Online Workshop | Insects and Colours between Art and Natural History
From ArtHist.net:
Insects and Colours between Art and Natural History
Online, 29–30 November 2021
Organized by V. E. Mandrij and Giulia Simonini
This two-day online workshop addresses the issue of recording colours in entomology during the 17th and 18th centuries. Because of the bewildering variety of insect colours, artists and naturalists had difficulty describing and reproducing them with pigments. Some early modern scholars disapproved of using colours to depict insects in entomological illustrations. Other naturalists instead collaborated with artists to document the colours and shapes of insects.
Centuries later, this cooperation continues. Although irrelevant for the study of their anatomy, colour was significant for the identification of different species. However, artists and naturalists had different ways of tackling the problem of recording the appearances and names of the chromatic variety that exists in the insect world. Despite the variety of approaches and techniques used or proposed to record the colors of insects, this issue has not received the scholarly attention it deserves.
This workshop investigates the relationship between colours and insect images and aims to answer questions such as: Why in entomology, more than in any other discipline, were so many different approaches developed to address the problem of recording colours? Why did painters and scholars not agree on one unique method? To what extent did their subjectivity play a role in their choice of approach?
Speakers from several fields will discuss the topic of recording the colours of insects in art and natural history. They will touch on topics such as the significance of entomology in the development of color standardization practices, new artistic techniques (such as lepidochromy) and optical theories.
To attend the online workshop and receive the zoom-link, please register by emailing the organisers Giulia Simonini (giulia.simonini[at]tu-berlin.de) and V.E. Mandrij (v.e.mandrij[at]uni-konstanz.de). The maximum number of participants is 40. Listed times correspond with Central European Time (CET).
M O N D A Y , 2 9 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1
14.00 Zoom room opens
14.15 Introduction
Giulia Simonini (she) and V. E. Mandrij (they), Translating Natural Colours of Insects
15.00 Break
15.10 Depicting Insects and Colouring Practices
Panellist: Florike Egmond
• Erma Hermens, Painting Insects in 17th-Century Netherlands: Written Instruction and Practice
• Giulia Simonini, Painting by Numbers and Entomology
• Beth Tobin, Colouring Drawings of Insects at Home and Abroad
17.10 Break
17.20 Colours of Insects
Panellist: Hanneke Grootenboer
• Kay Etheridge, The Biology of Colour
18.00 Break
18.10 Aperitivo
T U E S D A Y , 3 0 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1
14.00 Zoom room opens
14.05 Entomologists and Colours
Panellist: Friedrich Steinle
• Katharina Schmidt-Loske, Observation and Depiction: Maria Sibylla Merian’s Individual Style of Drawing Insects and Plants
• Stefanie Jovanovic-Kruspel, The Somber and Opaque Colors of Butterflies: Schiffermüller and His Attempt of a Colour System
15.25 Break
15.35 Lepidochromy
Panellist: Karin Leonhard
• V.E. Mandrij, ‘Butterflies Truer-to-nature than Paintings’: Colours in Lepidochromy Technique
• Grace Touzel, Lepidochromy at the Natural History Museum (London): Butterfly Wings as a Printing Medium
16.55 Break
17.05 Colours of Insects
Panellist: Hossein Rajaei
• Brian Ogilvie, Catching the Rainbow: Iridescent Insects Before Iridescence
17.45 Break
18.00 Final Discussion with Dominik Hünniger
Resource | Price Guide for Period Frames
From the press relase (via Art Daily) . . .
Eli Wilner & Company has announced that the Price Guide for American and European Period Frames will be made available as a free download. The decision was reached in response to tremendous interest being shown by collectors in donating their antique frames to nonprofit cultural institutions, and in response to requests from numerous art insurance brokers for the Price Guide to be more widely available. The book is a unique reference tool, with particular value to collectors, museum professionals, academic scholars, and appraisers.
Formerly priced at $795, the current edition of the Price Guide for American and European Period Frames was released in late 2020, and constitutes a completely updated and revised version of Wilner’s first edition published in 1995 by Avon Books. The book includes a new collection of over 100 period frame images, along with descriptions and retail pricing. The prices are based on retail frame sales by Eli Wilner & Company, with a sample paid invoice featured at the beginning of each section of the book. The increasing rarity of period frames of the quality showcased here, is reflected in the high prices that these objects can fetch in a retail market. The finest examples of period frames have been sold in the marketplace for hundreds of thousands of dollars. One collector is known to have spent nearly $10 million forming a period frame collection.
As a specialist in period framing for nearly 40 years, Eli Wilner has completed over 15,000 framing projects for private collectors as well as more than 100 institutions. The Wilner gallery is held in high regard by both institutions and private collectors for our expertise, extensive inventory, and superior quality of craftsmanship. This regard and confidence is evidenced by clients such as The White House, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Yale University Art Gallery, and many private individuals. In 2019, Eli Wilner & Company was honored by the Historic Charleston Foundation with the Samuel Gaillard Stoney Conservation Craftsmanship Award, for their work in historic picture frame conservation.
The Price Guide for American and European Period Frames is available for download as a PDF file here»
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