Enfilade

The long eighteenth century in the latest issue of Print Quarterly:

Print Quarterly 39.3 (September 2022)

Anonymous artist after Sébastien Leclerc, View of the Hall of Mirrors, ca. 1684, pen and brown ink, brown wash on paper, 13.6 × 9.1 cm (Musée National des Châteaux du Versailles, INV.DESS 1247).

Tomáš Valeš, “Franz Anton Maulbertsch, Jakob Matthias Schmutzer and the Allegory on the Edict of Toleration, 1785”

This article discusses new insights into the painter Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724–1796) and the creation of his print, the Allegory on the Edict of Toleration (1785). It adduces two letters from the engraver Jakob Mattias Schmutzer (1733–1811), his collaborator since the 1750s and later his father-in-law. The article discusses the strategies used for the print’s distribution and also presents an analysis of the print’s preparatory drawing and three proof impressions.

Antoine Gallay, “Sébastien Leclerc’s Preparatory Drawing for the View of the Hall of Mirrors (1684): A Reassessment”

This short article re-examines the status of a drawing acquired by the Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon in 2008, traditionally attributed to Sébastien Leclerc and thought to have been made in preparation for his famous print of the View of the Hall of Mirror (1684). The author also presents a second little known drawing which was most certainly made by Leclerc himself in preparation for the print. Comparison between this drawing and the print offers new insight on the early appearance of the Hall of Mirrors and on Leclerc’s artistic conception and practices.

The issue also includes these relevant notes and reviews:

Battle Engravings for the Emperors of China

Jean Michel Massing, Review of Henriette Lavaulx-Vrécourt, Niklas Leverenz and Alexey Pastukhov, Berlin Battle Engravings: 34 Copperplates for the Emperors of China / Berliner Schlachtenkupfer: 34 Druckplatten der Kaiser von China (Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2021), p. 305.

Thomas Gainsborough in London

Anne Lyles, Review of Susan Sloman, Gainsborough in London (London: Modern Art Press, 2021), p. 307.

Utamaro and the Spectacle of Beauty

Adam Haliburton, Review of Julie Nelson Davis, Utamaro and the Spectacle of Beauty (London: Reaktion Books, 2021), p. 308.

The Waterloo Map of Pierre-Jacques Goetghebuer

Inge Misschaert has contributed a brief analysis of the much-copied Map of the Battle of Waterloo (1815) by Belgian architect and engraver Pierre-Jacques Goetghebuer. The article elaborates on the production history of Goetghebuer’s map and its context alongside other adventurous competitors seeking to illustrate the famous battle in its immediate aftermath.

The Reception of Raphael

Carlo Schmid, Review of Andres Stolzenburg and David Klemm, eds., Raffael: Wirkung eines Genies (Petersberg: Hamburger Kunsthalle and Michael Imhof Verlag, 2021), p. 315.

The review focuses on the cult of Raphael which took off at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The Fruitful Encounter Between Engraving and Photography

Francesca Maria Bonetti, Review of Nicolas Devigne and Virginie Caudron, eds., Contacts – Photographie – Gravure: Jeux et Enjeux (Aire-sur-la-Lys: ateliergaleriéditions and éditions Musée de Gravelines, 2020), p. 318.

Bonetti discusses the different photomechanical processes based on proto-photographic experiments carried out between  1824 and 1827 and known as heliography.