Enfilade

Opening next month at The Walpole Library:

The Paradox of Pearls: Accessorizing Identities in the Eighteenth Century
The Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, CT, 27 September 2024 — 31 January 2025

Curated by Laura Engel

William Hoare, Portrait of Maria Walpole, ca. 1742, pastel on paper (The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, LWL Ptg. 152).

Pearls figure prominently in pictures of celebrated and imagined figures across the eighteenth century. Adorning royalty, celebrities, servants, and in fashion plates, the mysterious, opaque, and gleaming white accessory aligns with the mutable, seductive, and threatening emergence of new forms of identity. Worn as jewelry, as embellishments to the body and dress, or embedded in the settings of precious objects—pearls accessorize, highlight, colonize, and perform. As one of the most sought-after commodities of the early modern colonial enterprise, a precious jewel tied to bondage and violence, pearls have a baroque and complex history. Drawing from materials in the Lewis Walpole Library this exhibition will explore the ‘paradox of pearls’ by considering how the varied and often contradictory meanings of this jewel appear in period images and the ways in which practices from the past connect us to the powerful presence of pearls today. The exhibition is curated by Professor Laura Engel of Duquesne University.

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Curator Talk with Laura Engel
The Lewis Walpole Library, 16 November 2024, 2pm

From Queen Elizabeth I to Harry Styles, the legacy of pearls is a story about self-fashioning. Pearls feature prominently in many pictures of celebrated figures from the past. Worn as jewelry—as embellishments of the body and apparel, or embedded in the settings of precious objects—pearls illuminate ideas about beauty, power, and style. Drawing upon materials in the Lewis Walpole Library, this talk considers how the varied and often contradictory meanings of this jewel were represented in period images and the ways in which practices from the past connect us to the enduring presence of pearls today. Space is limited, and advance registration through the Farmington Libraries site is required. Registration link forthcoming.