Enfilade

From ArtH.net and the conference website:

The Power of Flowers, 1500–1750
Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, 14–15 June 2023

Organized by Jaya Remond and Catherine Powell-Warren

Flowers and fruits have been mobilized as expressions of power and counter-power since long before the poet Allen Ginsberg coined the slogan ‘Flower Power’ in 1965 to encourage nonviolent protest, and Hippies in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury area weaved flowers in their hair. In the newly founded Dutch Republic, the house of Orange-Nassau relied on the orange not only as a short-hand for its name, but also a signifier of the trading empire it developed. Sultan Süleiman the Magnificent was known for his taste in gardens and incorporated flowers in his official insignia (Tughra), a complex work of calligraphy conveying the power and legitimacy of his rule. During the early modern (re)discovery of nature, flowers and their fruits (local and foreign) offered unique promises for profit while their pictorial representations promoted their commercial potential and could also stand as artistic objects. This interdisciplinary conference aims to investigate how flowers and the fruits they produce represented power in a myriad of ways in the early modern world. The speakers will address the function of flowers—including the flowering process, culminating in fruit—as tools of political, religious, or commercial power, as instruments of global and local knowledge transfer and appropriation, as well as their role in art-making, science, and the construction of gender from around 1500 to 1750.

The conference will take place in person at the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent; presentations will not be live-streamed or recorded. Conference registration is required. The registration fee of 20 euros (10 euros for students) includes two lunches and a reception following the keynote address. The conference is organized by Prof. dr. Jaya Remond, Assistant Professor of Early Modern Art History at Ghent University, and Dr. Catherine Powell-Warren, FWO Postdoctoral Researcher in Art History at Ghent University. For any practical questions, please contact Lien Vandenberghe (lien.vandenberghe@ugent.be) or Lisa Schepens (l.schepens@ugent.be).

W E D N E S D A Y ,  1 4  J U N E  2 0 2 3

9.00  Registration and Coffee

9.30  Welcome Remarks

9.45  Far Removed from the Hortus Conclusus: Women Harnessing Flowers and Power, Part I
• Zara Kesterton (Cambridge) — Flower Girls: Pastoralism, Fashioning, and Gender Politics in 18th-Century France
• Lucia Querejazu Escobari (Zurich) — A Rose from Lima and Kantutas for Pomata: Saint Rose of Lima, Our Lady of Pomata, and the Construction of the Symbolical Garden of the Colonial Andes

11.00  Coffee Break

11.15  Far Removed from the Hortus Conclusus: Women Harnessing Flowers and Power, Part II
• Henrietta Ward (Cambridge) — Exchanging Seeds: Agnes Block and Her Flower Drawings
• Bożena Popiołek and Anna Penkała-Jastrębska (Krakow) — The Private Garden as a Symbol of Innovation and Power at the Noble Women’s Courts in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the First Half of the 18th Century

12.30  Lunch Break

14.00  Philosophy and Medicine: The Intrinsic Power of Flowers & Fruits, Real and Imagined, Part I
• Fabrizio Baldassarri (Venice) — The Silence of the Lambs: Sensitive and Vegetative Powers in Plantanimals
• Océane Magnier (Tours) — Violet Powder: The Perfume of the Flower and the Scent of the Iris

15.15  Coffee Break

15.30  Re-Centering the Garden: The Garden as a Backdrop for Memory, Art, and Networking
• Arjan van Dixhoorn (Utrecht) — Re-Centering the Garden in Philosophical Life: Hondius’s Dapes inemptae of 1618/1621
• Tine L. Meganck (Brussels) — Bruegel’s Spring Garden as Mastery of Nature
• Klara Alen (Antwerp) — From Rubens’s Garden to The Swan Inn: Tulips and Trust in Early Modern Antwerp

17.30  Keynote Address
• Claudia Swan (St Louis) — Handling Flowers in Early Modern Europe: A Florilegium of Gestures

18.45  Reception

T H U R S D A Y ,  1 5  J U N E  2 0 2 3

9.30  Trading, Exchanging, and Controlling Plants and Flowers, Part I
• Philippe Depairon (Kyoto) — New Flowers in Old Yamato
• Elena Falletti (Castellanza) — How Botanical Gardens Helped to Shape International Law

10.45  Coffee Break

11.00  Trading, Exchanging, and Controlling Plants and Flowers, Part II
• James M. Córdova (Boulder) — Art in Bloom: The Polysemy of Flowers in Colonial Mexican Visual Culture
• Daniel Margócsy (Cambridge) — The Flowers of St Thomas: Colonial Botany and the Hortus malabaricus, c. 1680

12.15  Lunch Break

13.30  Philosophy and Medicine: The Intrinsic Power of Flowers & Fruits, Real and Imagined, Part II
• Anna Svensson (Uppsala) — Arvid Månsson’s Örta-Book: Translating Medicinal Plant Knowledge in 17th-Century Sweden
• Dominic Olariu (Marburg) — Herbal Books at Court as a Gesture of Medical Erudition and Medical Providence

14.45  Coffee Break

15.00  Paper Plants and the Epistemic Power of Flower Imagery, Part I
• Clio Rom (Springdale, Arkansas) — On Being Planted and Portrayed: Horticulture and Floral Imagery in Seicento Rome through the works of Anna Maria Vaiani
• Lara de Mérode (Brussels) — Hortus floreus Archiducis Leopoldi or the Power of Flowers at the Service of the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (1614–1662)

16.15  Paper Plants and the Epistemic Power of Flower Imagery, Part II
• Sheila Barker (Philadelphia) — Giovanni Battista Ferrari’s “Flora, overo Cultura dei fiori” (1638)
• Katherine M. Reinhart (Broome County, New York) — Painting Plants, Engraving Gloire

17.30  Concluding Remarks

Rembrandt van Rijn, Landscape with Canal and Boats, ca. 1652–55, pen in brown ink with brown wash on paper, framing lines in brown ink, 10 × 20 cm (The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Ackland Art Museum, Peck Collection, 2017.1.67). From The Peck Collection: “In 2017 the Ack­land Art Muse­um . . . received its largest gift to date. Donat­ed by UNC alum­nus Dr. Shel­don Peck and his late wife Leena, the gift includ­ed 134 large­ly sev­en­teenth- and eigh­teenth-cen­tu­ry Dutch and Flem­ish draw­ings as well as a gen­er­ous endow­ment to sup­port a new cura­tor of Euro­pean and Amer­i­can art before 1950, future acqui­si­tions, exhi­bi­tions, edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als, and pub­lic program­ming relat­ed to the col­lec­tion.”

◊   ◊   ◊   ◊   ◊

From ArtHist.net:

Making, Collecting, and Understanding Dutch and Flemish Drawings, 1500–1800
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1–2 June 2023

The Peck Drawings Symposium celebrates Old Master drawings on the occasion of the exhibition The Art of Drawing: Master Drawings from the Age of Rembrandt in the Peck Collection at the Ackland Art Museum, on view in Amsterdam at the Rembrandt House Museum (18 March – 11 June 2023).

Research in early modern Dutch and Flemish drawings touches on a wide variety of issues, including the study of materials and techniques; issues of attribution and oeuvre cataloguing; and expanding our understanding of the provenance, collecting, and display of works on paper. This symposium offers scholars a chance to come together to present and discuss recent research in this specialized field, which now evolves to encompass new methodologies and concerns.

Registration is available here»

T H U R S D A Y ,  1  J U N E  2 0 2 3

9.00  Registration, with Coffee and Tea

9.30  Welcome Remarks

9.45  Session 1
• The Case of Pieter Vlerick: A Netherlandish Draughtsman’s ‘Many Beautiful Views of the City on the Tiber’ — Stijn Alsteens (Christie’s)
• (Re)Introducing Jan Snellinck (1544/49–1638) as a Draughtsman — Maud van Suylen (Rijksmuseum)
• Drawings Made to be Engraved: Paul Vredeman de Vries and Claes Jansz. Visscher — Peter Fuhring (Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection, Paris)
• A Helmet Design by Johannes Lutma the Elder? — Reiner Baarsen (Rijksmuseum)

11.05  Coffee and Tea

11:35  Session 2
• The Portable Studio: Navigating the Early Netherlandish Sketchbook — Daantje Meuwissen (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam)
• Deconstructing the Antique: The Ornamental Language in the Sketchbook of the Cornelis Anthonisz. Workshop — Oliver Kik (Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels (KIK-IRPA)
• Playground and Repository: Maarten van Heemskerck’s Roman Sketchbook — Tatjana Bartsch (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome)
• Fresh Eyes on Old Sketchbooks: Revisiting the Content and Function of 17th-Century Dutch Sketchbooks — Yvonne Bleyerveld (RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague/Leiden University)

13.00  Lunch

14.00  Session 3
• Making the Invisible Visible: New Digital Technologies in the Study of Drawings — Thomas Ketelsen and Carsten Wintermann (Klassik Stiftung Weimar)
• Local Landscapes on Paper from Afar: The Connoisseurial Relevance of Washi in the Drawn Oeuvres of Dutch Artists — Sanne Steen (Erasmus University, Rotterdam)
• Hunting Moldmates of 17th-Century Dutch Drawings — C. Richard Johnson, Jr. (Utrecht University)
• Rembrandt’s Drawings: The Cut — Birgit Reissland (RCE – Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Amsterdam)

15.20  Coffee and Tea

15.50  Session 4
• Aert Schouman’s Animal Drawings in Teylers Museum — Marleen Ram (Teylers Museum, Haarlem)
• Beyond Academies: The Inaugural Drawing Session at Felix Meritis in 1789 — Charles Kang (Rijksmuseum)
• Life on Paper: New Insights into the Drawing Practice of Christina Chalon (1749–1808) — Austėja Mackelaitė (Rijksmuseum)

17.30  Exclusive visit to the Rembrandt House Museum to view the Peck Collection exhibition

F R I D A Y ,  2  J U N E  2 0 2 3

8.00  Exclusive visit to the Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum

9.00  Coffee and Tea

9.45  Session 5
• The Less Well-known Side of Andries Both as a Draughtsman — Jane Shoaf Turner (Master Drawings; formerly Rijksmuseum)
• ‘Alle de posturen, die de soldaten in ‘t hanteren van hare wapenen behoren te gebruycken’: Jacques de Gheyn’s Drawings for The Exercise of Arms For Calivers, Muskettes, and Pikes — Susanne Bartels (University of Geneva)
• The Drawing Oeuvre of Pieter Quast (c.1605–1647): An Assessment — Jochai Rosen (University of Haifa)
• A Sea of Drawings: The Van de Veldes at the Queen’s House, Greenwich — Allison Goudie, Emmanuelle Largeteau and Imogen Tedbury (Royal Museums, Greenwich)

11.05  Coffee and Tea

11.35  Session 6
• Wallerant Vaillant (1623–1667): A Dutch Artist in the Vienna Collection of Prince Dmitry M. Golitsyn — Catherine Phillips (Independent Scholar)
• The Bookseller and Publisher Isaac Tirion and His Collection of Drawings — Everhard Korthals Altes (Delft Technical University)
• Johann Friedrich von Uffenbach (1687–1769) as Collector of Drawings — Anne-Katrin Sors (Göttingen University)
• Rediscovering Pieter de Hooch: 18th-Century Dutch Reproductive Drawings and the Auction Market — Junko Aono (Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo)

13.00  Lunch

14.10  Session 7
• On the 17th-Century Reception of Pieter Saenredam’s Drawing Practice — Lorne Darnell (Courtauld Institute)
• Material Sympathies: Paper as Water in 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Drawings — Sarah W. Mallory (Harvard University)
• Still a Hot Case: Reconsidering the ‘Du-Gardijn’ Inscriptions — Annemarie Stefes (Independent Scholar)
• Copious Copies: On the Trail of a Drawing Practice and Its Aesthetic and Material Implications — Christien Melzer (Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin)

15.30  Coffee and Tea

16.00  Final Session
• TBA

17.00  Drinks and Appetizers