Print Quarterly, December 2023
J. J. Grandville, after Francisco de Goya, And So Was His Grandfather (‘Hasta su abuelo’), 1834, graphite, over stylus indentations, 79 × 119 mm
(Nancy: Musée des Beaux-Arts)
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The long eighteenth century in the latest issue of Print Quarterly:
Print Quarterly 40.4 (December 2023)
a r t i c l e s
• Thea Goldring, “Beyond Siberia: Drawings by Le Prince for the Histoire Générale des Voyages,” pp. 391–406.
This article examines two signed and dated drawings by Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734–1781) that were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2012 and identifies their origins and purpose, proving Le Prince’s hitherto unknown participation in the Histoire Générale des Voyages project. The author discusses their relationship with the commissioned illustrations to Voyage en Sibérie by Jean Chappe d’Auteroche (1728–1769), as well as Le Prince’s contribution to other illustrated books. Throughout the paper, there is a detailed analysis of his common practice to appropriate and modify visual information from earlier sources, reworking them for illustrated travel texts.
Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, Inuit Manner of Dress, 1769, pen and black ink, brush and grey wash, over black chalk, with additions in graphite, 170 × 120 mm (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
• Paula Fayos-Pérez, “La Fontaine, Goya, Grandville: A Study of Visual and Literary Sources,” pp. 406–419.
This article considers how J.J. Grandville (1803–1847) was deeply influenced by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828), particularly how the plates from the Caprichos inspired the former’s illustrations to Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables and other illustrated books. Incidentally, Goya had also previously derived his sources for the Caprichos and Desastres de la Guerra from earlier illustrations to La Fontaine’s 17th-century text. In doing so, the interconnection of literary and visual sources in both artists is revealed, highlighting their shared concern for public education and masked political undertones.
n o t e s a n d r e v i e w s
• Tim Clayton, Review of David Alexander, A Biographical Dictionary of British and Irish Engravers, 1714–1820 (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Yale University Press, 2021), pp. 442–43.
This review is just as much a praise of David Alexander’s research methods and resourcefulness as it is to the book’s groundbreaking contributions in this field. Clayton highlights the book’s revelations concerning invisible women engravers, who often worked alongside and carried on the business after their husbands had died. In keeping with Alexander’s wide area of focus, the book also includes native and foreign engravers in branches of the trade outside of fine art, leading to a far more expansive and representational dictionary than previous ones.
• Alexandra C. Axtmann, Review of Dominique Lerch, Kristina Mitalaité, Claire Rousseau and Isabelle Seruzier, eds., Les Images de Dévotion en Europe XVIe–XXIe Siècle. Une précieuse histoire (Bibliothèque Beauchesne, 2021), pp. 477–79.
This review summarises a copious book based on papers presented at a two-day conference in Paris in 2019 organized by the Dominican library of Le Saulchoir together with the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. The content offers a European-wide perspective on small printed devotional prints that are often considered ‘kitsch’, enabling them to be studied with a variety of approaches concerning their creation, function, and reception up to the present day.
Call for Papers | In Motion: La Serenissima, Abruzzo, and the Adriatic
From ArtHist.net, which include the Call for Papers in Italian:
Art, Culture, and Politics in Motion: La Serenissima, Abruzzo, and the Adriatic Regions of the Kingdom of Naples, 16th–18th Centuries
Arte, cultura e politica in movimento: La Serenissima, l’Abruzzo e le regioni adriatiche del Regno di Napoli, XVI–XVIII secolo
Università degli Studi di Teramo, 10–11 April 2024
Organized by Martina Leone and Chiara Di Carlo
Proposals due by 4 February 2024
This call for studies stems from the ongoing research of two art historians and PhD students at the University of Teramo. Given the wide historiographical gaps on the subject, they propose to the scientific community, particularly to young researchers, two study days dedicated to the cultural and artistic circulation and the political and economic relations between the Republic of Venice, Abruzzo, and the Adriatic regions of the Kingdom of Naples (16th–18th centuries). There will be special but not exclusive attention to the movement of people, goods, works of art, ideas, collections, and documents, including in relation to the other side of the Adriatic Sea.
The 20th-century historiography has partly neglected the correspondence between Abruzzo and the territories of the Serenissima, instead focusing on the flourishing and proven connections between the Florentine-Aquilan and Roman-Aquilan figurative culture. Since the early 15th century, however, numerous testimonies have been known that confirm the migrations of Venetian artists to the territories of central Italy. In Abruzzo, the work of Jacobello da Fiore in Teramo, the sculpture of Girolamo Pittoni from Vicenza, and valuable 18th-century works by the Venetian artist Vincenzo Damini, prompt us to reconsider the entire situation. To enrich even more the debate are the reverse routes. We are witnessing not only migrations from North to Central Italy, but also displacements from the territories of Abruzzo to those of the Serenissima, as proven by the case of the 17th-century painter of Campli, Giovanni Battista Boncori.
With a chronological arc extended from the 16th to the 18th century, scholars from various fields (art history, modern history, economic history, gender history, book history, etc.) are invited to present unpublished and original contributions that shed light on the scope of Venetian figurative culture in Abruzzo and vice versa; on the exchange of documents and books within the two contexts; on the circulation of people, objects, materials and ideas, such as, the presence of local craftsmen active in both geographical areas. Like the maritime routes, carpenters, goldsmiths, woodworkers, potters, and collectors, represent an excellent starting point of investigation to highlight, once again, the correspondence between economic and social phenomena with artistic practice.
The submission of each contribution must include an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short curriculum vitae et studiorum of the applicant. The proposal must be sent to mleone@unite.it and cdicarlo@unite.it no later than Sunday, 4 February 2024. Scientific contributions will be published after peer review. The organising committee will provide the speakers with food for the entire duration of the conference and special agreements at accommodation facilities of the city of Teramo. The round trip transfer Rome-Teramo is funded for speakers coming from territories outside of Italy.
Possible but not exclusive lines of studies:
• Artistic influences between the Republic of Venice, Abruzzo, and the Adriatic regions of the Kingdom of Naples
• Circulation of people, ideas, and knowledge, also in relation to the Balkan side
• Carpenters, goldsmiths, woodworkers, and potters: the minor arts and the processing of local materials
• Circulation of drawings, engravings, and models
• Circulation of books and texts and the role of printing works
• Transmission of information (political, economic, etc.): correspondence, inventories, and dispatches
• Political and religious propaganda between the Holy See, the Republic of Venice, and the Kingdom of Naples
• The formation of collections of naturalia and mirabilia
• The movement of the economy: trade and commercial routes along the Adriatic
• Circulation of cults and religious men
Scientific Committee
Prof. Massimo Carlo Giannini (University of Teramo – Complutense University of Madrid)
Prof. Luca Siracusano (University of Teramo)
Prof.ssa Francesca Fausta Gallo (University of Teramo)
Prof. Giorgio Fossaluzza (University of Verona)
Prof. Adriano Ghisetti Giavarina (University ‘G. d’Annunzio’ of Chieti-Pescara)
Prof. Michele Maccherini (University of L’Aquila)
Prof. Egidio Ivetic (University of Padua)
New Book | The Art of the Chinese Picture-Scroll
Published by Reaktion and also distributed by The University of Chicago Press:
Shane McCausland, The Art of the Chinese Picture-Scroll (London: Reaktion Books, 2023), 299 pages, ISBN: 978-1789147964, £35 / $50.
The Chinese picture-scroll, a long painting or calligraphic work held within a horizontal scrolling mount, has been China’s pre-eminent aesthetic format for the last two millennia. This first extended history of the picture-scroll explores its extraordinary longevity, and its adaptability to social, political, and technological change. The book describes what the picture-scroll demands of a viewer, how China’s artists grappled with its cultural power, and how collectors and connoisseurs have left their marks on scrolls for later generations to judge. The return to mass appeal of scrolling—a media technology that seemed long outdated yet persists in our digital age—provides urgent and fascinating context to this book.
Shane McCausland is Percival David Professor of the History of Art at SOAS University of London. His many books include The Mongol Century: Visual Cultures of Yuan China, 1271–1368 (Reaktion Books, 2014), and he has curated numerous exhibitions in Europe, North America, and China.
c o n t e n t s
Introduction
1 On Origins and Uses over the First Millennium
2 Inscribing the Artist and the Collector: The Picture-Scroll in the Song–Liao–Jin Period
3 Handscrolls in Mongol Palaces
4 Musing on Shadows: Reading the Ming Picture-Scroll
5 Qing: Reading the ‘Baroque’ Handscroll
6 Modernist Uses of the Chinese Picture-Scroll
7 The Medium of Silent Poetry in the Late Modern World
References
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Index
Enfilade 
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