Exhibition | Native New York
From the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian:
Native New York
National Museum of the American Indian, New York, opening 25 October 2021
Native New York journeys through city and state to explore the question “What makes New York a Native place?” The exhibition encompasses twelve places in present-day New York, introducing visitors to the Native nations that call the region home. Stretching from Long Island through New York City and on toward Niagara Falls, it covers pre–Revolutionary War exchanges through contemporary events. From Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) ironworkers who helped build Manhattan’s iconic skyscrapers to Lenape (Delaware) teens visiting their ancestral home, stories of Native New Yorkers provide an expanded understanding of the region’s history and reveal that New York is—and always has been—a Native place.
New Book | Follies in America
From Cornell UP:
Kerry Dean Carso, Follies in America: A History of Garden and Park Architecture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021), 216 pages, ISBN: 978-1501755934, $30.
Follies in America examines historicized garden buildings, known as ‘follies’, from the nation’s founding through the American centennial celebration in 1876. In a period of increasing nationalism, follies—such as temples, summerhouses, towers, and ruins—brought a range of European architectural styles to the United States. By imprinting the land with symbols of European culture, landscape gardeners brought their idea of civilization to the American wilderness.
Kerry Dean Carso’s interdisciplinary approach in Follies in America examines both buildings and their counterparts in literature and art, demonstrating that follies provide a window into major themes in nineteenth-century American culture, including tensions between Jeffersonian agrarianism and urban life, the ascendancy of middle-class tourism, and gentility and social class aspirations.
Kerry Dean Carso is Professor of Art History at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She is the author of American Gothic Art and Architecture in the Age of Romantic Literature.
C O N T E N T S
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The English Landscape Garden in America
2 Temples
3 Summerhouses
4 Towers
5 Ruins
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
The Georgian Group Architectural Awards 2021
From The Georgian Group:
The Georgian Group Architectural Awards
Presented 5 October 2021
The annual Georgian Group Architectural Awards, generously sponsored by Savills, took place at the RIBA on 5 October this year. The awards, now in their seventeenth year, recognise exemplary conservation and restoration projects in the UK and reward those who have shown the vision and commitment to restore Georgian buildings and landscapes. The awards ceremony was presented by Dr John Goodall, chair of the judging panel and Architectural Editor at Country Life, with certificates handed out by the Georgian Group’s President, the Duchess of Argyll. The winning schemes were chosen from over thirty entries, with shortlisted projects encompassing a broad range of building types.
Re-use of a Georgian Building
Winner: Cobham Dairy, Kent
Client: The Landmark Trust
Architect: Purcell
The Dairy on the Cobham estate, Kent, was designed by James Wyatt in 1794 for the 4th Earl and Countess of Darnley. It served both as an ornamental eye-catcher in Humphry Repton’s parkland and as a working building, complete with accommodation for the dairymaid. Abandoned for more than a century, it was rescued from collapse in the 1980s by the SPAB. The Landmark Trust has since taken a 99-year lease of the dairy and restored it as a self-catering holiday cottage for two. Work has included the restoration of the external slate cladding and the re-instatement of the vaulted ceilings.
Highly Commended: The Old Church, Lowick, Northumberland
Client: Dean Keyworth, Armstrong Keyworthy Interior Design
Architect: Paul Hales, Robert J. Hales Ltd
One of only two Church of Scotland churches built in England, the building was deconsecrated in 1821 and has lain empty for much of the time since. The present owners have converted in sympathetically, making ingenious use of the spaces below and above the Victorian gallery, and adding rooms in the roof space, so preserving the volume of the double-height interior—a space too often subdivided in church and chapel conversions—which successfully serves as the principal reception room. This approach has left an uninterrupted view of the stained glass windows, which were restored as part of the project.
Restoration of a Georgian Garden or Landscape
Winner: Gunton Park, Norfolk
Client: Ivor Braka, Kit and Sally Martin, Lady Suffield
Landscape Architects: John Phibbs, Debois Landscape Survey Group (Phase 1); Patrick James, The Landscape Agency (Phase 2)
The 1,200 acre park and garden that surrounds Gunton Hall—itself designed in the 1740s by Matthew Brettingham and later altered by Samuel Wyatt—evolved under the ownership of several generations of the Harbord family and with the involvement of successive landscape architects: Charles Bridgeman, Humphry Repton and William Sawrey Gilpin. By the 1970s, following decades of decline, much of the estate had been sold and ploughed-up for arable cultivation, while hundreds of mature parkland trees and those in its woodland belts had been felled. The restoration of the park has taken nearly thirty years and has seen acres of new woodland planted, avenues, carriageways, clumps and individual parkland trees re-instated, and the establishment of a herd of deer.
Restoration of a Georgian Building in an Urban Setting
Winner: Buxton Crescent Hotel and Thermal Spa, Buxton Crescent, Derbyshire
Client: Buxton Crescent Ltd.
Architect: Curious Architecture and Interior Design
The Crescent, designed by John Carr of York for the 5th Duke of Devonshire and built between 1780 and 1789, was with the adjoining Natural Baths and Pump Room, the centrepiece of the planned Georgian spa town. Since the 1990s it has lain empty and in an increasing state of disrepair. This major project initiated by the Borough and County Councils, and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Historic England, set out to return all three buildings to use and to help in the economic regeneration of Buxton as a spa. This heroic and transformative project has taken more than two decades to come to realisation and combines conservation and new work.
Highly Commended: Private townhouse in Kennington
Client: Fabian Richter
Architect: Robert Birbeck
Master Builder: Stephen Bull
This project has seen the painstaking, comprehensive conservation, over a seven year period of a run-down terraced townhouse of 1792. The works have involved, re-roofing and repointing, the replacement of gypsum plasterboard with lime plasters on lath, the repair of Georgian joinery and the restoration of the servant’s bell system, as well as full re-servicing. Externally, York slabs have replaced cement steps and new iron railings have been installed. The work has been underpinned by thorough historical research and reflects a conservation ethos that is more commonly the preserve of large public or charitable bodies that private houses.
Highly Commended: Frogmore House, Watford
Client: St William Homes LLP, Berkeley Group
Architects: Giles Quarme Architects
A merchant’s house built in 1716 to the south of Watford high street, the building had been on Historic England’s Buildings At Risk Register for some years. Divided into flats in the 1950s, it fell into gradual dereliction from the 1970s and suffered extensive vandalism. As part of the redevelopment of the wider site the building has been restored and structural failure, water ingress and dry rot have all been tackled. Historic joinery—windows, doors, staircase balusters and panelling—has been repaired or where necessary re-instated, and the doorcase, stolen in 2009, recovered and put back. The building is now in use as an office.
Restoration of a Georgian Structure or Interior
Winner: The Bath Stone Bridge, Halswell Park, Somerset
Client: Edward Strachan
Architect: Architecton
The Bath Stone Bridge is thought to have been designed by Thomas Wright and was a key element of the water gardens known as Mill Wood, laid out by Sir Charles Kemeys Tynte in the second half of the eighteenth century, as part of the Halswell Hall landscape. Since 2014 the owner has begun the on-going task of reconstituting and restoring the park. The current project has involved the full restoration of the bridge, which has been on the local authority’s ‘at risk’ list since 2005, and the repair of the associated dam and leaking pond. Many missing parts of the structure were fished out of the water, where they had fallen, but some lost elements had to be recut, as in the case of a missing herm. The new ornamental carving playfully includes some twentieth-century details in evidence of its date.
Highly Commended: The State Drawing Room, Stowe, Buckinghamshire
Client: Stowe House Preservation Trust
Architect: Purcell
The State Drawing Room at Stowe was created in 1778, and balances the State Music Room to the other side of the central Marble Saloon. Both interiors were designed by Vincenzo Valdrè. Following rigorous research, the decision was taken to return the room to its decorative appearance in c.1800. New orange hangings, based on a guidebook description, were commissioned in a durable fabric, while paint research revealed that the ceiling had been painted in three shades of pink with both gold and silver gilding to its plaster enrichments. This striking scheme has been reinstated following cleaning and repair. In addition, a painted, timber copy of the marble Piranesian chimneypiece sold from the room in the 1920s has been made from a scan of the original and a new oak floor was laid to the pattern of the historic boards.
Restoration of a Georgian Country House
Winner: Radbourne Hall, Derbyshire
Client: Trustees of the Radbourne Settlement
Architect: Peregrine Bryant Architects
Radbourne Hall was designed in 1739 by William Smith of Warwick for German Pole. From 2017 to 2020 the house has been subject to far-reaching repair and conservation work. This has included slate and lead repairs to the roof, which have now also been fitted with firebreaks and breathable wood fibre insulation. Internally, damage done by a 1950s structural steel has also been remedied and out-dated electrical and mechanical services have been replaced, while the enfilade on the piano nobile has been re-instated and a John Fowler decorative scheme of the 1950s retained and conserved. A striking new set of cantilevered steps, structurally independent from the house, have been constructed to the rear.
Highly Commended: Sheringham Hall, Norfolk
Client: Paul Doyle and Gergely Battha-Pajor
Architect: John Simpson Architects
Sheringham Hall was designed for Abbot and Charlotte Upcher by Humphry Repton and his son John Adey Repton between 1813 and 1819. Having bought a 99-year lease of the house and garden from the National Trust, Paul Doyle and Gergely Pattha-Pajor have undertaken various works to restore the building’s intended plan and room functions thereby sympathetically and brilliantly recreating the Regency elegance of the interiors. The original dining room has been re-instated, while appropriate neo-classical statuary once more fills the staircase niches. Associated works in the garden include the restoration of glass houses and the erection of an openwork pavilion designed by John Simpson.
Restoration of a Georgian Church or Chapel
Winner: All Saints Church, Newcastle
Client: All Saints Presbyterian Church
Architect: Doonan Architects
All Saints Church was completed in 1796 to the design of David Stephenson, the first Newcastle architect to study in London; it is unique in being the only church in England with an elliptical nave. Although one of the finest buildings in the city, it has long been on the Georgian Group’s casework radar due to its poor condition and it has been listed on Historic England’s Heritage-at-Risk register since 2011. Under new guardianship, a project of restoration began in 2019 which saw repairs to the roof, gutters, windows and walls. Internally, redecoration has been undertaken in an appropriate Georgian palette. A new marble pavement, allowing for an efficient under-floor heating system, has been laid, unifying the concrete floors in the entrance hall and ‘school gym’ floor in the nave. Additional facilities—including a kitchen, WCs and an office—have been sensitively incorporated within the space. The church has now been removed from the At Risk Register.
Highly Commended: St Alfege Church, Greenwich
Client: St Alfege Church PCC
Architect: Richard Griffiths Architects
St Alfege Church, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, was built between 1712 and 1714, with the upper part of the steeple added by John James in 1730. This project, which built upon previous restoration work, was designed to extend to the south and north elevations, repair the leaking roof and make the church fully accessible and welcoming to a wider public. A long wooden ramp has been installed at the north entrance, historic paving has been repaired and an ironwork arch designed by Albert Richardson has been rediscovered and re-instated over the high-street entrance to the churchyard. Internally changes include additional WCs in the wells of the staircases, while water ingress issues have been resolved allowing for the full internal redecoration of the church. In addition, the crypt has been opened to hard hat tours.
Giles Worsley Award for New Work in the Spirit of the Georgian Era
Winner: Nithurst Farm, West Sussex
Client: Adam and Jessica Richards
Architect: Adam Richards Architects
Built in open fields, on the site of a farmworker’s cottage in the South Downs National Park, Nithurst Farm is conceived as a Roman ruin wrapped around a modern concrete house. The building rises in steps from a single-storey entrance on the north side to a three-storey tower at the south, inspired by Vanbrugh’s belvedere at Claremont. The house is symmetrical in plan, tapering out along its axis to the large light-filled south-facing sitting room, and its main ground floor space is inspired by the sala found in those of Palladio’s villa designs, such the Villa Barbaro, which incorporate box-like secondary rooms against the exterior walls.
New Building in a Georgian Context
Winner: Wolverton Hall Folly, Worcestershire
Client: Nicholas Coleridge CBE
Architect: Quinlan Terry Architects
The inspiration for the design of Wolverton Hall Folly was taken from the Picturesque tradition with its many variations of follies in a controlled landscape. Among a number of possible small garden buildings, the Banqueting House at Long Melford, built in 1550 with sash windows added in the 1730s, became a source of inspiration. The design was prepared with the proportions adapted considerably to provide a large study on the first floor with the addition of ogee arches to the stone window surrounds terminating in stone acanthus leaf finials and a central cupola to assist the requirement for a staircase and chimney. The result is a building that can express in classical terms the different moods of time and place with an underlying seriousness and humour.
Highly Commended: The University Arms Hotel, Cambridge
Client: CUA Property Ltd
Architect: John Simpson Architects
The University Arms Hotel, Cambridge, was established in the 1820s and is the oldest hotel in the city. The present building, however, was substantially constructed in 1903 and extended in the 1920s. Its 1833 west entrance facing onto Regent Street was demolished in 1965 to make way for a Modernist block by Feilden and Mawson. John Simpson Architects were commissioned to transform the hotel, adding 60 rooms to it, a terrace overlooking Parker’s Piece, and a new entrance façade. The latter comprises a Doric porte cochère of Ketton stone, wittily referencing Ledoux’s Parisian Barrières of the 1770s as heralds of the city beyond. Meanwhile, the western section of the south front was remodelled by adding a three-storeyed bow, and to the east a four-bay verandah on the first floor.
Diaphoros Prize
Winner: The Cons Club, Framlingham, Suffolk
Client: Paperhouse Properties Ltd
Architect: Hoare Ridge and Morris Architects
Built c.1810, Church House, as it was originally known, was a prominent townhouse owned by the Edwards family of bankers and doctors. In 1910 it became the Framlingham Constitutional Club and later renamed the Framlingham Conservative Club. The club closed at the end of 2018; threatened with being carved up as flats, it was purchased by the architects Mark Hoare and Ted Ridge the following year with the hope of turning it into a public space. The new vision includes a café, gallery space, studios, youth club and meeting rooms for public hire, with the creation of separate offices for Framlingham Town Council in a semi-independent part of the building. Re-activating the street frontage was key and the café can now be accessed by the Georgian front door which had previously been blocked.
Call for Papers | The 17th and 18th Centuries at the Accademia
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Scourge of the Serpents (detail), 1732–35, oil on canvas
(Venice: Gallerie dell’Accademia)
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From ArtHist.net and the Accademia:
The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries at the Gallerie dell’Accademia: New Studies
Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, 22–23 February 2022
Organized by Giulio Manieri Elia and Michele Nicolaci
Proposals due by 10 December 2021
The inauguration of the new Seicento and Settecento rooms at the Gallerie dell’Accademia represents a fundamental part of the re-installation of the museum’s collections that has finally been completed with the ground floor organized around 13 rooms, with a chronological arc from the seventeenth to the ninenteenth centuries. Among the 62 works now visible to the public—including absolute highlights of the period’s artistic production—many are included in the museum itinerary for the first time, and many have returned to view after significant restoration campaigns. The long gestation of this moment has enabled scrupulous examination of the works, stimulating new research and unexpected discoveries, and a rich dialogue between the museum and both the Italian and international scholarly communities.
The reopening of these spaces, which singularly represent the art of painting over these two centuries, should be considered a cue for new departures, a field of investigation for new research. Plenty of the works remain little known, and many diverse and fascinating themes merit further research: from authorship to dating, from patronage to provenance, from iconographic questions to those linked to the materials and techniques of painting and restoration history. To further this endeavour, the Gallerie will organize a workshop intended as an opportunity to share inquiries and to enrich our knowledge about the museum’s patrimony with the aim of attracting the most innovative and cutting-edge studies on the Seicento and Settecento works in the Gallerie dell’Accademia. The conference will foreground not only artworks hanging in the new rooms 5 and 6, but also the rest of the display, as well as the many works in the museum’s stores and those visible in other institutions in Venice and the Veneto (external stores). It is further hoped that the meeting will constitute a preliminary contribution to complex effort of updating the catalogue raisonné of the collections.
The workshop will be held in the Gallerie dell’Accademia over two days, one dedicated to the Seicento and one to the Settecento, with individual talks lasting 30 minutes. A portion of the conference will address restoration conducted in the museum, providing the opportunity to share conservation discoveries, doubts, and decisions with the workshop participants. The conference will take place in person, with a limited number of places available respecting the rules in place with regards to the containment of the diffusion of Covid 19 (distancing, masks, and other measures required by relevant safety protocols). Plans are also in progress for the transmission of the talks via the YouTube channel of the museum.
Candidates who wish to present should send an abstract of no more than two pages and a brief CV, in Italian or English. Research concentrating on one or more works in the museum will be privileged along with talks that significantly and concretely advance the current state of knowledge, or which offer a novel approach to understanding the works, their original context, creation, or material history. Participants may expect the costs of travel and stay in Venice to be partially or totally covered. Publication of the conference proceedings is foreseen. Proposals should be sent to michele.nicolaci@beniculturali.it by the 10th of December 2021.
Foundation of One of the Oldest Black Churches in U.S. Unearthed
Brick building foundation of the Baptist Meeting House, ca. 1800–18, Nassau Street, Williamsburg, 16 × 20 feet; the building was destroyed in 1834 by a tornado, with a new building being built on the site in 1856 (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
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From the press release (7 October 2021). . .
After a year of excavating the site of one of the nation’s oldest Black churches, Colonial Williamsburg’s archaeologists believe they have found what they and members of First Baptist Church have been searching for: the church’s first permanent structure dating to the early 1800s. The announcement—shared earlier this week with the descendant community—coincides with the church’s community-wide 245th anniversary celebration this weekend.
“The early history of our congregation, beginning with enslaved and free Blacks gathering outdoors in secret in 1776, has always been a part of who we are as a community. To see it unearthed—to see the actual bricks of that original foundation and the outline of the place our ancestors worshiped—brings that history to life and makes that piece of our identity tangible. After 245 years, this is a reason to truly celebrate,” said the Rev. Dr. Reginald F. Davis, pastor of First Baptist Church.
An 1817 penny and a group of straight pins recently unearthed at an archaeological dig at the site of the original First Baptist Church of Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia (Photo: Jason B. Copes/Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists have been digging since September 2020 at the site of the church’s original structure near the intersection of Nassau and Francis streets in Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. The newly-identified 16 × 20-foot brick building foundation sits alongside a brick paving and on top of a layer of soil that dates to the early 1800s. Additional archaeological evidence, including an 1817 coin and a straight pin discovered under the paving, indicate that the foundation was constructed sometime in the first quarter of the 19th century. Tax records suggest that by 1818, the congregation was worshipping on the site in a building known as the Baptist Meeting House—in all likelihood, the congregation’s first permanent structure.
“We always hoped this is what we’d find,” said Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg’s director of archaeology. “Now we can move forward to better understand the footprint of the building. Is it the only structure on the site? What else was around it? What did it look like? How was it being used? This is really only the beginning.”
In addition to the original structure, Colonial Williamsburg’s archaeologists have discovered at least 25 confirmed human burials at the site. A community meeting is scheduled for October 30 for the descendant community to discuss next steps and make decisions regarding the investigation of the burial sites.
The physical remains of First Baptist’s original structure have been buried for 165 years, first under the foundation of a brick church building constructed in 1856 after the first church was destroyed by a tornado, and later under a parking lot that all-but silenced the remarkable history of the church. Over the past five years, that silence has been broken through an ongoing collaboration between the church and Colonial Williamsburg.
“Colonial Williamsburg is committed to telling a more complete and inclusive story of the men and women who lived, worked and worshiped here during our country’s formative years,” said Cliff Fleet, president and CEO of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. “The history of this congregation is a story that deserves to be at the forefront of our interpretation and education efforts, and we are honored to play a part in bringing that story to light.”
First Baptist Church, which relocated in 1956 to 727 Scotland Street, partnered with Colonial Williamsburg in 2016 to renovate the church’s historic bell, allowing it to ring that year for the first time since segregation. Now known as the Freedom Bell, its remarkable journey is recounted in the Let Freedom Ring Foundation’s new documentary film History Half Told is Untold, premiering Saturday, October 9, at 2pm and 6pm at the Hennage Auditorium as part of First Baptist Church’s 245th anniversary celebration. Tickets are free but must be reserved online.
Additional anniversary events include a ‘behind-the-fence’ tour of the Historic First Baptist Church archaeology site on Nassau Street on Saturday, October 9 from 10am to 4pm and an outdoor service on Sunday, October 10 at 11am, featuring Rev. Dr. Gwendolyn Boyd, the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra String Ensemble, and the First Baptist Church Chamber Choir. All events are open to the public.
“This discovery could not come at a better time,” said Connie Matthews Harshaw, a member of First Baptist Church and president of the Let Freedom Ring Foundation. “We are so excited to welcome both our church community and the local community back after a difficult year of closures, and the discovery of the original site of our church is such a beautiful reminder of the power of public history to tell stories that inspire and unite us.”
Excavation of the Nassau Street site will continue weekdays 9am to 4pm, weather permitting, as part of a multi-year project seeking information needed to accurately reconstruct the earliest version of the church’s first permanent structure, surrounding landscape and topography; to locate burials; and to learn about the worship experience of the church’s early congregants. The project is supported by generous gifts from the Lilly Endowment Inc., The Ford Foundation, the Richard S. Reynolds Foundation and multiple individual donors, including a $100,000 anonymous gift from Two Friends of History.
For more information on the history of First Baptist Church and details of Colonial Williamsburg’s previous work with the community on this archaeological project, read the 25 August 2020 press release announcing the project and the 14 January 2021 update.
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First Baptist Church was organized in 1776 by enslaved and free Blacks in defiance of laws of the day forbidding the congregation of African Americans. First led by the Rev. Moses, a free Black itinerant preacher, they built a brush arbor at Green Spring Plantation several miles from Williamsburg to gather secretly in song and prayer. Organized as Baptists by 1781 under the Rev. Gowan Pamphlet, an enslaved man in Williamsburg, worshipers moved to Raccoon Chase, a rural area just outside the city. Moved by their stirring hymns and heartfelt prayers, Jesse Cole, a member of the city’s White Cole family offered the congregation use of a building on property that is now part of the Historic Area on the northwest corner of South Nassau Street and Francis Street West. By 1818, a structure referred to as the Baptist Meeting House stood on this property and may have existed here as early as the late-18th century.
In 1834, a tornado destroyed the Baptist Meeting House along with several other structures on the Cole property. The African Baptist Church, as it became known before the Civil War, dedicated a new brick church on the site of the earlier building in 1856. Several years later, in 1863, the congregation was renamed First Baptist Church.
In 1956, Colonial Williamsburg acquired the land on South Nassau Street from First Baptist Church and tore down the 19th-century building. Payment for the Nassau Street property covered the land and construction costs of the congregation’s current church at 727 Scotland Street, which opened the following year.
Online Series | Graphic Landscape
‘Part of the Interior of the Elephanta’, from Thomas and William Daniell, Antiquities of India, Oriental Scenery, aquatint, 1795.
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From the Paul Mellon Centre:
Graphic Landscape: The Landscape Print Series in Britain, 1775–1850
Online, Paul Mellon Centre and the British Library, 2, 4, 9, 11 November 2021
Organized by Mark Hallett and Felicity Myrone
Graphic Landscape: The Landscape Print Series in Britain, 1775–1850 is a four-day programme of online webinars taking place between 2 and 11 November 2021, presented jointly by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the British Library.
Landscape and topographical print series proliferated in the late eighteenth century and in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Indeed, the format seems to have enjoyed an artistic and commercial boom in this period. Some examples of these series, such as Turner’s Liber Studiorum (1807–19) and Constable’s English Landscape Scenery (1830–33), are extremely well known. Many others, however, have still to receive sustained and critical attention. This programme of four online seminars is designed to look afresh at the late Georgian and early Victorian landscape print series and to stimulate new research on this important strand of graphic art. Participants will bring a wide range of perspectives to bear on the topic and address works in a variety of graphic media.
Graphic Landscape: The Landscape Print Series in Britain, 1775–1850 is co-convened by Mark Hallett at the Paul Mellon Centre and Felicity Myrone at the British Library.
Additional information—including paper abstracts, speaker biographies, specific times, and registration links—can be found here.
T U E S D A Y , 2 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1
Day 1 | 12.00–14.00
12.00 Print, Politics, and Industrialisation
• Introduction by Mark Hallett (Director, Paul Mellon Centre) and Felicity Myrone (Lead Curator, Western Prints and Drawings, British Library)
• Amy Concannon (Senior Curator, Historic British Art, Tate), ‘A Captur’d City Blazed’: Printmaking and the Bristol Riots of 1831
• Lizzie Jacklin (Keeper of Art, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums), Mining Landscapes: Thomas Hair’s Views of the Collieries
• Morna O’Neill (Associate Professor of Art History, Art Department, Wake Forest University), John Constable, David Lucas, and Steel in English Landscape
T H U R S D A Y , 4 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1
Day 2 | 12.00–14.00
12.00 Print and Property
• Introduction by Richard Johns (Senior Lecturer in History of Art at the University of York)
• John Bonehill (Lecturer, History of Art, University of Glasgow), Picturing Property: The Estate Landscape and the Late Eighteenth-Century Print Market
• Kate Retford (Professor of Art History, Birkbeck, University of London), Views of the Lakes at the Vyne
• James Finch (Assistant Curator, 19th-Century British Art, Tate Britain), Amelia Long’s Views from Bromley Hill
T U E S D A Y , 9 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1
Day 3 | 12.00–14.00
12.00 Revisiting the Canon
• Introduction by Cora Gilroy-Ware (Associate Professor, History of Art, University of Oxford)
• Greg Smith (Independent Art Historian), Engaging with the Voyage Pittoresque de la France: Thomas Girtin’s Picturesque Views in Paris and Their Appeal to the ‘Most Eminent in the Profession’
• Timothy Wilcox (Independent Scholar), John Sell Cotman’s Architectural Antiquities of Normandy: A Catastrophic Miscalculation?
• Gillian Forrester (Independent Art Historian, Curator and Writer), A Glossary for the Anthropocene? Turner’s Liber Studiorum in the Era of Climate Change
T H U R S D A Y , 1 1 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1
Day 4 | 14.00–16.00
14.00 A Wider View: From Collaboration to Empire
• Introduction by Mark Hallett (Director, Paul Mellon Centre) and Felicity Myrone (Lead Curator, Western Prints and Drawings, British Library)
• Sarah Moulden (Curator of 19th-Century Collections, National Portrait Gallery), Creative Collaboration: Cotman’s Norfolk Etchings
• Eleanore Neumann (PhD Candidate, University of Virginia), Translating Topography: Women and the Publication of Landscape Illustrations of the Bible (1836)
• Alisa Bunbury (Grimwade Collection Curator, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne), Taken From Nature: Printed Views of Colonial Australia
• Douglas Fordham (Professor of Art History, University of Virginia), Travel Prints or Illustrated Books?
New Book | The Built Environment Transformed
Distributed by Oxford UP:
Geoffrey Timmins, The Built Environment Transformed: Textile Lancashire during the Industrial Revolution (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-1800856530, £40 / $75.
This book is concerned with the remarkable changes made to the built environment in Lancashire’s main textile district—essentially the eastern and central parts of the county—during the Industrial Revolution (c1780–c1850). A case-study approach is taken, with findings from investigations at six different types of site being presented. The sites included are water-powered mill remains in the Cheesden valley, near Rochdale; Barrow Bridge factory village, near Bolton; the former handloom weavers’ colony at Club Houses, Horwich; Preston’s Winckley Square; Eanam wharf at Blackburn; and, to the north of Bolton, the road between Bromley Cross and Edgworth. The case studies show how, in rural and urban areas alike, developments in industry, housing, and transport greatly extended the built environment and brought striking new features to it. Emphasis is placed on interpreting the physical evidence the sites provide, linking it with that taken from various types of documentary source, especially historical maps. By making comparisons with developments occurring at similar types of site elsewhere in Britain, as well as in Europe and North America, the forms the changes took are explained and their significance assessed. Additionally, insights are provided into the economic and social impact the changes brought, especially on the everyday lives that people led.
Geoffrey Timmins is Emeritus Professor in the School of Humanities, Language, and Global Studies at the University of Central Lancashire.
Exhibition | Portraits en Majesté: de Troy, de Largillierre, Rigaud
Nicolas de Largillierre, La Belle Strasbourgeoise , detail, ca. 1703, oil on canvas, 132 × 106 cm. The painting sold at Christie’s in Paris on 15 September 2020 (Sale 19158, Lot 212) for €1.57million, surpassing its high estimate of €1million.
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Now on view at the Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud:
Portraits en Majesté: François de Troy, Nicolas de Largillierre, Hyacinthe Rigaud
Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, Perpignan, 26 June — 7 November 2021
Curated by Pascale Picard, Dominique Brême, and Ariane James-Sarazin
S’inscrivant naturellement dans la programmation du musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud dont les collections accordent une large place à l’enfant du pays, Portraits en majesté bénéficie d’un partenariat exceptionnel avec le musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.
Portraits en majesté valorise de façon inédite—puisque c’est la première fois qu’un tel rapprochement est proposé—les trois artistes français qui, de Louis XIV à Louis XV ont révolutionné l’art du portrait : François de Troy (1645–1730), Nicolas de Largillierre (1656–1746) et Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659–1743), au travers d’une sélection généreuse et exigeante de leurs plus belles œuvres qui transcendent le genre et s’imposent avant tout pour leur esthétique. Chaque salle souligne tant la singularité de la matière des trois peintres que les éléments de vocabulaire (format, veine, modèle, composition…) relevant d’une inspiration commune. Le rapprochement de leurs œuvres met en exergue le fait que le portrait, tels que de Troy, de Largillierre et Rigaud le conçurent, se voulait une création d’art total, réunissant en son sein tous les genres.
La commissaire générale
• Pascale Picard, Directrice du musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud de Perpignan
Les commissaires scientifiques
• Dominique Brême, Directeur du musée du Domaine départemental de Sceaux
• Ariane James-Sarazin, Conservatrice générale du patrimoine, Directrice adjointe du musée de l’Armée de Paris
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Dominique Brême and Ariane James-Sarazin, eds., Portraits en Majesté: François de Troy, Nicolas de Largillierre, Hyacinthe Rigaud (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2021), 296 pages, ISBN: 978-8836644209, €35.
Au cours de son règne—le plus long de l’histoire de France—Louis XIV accorda aux arts une place centrale dans l’accompagnement de son projet politique : architecture, peinture, sculpture, musique ou danse bénéficièrent ainsi d’un mécénat royal quasiment sans limite. Représentant les acteurs de cet âge d’or, le portrait peint trouva particulièrement à s’y épanouir, surtout à partir des années 1680, lorsque trois artistes, concurrents mais amis, entreprirent de renouveler le modèle trop sage du portrait classique en lui insufflant un élan baroque inattendu. Francois de Troy (1645–1730), Nicolas de Largillierre (1656–1746) et Hyacinthe Rigaud (1649–1753) révolutionnèrent ainsi la syntaxe du portrait français et, plus généralement, du grand portrait d’apparat européen. Habiles à varier incessamment sur un schéma de composition très contraignant—celui du triangle de base de la figuration humaine—ils donnèrent au genre ses lettres de noblesse en le hissant à un niveau de difficulté de conception et de qualité d’exécution au moins égal à celui des grands tableaux d’histoire. Accompagnant l’exposition d’une centaine de chefs-d’œuvre, ce livre étudie les modalités pratiques, théoriques et esthétiques de l’art du portrait français à son apogée.
New Book | French Rococo Ébénisterie
From The Getty:
Anne-Lise Desmas, ed., French Rococo Ébénisterie in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2021), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1606066300, $75. Available as a free online publication, in multiple formats, here»
The first comprehensive catalogue of the Getty Museum’s significant collection of French Rococo ébénisterie furniture.
This catalogue focuses on French ébénisterie furniture in the Rococo style dating from 1735 to 1760. These splendid objects directly reflect the tastes of the Museum’s founder, J. Paul Getty, who started collecting in this area in 1938 and continued until his death in 1976. The Museum’s collection is particularly rich in examples created by the most talented cabinet masters then active in Paris, including Bernard van Risenburgh II (after 1696–ca. 1766), Jacques Dubois (1694–1763), and Jean-François Oeben (1721–1763). Working for members of the French royal family and aristocracy, these craftsmen excelled at producing veneered and marquetried pieces of furniture (tables, cabinets, and chests of drawers) fashionable for their lavish surfaces, refined gilt-bronze mounts, and elaborate design. These objects were renowned throughout Europe at a time when Paris was considered the capital of good taste. The entry on each work comprises both a curatorial section, with description and commentary, and a conservation report, with construction diagrams. An introduction by Anne-Lise Desmas traces the collection’s acquisition history, and two technical essays by Arlen Heginbotham present methodologies and findings on the analysis of gilt-bronze mounts and lacquer.
This open-access catalogue is available for free online and in multiple formats for download, including PDF, MOBI/Kindle, and EPUB. For readers who wish to have a bound reference copy, this paperback edition has been made available for sale.
C O N T E N T S
Timothy Potts, Director’s Foreword
Glossary of Woods Used in French Furniture from the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection
Contributors
Essays
• Anne-Lise Desmas — Introduction: Acquisitions History of the Rococo Ébénisterie Collection
• Jessica Chasen, Arlen Heginbotham, and Michael Schilling — The Analysis of East Asian and European Lacquer Surfaces on Rococo Furniture
• Arlen Heginbotham — Technical Note: The Use of X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (XRF) in the Technical Study of Gilt Bronze Mounts in This Catalogue
Catalogue
Bibliography
About
New Book | Watteau, Gersaint, et le Pont Notre-Dame
From Presses Universitaires du Septentrion:
Youri Carbonnier, Sophie Raux, Christophe Renaud, François Rousselle, eds., avec Youri Carbonnier, Laura Louvrier-Masquelier, Nicolas Moucheront, Mylène Pardoen, Sophie Raux, Sophie Reculin, Christophe Renaud, François Rousselle, Rémi Synave, Watteau, Gersaint, et le pont Notre-Dame à Paris au temps des Lumières: Les enjeux d’une restitution numérique (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Éditeur Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2021), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-2757432839, 22€. Also available in a PDF edition.
Le pont Notre-Dame fut l’un des ponts habités les plus extraordinaires de Paris. Son histoire reste attachée à un événement : la présentation éphémère en façade de la boutique de Gersaint de la fameuse Enseigne peinte par Watteau en 1720. À quoi ressemblait ce pont monumental avant la destruction de ses habitations? Pourquoi L’Enseigne de Gersaint eut-elle un tel retentissement? Comment se projeter dans cet univers si étranger à notre expérience actuelle des ponts parisiens? Comment dépasser l’image mentale que chacun peut se faire à partir des sources qui nous sont parvenues? Autant de questions qui ont motivé cette restitution numérique du pont Notre-Dame. En s’attachant à restituer le sens des espaces et des volumes de son architecture disparue, ainsi qu’à rendre sensible l’ambiance lumineuse et sonore de son environnement, ses auteurs offrent une exploration inédite en 5D du pont, ainsi qu’une réflexion sur l’apport des technologies numériques à la recherche historique.
S O M M A I R E
Sophie Raux
• Introduction : Un dialogue entre présent et passé
Youri Carbonnier
• Le pont Notre-Dame
• Des maisons sur un pont
• La pompe du pont Notre-Dame
Sophie Raux
• Le pont Notre-Dame et le commerce d’art à Paris
Christophe Renaud
• Restitutions historiques et photoréalisme
• Notions de simulation d’éclairage
Sophie Reculin
• Ombres et lumières sur le pont Notre-Dame : la première simulation de l’éclairage public durant l’époque moderne
Nicolas Moucheront
• L’histoire du pont Notre-Dame au XVIIIe siècle : enjeux professionnels et épistémologiques
François Rousselle
• La restitution du pont Notre-Dame en 3D temps réel
Mylène Pardoen
• De l’ambiance sonore
Sophie Raux
• De quoi L’enseigne de Gersaint était-elle l’image ?
• Jean Antoine Watteau (Valenciennes, 1684 – Nogent-sur-Marne, 1721)
• Edme-François Gersaint (Paris, 1694 – Id., 1750)
Laura Louvrier, François Rousselle, Rémi Synave
• Restituer l’intérieur de la boutique de Gersaint : questions méthodologiques et techniques
François Rousselle
• Des applications adaptées aux supports de restitution
Youri Carbonnier
• Paysage restitué, paysage recréé, paysage rêvé ?
• Apports et limites de la restitution 5D du pont Notre-Dame
Index des noms
Liste des auteurs
Remerciements
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Also see, Sophie Raux, “Virtual Explorations of an 18th-Century Art Market Space: Gersaint, Watteau, and the Pont Notre-Dame,” Journal18, Issue 5 Coordinates (Spring 2018), https://www.journal18.org/2542. DOI: 10.30610/5.2018.3
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