Nationalmuseum Sweden Acquires Gold Box, Gifted by Gustav III
Gold box à deux couleurs, unknown maker, Hanau; guilloché and chased gold in two shades, diamonds, enamel; portrait of Gustav III by Johan Georg Henrichsen, ca. 1778 (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, NMB 2799). The box sold at Sotheby’s in London on 10 November 2021 as part of the Gold Boxes, Silver and Ceramics sale (Lot 10).
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Press release (8 December 2021) from Sweden’s Nationalmuseum in Stockholm:
Nationalmuseum has acquired a unique gold box bearing a portrait by the court enameller, Johan Georg Henrichsen, of King Gustav III. The box was given by the king as a gift to John Mackenzie, a Scottish officer, when he retired from the Swedish army in 1778. Very few such tokens of royal favour have survived intact, which is what makes this gold box unique.
Jewel-encrusted portraits of the monarch were the most prestigious token of appreciation. The tradition developed at the French court in the 17th century and soon became a model for other European royal houses of the time. These portraits might take the form of a pendant or be mounted in a jewelled setting on the lid of a gold box. Queen Kristina was the first Swedish monarch to adopt this French fashion, which then flourished in the 18th century. Gustav III frequently handed out gold boxes as a sign of royal favour. Contemporary historical sources show that the king took a great personal interest in the design and gave detailed instructions. Sometimes the decoration consisted of his monogram in diamonds, and in other cases his portrait was framed with jewels.
Various specialist craftsmen collaborated to create the boxes. A silversmith would first produce the basic gold box, which would then be decorated by an engraver and adorned with gemstones by a jeweller. A miniaturist then added the portrait, while the case was produced by another specialist, often a bookbinder. There were practitioners of all these crafts in Gustavian Stockholm, but sometimes boxes were imported from Russia, Saxony or France. The gold box in question was made in Hanau, in the present-day German state of Hessen. It is oval in shape and is decorated with a guilloché (engine-turned) wave and circle pattern within a chased (embossed) border. It is also executed à deux couleurs: in a combination of two different gold alloys to produce colour variations. After the box reached Stockholm, the king’s portrait was set on the lid in a frame of diamonds with trailing vines.
The portrait is the work of Johan Georg Henrichsen (1707–1779), the last person in Sweden to hold the position of court enameller, to which he was appointed in 1773. He worked exclusively from originals in pastel or oil created by other artists such as Gustaf Lundberg or, in this case, Lorens Pasch the Younger. The colour palette was often intense, combined with clear use of pointillism. A lesser-known fact is that Henrichsen also produced coats of arms for patents of nobility, painted on parchment using miniature techniques.
The recipient of the gift was a Scottish adventurer: John Mackenzie, Lord Macleod, 4th Earl of Cromartie (1726–1789). He had been loyal to Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), the Young Pretender, and was held prisoner after the British army defeated the Jacobites at the battle of Culloden in 1746. Two years later he was pardoned, but the family had its estates confiscated. In 1750 John Mackenzie joined the Swedish army, ending up as colonel of the Björneborg regiment.
“Mackenzie returned to Britain in 1778, having been granted a full amnesty, and had his estates restored. On the occasion of his departure from Sweden, he received this gold box from King Gustav III. It is one of the very few surviving examples from the time and will soon be on display in Nationalmuseum’s Treasury alongside a miniature portrait of Mackenzie,” explained Magnus Olausson, director of collections at Nationalmuseum.
Nationalmuseum receives no state funds with which to acquire design, applied art and artwork; instead the collections are enriched through donations and gifts from private foundations and trusts. The acquisition has been made possible by a generous donation from the Anna and Hjalmar Wicander Foundation.
New Book | Ogata Korin: Art in Early Modern Japan
From Yale UP:
Frank Feltens, Ogata Kōrin: Art in Early Modern Japan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-0300256918, $60.
A lush portrait introducing one of the most important Japanese artists of the Edo period
Best known for his paintings Irises and Red and White Plum Blossoms, Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716) was a highly successful artist who worked in many genres and media—including hanging scrolls, screen paintings, fan paintings, lacquer, textiles, and ceramics. Combining archival research, social history, and visual analysis, Frank Feltens situates Kōrin within the broader art culture of early modern Japan. He shows how financial pressures, client preferences, and the impulse toward personal branding in a competitive field shaped Kōrin’s approach to art-making throughout his career. Feltens also offers a keen visual reading of the artist’s work, highlighting the ways Korin’s artistic innovations succeeded across media, such as his introduction of painterly techniques into lacquer design and his creation of ceramics that mimicked the appearance of ink paintings. This book, the first major study of Korin in English, provides an intimate and thought-provoking portrait of one of Japan’s most significant artists.
Frank Feltens is Japan Foundation Associate Curator of Japanese Art at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments
Note to the Reader
Introduction
1 Before Painting: Ogata Kōrin and His Turn to Art
2 Of Poets and Flowers: Kōrin’s Early Paintings
3 Art and Family: Kōrin’s Lacquer Works and Hon’ami Kōetsu
4 Heading East: Kōrin in Edo
5 Beyond Ink: Ceramics by Kōrin and Kenzan
6 Toward the End: Kōrin’s Late Work
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Laura Macaluso on Benedict Arnold’s House
We’re used to thinking about how the persistence of artifacts and architecture—especially elite forms of material culture—attest to the social and cultural status of individuals long after their deaths. With a growing scholarly appreciation for how the lack of an enduring material record also speaks to historical priorities, many readers will find this essay by Laura Macaluso interesting. And I would draw your attention more generally to Commonplace, edited by Joshua Greenberg; see the ongoing Call for Submissions below. –CH
From Commonplace:
Laura A. Macaluso, “Benedict Arnold’s House: The Making and Unmaking of an American,” Commonplace: The Journal of Early American Life (October 2021).
Arnold’s unceasing efforts to elevate himself in society through marriage and professional work can be viewed through the lens of the houses he bought or built throughout his life.
Benedict Arnold’s Shop Sign (New Haven Museum). ‘Sibi Totique’ (‘For himself and for everyone’).
Historians have examined the many aspects, both positive and negative, of Arnold’s impact on the course of events leading to the establishment of the United States. Yet the largely unanalyzed material culture of his existence—the objects he acquired and the buildings in which he and his family resided—can offer us much more about the contours of his life as he fashioned it, and how others crafted his historical memory. Arnold’s unceasing efforts to elevate himself in society through marriage and professional work can be viewed through the lens of the houses he bought or built throughout his life. This essay looks at the cultural landscape of one of his homes, the New Haven, Connecticut, house he built and resided in from 1769 until wartime. Through an analysis of the choices Arnold made in location, size, and architectural style, I identify how Arnold began to construct his identity not only as a member of the urban merchant class, but also as a gentleman. The building of the home reads as material evidence of his desire to establish his identity and place in society, but equally the abuse and destruction of Arnold’s house is a parallel to the untimely end of a life and career he worked hard to obtain.
The full essay is available here»
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Commonplace: Call for Submissions
Commonplace is now accepting submissions of approximately 2000 words that analyze vast early America before 1900. We seek a diverse range of articles on material and visual culture, critical reviews of books, films, and digital humanities projects, poetic research and fiction, pedagogy, and the historian’s craft. We are especially interested in deep reads of individual objects, images, or documents (including in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society). Submissions should be written in an accessible style and crafted for a wide audience. Inquiries and submissions can be made to commonplacejournal@gmail.com.
About Commonplace:
A bit less formal than a scholarly journal, a bit more scholarly than a popular magazine, Commonplace speaks—and listens—to scholars, museum curators, teachers, hobbyists, and just about anyone interested in American history before 1900. It is for all sorts of people to read about all sorts of things relating to early American life—from architecture to literature, from politics to parlor manners. It’s a place to find insightful analysis of early American history as it is discussed in scholarly literature, as it manifests on the evening news, as it is curated in museums, big and small; as it is performed in documentary and dramatic films and as it shows up in everyday life. . . .
Commonplace originally launched in 2000 as Common-Place: The Journal of Early American Life and has now been reimagined with a cleaner, more accessible interface. Our articles appear on a rolling basis and are arranged by category instead of being organized by issue and volume. . . .
Sponsored by the American Antiquarian Society, founded by editors Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore, and designed by John McCoy, Common-Place: The Journal of Early American Life is the product of an amazing team of editors and institutions. Over nearly two decades, the journal has been published in partnerships with Florida State University, the University of Oklahoma, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the University of Connecticut. Past editors have included Ed Gray; Catherine Kelly; Anna Mae Duane and Walt Woodward. Past contributors and guest editors have included: Joanna Brooks, Robert A. Gross, Gary B. Nash, Megan Kate Nelson, Mary Beth Norton, and Alan Taylor.
In 2019, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture joined the AAS in a new partnership to redesign and reinvigorate the site.
Call for Papers | The Theatines and Architecture
From ArtHist.net, which includes the Italian and Spanish versions:
‘Circa vestimenta’: i Teatini e l’architettura, XVI–XVIII secolo
The Theatines and Architecture, 16th–18th Centuries
International Conference on the Architectural History of the Order of Clerics Regular Theatines
Sant’Andrea della Valle, Rome, 22–23 March 2022
Proposals due by 7 January 2022
First among the religious orders born in the climate of the Catholic Reformation and rooted in the sensibility of Devotio moderna, the order of Clerics Regular Theatines was officially founded in 1524 by Gian Pietro Carafa (1476–1559, Pope Paul IV from 1555), Gaetano Thiene (1480–1547), Bonifacio de’ Colli (ϯ 1558), and Paolo Consiglieri (1499–1557). After settling in Venice (from 1527), Naples (from 1538), and finally in Rome (from 1555), between the end of the Council of Trent and the middle of the seventeenth century the order became widespread in Italy, at the same time as it began expanding in Europe and evangelizing in non-Christian territories, mainly in the Caucasus and the East Indies.
In spite of the importance of Theatine houses and places of worship, and the relevance of Theatine patrons and architects, the order has not enjoyed the kind of critical reception enjoyed by other early modern orders, such as the Jesuits, the Barnabites, or the Oratorians. The dispersion of a large part of the order’s documentary heritage and, in particular, the scarcity and unevenness of the drawings and other architectural evidence held in the Theatine general archives at Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome have certainly been among the reasons that have hindered attempts to produce synthetic studies of Theatine architecture.
In recent years new data and questions have emerged from an increasing amount of research, partly published in the journal of the order, Regnum Dei: Collectanea Theatina, and discussed in specific, limited forums, such as a first international conference dedicated to the Theatine foundations in Sicily (2003) and a study day on the history of the Venetian church and house of San Nicolò da Tolentino and the alterations that have affected it (2017). Today it finally seems possible to think of a scholarly gathering in which to relate some of the many histories regarding the Theatines and architecture.
Starting from the architectural enterprises and evidence associated with the order of Clerics Regular Theatines between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, this conference intends to create an initial framework within which to investigate the urgent issues and historiographic problems facing historians today. Namely:
• the settlement strategies of the Theatines in relation to urban context, to economic choices, and to the process of reuse and appropriation of sites
• the particular role of great promoters, financial backers, and patrons in respect to the expansion of the order and their effects on the development of the order’s sites for churches and houses, with particular reference to sacred space
• the role of Theatine priests as patrons or architects of buildings outside the order
• the circulation and migration of models, techniques, and architectural experts and amateurs among Theatine building sites and/or Theatine commissions
• the dynamics of the ‘center-periphery’ relationship, understood as the relationship between the Roman mother house and the other foundations of the order, through investigation of the genesis and design process of Theatine buildings
• the knowledge, skills, and theoretical and scientific debates regarding architecture in the Theatine context, also considering the books held in Theatine libraries and the publications of the order’s priests
• the effects of the order’s spirituality on the selection of building materials, on architectural and decorative solutions, and on the relation of these to antiquity
• the relationship between tradition and experimentation (typological, architectural and in relation to construction techniques) in Theatine buildings
• the differences and distinctive features in design approach, in functional organization, in management of the building sites, and in the choices of material and manner of construction when comparing the houses for religious, buildings intended for teaching, and those destined for worship
• when and how celebrations, processions and ephemeral apparatuses transformed Theatine sacred space and its relation to the urban context.
The possibility of researching and identifying any unique characteristics of the architecture of the Clerics Regular Theatines—both going back to the problems they faced as the first order founded in the early modern era, and in relation to the production of other orders founded around the same time—certainly invites wider reflection than themes strictly related to architecture. One of the keys to understanding this could be found in the ‘arma apostolica’ that Carafa requested from Clement VII in 1533, ‘tam circa vestimenta quam circa alias cerimonias’, with which the first Theatines, anticipating the difficulties related to evangelizing in distant lands, had the opportunity to flexibly adapt to different, geographically distant cultural realities.
The conference will be hosted by the Generalate of the Theatine order at the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome and will take place 22–23 March 2022. Given the uncertainty of the evolving public health situation, the organizers plan to hold the event in hybrid format, both in-person and online. The proceedings of the conference will be published in a special issue of the journal Lexicon: Storie e Architettura in Sicilia e nel Mediterraneo, a biannual periodical of studies in architectural history, classified as class A for the assessment sectors 08/C1, D1, E1, E2, F1 of the Italian national agency for the evaluation of universities and research institutes (Anvur). Those interested in participating should send a biography of approximately ten lines and a long abstract of no more than 700 words, accompanied by a reference bibliography of no more than ten items, to convegno.architetturateatina@gmail.com by 7 January 2022. Abstracts will be accepted in Italian, English, French, and Spanish. No registration fees are required. For clarification of any questions, please contact convegno.architetturateatina@gmail.com.
Timeline
1 November 2021 — Call for papers
7 January 2022 — New deadline for submission of biography and long abstracts
15 January 2022 — Notification of acceptance
22–23 March 2022 — Conference
Scientific Committee
Richard Bösel (Universität Wien)
Beatriz Blasco Esquivias (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
Susan Klaiber (indipendente)
Fulvio Lenzo (Università Iuav di Venezia)
Carmine Mazza, C.R.
Marco Rosario Nobile (Università di Palermo)
Edoardo Piccoli (Politecnico di Torino)
Francesco Repishti (Politecnico di Milano)
Augusto Roca De Amicis (Università La Sapienza, Roma)
Conference Organizers and Editorial Committee
Marco Capponi (Università Iuav di Venezia)
Gaia Nuccio (Università di Palermo)
Organizing Committee
Marco Capponi (Università Iuav di Venezia), Gaia Nuccio (Università di Palermo), Mariana Méndez Gallardo (Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México), Padre Marcelo R. Zubia, C.R., Padre Diego Doldan, C.R.
Exhibition | Traveling in Style: A Coach Restored
Beekman Family Coach, ca. 1770, made in England; wood (ash and spruce by analysis), iron, and leather. 8 feet × 13 feet × 52 inches
(New-Historical Society, Gift of Gerard Beekman 1911.25)
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Now on view at the New-York Historical Society:
Traveling in Style: A Coach Restored
New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, 2 July 2021 — 20 February 2022
The Beekman Family Coach returns to the New-York Historical Society on 2 July 2021. Over the past year, this rare coach—one of only three horse-drawn vehicles used in 18th-century America to survive in original condition—was painstakingly restored to its 1790s appearance through a generous grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
New York merchant James Beekman purchased the coach in 1771 for £138. An expensive luxury that became the crown jewel in his fleet of carriages, the coach was repainted at least five times between 1771 and the 1790s.
Conservator Brian Howard and his team meticulously restored the coach, beginning with the removal of a thick layer of old varnish applied during the mid 20th century. Underneath lay five layers of historic paint, including a light celadon green color from the 1790s that is again visible today. Among other surprises, conservators discovered that the interior of the cab retained most of its original fixtures and materials—wood benches and storage lockers, wool wall coverings, carpeting, and coach lace, enameled Russian leather trim, and flax insulation.
Conservation and display of the Beekman Family Coach is being supported in part by a Federal Save America’s Treasures grant administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Exhibition | France and Russia: Ten Centuries Together
Pierre-François Drais, snuffbox, made in Paris between 1776 and 1789, with portraits added sometime between 1814 and 1830; gold, enamel, and lapis lazuli, mounted with miniatures in watercolour on ivory (London: V&A, 905-1882). The portraits depict Marie Antoinette and her children Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte (1778–1851), the Dauphin Louis (1781–1789), and Louis-Charles the future Louis XVII (1785–1795), along with a sculptured bust of Louis XVI.
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From the press release for the exhibition:
France and Russia: Ten Centuries Together / Франция и Россия: 10 веков вместе
Exhibition Halls of the Patriarch’s Palace and the Assumption Belfry, Moscow, 7 September 2021 — 9 January 2022
The Moscow Kremlin Museums present the exhibition France and Russia: Ten Centuries Together as part of the cross-cultural year between Russia and France, highlighting their interregional cooperation. The project, dedicated to the centuries-long history of cultural and diplomatic relations between the two countries, showcases over two hundred artifacts: memorial objects, archival documents, and artworks from national Russian and European museums. The exhibition explores the history of Russian-French relations through intertwining fates of outstanding personalities including prominent statesmen, scientists, writers, artists, and craftsmen. The chosen approach aims at reconstructing the character of the relationship between the two countries as an immediate, multifaceted, somewhat contradictory, but an ultimately fruitful process for both parties.
The show opens with a unique charter, dating back to 1063 and recalling the important political event of the 11th century: the dynastic marriage of Princess Anna Yaroslavna, daughter of the Great Prince Yaroslav the Wise, to King Henry I of France. The charter, provided by the National Library of France, is believed to be the only surviving document that bears the handwritten sign of the cross and monogram of King Philip I with his mother’s authentic signature ‘ANA RHNA’ (Queen Anne) placed underneath in Cyrillic letters. Visitors are also afforded the rare opportunity of seeing the Reims Gospel—a unique illuminated manuscript of great cultural and historical significance. Generously offered for the exhibition by the Municipal Library of Reims, it will take centre stage among the key objects on display.
Among the later period pieces featured in the exhibition is a drawing by artist J. Desmarets capturing Peter I and Louis XV in Paris on 11 May 1717 and presented to the Soviet leaders as a diplomatic gift in 1944 to commemorate the visit of Charles de Gaulle, the Chairman of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, to Moscow. The development of the 18th-century political dialogue between Russia and France is chronicled through paintings and sculptures, weapons, textiles, and jewellery commissioned for the Russian Imperial Court from famous French masters or created by prominent French artists invited to Russia. The passion for French art is evidenced by luxurious tapestries, the ceremonial dress of the young Emperor Peter II, the exquisite lacework adorning the gowns of Russian monarchesses, the pieces from the silver Paris set owned by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, and magnificent weapons, including a pair of pistols belonging to Emperor Peter II and made by the Arquebusier du Roi (royal gunmaker) Jean-Baptiste Laroche.
J. Desmarets, Peter I and Louis XV in Paris on 11 May 1717, 1717, ink, watercolour, red chalk, and gouache on tinted paper (Moscow Kremlin Museums)
Portraits from the collection of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts recreate a gallery of outstanding political and cultural figures from the reigns of Empresses Elizaveta Petrovna and Catherine the Great. The section on Catherine the Great’s reign showcases pieces from the legendary Orlov porcelain service executed by the Parisian silversmiths Jacques and Jacques-Nicolas Roettiers along with the precious desk clock with inkstand—the work of a Parisian master—that belonged to the Empress. Unique pieces from the collection of the Pavlovsk Museum and Heritage Site will hark back to Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna’s tours of Europe. The years preceding the Great French Revolution are epitomised by the rare memorial objects and are captured in the portraits painted by Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, Queen Marie-Antoinette’s favourite artist.
A special section of the exhibition is devoted to relations between Russia and France during the reign of Emperor Alexander I. Here, visitors will see a magnificent cased set of weapons made by the famous French gunsmith and bladesmith Nicolas-Noël Boutet—the gift presented to the Russian governor-general of Paris, Baron Fabian Gottlieb Fürst von der Osten-Sacken from the grateful Parisians. Another highlight is the Olympic porcelain service produced at the Sèvres porcelain factory and presented in 1807 by Napoleon to the Emperor Alexander I in commemoration of the Treaty of Tilsit. The star of the Order of the Holy Spirit, awarded to Alexander I by King Louis XVIII after the former’s victory over Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy in France, is another showpiece not to miss! The exhibition introduces visitors to the history of ‘Russian Nice’ and feature stories of the World Exhibition that took place in Paris in 1867. It also offers insights into the process of strengthening of Franco-Russian friendship and formation of the Franco-Russian Alliance at the turn of the 19th century.
Participating Institutions
The Moscow Kremlin Museums, the Palaces of Versailles and Trianon, Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Museums of Castles Malmaison and Bois-Préau, National Library of France, the Reims Municipal Library, the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, the State Hermitage, Museum and Heritage Site ‘Pavlovsk’, the Russian State Library, the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents
Svetlana Amelekhina et al. Frantsiia i Rossiia: Desiat’ vekov vmeste / Франция и Россия: 10 веков вместе (Moscow: Muzei Moskovskogo Kremlia, 2021), 383 pages, ISBN: 978-5886783872. Available here»
New Book | Les ébénistes de la Couronne sous le règne de Louis XIV
From Bib des Arts:
Calin Demetrescu, Les ébénistes de la Couronne sous le règne de Louis XIV (Lausanne: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 2021), 448 pages, ISBN: 978-2884532273, €59 / $94.
Cet ouvrage est le fruit d’un travail de recherche mené sur plus de dix ans. Par un dépouillement de nombreux documents d’archives, la plupart inédits, l’auteur révèle des aspects méconnus de la biographie des artisans ayant œuvré pour le Garde Meuble de la Couronne et pour les Bâtiments du Roi. Cette approche donne vie aux relations de travail—et de famille—au sein d’une véritable nébuleuse d’artisans (menuisiers ébénistes, bronziers, ornemanistes) français et étrangers, catholiques venus d’Italie et protestants venus des pays du nord de l’Europe.
Une méthode de travail originale, fondée sur l’approche des séries analogiques, a permis des identifications et des attributions d’œuvres majeures : notamment à Alexandre-Jean Oppenordt, par exemple, dont la possible collaboration avec André-Charles Boulle est ici mise en évidence. Outre une étude des œuvres de Domenico Cucci déjà connues, l’auteur propose également une révision des attributions à Pierre Golle ainsi qu’une nouvelle chronologie de l’œuvre d’André- Charles Boulle. Plus de 400 illustrations en couleur documentent utilement la démarche de l’auteur de cette somme qui comblera tous les admirateurs du Grand Siècle et qui sera un outil de travail indispensable pour les conservateurs de musée comme pour les antiquaires et les collectionneurs.
Auteur d’articles et d’ouvrages sur les styles Louis XIV et Régence, Calin Demetrescu, historien d’art, ancien conservateur des musées de la Ville de Bucarest et collaborateur scientifique du département des objets d’art du musée du Louvre pendant plusieurs années, est l’un des spécialistes connus et réputés pour ses recherches et publications relatives aux ébénistes et au mobilier des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Ses découvertes dans le domaine ont permis des avancées notables dans les connaissances sur les ébénistes de cette période, dont ceux faisant l’objet de cette remarquable étude. Sa thèse sur le sujet reçut le Prix Georges-Nicole de la Société d’Histoire de l’Art français.
Journées d’étude | The Rediscovered Colors of Aubusson Tapestries
From ArtHist.net:
Les Couleurs retrouvées des Tapisseries d’Aubusson
Online, Aubusson, 17–18 January 2022
Ces journées d’étude seront l’occasion de partager les premiers résultats d’une recherche pluridisciplinaire originale menée dans le cadre du programme Aubusson: Les couleurs retrouvées des tapisseries fines d’Aubusson (XVIIIe siècle) — Culture matérielle: conception, production, caractérisation, altération et conservation soutenu par la Région Nouvelle Aquitaine. Centrées sur l’étude d’un exemple, une tapisserie récemment acquise par la Cité internationale de la Tapisserie à Aubusson, elles convoquent l’histoire naturelle, l’histoire sociale, l’histoire de l’art, les sciences physiques et chimiques, les sciences du patrimoine et les nouvelles technologies afin de renouveler la connaissance des objets analysés. Le propos touche donc à l’identification des choses représentées, à l’examen des processus d’élaboration et des stratégies de production des tapisseries, à reconsidérer les techniques de tissage et les matériaux utilisés par la constitution d’une base de données des différents supports et par l’analyse non invasive des colorants. Il s’agit aussi de poser des diagnostics de conservation et de présentation des collections et de tenter une restitution numérique des couleurs d’origine.
These study days will be an opportunity to share the first results of an original multidisciplinary research conducted within the framework of the Aubusson program: Les couleurs retrouvées des tapisseries fines d’Aubusson (XVIIIe siècle) — Culture matérielle: conception, production, caractérisation, altération et conservation, supported by the Région Nouvelle Aquitaine. Focusing on the study of an single example, a tapestry recently acquired by the Cité internationale de la Tapisserie in Aubusson, they bring together natural history, social history, art history, physical and chemical sciences, heritage sciences, and new technologies in order to renew the knowledge of the analyzed objects. The aim is to identify the things represented in the tapestry, to examine the tapestry elaboration process and production strategies, and to reconsider the weaving techniques and the materials used through the constitution of a database of the different supports and by the non-invasive analysis of the dyes. It is also a question of diagnosing the conservation and presentation of the collections and attempting a digital restitution of the original colors of the tapestry.
Comité Scientifique
Alice Bernadac, Pascal-François Bertrand, Floréal Daniel, Aurélie Mounier, Audrey Nassieu Maupas, Bruno Ythier
Pour le 17/01 : https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87245772303
872 4577 2303 / pas de code secret
Pour le 18/01 : https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86846013778
868 4601 3778 / pas de code secret
1 7 J A N V I E R 2 0 2 2
9.00 Ouverture par Emmanuel Gérard, Directeur de la Cité internationale de la Tapisserie, et Introduction par Pascal-François Bertrand
10.00 Session 1 | Sciences Naturelles: ReprÉsenter la Nature
• Cécile Aupic — Identification de la flore dans la Verdure aux armes de Brühl
• Jacques Cuisin — Les animaux dans la Verdure aux armes de Brühl
11.00 Session 2 | Histoire Sociale: Approche Socio-Écomonique
• Koenraad Brosens — Le marché de la verdure en Europe
• Ute Koch — Heinrich von Brühl et les tapisseries de son château de Brody
12.00 Pause déjeuner
14.00 Visite des ateliers, Jean-Marie Dor
15.30 Session 3 | Histoire de l’Art: Peindre et Tisser des Paysages
• Ingrid de Meuter — Les verdures flamandes, 1640–1750
• Charissa Bremer David — Les verdures de la Manufacture de tapisserie de Beauvais, 1690–1740
• Camilla Pietrabissa — La peinture de paysage en France dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle
• Benjamin Perronet — Dessins de paysage autour d’Oudry et de Boucher
• Élodie Pradier — Jean-Baptiste Oudry et la question de la couleur
1 8 J A N V I E R 2 0 2 2
9.00 Session 4 | Sciences Physiques et Chimie
• Aurélie Mounier, Hortense de La Codre, et Floréal Daniel — Mise au point d’une méthodologie spécifique, sans contact, pour l’identification des colorants et textiles
• Hortense de La Codre, Rémy Chapoulie, Laurent Servant, et Aurélie Mounier — Manufactures Royales de Tapisseries françaises (Gobelins, Beauvais, Aubusson) : entre sources écrites et réalité matérielle. Application de méthodes spectroscopiques non-invasives à l’étude de trois tapisseries du XVIIIe siècle
10.00 Session 5 | Sciences du Patrimoine: Restauration et Muséologie
• Alice Bernadac, Carole Redais (Langlois Tapisseries), et Jean-Marie Dor — La restauration de la Verdure aux armes de Brühl
• Alice Bernadac — Présenter la Verdure aux armes de Brühl dans les salles de la Cité de la Tapisserie (dans les salles)
11.30 Session 6 | Technologies Numériques
• Loïc Espinasse, Pascal Mora, Michael Rouca, et François Daniel — Restituer virtuellement les couleurs de la Tapisserie aux armes de Brühl
12.00 Conclusion
• Bruno Ythier
Resource | Black Craftspeople Digital Archive
Peter Bentzon, Teapot, 1817–29, Philadelphia, silver and wood (Washington, DC: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2010.14). Born in the early 1780s in the West Indies, Peter Bentzon was a free man of color. He apprenticed as a silversmith in Philadelphia and then traveled to St. Croix where he opened his own silver shop. In 1817, Bentzon returned to Philadelphia and continued to work as an independent silversmith.
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Press release (14 December 2021) from The Decorative Arts Trust:
The Decorative Arts Trust is pleased to announce that the Black Craftspeople Digital Archive (BCDA) has been named the 2021 recipient of the Prize for Excellence and Innovation.
Founded in 2019, the BCDA brings together scholars, students, museums, and archives professionals and the public to collaborate and spread the story of Black craftspeople. To date, blackcraftspeople.org includes archival information and a searchable map with information about 960 black craftspeople involved in 45 trades in the South.
The BCDA originally began as a project by Dr. Tiffany Momon, inspired by her research into John ‘Quash’ Williams, an enslaved and later free Black master carpenter responsible for the carpentry and joinery work on the c. 1750 Charles Pinckney Mansion in Charleston, South Carolina. Tiffany now serves as the BCDA Founder and Co-Director with Dr. Torren Gatson as BCDA’s Co-Director and Publications and Special Projects Director.
Prize funding will support the BCDA Object Database, which will provide scholarship documenting the ancestry, historical timelines, and narratives of these craftspeople within the context of the larger decorative arts field.
The BCDA Instagram account is available here»
In addition to the BCDA’s award, The Trust was able to provide funding to two other finalists. Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens will receive a grant to underwrite the stipend of a research fellowship for the William J. Hill Texas Artisans and Artists Archive devoted to seeking objects that represent a broader range of the state’s cultural history. The Historic Albany Foundation will receive a grant to develop a series of workshops with the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands as part of the preservation and adaptive reuse of the Van Ostrande-Radliff House.
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The Decorative Arts Trust Prize for Excellence and Innovation was established in 2019 to recognize scholarly endeavors to advance the public’s appreciation of decorative arts, fine arts, architecture, or landscape design. The Trust is eager to highlight a broad range of projects–by no means restricted to digital database projects–and encourages institutions pursuing innovative initiatives of all types to submit nominations, which are accepted through June 30 annually.
The Decorative Arts Trust is a non-profit organization that promotes and fosters the appreciation and study of the decorative arts through exchanging information through domestic and international programming; collaborating and partnering with museums and preservation organizations; and underwriting internships, research grants, and scholarships for graduate students and young professionals.
New Book | Facing Georgetown’s History
From Georgetown UP:
Adam Rothman and Elsa Barraza Mendoza, eds., with a foreword by Lauret Savoy, Facing Georgetown’s History: A Reader on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation (Georgetown: Georgetown University Press, 2021), 368 pages, ISBN: 978-1647120962, $30.
A microcosm of the history of American slavery in a collection of the most important primary and secondary readings on slavery at Georgetown University and among the Maryland Jesuits
Georgetown University’s early history, closely tied to that of the Society of Jesus in Maryland, is a microcosm of the history of American slavery: the entrenchment of chattel slavery in the tobacco economy of the Chesapeake in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the contradictions of liberty and slavery at the founding of the United States; the rise of the domestic slave trade to the cotton and sugar kingdoms of the Deep South in the nineteenth century; the political conflict over slavery and its overthrow amid civil war; and slavery’s persistent legacies of racism and inequality. It is also emblematic of the complex entanglement of American higher education and religious institutions with slavery.
Important primary sources drawn from the university’s and the Maryland Jesuits’ archives document Georgetown’s tangled history with slavery, down to the sizes of shoes distributed to enslaved people on the Jesuit plantations that subsidized the school. The volume also includes scholarship on Jesuit slaveholding in Maryland and at Georgetown, news coverage of the university’s relationship with slavery, and reflections from descendants of the people owned and sold by the Maryland Jesuits.
These essays, articles, and documents introduce readers to the history of Georgetown’s involvement in slavery and recent efforts to confront this troubling past. Current efforts at recovery, repair, and reconciliation are part of a broader contemporary moment of reckoning with American history and its legacies. This reader traces Georgetown’s “Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation Initiative” and the role of universities, which are uniquely situated to conduct that reckoning in a constructive way through research, teaching, and modeling thoughtful, informed discussion.
Adam Rothman is a professor in Georgetown University’s Department of History. He is the author of Beyond Freedom’s Reach: A Kidnapping in the Twilight of Slavery, which was named the Humanities Book of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and received the American Civil War Museum’s book award. He is also the author of Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South and the coauthor of Major Problems in Atlantic History. He served on Georgetown’s Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation in 2015-16, and is currently the principal curator of the Georgetown Slavery Archive. He was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress in 2018, where he created the podcast African-American Passages: Black Lives in the 19th Century.
Elsa Barraza Mendoza is a PhD candidate in history at Georgetown University and the assistant curator of the Georgetown Slavery Archive. She is a former Fulbright-Garcia Robles fellow. Her research has been supported by the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. She is currently writing her dissertation on the history of slavery on Georgetown’s campus.
Lauret Savoy is the David B. Truman Professor of environmental studies at Mount Holyoke College, where she explores the marks of history on the land. The author of Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape, she also descends from people enslaved by Jesuits.
C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments
Editors’ Note
Foreword, Lauret Savoy
Introduction, Adam Rothman
Part 1 | History
Essays
1 Craig Steven Wilder, War and Priests: Catholic Colleges and Slavery in the Age of Revolution
2 Robert Emmet Curran, ‘Splendid Poverty’: Jesuit Slaveholding in Maryland, 1805–38
3 Elsa Barraza Mendoza, Catholic Slave Owners and the Development of Georgetown University’s Slave Hiring System, 1792–1862
4 James O’Toole, Passing: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820–1920
Documents
5 Enslaved People Named in a Deed, 1717
6 A Sermon on the Treatment of Slaves, 1749
7 Edward Queen Petitions for Freedom, 1791
8 Isaac Runs Away from Georgetown College, 1814
9 A Jesuit Overseer Calculates the Cost of Slave Labor, 1815
10 Baptism of Sylvester Greenleaf at Newtown, 1819
11 Fr. James Ryder, SJ, Criticizes Abolitionism, 1835
12 The Society of Jesus Sets Conditions on the Sale of the Maryland Slaves, 1836
13 Articles of Agreement between Thomas Mulledy, Henry Johnson, and Jesse Batey, 1838
14 A Jesuit Priest Witnesses Anguish at Newtown, 1838
15 Bill of Sale for Len, 1843
16 A Jesuit Priest Reports on the Fate of the Ex-Jesuit Enslaved Community in Louisiana, 1848
17 Aaron Edmonson, the Last Enslaved Worker at Georgetown, 1859–62
18 Labor Contract at West Oak Plantation, Iberville Parish, Louisiana, 1865
19 Photograph of Frank Campbell, ca. 1900
Part 2 | Memory and Reconciliation
Essays
20 Ira Berlin, American Slavery in History and Memory and the Search for Social Justice
21 Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Case for Reparations
22 Alondra Nelson, The Social Life of DNA: Racial Reconciliation and Institutional Morality after the Genome
The Working Group
23 Matthew Quallen, Slavery’s Remnants, Buried and Overlooked
24 Toby Hung, Student Activists Sit in outside DeGioia’s Office
25 Report of the Georgetown University Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation, to the President of Georgetown University
26 James Martin, SJ, How Georgetown is Coming to Terms with Slavery in Its Past
The GU272 Descendants
27 Rachel L. Swarns, 272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants?
28 Rachel L. Swarns and Sona Patel, ‘A Million Questions’ from Descendants of Slaves Sold to Aid Georgetown
29 Terry L. Jones, Louisiana Families Dig into Their History, Find They Are Descendants of Slaves Sold by Georgetown University
30 Cheryllyn Branche, My Family’s Story in Georgetown’s Slave Past
31 Rick Boyd, Many in Slave Sale Cited by Georgetown Toiled in Southern Maryland
Reconciliation and Reparation
32 Remarks of Sandra Green Thomas at Georgetown University’s Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition, and Hope
33 Remarks of Fr. Timothy Kesicki, SJ, at Georgetown University’s Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition, and Hope
34 Terrence McCoy, Her Ancestors Were Georgetown’s Slaves. Now, at Age 63, She’s Enrolled There-as a College Freshman
35 Marc Parry, A New Path to Atonement
36 Jesús A. Rodríguez, This Could Be the First Slavery Reparations Policy in America
37 Javon Price, Changing Perceptions on the GU272 Referendum
Epilogue, Elsa Barraza Mendoza
Timeline
Further Reading
Index
Enfilade 
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