Call for Papers | Sculpture between Britain and Italy, 1742–1854
From the Call for Papers:
Sculptural Models, Themes, and Genres between Britain and Italy, ca. 1742–1854
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 16–17 May 2025
Organized by Adriano Aymonino, Albertina Ciani, and Kira d’Alburquerque
Proposals due by 30 September 2024
The University of Buckingham and the Victoria and Albert Museum are organising a two-day interdisciplinary conference on the role played by British-Italian artistic exchanges in shaping sculptural models, themes, and genres in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The conference adopts a longue durée approach, focusing on the century when these exchanges were most intense: from 1742, when Prince Hoare of Bath the Elder arrived in Rome—the first documented English sculptor to spend a period of study in the city—to the opening of the Crystal Palace in Sydenham in 1854, whose sculptural decoration was directed by the Milanese Raffaele Monti. Throughout this period, the two traditions became interdependent, developing an artistic dialogue that influenced sculptural models and themes not only in Italy and Britain but also across Europe and the territories of the expanding British Empire, from the Indian subcontinent to the Americas.
This conference adopts a typological approach, investigating how academic frameworks and patronage networks influenced the diffusion of sculptural models, themes, and genres, and how market dynamics—along with the industrial production of new materials—either reinforced or challenged these aspects. We are interested in exploring the evolution of established genres such as busts, ideal sculptures, funerary and public monuments, copies, and adaptations after the Antique, as well as the diffusion of models and themes in decorative figurative sculpture, including reliefs, medallions, chimneypieces, and in smaller artworks such as gems, cameos, impressions, ivories, or in objects produced in porcelain, earthenware, and various new artificial ‘stones’. While concentrating on sculpture, the conference embraces an interdisciplinary approach to evaluate how the development of new models, themes, and genres reflected or shaped cultural and national identities, social values, evolving canons, and shifting audiences in the different contexts of Italy and the Anglophone world.
Recent years have witnessed a surge in monographic publications and PhD dissertations by art historians, social historians, and scholars focused on material culture, examining individual artists and themes connected to this trans-national movement. This two-day conference aims to assess the current state of research and explore future directions in the discipline.
We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers on topics that could include, but are not limited to:
• The impact of the academy and academic aesthetic and pedagogical frameworks in shaping sculptural models, themes, and genres, and their diverse manifestations.
• The influence of patronage and collecting in shaping sculptural models, themes, and genres, and their diverse manifestations.
• Industry and the market’s role in the production and dissemination of ‘high art’ models, themes, and genres, as well as commercial, religious, garden, and decorative sculpture.
• The impact of casts, copies, and adaptations on reinforcing or challenging academic canons and establishing new models, themes, and genres.
• The role played by new materials (such as porcelain, biscuit, Wedgwood ‘basalt’ and Jasperware, Coade stone, Parian ware, electrotyping, etc.) in the diffusion and transformation of models, themes, and genres.
• The impact and adaptation of classical or early modern Italian models and themes in the Anglophone world and vice versa.
• The tension/dialogue between themes after the Antique and medieval or early modern themes from literature or history.
• The tension/dialogue between classical and Christian themes.
• The relationship between European and non-European models, themes, and genres.
• The relationship between painting and sculpture, and the links between making and viewing.
• The relationship between sculpture and prints in the diffusion and transformation of models, themes, and genres.
• The changing audiences of sculpture between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the progressive ‘commercialisation’ of models, themes, and genres, exemplified by events such as the 1854 opening of the Crystal Palace (Sydenham).
Please submit a title and abstract of no more than 200 words, along with a short biography (about 100 words – please do not send CVs) to Albertina Ciani (2127054@buckingham.ac.uk) by noon (BST), 30 September 2024. The abstract and biography should be combined in a single Word document and submitted as an email attachment. Incomplete or late submissions will not be considered. Notification of the outcome will be communicated via email by 31 October 2024.
The conference is part of a series of events organised to celebrate the launch of a new edition of Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny’s Taste and the Antique in October 2024.
Fellowship | PhD Position in Architectural History, Trinity College Dublin
From the Call for Applicants, with apologies for the short notice. –CH
PhD Position in Architectural History: Stone in 18th-Century Architecture
Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Trinity College Dublin, starting September 2024
Applications due by 17 July 2024
Applicants are sought for a funded four-year PhD at Trinity College Dublin, commencing in September 2024, on a topic relating to the ERC advanced grant research project STONE-WORK, led by Professor Christine Casey in the Department of History of Art and Architecture. The successful applicant will be based in the School of Histories and Humanities and enrolled in the Structured PhD Programme. The award comprises the student’s PhD tuition fees and an annual stipend of €25,000.
STONE-WORK challenges the perception of architecture as a primarily conceptual activity by shifting focus from individual to collective achievement. Despite the emphatic materiality of architecture, its history remains dominated by a sequential model which privileges the agency of individuals and ideas. STONE-WORK’s fundamental premise is that architecture results from a cumulative sequence of actions involving an array of actors, great and small. Revealing stone’s hidden trajectory from quarry to wall, floor, column, and chimneypiece will probe the nexus of skills, techniques, and support mechanisms developed by communities in its sourcing, supplying, and fashioning, and the impact of these processes upon building activity. This cross-disciplinary research, combining the history of architecture and craft with geology aims to produce a holistic analysis of architecture and stone production.
The project pursues four main objectives:
• Transform knowledge of interdependence in architectural production.
• Develop a cross-disciplinary interface between geology, craft, and architectural history for the analysis of building stone.
• Reconstruct the trade and labour networks of Anglo-Irish stone production to determine how quarrying and stone-working affected the use of stone in eighteenth-century architecture.
• Discover the qualitative standards in materials and techniques which underpinned the handling of stone in eighteenth-century architectural production.
The PhD dissertation will explore the agency of the consumer and maker in the eighteenth-century stone industry by focusing on the chimney-piece industry in Britain and Ireland. This is an under-studied topic rich in surviving data both material and archival.
We are seeking applicants with the following qualifications:
Essential
• A first-class (or equivalent) undergraduate degree or a master’s degree with distinction in the History of Art or History of Architecture
• Excellent communicative competence in English
• Excellent research and organisational skills
• Knowledge of classical architecture in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland
Desirable
• Demonstrable experience of using archives and working knowledge of eighteenth-century architecture
• Willingness to contribute to the activities of the STONE-WORK research project
Applications for the award must include
• A personal statement (max. 2 pages), including your motivation for applying for this PhD student position
• A curriculum vitae with educational history, including two academic references
• Transcripts of degree results
Prospective students should send these documents to Melanie Hayes at pghishum@tcd.ie by the deadline on the 17th July 2024. The successful candidate will then make a formal application to TCD via the my.tcd.ie portal and be issued with a formal offer in the same manner as other incoming PhD students. Applications will not be considered complete without academic references. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by early August. If the successful candidate does not have English as a first language, s/he will also be required to submit evidence of English language competence at this stage.
Trinity College Dublin is committed to policies, procedures, and practices which do not discriminate on grounds such as gender, civil status, family status, age, disability, race, religious belief, sexual orientation, or membership of the travelling community. On that basis we encourage and welcome talented people from all backgrounds to join our staff and student body. Trinity’s Diversity Statement can be viewed in full here.
Dr Melanie Hayes, Trinity College Dublin, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland, HAYESM7@tcd.ie.
U of Buckingham | MA in French and British Decorative Arts
From the University of Buckingham:
MA in French and British Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors
University of Buckingham (study based in London), starting September 2024
Bursary applications due by 19 July 2024
Applications are invited for a bursary on the University of Buckingham’s MA in Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors starting September 2024. Generously funded by the Leche Trust, the bursary, worth £8,500, will cover just under 78% of the full-time course fees for UK students and just over 50% of the fees for international students. The deadline for bursary applications is Friday, 19 July, 10am GMT. To be eligible for the bursary, students will need to have applied for and been offered a place on the course.
This unique MA in French and British Decorative Arts and Interiors, taught in collaboration with the curatorial and conservation teams at the Wallace Collection, focuses on the development of interiors and decorative arts in England and France in the ‘long’ eighteenth century (c.1660–c.1830) and their subsequent rediscovery and reinterpretation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A key element of the course is the emphasis on the first-hand study of furniture, silver, and ceramics, where possible in the context of historic interiors. Based in central London, it draws upon the outstanding collections of the nearby Wallace Collection and the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as the expertise of leading specialists who participate in the teaching.
Bursary priority will be given to applicants
• with excellent academic qualifications, seeking, or currently pursuing careers in museums, the built heritage or conservation,
• in need of financial assistance,
• have a strong interest in the decorative arts and historic buildings,
• or, for those wishing to go on to pursue academic research in the decorative arts and historic interiors.
The bursary is also open to part-time students commencing their studies in 2024 and for whom the funding would be spread over two years. Find out more here. You also may contact Dr Lindsay Macnaughton lindsay.macnaughton@buckingham.ac.uk and the Admissions Office admissions@buckingham.ac.uk.
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