Conference | Portrait Miniatures
From the Tansey Miniatures Foundation and the conference programme:
Portrait Miniatures: Artists, Functions, and Collections
Celle Castle, Tansey Miniatures Foundation, Celle Castle (near Hanover), 9–11 September 2022
This conference will take place in conjunction with the seventh exhibition of the Tansey Miniatures Foundation and the publication of the accompanying catalogue Miniatures from the Time of Napoleon in the Tansey Collection. 23 speakers from 11 different countries will address a range of topics related to portrait miniatures:
• Individual miniaturists, specific workshop contexts, and places of production
• Use and functions of both court and private types and their protagonists
• Iconographic aspects in the context of representation or intimacy
• Evolution of techniques and materials
• Private and public collections
The conference will be in English. The presentations will subsequently be published in a richly illustrated book. Admission is free. Both conference venues are within walking distance (20 minutes) from the railway station. Trains from Hannover take approximately 25 to 45 minutes (Deutsche Bahn, Metronom, and S-Bahn). For registration, please contact Juliane Schmieglitz-Otten, The Tansey Miniatures Foundation, juliane.schmieglitz-otten@tansey-miniatures.com. For more information, please contact Bernd Pappe, The Tansey Miniatures Foundation, bernd.pappe@tansey-miniatures.com.
F R I D A Y , 9 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2
16.00 Registration
18.00 Welcome and Opening Lectures
• Juliane Schmieglitz-Otten, Realism and Modernism in the Likenesses of a New Epoch: Highlights of the Exhibition Miniatures from the Time of Napoleon
• Bernd Pappe, Making a Small Man Great: Miniatures of Napoleon I
• Birgitt Schmedding, Two Views: The Power of Seeing
S A T U R D A Y , 1 0 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2
9.00 Objects, Agencies, and Social Practices
• Gerrit Walczak (Berlin), Icons of Intimacy: Sex, Agency, and the Portrait Miniature
• André and Anne-Marie Regnard-Denis (Belgium), Gestures and Their Meaning in Portrait Miniatures
• Karin Schrader (Bad Nauheim), ‘Telling Objects’: Miniatures in 18th-Century Courtly Portraits
• Lea C. Stephenson (Philadelphia), Racial Capital: Peter Marié’s Miniatures and Gilded Age Whiteness
• Jann Matlock (London), The Museum of Lost Portraits: Paris, 1794–1805
• Damiët Schneeweisz (London), Shipped, Worn, or Carried: Portrait Miniatures in the Atlantic Ocean World
13.00 Lunch
14.15 Politics and Representation
• Juliane Schmieglitz-Otten (Celle), Pictorial Family Ties: Series of Portrait Miniatures Serving Political Networks
• Martin Miersch (Ulm), Fashion and Political Statement: Portrait Miniatures from the Time of the French Revolution
• Maxime Charron (Paris), Examples of Intimate Portraits from the Royal and Imperial Courts of France during the First Half of the 19th Century
• Agnieszka Fulińska (Krakow), A Reputed Portrait Miniature of the King of Rome and Images of Children from Napoleon’s Entourage
• Marina Vidas (Copenhagen), Portrait Miniatures Set in Jewellery and Objects of Personal Adornment Connected to Queen Louise of Denmark and Her Daughter, Maria Feodorovna, Empress of Russia
17.30 Special Techniques and Materials
• David Hradil, Janka Hradilová, and Olga Trmalová (Prague), Benefits of Non-Invasive Macro X-Ray Fluorescence Scanning for the Analysis of Materials in Portrait Miniatures
S U N D A Y , 1 1 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2
9.00 Special Techniques and Materials
• Christine Slottved Kimbriel, Paola Ricciardi, and Flavia Fiorillo (London), Unlocking the English Portrait Miniature: The Materiality of Isaac Oliver’s Oeuvre
• Alan Derbyshire and Lucia Burgio (London), The William Wood Manuscripts
10.00 Miniature Painters
• Martin Spies (Giessen), In Search of Charles Townley, Painter of Miniatures and Engraver to the King of Prussia
• Luise Schreiber Knaus and Peter Knaus (Bodelshausen), The Miniature Painter Jeremiah Meyer: His Life and Career during the Reign of King George III
• Sonja Remensberger (Winterthur), Pierre-Louis Bouvier (1765–1836): Life and Work of a Geneva Miniature Painter whilst Working Abroad
• Nathalie Lemoine-Bouchard (Paris), Ambroise Charlemagne Victor Le Chenetier: When a 19th-Century Artist Hides Another One
13.00 Lunch
14.15 Collections of Portrait Miniatures
• Stephen Lloyd (Liverpool), Horace Walpole’s Recently Discovered Plan for Displaying His Miniatures and Enamels in the Cabinet of the Tribuna at Strawberry Hill
• Maria Dunina (Moscow), The Collection of Miniatures of the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
• Tatiana Udras (Moscow), Portrait Miniatures of the Romanoff Family in Russian and Foreign Collections
• Cecilia Rönnerstam (Stockholm), On Origins and Originals: The History of a Collection
• Blythe Sobol (Kansas City), An Outsized Passion for Miniatures: The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Exhibition | Miniatures from the Time of Napoleon
From the Tansey Miniatures Foundation:
Miniatures from the Time of Napoleon / Miniaturen der Zeit Napoleons
Tansey Miniatures Foundation, Bomann-Museum, Celle, from 26 June 2020
The Tansey miniatures, now held by the Bomann Museum in Celle, represent one of the most significant collections of European miniature paintings. This exhibition showcases a total of 150 works from the time of Napoleon I (1795–1815). These tiny portraits, which were generally intended for personal use, date from the ‘golden age’ of miniature painting. They exhibit a high degree of artistic skill and refined craftsmanship. Unlike the staged, theatrical portraits of absolutism, now for the first time we see realistic likenesses of people who appear ‘modern’—a gallery of women, men, and children from a period of political upheaval dominated by wars.
The accompanying bilingual catalogue (in German and English) provides comprehensive insight into the art of miniature painting in this magnificent era. Specialists have contributed detailed and richly illustrated introductory essays. This volume joins earlier entries in the series, exploring the collection in key periods and presenting new photographic reproductions of the miniatures at actual size.
Bernd Pappe and Juliane Schmieglitz-Otten, with photography by Birgitt Schmedding, Miniatures from the Time of Napoleon in the Tansey Collection (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2022), 452 pages, ISBN: 978-3777436098, €58 / $65.
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