s 18th-century location was unveiled at Brown Hall, a William & Mary residence hall, in early 2019, and Rowe noted that the new joint venture aligns with other William & Mary initiatives that address the institution’s historical involvement with slavery. Construction is to begin this year on Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved, a monument dedicated to the enslaved individuals who labored at William & Mary, while the Lemon Project is a scholarly and educational initiative that investigates slavery and its legacies— and particularly William & Mary’s involvement in the practice. The Lemon Project takes its name from Lemon, an enslaved worker at William & Mary.
Jody Allen, the Robert Francis Engs Director of the Lemon Project, explained that the Bray School legacy has long been a part of the Lemon Project’s programming. Identification and engagement of descendants of Bray School scholars are among the priorities of the Williamsburg Bray School Initiative. Allen was recently appointed by Governor Northam to Virginia’s Commission to Study Slavery and Subsequent De Jure and De Facto Racial and Economic Discrimination. She said she expects the Bray School Initiative to allow scholars to follow more closely the intriguing line of evidence of a Bray School education having influence that is deep and wide among Williamsburg’s Black population.
“When we talk about the history of slavery and the history of the African American experience at William & Mary, we include the Bray School,” Allen said. “We believe the Bray School not only impacted the children who actually attended the school, but it impacted their descendants. We believe very strongly that they went on to share their knowledge with brothers, sisters, neighbors.”
William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg are both neighbors, and frequent collaborators. The Bray School has been the object of numerous research initiatives focusing on archival as well as material-culture sources aimed at expanding the collective understanding of history, including the joint archaeological excavation of the historic Bray-Digges House site at Prince George and Boundary streets. Currently, the university and foundation are partners in work led by the city’s Historic First Baptist Church to research and interpret its first permanent site on South Nassau Street. The Bray School partnership will facilitate continued research and interpretation, and a deeper examination of a number of aspects of history through the lens of the Bray School, including perspectives from families whose children attended the school and the motivations of white slaveowners who sent them there.
“Our knowledge of history is not static; it continues to reveal itself through critical work like the investigation of the Bray-Digges House,” said Stephen Seals, a Colonial Williamsburg interpreter, program development manager and community liaison. “The Bray School represents another complex chapter in our nation’s story, and its restoration and interpretation will be critical to our community’s work to foster a more complete understanding of our shared history.”
Nicole Brown, an actor-interpreter and scholar who portrays Colonial Williamsburg Nation Builder Ann Wager, the white teacher at the Williamsburg Bray School, is also a graduate student in William & Mary’s American Studies Program. Currently, Brown is studying the history and impact of the Bray Schools in Williamsburg and beyond. Her work has taken her to Oxford’s Weston Library, where she dove into some 8,000 pages of records of the Associates of Dr. Bray, the London organization that established or tried to establish Bray Schools throughout the New World in Philadelphia, Nova Scotia, and the Bahamas. Brown’s work with Colonial Williamsburg is supported by the Mary and Donald Gonzales Field Experience Fund.
“This research gave me a great deal of insight into Ann Wager and her students. You can learn a great deal about the school based on the books she used at the school,” Brown said. “Quite frankly, you learn a lot about the pro-slavery ideology of the school when you see how many of the books are extremely rooted in systemic racism.”
Julie Richter, a lecturer in William & Mary’s Department of History and the director of the National Institute of American History & Democracy (NIAHD), itself a partnership of William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg, said there are surviving student lists from only three years: 1762, 1765, and 1769.
“I’m eternally optimistic that there will be a few more lists that someone will find in time,” Richter said. “But right now, we have these three slices in time to try to tease out what students were at the school and who sent them.”
Brown and Richter said slaveowners had varied motivations for enrolling enslaved children. Literacy and math skill increased the auction value of any enslaved individual, while Brown pointed out that a Bray School education increased a person’s usefulness to the slaveowner, in particular one who operated a commercial establishment. Students likely also had varying intentions for use of their education, often in direct contradiction with their owners’, Brown noted.
The first dots establishing the Bray-Digges link were unearthed and connected by Terry Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, Emeritus, at William & Mary. Meyers was reading a memoir by a local resident when he came across a reference to an 18th-century cottage that in 1930 had been moved down Prince George Street from the corner of Prince George and North Boundary streets. He visited Colonial Williamsburg’s John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, where there was a file on the building.
“From that, I was able to go back and look at what is now 524 Prince George St.,” Meyers said. “And I realized that if you look at that structure and erase the two additions on the right and the left and change the roofline from a Dutch colonial roof to a proper cottage roof, you actually do have an 18th-century cottage.”
Researchers led by Matt Webster, Colonial Williamsburg’s executive director of architectural preservation and research, discovered the reconfigured roof line that Meyers had noticed and a window sash that dates to the original construction date.
“Our analysis of the structure’s oldest elements conclusively places the timber’s harvest between the winter of 1759–60 and the spring of 1760, with the establishment of the Williamsburg Bray School in 1760,” Webster said. “That, combined with existing evidence of the Bray School’s historical location on Prince George Street, makes a compelling case that this is the original structure, and the building still has a great deal more to teach us.”
Meyers found that the Bray School operated in the Digges building from its 1760 founding until 1765, when the school was moved, possibly out to Capitol Landing Road.
Meyers noted that “education is almost invariably subversive.” Like Allen, he said there is evidence that students at the Bray School took their literacy skills back home and spread them around.
“If you are taught to read the Bible,” Meyers said. “you will be able to read other things. Once you educate people, they are better equipped to think critically.”
The timeframe for relocation of the Bray-Digges building is yet to be determined, and Colonial Williamsburg and William & Mary are considering a number of potential sites. The building most recently housed offices for William & Mary’s Department of Military Science and has been known as Prince George House.
Exhibition | Signed in Silk
From the press release (27 January 2021) for the exhibition:
Signed in Silk: Introducing a Sacred Jewish Textile
Saint Louis Art Museum, 19 March — 3 October 2021
Curated by Genevieve Cortinovis
The Saint Louis Art Museum presents Signed in Silk: Introducing a Sacred Jewish Textile, an exhibition highlighting an extraordinary 2019 acquisition, an 18th-century Italian Torah Ark Curtain, or parokhet. In 1755, in the port city of Ancona on the Adriatic coast, artist Simhah Viterbo (1739–1779) embroidered a dedicatory inscription across the lower edge of this magnificent textile. About 15 at the time, Viterbo was continuing in a long tradition of Italian Jewish women who created sumptuous textiles for their synagogues. Drawing upon the Museum’s rich collection of 17th- and 18th-century sacred and secular textiles, the exhibition considers how Viterbo created an object that reflected not only her Jewish heritage but also her own place and time, at the center of a major trading crossroads during an era of increasing cultural connectivity.
Simhah Viterbo, Torah Ark Curtain (Parokhet), 1755; silk, silk and metallic thread, vellum, metal paillettes, cotton thread, velvet, metallic fringe, linen backing; 87 × 66 inches (Saint Louis Art Museum, The Deane and Paul Shatz Endowment Fund for Judaica 2:2019).
In the 18th century, Ancona was a bustling port, home to many, including a prosperous and cosmopolitan community of Jewish traders. It was also a Papal State that since 1555 systematically had oppressed the Jewish residents, most of whom were forced into a few low-skill trades, and isolated them in ghettos, the term then used for prison neighborhoods. Paradoxically, this segregation of culturally diverse Jewish communities coincided with a flowering of Jewish ceremonial art, and this Torah Ark Curtain exemplifies the lavish sacred textiles made by Italian Jews during this period.
The prevailing decoration of 18th-century Italian Jewish textiles was floral; however, Viterbo’s design is unusual in its oversized, symmetrical central motif and narrow enclosed border. Its metal embroidery—scrolls, shells and diapered baskets—was consistent with the ornate Late Baroque and early Rococo ornament that embellished fashionable European dress, textiles and silver of the same moment. Yet the overall composition of the parokhet has more in common with a group of embroidered curtains made within the vast Ottoman Empire, which at that time included parts of the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East.
Rare Hebrew books, printed in Venice and borrowed from Washington University’s Shimeon Brisman Collection, join with splendid examples of Italian, Greek, Ottoman, and Indian textiles to make Signed in Silk a celebration of Viterbo’s skill in having synthesized a range of decorative motifs, techniques, and forms. The exhibition explores how influences from Baroque garden design, Christian ecclesiastical embroidery, botanical naturalism, Ottoman prayer rugs, and Renaissance pattern books coalesced in the handwork of a young woman confined to a ghetto. Viterbo’s accomplished work nevertheless reveals her connection—through textiles—to networks of trade from London to the Levant.
Signed in Silk is curated by Genevieve Cortinovis, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts and Design.
Online Workshop | Analysis of Reverse Paintings on Glass
From ArtHist.net:
Possibilities and Limits of (Non-destructive) Analysis of Reverse Paintings on Glass
Online, Vitrocentre Romont, Switzerland, 12 March 2021
Organized by Sophie Wolf and Francesco Caruso
Registration due by 7 March 2021
As part of the SNSF research project on the travel and recipe book of Ulrich Daniel Metzger (1671), reverse glass paintings by the artist and by his close friend and master Gerhard Janssen are being examined. The investigation has two aims: first, a technical and material characterisation of the artworks and secondly, a comparison of the results with the recipes and painting instructions noted in the book. The analysis of materials and techniques, however, is associated with difficulties that are based on the technical specificity of the works, namely so-called ‘églomisé’. The paintings are backed with leaf metals and sometimes also protected by an additional cover of paper, which cannot always be easily removed. There is therefore no direct access to the painting layers. In this workshop, we would like to discuss the limits and possibilities of (non-destructive) analysis of reverse glass paintings and stained glass. Short presentations will give insights into the analytical practice of various research groups active in the field and provide the opportunity to discuss specific issues of analytical techniques and procedures.
The workshop is open to the public, but registration is required as the number of places is limited. If you are interested in participating as a listener, please register via email by 7 March 2021: sophie.wolf@vitrocentre.ch. The video-conference will start at 9.00am. Please start joining the meeting at 8.45am. We regret that latecomers cannot be admitted until a suitable break.
P R O G R A M M E
9.00 Sophie WOLF (Vitrocentre Romont), Welcome and introduction
9.15 Uta BERGMANN (Vitrocentre Romont), Das Reise- und Rezeptbuch Ulrich Daniel Metzgers
9.30 Francesco CARUSO (SIK-ISEA, Zürich) and Sophie WOLF (Vitrocentre Romont), Non-destructive study of early 18th-century reverse glass paintings
10.00 Simon STEGER (Staatliche Akademie der Künste, Stuttgart), Non-invasive spectroscopic investigation of cultural artefacts: shedding light on modern reverse glass paintings (1905–1955)
10.30 Break
11.00 Patrick DIETEMANN (Doerner Institut, München), Challenges and limits of (non-destructive) modern binding medium analysis
11.30 Katharina SCHMIDT-OTT (Swiss National Museum, Collection Centre, Affoltern a. Albis), Comparability of two XRF analyzers on sanguine in stained glass paintings by H. J. Güder (1630–1691)
12.00 Panel Discussion
• Patrick DIETEMANN (Doerner Institut, München)
• Susanne GREIFF (Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz)
• Maite MAGUREGUI HERNANDO (Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao)
• Simon STEGER (Staatliche Akademie der Künste, Stuttgart)
Organisation
Sophie Wolf (Vitrocentre Romont), sophie.wolf@vitrocentre.ch
Francesco Caruso (Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft SIK-ISEA), francesco.caruso@sik-isea.ch
Exhibition | The Search for Ancient Ionia, 1764
William Pars, Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, 1764, pen and grey ink with watercolour and bodycolour and some gum arabic
(London: The British Museum)
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From the Soane Museum:
The Romance of Ruins: The Search for Ancient Ionia, 1764
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, 3 March – 11 July 2021
Curated by Ian Jenkins
Produced in collaboration with the British Museum, this exhibition showcases a series of powerful and poetic watercolours made on an expedition to discover the ruins of ancient Ionia (modern Turkey) in 1764. The expedition, funded by the Society of Dilettanti, included artist William Pars, antiquary Richard Chandler, and architect Nicholas Revett.
The beauty and fame of the Ionian cities—part of the Greek world from the 8th century BC and ruined in antiquity—lived on in the writings of ancient commentators such as Herodotus and Strabo. This exhibition focuses on the published accounts of the expedition, produced in lavish volumes funded by the Society of Dilettanti, and the evocative images by the brilliant young artist William Pars, placing them in dialogue with the collections and architecture of Sir John Soane, who deeply admired ancient Greek architecture. Pars’ drawings record the classical ruins encountered in Turkey and Greece, and also the living landscape–its flora and fauna, and the customs, manners and dress of the people, bringing to life extracts from Chandler’s diary account. These images represent Enlightenment themes of travel and discovery and embody melancholy reflections on the passing of the great age of antiquity and the reduction of its monuments. They capture the spirit of Edward Gibbon’s reflection on the fall of civilizations and in so doing they portray the romance of ruins.
This exhibition has been made possible thanks to the generosity of David and Molly Lowell Borthwick. The accompanying catalogue has been kindly supported by the Society of Dilettanti Charitable Trust.
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Ian Jenkins, ed., The Romance of Ruins: The Search for Ancient Ionia, 1764 (London: Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2021), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-1999693244, £40.
The Romance of Ruins: The Search for Ancient Ionia, 1764 focuses on a series of highly finished watercolours by the brilliant young artist William Pars. These were based on sketches and drawings made on the spot during the Society of Dilettanti’s 1764 expedition to Ionia. This remarkable set of pictorial documents has never been fully published in spite of their beauty and cultural significance. The book includes an introduction by the exhibition’s curator, Ian Jenkins, Senior Curator at the British Museum; a series of essays by eminent scholars including Alastair Blanshard, J. Lesley Fitt, Jason M. Kelly, Philip Mansel, and Kim Sloan; and a catalogue of works in the exhibition.
Online Conference | Building an Engaged Art History
From ArtHist.net:
Building an Engaged Art History
Online, Case Western Reserve University and Indiana University IUPUI, 22–23 April 2021
Registration due by 1 March 2021
A virtual convening about public scholarship, civic engagement, and community-based practices in the study and teaching of art history and visual culture.
How can art historians honor ways of seeing and knowing that have been historically marginalized in the art worlds and the academy? How can we work in ways that serve communities beyond our institutions? How can we learn from the methods of engagement that are well-established in other disciplines? How can we build structures within our institutions that support this kind of work? Where are we now, and where do we go from here? Experienced scholars in the public humanities will share their perspectives on the methods, ethics, and value of engaged approaches. Through a series of facilitated conversations, participants will reflect on their own engaged work and create a plan for making engaged art history more robust and more feasible in our institutions and our communities. The symposium is free of charge for all. Please send any questions to the symposium organizers, Erin Benay (eeb50@case.edu) and Laura Holzman (HolzmanL@iu.edu). Click here to register by March 1.
T H U R S D A Y , 2 2 A P R I L 2 0 2 1
10.00 Opening Remarks
Building a More Inclusive and Equitable Art History with Erin Benay (Case Western Reserve University) and Laura Holzman (Indiana University IUPUI)
10.30 Public Humanities, Public Art History
Panel Discussion with Susan Smulyan (Brown University), Renée Ater (Brown University), and Larry Zimmerman (Indiana University IUPUI)
Art history arguably lags behind other fields in the humanities, such as public history (which has an established professional organization and scholarly journal of the same name) with established publicly engaged trajectories. What can we learn from these disciplines about our own?
11.30 Lunch break
12.30 Discussion Session One: Toward an Engaged Art History
With Laura Holzman (Indiana University IUPUI)
Drawing first from disciplinary training and practice, participants will identify key values, awareness, skills, and abilities that can shape our engaged work.
1.30 Coffee break
2.00 Discussion Session Two: What Can Art History Learn from the Community?
With Erin Benay (Case Western Reserve University)
Building a more engaged art history means moving beyond classrooms and museums; this session asks what art history (and art historians) can learn from our community partners and experts outside the academy.
F R I D A Y , 2 3 A P R I L 2 0 2 1
10.00 Opening Remarks
Erin Benay (Case Western Reserve University) and Laura Holzman (Indiana University IUPUI)
10.30 Discussion Session One: Museums and Methods
With Key Jo Lee (Cleveland Museum of Art)
How can engaged practices and the philosophies behind them help make art museums more equitable institutions and how can museums’ methods of sharing knowledge shape engaged research and teaching?
11.30 Lunch break
12.30 Discussion Session Two: Teaching with Engaged Art History
With Jennifer Borland and Louise Siddons (Oklahoma State University)
What is the place of engaged art history in our classrooms and curricula? We will consider philosophies of teaching and learning as well as our experiences with activities such as applied projects service learning, and structuring degree programs.
1.30 Coffee break
2.00 Discussion Session Three: Engaged Art History in the Academy
With Carolyn Butler-Palmer (University of Victoria), Cynthia Persinger (California University of Pennsylvania), and Azar Rejaie (University of Houston-Downtown)
In breakout sessions dedicated to issues such as tenure and promotion and academic publishing, we discuss how to evaluate excellence in engaged art history and how to navigate systems of power that may not yet include its actions in policy or practice.
3.30 Concluding Discussion: Synthesizing the Priorities for Engaged Art History
With Mary Price (Indiana University IUPUI)
Participants will identify next steps for building an engaged art history and produce a Directory of Engaged Art History practitioners.
New Book | American Furniture, 1650–1840
Distributed by Yale University Press:
Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley, American Furniture, 1650–1840: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2021), 336 pages, ISBN: 978-0876332962, $50.
American Furniture, 1650–1840: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art is the first publication dedicated to one of the finest collections of its type in the country. Best known for furniture by artisans from Philadelphia and southeastern Pennsylvania, the museum’s collection includes significant examples from cities and regions farther afield. Interpretive texts for each work focus on design sources, showing how early American furniture participated in an international visual language. A vibrant local economy was bolstered by coastal trade bringing Caribbean mahogany and European imports that continued to influence local production. By the 1740s Philadelphia had developed a distinctive idiom and led the developing nation in style and aesthetics. This volume provides an important resource for scholars of American furniture, illuminates the cultural and mercantile life of the fledgling nation, and offers a lively introduction to the donors, curators, and personalities who have shaped the institution from its earliest days to the present.
Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley is the Montgomery-Garvan Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Online Lecture | Rebecca Tilles, Highlights from Hillwood
Abraham and David Roentgen, Roll-top desk, Germany (Neuwied), 1770–74; oak, cherry, and other woods, veneered with tulipwood, rosewood, maple, mother of pearl, gilt bronze (Washington, DC: Hillwood, Bequest of Marjorie Merriweather Post, 1973, 33.222).
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From The Furniture History Society:
Rebecca Tilles, Highlights from Hillwood: Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Taste for 18th-Century European Furniture
The Furniture History Society Online Lecture, Sunday, 21 February 2021, 19.00 (GMT)
Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887–1973) was one of the most influential female collectors, philanthropists, and businesswomen of the twentieth century. Born in Springfield, Illinois to a middle-class family, she inherited the helm of the Postum Cereal Company, eventually becoming the director of General Foods, from her father at the age of 27, making her one of the wealthiest women in America. She designed and decorated a multitude of impressive residences, notably a sprawling 54-room triplex apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan (1925), the Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach (1927), Adirondack Great Camp Topridge, New York (1923), and finally Hillwood, Washington, DC (1955).
This lecture will explore Post’s interest in collecting 18th-century European furniture, highlights from Hillwood’s collection (as well as a few that got away), and the dealers she bought from— spanning from the mid-1920s until the late 1960s, during which time Post acquired, renovated, and furnished Hillwood estate with the intention of bequeathing the house and collection to the public following her death. The lecture will also feature future research projects, new acquisitions, and upcoming exhibitions. This event is free for FHS members, £5 for non-members; to pay for this event online please follow this link.
Rebecca Tilles is Associate Curator of 18th-Century French & Western European Fine & Decorative Arts at Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens in Washington, DC. She is currently organizing an exhibition of outdoor garden sculpture by the artist Kristine Mays entitled Rich Soil (June 2021–January 2022), as well as an exhibition on the evolution of porcelain in Western Europe and Marjorie Merriweather Post’s interest in diplomatic gifts and international commissions between Western European and Russian factories (February–June 2022). Rebecca is also organizing a spotlight exhibition entitled “Marjorie Merriweather Post and the Diplomacy of Philanthropy,” in partnership with the State Department, at the National Museum of American Diplomacy in Washington, D.C. (2022). Rebecca completed her PhD in Art History from the University of Sussex where her dissertation was entitled “George and Florence Blumenthal: A Collecting Partnership in the Gilded Age, 1858–1941.” She recently published “The Artistic Patronage and Transatlantic Connections of Florence Blumenthal” in the most recent issue of 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century and is currently working on a new publication on Marjorie Merriweather Post’s collection and residences with Hillwood’s curatorial team that will be published by Rizzoli in 2022.
Online Lecture | Sir Watkin’s Table
From a service of Sèvres porcelain ‘service a rubans bleu celeste’, ca. 1770, sold at Christie’s in 2018 (Sale 16185, Lot 1164).
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Sunday via Zoom from The French Porcelain Society:
Oliver Fairclough, Sir Watkin’s Table
FPS Living Room Lecture, 21 February 2021, 18.00 (BST)
For its next Living Room Lecture, the French Porcelain Society is honoured to welcome Oliver Fairclough, a recent FPS Chairman and the former Keeper of Art at the National Museum in Cardiff. He will discuss the fashionable taste for fine dining of eighteenth-century Welsh politician Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn. We hope you can join us! For free links, please email FPSmailing@gmail.com.
Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn (1749–1789) was one of the richest men of his day, and he set himself up in style during the 1770s. Robert Adam built him an exquisite London house in St James’s Square, and he entertained lavishly there and at his country seat, Wynnstay in Denbighshire. As well as commissioning one of the largest architect-designed silver table services of the eighteenth century, he acquired porcelain services from Sèvres, Meissen and Tournai, as well as Nankeen and English porcelains—and huge quantities of Wedgwood creamware for mass hospitality. His table services, and the settings in which they were used, are exceptionally well-documented by designs, and in account books, bills and inventories.
Sir Watkin’s silver and ceramics were sold off after World War II, together with his superlative paintings and furniture from the St James’s Square house. Examples are now in both public and private collections around the world. The largest group can be seen at the National Museum in Cardiff, where Oliver Fairclough was formerly Keeper of Art.
Online Exhibition Tour | Exotic Switzerland?
Une Suisse exotique? Regarder l’ailleurs en Suisse au siècle des Lumières
Exotic Switzerland? Looking Outward in the Age of Enlightenment
Palais de Rumine, Lausanne, 24 September 2020 — 28 February 2021
Organized by Noémie Étienne
While the exhibition was forced to close early, the Palais de Rumine is offering a series of free live guided tours, the last of which takes place (in English) on Monday, 22 February 2021, at 12.30, with Chonja Lee. Zoom link: https://lnkd.in/d8ikYnq
The virtual visit, available any time, is spectacular! –CH
Online Panel | Resonance of Stone
Masterpiece London launched its 2021 online programme, with podcasts, videos, and panel discussions focusing on a different material each month. This month’s session, which takes place this afternoon, addresses marble:
The Resonance of Stone
Online, Masterpiece London Panel Discussion, 18 February 2021, 5pm (GMT)
Whether they are aware of it or not, when scholars dismiss the use of precious marbles and stones to decorate a building as merely a desire to show off the status of the patron, they are expressing a moralising Marxist interpretation of art history. Fabio Barry, author of Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (Yale UP 2020), debunks this approach by revealing what marble actually meant, from ancient Mesopotamia to the 18th century. What he reveals is infinitely more interesting, not just for art or architectural historians, but for anyone interested in pre-Enlightenment science, cosmology, and religion. For example, after reading this book, how you see a famous building such as Hagia Sophia is transformed because you discover that what looks like merely a grey and white marble floor, at the time represented the waves of the sea: we, the faithful are walking on water, with God’s throne set above the waters.
In this panel, Barry will explain his main revelations. Thomas Greenaway—the only artist in the UK to practise pietra dura (hardstone) inlay, the technique used by the ancient Romans and revived in Florence in the 16th century—will talk about the remarkable commission that he executed, the coat of arms for the tomb in Leicester Cathedral of the rediscovered remains of King Richard III. Tessa Murdoch will talk about a different category of illusionism, the ‘paintings’ made in micro-mosaics, artistic descendants of both mosaics and pietra dura work, while David Sestieri will talk about how far interest is reviving in ‘making’—in the ‘materiality’ of works of art—after a century or so in which craftsmanship and precious materials have been subordinate to belief in the conceptual.
Register for this panel discussion on Zoom
Moderator: Anna Somers Cocks OBE — journalist, editor, publisher, and collector
• Fabio Barry — Assistant Professor, Stanford University and author of Painting in Stone
• Thomas Greenaway — pietra dura specialist and conservator
• Tessa Murdoch — Research Curator, Gilbert Collection, V&A
• Davide Sestieri — art consultant
Fabio Barry studied architecture at Cambridge and practised as an architect before receiving a Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University. He was David E. Finley Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, and will be the Samuel H. Kress Fellow there in 2021–22. He has taught at the University of St. Andrews and currently at Stanford University. He is a specialist in Roman Baroque, but has published more widely, and was awarded the Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize by the College Art Association for his article “Walking on Water: Cosmic Floors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.” His book, Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (Yale University Press, 2020) was awarded the PROSE award for best book on Architecture by the Association of American Publishers.
Thomas Greenaway specialises in creating original works of art in pietra dura and is also a conservator working for museums, institutions, and private collectors. Having trained as a fine furniture maker in Scotland, Thomas spent four years in Florence learning traditional 16th-century techniques from some eminent masters. He has had his own studio in South Northamptonshire selling unique hand-made works of art since 2010. Thomas sources a wide range of valuable semi-precious stones and rare marbles from across the globe and carefully selects the perfect natural texture and shading in the stone to create what amounts to be a ‘painting in stone’. Thomas produces bespoke tables, boxes, plaques, games tables, and personalised paperweights and can also undertake restoration work of stone inlaid artifacts. A few notable works have included Richard III’s coat of arms set into the tombstone in Leicester Cathedral, a floor plaque inscription (commemorating Pope Benedictus XVI visit to the UK in 2010) laid in the entrance floor of Westminster Cathedral, and a Tudor Rose for the central floor in the House of Lords.
Tessa Murdoch is Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Research Curator at the V&A. In 2019 as Getty Rothschild Fellow in residence at the Getty Research Institute and Waddesdon Manor, she completed her forthcoming book Europe Divided: Huguenot Refugee Art and Culture, which will be published in November 2021. As Deputy Keeper, Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass at the V&A she has worked with the Gilbert Collection since 2008. Her interest in pietre dure developed whilst filming a video for the new V&A Gilbert Galleries at Paci Workshop, in Florence, where Thomas Greenaway led the interpretation. Tessa is a specialist adviser and contributor to Apollo Magazine and the National Trust. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, and member of the their Contemporary Craft Committee. She publishes widely on the decorative arts, is an active member of the Furniture History and Silver Societies and Trustee of the Huguenot Museum, Rochester and the Idlewild Trust.
Davide Sestieri is a fifth-generation antiques dealer. After 15 years of experience with the family business, Davide started to collaborate with Finarte Casa D’Aste and Christie’s Rome, working for more than 16 years as an expert of furniture and works of arts. In 2006, Davide opened the consultancy firm Briganti Sestieri Art Consulting with his associate Guido Briganti, where he continues to work today.
Anna Somers Cocks OBE was born in Rome and educated at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute, London University. She is the author of numerous articles on art, the politics of art, conservation, and the politics of Venice in The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Art Newspaper, Il Giornale dell’Arte, La Repubblica, and The New York Review of Books.
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