Exhibition | Duplessis (1725–1802): The Art of Painting Life
From the press release for the exhibition:
Duplessis (1725–1802): The Art of Painting Life / L’art de peindre la vie
Inguimbertine, Hôtel-Dieu, Carpentras, 14 June — 28 September 2025
Curated by Xavier Salmon
From June 14 to September 28, 2025, the Inguimbertine at the Hôtel-Dieu of Carpentras hosts an exhibition dedicated to Joseph Siffred Duplessis (1725–1802), one of the most remarkable portraitists of the 18th century, in celebration of the 300th anniversary of his birth. The Hôtel-Dieu of Carpentras, magnificently restored, provides the perfect setting. Inaugurated in April 2024, this heritage site is now home to the Bibliothèque-Musée Inguimbertine. With nearly 43,000 visitors since its opening, it has established itself as a major cultural venue in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, immersing visitors in the history of Carpentras and the Comtat Venaissin, as well as in the world of an 18th-century library-museum and a grand fine arts gallery.
Joseph Siffred Duplessis, Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, oil on canvas, 72 × 58 cm (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Friedsam Collection, 32.100.100).
In 2025, the Inguimbertine has the honor of celebrating a native of Carpentras, Joseph Siffred Duplessis, born 300 years ago and recognized as a master of portrait painting at the court of King Louis XVI. His works, now housed in the world’s greatest museums, attest to Duplessis’s artistic genius. The exhibition brings together around sixty paintings from the 200 he created, sourced from prestigious collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Palace of Versailles, and the Louvre Museum. The exhibition also provides the Inguimbertine with an opportunity to highlight the richness of its own collection, which includes the largest public holding of the artist’s works—22 paintings and drawings, among them the only two religious paintings he ever produced. These masterpieces allow visitors to discover or rediscover Duplessis’s remarkable skill, particularly in his role as the official portraitist of Louis XVI. This first retrospective of the master portraitist is accompanied by a catalog of his works, listing nearly two hundred paintings, published by Lienart Editions.
Duplessis had an extraordinary ability to capture the essence of his subjects with mastery and sensitivity that transcend time. Visitors will be particularly impressed by his virtuosity in rendering the complexions of faces and the textures of fabrics. Acknowledged by his contemporaries as “the greatest portrait painter in the kingdom,” his talent for portraying character and presence is being showcased through a carefully curated selection of works. For a portraitist, painting and exhibiting well-known figures was essential to gaining public recognition. In this pursuit, Duplessis worked within three spheres: men of letters, scholars, and artists. Among his most famous works are the full-length portrait of Louis XVI and two portraits that have left a lasting mark on art history: that of Austrian composer Gluck and that of the American statesman Benjamin Franklin, whose long stay in France embodied the ideals of the Enlightenment and the birth of a new world.
Curated by Xavier Salmon, curator at the Louvre Museum and a specialist in 18th-century portraiture, this exhibition promises to be a major cultural event of 2025. It offers a unique opportunity to understand why Duplessis was considered one of the greatest portraitists of his time. Visitors are able to explore his official commissions for the royal court and the ministers of Louis XVI, his clientele in both Provence and Paris, as well as his rare religious paintings, all within the stunning setting of the Hôtel-Dieu of Carpentras.
Xavier Salmon, Joseph Siffred Duplessis (1725–1802): Le Van Dyck de la France (Paris: Lienart éditions, 2025), 224 pages, ISBN: 978-2359064650, €35.
New Book | Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Etchings from the BSR
From De Luca Editori d’Arte:
Clare Hornsby and Caroline Barron, Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Etchings from the Research Collections of the British School at Rome (Rome: De Luca Editori d’Arte, 2025), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-8865576403, €60.
This book presents some of the most significant objects in the Research Collections of the British School at Rome (BSR), gathered by the School’s first student and third Director, the archaeologist Thomas Ashby (1874–1931). Ashby bought a large number of early books and prints that now make up the basis of the Special Collections, including a substantial number—around 150—loose etched prints and several complete printed books made by the multi-talented artist, architect, and printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Venice 1720–Rome 1778).
The etchings come from all stages of Piranesi’s career and reflect many aspects of his vast output. They have been the subject of exhibitions organised by the British School, in Rome and elsewhere, and they feature in online catalogues, but this book is the first produced by BSR to offer an analysis of a selection of the loose prints, 104 in total. The focus of the catalogue is the archaeological and topographical subject matter of the prints, as well as an examination of the text that accompanies them in the form of detailed labels and captions. Piranesi’s print output has become widely known in the last century or so and his name has come to be associated with drama, exaggeration, fantasy and even mystery. This book takes a close look at the prints and reveals a partial corrective to that view: Piranesi the antiquarian and archaeologist emerges as protagonist here, highlighting just one of the rich variety of responses to the ancient past that formed the cultural environment of Grand Tour Rome.
Clare Hornsby is an art and architectural historian and a Research Fellow at BSR. She has published on the Grand Tour, the antiquities market between Rome and London, and on eighteenth-century architecture. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, a member of the Centro di Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma, and of the Scientific Committee of the Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
Caroline Barron is an ancient historian who works on the cultural and historical significance of Latin epigraphy, from antiquity to the present day. A monograph on the collecting of Latin inscriptions in the eighteenth-century is forthcoming, and her current research project is on the history of epigraphic forgery. She is Assistant Professor in Classics (Roman History) in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and a Research Fellow at BSR.
New Book | Glama Ströberle tra Roma e Lisbona
This brief publication (in Italian) is available as a free PDF from De Luca Editori d’Arte; the English abstract is included below:
Sabina d’Inzillo Carranza de Cavi, Glama Ströberle tra Roma e Lisbona: Vieira, Benefial, Masucci e la pietra rossa (Rome: De Luca Editori d’Arte, 2025), 31 pages, ISBN: 978-8865576502 (PDF file), free.
This essay, which thoroughly analyzes three notebooks now in the special collections of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, focuses on the graphic style of João Glama Ströberle, a Portuguese painter of German descent, a pupil of Vieira Lusitano, and a master of Vieira Portuense. His training in Rome from 1734 to 1741 with talented artists such as the non-conformist Marco Benefial and the Marattesque Agostino Masucci made him an important trait d’union between Italy and Portugal, where he contributed to the transfer of the principles of life drawing and academic draughtsmanship. The essay discusses the graphic techniques learned in Rome, paying particular attention to the use of red chalk in the 18th century, between Rome and Lisbon.
Decorative Arts Trust, Research Grant Recipients, 2025
From The Decorative Arts Trust:
In 2025, the Decorative Arts Trust celebrates another record-breaking year for our Research Grants program, with 16 recipients receiving travel funding to study objects and archival records.
Nur’Ain Taha is studying ivory pipe cases. Pictured: Pipe case from Ceylon, 1799–1825, Sri Lanka, ivory, tropical wood, copper (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, NG-453).
The Trust congratulates the 2025 Research Grant recipients:
• Carson L. Beauman, MA Student, Georgia Southern University, the curriculum of Boston schools run by women, 17th–18th centuries
• Anna Flinchbaugh, PhD student, University of Southern California, embroidery’s intersection of craft and industry in the Britain and the United States, late 19th–early 20th centuries
• Kathryn Griffith, PhD student, University of Southern California, Italian goldwork in textiles and the decorative arts, 15th–16th centuries
• Julia LaPlaca, PhD student, University of Michigan, tapestries in European altar environments, 14th–16th centuries
• Jasper Martens, PhD student, University of California Santa Barbara, Netherlandish portrait miniatures with translucent mica overlays, mid-17th century (The Decorative Arts Society of Orange County Grant)
• Fiona Owens, MA student, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware, the framing of Pre-Raphaelite artist Mary Macomber’s paintings, late 19th century (The Marie Zimmermann Grant)
• Emma Piercy-Wright, PhD student, University of Exeter, mother-of-pearl in French decorative arts, late 17th–early 19th centuries
• Sarah Rapoport, PhD student, Yale University, French transfer-printed ceramics, late 19th century
• Servane Rodie-Dumon, PhD student, Universite d’Artois, the career of French architect-decorator Émile Peyre, late 19th century
• Joseph Semkiu, PhD student, University of Southern California, materiality of radio chassis, mid-20th century
• Arielle Suskin, PhD student, Case Western Reserve University, Roman figural balsamaria, 3rd century BCE – 3rd century CE
• Nur’Ain Taha, PhD student, Utrecht University, ivory pipe cases that connect the early Dutch Republic and Ceylon, 17th century
• Ashley Vernon, MA student, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware, ‘paper home’ collages crafted by women, late 19th century
• John White, PhD student, Princeton University, walrus and narwhal ivory in Germanic decorative arts, 15th–17th centuries
• Natalie Wright, PhD student, University of Wisconsin-Madison, The Functional Fashions Line of the Clothing Research and Development Foundation, late 20th century
• Rebecca Yuste, PhD student, Columbia University, the importation of Neoclassical style to New Spain, late 18th century
The application deadline for Research Grants is April 30 annually. For more information on grants and scholarships from the Decorative Arts Trust, read about our Emerging Scholars Program, generously supported by Trust members and donors. For deadline reminders, sign up for our e-newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. The deadline for institutions to apply for the 2025 Prize for Excellence and Innovation is approaching on June 30.
Conference | Artists’ International Social Networks, 1750–1914
From ArtHist.net and the conference website:
(Re)Searching Connections: Artists’ International Social Networks, 1750–1914
Academia Belgica, Rome, 30 September — 1 October 2025
Registration due by 20 September 2025
This two-day international academic conference presents recent and ongoing research into the social networks of artists who lived, studied, and worked abroad between 1750 and 1914. Embracing a broad chronological and geographical scope, it brings together insights from various global contexts. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue across art history, sociology, and digital humanities, and by connecting diverse methodologies and findings across specializations, we aim to deepen our understanding of the transnational social connections that ‘make’ art history.
The conference is organized by Musea Brugge in collaboration with the Academia Belgica. Free registration is available here before 20 September 2025.
t u e s d a y , 3 0 s e p t e m b e r
10.00 Welcome — Anne van Oosterwijk (Musea Brugge)
10.05 Introduction — Cécile Evers (Academia Belgica)
10.15 Keynote Lecture
• France Nerlich (Musée d’Orsay) — Between Legacy and the Living: Artistic Dialogues in a Transnational Europe
11.15 Session 1 | Navigating National Identities
Chair: Christine Dupont (House of European History)
• Thijs Dekeukeleire (Musea Brugge) — The Writing’s on the Wall: Mentorship, Mobility, and the Bruges-Rome Artistic Network, ca. 1800
• Cécilia Hurley-Griener (École du Louvre) — Réseaux superposés: Espaces et sociabilités dans la Rome du XIXe siècle
• Julia A. Sienkewicz (Roanoke College) — Networking and the Making of a Transnational Sculptor: The Social Sites of Luigi Persico
14.15 Session 2 | Networks’ Sources
Chair: Veerle Thielemans (INHA-Institut national d’histoire de l’art)
• Virginie D’haene (Museum Plantin-Moretus) — Achieving Ideals: The Social Network behind Andries Lens’s Neoclassicism
• Lucie Montassier (Université de Poitiers) — Reconstituer les réseaux des artistes femmes: Les approches cartographiques
• Ieva Kalnača and Aija Zandersone (Latvian National Museum of Art) — Mapping a Network: Documenting Latvian and Spanish Artistic Connections in Paris, 1900–1914
16.15 Session 3 | The Studio as a Social Hub
Chair: Laura Overpelt (KNIR-Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome)
• Oriane Poret (Université Lyon 2/LARHRA) — Beasts on Loan: Global Networks and the Economy of 19th-Century Animal Art
• Marlen Schneider (Université Grenoble Alpes/LARHRA) — In the Light of Batoni’s Studio: Artistic Networks and the Circulation of Drawing Practices between Rome and German Art Academies
w e d n e s d a y , 1 o c t o b e r
10.00 Introduction – Anne van Oosterwijk (Musea Brugge)
10.15 Keynote Lecture
• Giovanna Ceserani (Stanford University) — ‘Here in the Proper Center for Gentlemen of [t]his Profession’: Artists in 18th-Century Rome
11.15 Session 4 | From Data to Networks
Chair: Eva Geudeker (RKD-Netherlands Institute for Art History)
• Mayken Jonkman (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam) — Paris Intimates: The Role of Connections for Dutch Artists’ Success in the French Capital, 1774–1914
• Fien Messens (Ghent University and KBR-Royal Library of Belgium) — Networking over a Bowl of Onion Soup: A Data-driven Perspective on the Artist François-Joseph Navez in Rome
• Carla Mazzarelli (Università della Svizzera italiana), Gaetano Cascino (Università della Svizzera italiana and Università Roma Tre), and Luca Piccoli (Università della Svizzera italiana and Sapienza Università di Roma) — For a map of Artistic Sociability inside the Museo di Roma: 19th-Century Visiting Experiences and Networks
14.15 Session 5 | Academies as Anchor
Chair: Anne van Oosterwijk (Musea Brugge)
• Gabriel Marques (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa – FCSH) — National Academies and Artistic Communities in Rome: The Portuguese Pensioners of the 1820s–1830s
• Dominiek Dendooven (Merghelynck Museum and Yper Museum) — A Transnational Network to ‘Revive Flemish Art’: Bruges and Rouen in the 18th Century
15.45 Session 6 | Collaboration across Borders
Chair: Evelien De Wilde (Musea Brugge)
• Nina Reid (Radboud University) — The Power of the Print: International Etching Societies during the Fin-de-siècle
• Iliana Mejias-Ojajärvi (University of Helsinki) — Russian Artists’ Exhibition Activities in Helsinki, 1890–1911: Organization, Artistic Exchange, and Transnational Connections
16.45 Closing Keynote Lecture
Giovanna Capitelli (Università Roma Tre) — Transnational Sources for Studying the Cosmopolitan Art World of Early 19th-Century Rome
18.00 Reception
Exhibition | So Far, So Close: Guadalupe of Mexico in Spain
José Juárez, The Virgin of Guadalupe with Four Apparitions, detail, 1656, oil on canvas, 251 × 293 cm
(Ágreda, Soria: Monasterio de Concepcionistas Franciscanas)
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From the press release for the exhibition:
So Far, So Close: Guadalupe of Mexico in Spain
Museo Nacional del Prado, 10 June — 14 September 2025
Curated by Jaime Cuadriello and Paula Mues Orts
So Far, So Close: Guadalupe of Mexico in Spain casts an unprecedented gaze on the artistic dialogue between Latin America and Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, showing how the Virgin of Guadalupe was reinterpreted, reproduced, and venerated on both continents, emerging as a transatlantic devotional and political icon. The exhibition offers a new perspective on the role of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a miraculously created image, an object of worship, and symbol of identity in the Hispanic world. Through nearly 70 works, including paintings, prints, sculptures and books, the exhibition shows how this manifestation of the Virgin, which first appeared on the Cerro del Tepeyac or Tepeyac Hill in 1531, transcended the borders of New Spain to become a powerful presence in the Spanish collective imagination. The project, curated by the Mexican professors Jaime Cuadriello (UNAM) and Paula Mues Orts (INAH), is the result of years of research and collaboration between institutions. The exhibition is structured into eleven thematic sections, combining small and large-format works that range from the earliest depictions of apparitions of the Virgin to the sophisticated vera effigies reproduced for devotional or political purposes.
Attributed to Joaquín Villegas (act. ca. 1713–53), The Eternal Father Painting the Virgin of Guadalupe, ca. 1740–50, oil on canvas (México City, INBAL/Museo Nacional de Arte, Donación FONCA, 1991).
The exhibition begins with a visual cartography that charts the surprising density of the presence of images of the Virgin of Guadalupe across all of Spain. This dissemination reflects economic, social and political factors such as trade with the Indies, mining and the movement of viceregal officials. These works reflect both devotion and the concerns of communities, artists, merchants, the nobility, and the clergy, who together made the Virgin a shared devotional cult. Themes covered in the exhibition’s different sections include the transmission of the Guadalupe story through standardised narrative and visual models; the formal genealogy of the image and its connection with European Marian icons such as the Immaculate Conception and the Tota pulchra; its status as a ‘painting not made by human hand’, which relates to the concept of the Deus pictor; and the sacredness of the Virgin’s mantle, conceived as a living relic and object of veneration. A comparison is also made with Iberian painting of the same period, revealing stylistic affinities and differences with schools such as Madrid and Andalusia.
Of particular interest are the sections dedicated to the vera effigies, which are exact copies or modified versions of the original, reproduced using specialised artistic techniques. Also notable is the presence of exotic materials, such as mother-of-pearl, ivory and brass, which arrived on the Manila Galleon, demonstrating the global reach of the cult of Guadalupe and its integration into transoceanic networks of cultural exchange. The exhibition includes masterpieces by artists from New Spain and the Iberian Peninsula, including José Juárez, Juan Correa, Manuel de Arellano, Miguel Cabrera, Velázquez, Zurbarán, and Francisco Antonio Vallejo. Together they trace an artistic and symbolic map of the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe which lasted from the 17th to the early 19th century.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Fundación Casa de México in Spain is collaborating on an extensive cultural programme that focuses on the symbolic and artistic dimension of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The programme includes lectures by the curators, a cycle of historical and contemporary films, informational capsules and workshops on traditional Mexican crafts taught by masters from Michoacán and Chiapas. These activities, taking place at the Museo del Prado and at the Fundación’s venue in Madrid, will offer participants a wide-ranging experience that interweaves history, art, and living tradition.
Jaime Cuadriello and Paula Mues Orts, eds., Tan lejos, tan cerca: Guadalupe de México en España (Madrid: Prado, 2025), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-8484806325, €32.
At Christie’s | Madame Simone Steinitz: The Legacy of Taste
Lot 63: Pair of Louis XVI ormolu-mounted Japanese Kakiemon porcelain pique-fleurs vases (17th century), mounted last quarter of the 18th century, 11 inches high (estimate: €60,000–80,000).
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From the press release for the sale:
Madame Simone Steinitz: The Legacy of Taste, #24067
Christie’s, Paris, 19 June 2025
Christie’s presents the sale Madame Simone Steinitz: The Legacy of Taste, on the 19th of June in Paris, which will be dedicated to the role and influence—still too little acknowledged—of Simone Steinitz, wife of the renowned antiquaire Bernard Steinitz, founder of the eponymous gallery. The sale offers Benjamin Steinitz, now at the head of the gallery, an opportunity to pay tribute to his mother, who throughout her life was much appreciated by leading art historians, collectors, and decorators, such as François-Joseph Graf, Jacques Grange, Peter Marino, Daniel Alcouffe, and Juan Pablo Molyneux. The 130 pieces of furniture and works of art—part of her world and carefully chosen for this auction—are a testament to her unique and elegant taste, as well as well as her discerning eye. They also reflect the talent and refinement with which Simone and Bernard brilliantly combined the expert’s eye with irresistible flair, in the purest tradition of the greatest 18th-century Parisian marchands-merciers.
Since its foundation, the quality and rarity of the pieces presented by the Steinitz gallery in Paris, now on the Rue Royale, have earned a reputation internationally among major art collectors as well as the most prestigious museums. United under one roof, the talents, skills, and expertise of the antiquaire, the art historian, and the master craftsmen have been composing, reinventing, and renewing, since 1968, what is now referred to as the magical ‘goût Steinitz’. The total pre-sale estimate of the sale is €3.3–5.2million.
At the source of the ‘gout Steinitz’ lies the relation with works of art nurtured by Simone Steinitz, which enabled her to develop and cultivate an aesthetic and an innate sense of refinement. She appreciated the materials, the colours, the memories and souvenirs evoked by these objects, making their spirit tangible, evoking a home, more than a gallery. An exceptional residence, the hôtel on the Rue Royale offers the ideal setting to pay tribute to this elegant taste and sense of décor, both intimate and magnificent. The mise-en-scene of the items in the sale, arranged specially at this hôtel for this occasion, is an invitation to engage with the essence of classical beauty and art-de-vivre. It is a celebration of decorative arts from the 17th to the late 19th century, with special focus on the 18th century, the true golden age of French savoir-faire. The result of unwavering rigour, the quality of the pieces echoes the words of Hubert de Givenchy: “Fashion changes, but 18th-century style will endure.”
As with this great collector, the selection of furniture and works of art in this collection reflects a fascination with highly architectural pieces, with a perfect sense of balance, harmony, and a certain nobility. The chosen works convey simplicity and elegance directly derived from the façades of the most beautiful hôtels particuliers. The beauty and richness of the materials, the refinement of the execution, reflect the talent and skills of the greatest French artists of the 18th century—such as Jean-Henri Riesener, Pierre-Philippe Thomire, Jean-François Leleu, and Georges Jacob, to name just a few. Superb examples of seat-furniture are also represented in the collection; herein the 18th century expresses all its refinement and creativity, illustrating the unparalleled talent of great chair-makers.
Numerous royal and other prestigious provenances can be discovered, such as three vases made by King Louis XV himself and his relatives, after a model by his intendant, Pierre-Elisabeth de Fontanieu, as well as a collection of porcelain objects mounted with gilt bronze mounts, reunited by the marchand-mercier Claude-François Julliot for King Louis XVI—not to forget the extraordinary vase mounted by the bronzier Pajot, from the fabled Rothschild collections. In the Age of Enlightenment, the marchand-mercier also became an important innovator in the development of taste. By coordinating the creation of hybrid, sometimes exotic, pieces of furniture and works of art, these pioneering dealers were at the heart of a new dialogue between crafts and creative processes, as well as between East and West.
Lecture | Mei Mei Rado on French Tapestries at the Qing Court
From the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History:
Mei Mei Rado | From France to the Qing Court: Tapestries as Cross-Cultural Textiles
Online and in-person, Villino Stroganoff, Rome, 24 June 2025, 11am
Left: The Indian Hunter, from the second set of the Tenture des Indes, detail, 1689–90, the Manufacture royale des Gobelins, tapestry, wool and silk (Paris: Mobilier national). Right: Yu Sheng and Zhang Weibang, “Cassowary,” in Manual of Birds (Niaopu), detail, 1774, album leaf, ink and colors on silk (Beijing: Palace Museum).
Large-scale pictorial tapestries ranked among the most precious art forms in the early modern period. While their circulations and functions among European courts have been well studied, less known are their journeys to China and subsequent roles in stimulating new developments in Qing imperial arts.
The first part of this talk uncovers the history of French tapestries that entered the Qing court during the eighteenth century as diplomatic gifts and trade goods, including the first and second Tentures chinoises woven by the Beauvais Manufactory and the Tenture des Indes made by the Gobelins Manufactory. Their trajectories reconstructed from both the French and Qing sides offer a window into the complexity of global networks and contingency of cultural encounters. These tapestries’ themes, marked by idealized exoticism compressing distance and time, functioned as a kind of diplomatic lingua franca adaptable to express divergent cultural and political visions. The second part of this presentation examines how European tapestries gave rise to a new type of textile art form in the Qing imperial workshops and an innovative mode for furnishing the palace interiors. The medium’s architectonic tension and interactive visual potential enabled the Qianlong emperor to envision his own physical presence in relation to the tapestry in space and offered him new ways to reenact narratives charged with imperial significance.
The event will be available online through the Bibliotheca Hertziana’s Vimeo Channel»
Mei Mei Rado is assistant professor at Bard Graduate Center. Her research and teaching focus on the history of textiles, dress, and decorative arts in China and France from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, especially on Sino-French exchanges. Previously she held curatorial and research positions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Palace Museum, Beijing. She is the author of The Empire’s New Cloth: Cross-Cultural Textiles at the Qing Court (Yale University Press, 2025). Next spring she will be an invited researcher at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art in Paris, where she will work on a new project on the adaptations of baroque and rococo ornament in Qing arts.
Classic Art London, Summer 2025
From Classic Art London’s Instagram account:
Classic Art London, Summer 2025
Galleries around London, Monday, 23 June — Friday, 4 July 2025
Join us during Classic Art London! Our summer season of old and modern masterworks at London’s leading dealers—in St. James’s, Mayfair, Belgravia, and Cecil Court—welcomes international collectors, curators, and connoisseurs. Selling exhibitions are accompanied by talks and events around art history and topics of debate for collections. From Titian to Turner, Paul Nash to Nordic Cubism, discover the finest works London’s art market has to offer this summer. Pick up an illustrated map from participating dealers and plan a gallery hop or leisurely stroll between venues. Enjoy special offers at Wilton’s, Franco’s, Café Murano, and Fortnum & Mason. Visit the website for full details.
Information on talks is available here»
Week-Long Courses at The Courtauld, Summer 2025
Jean-Baptiste Raguenet, A View of Paris from the Pont Neuf, 1763, oil on canvas, 46 × 84 cm
(Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 71.PA.26)
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From The Courtauld, with a few of the 20 offerings noted below (there also are 5 online courses available) . . .
Summer School at The Courtauld
The Courtauld, London, June — July 2025 (each class lasts one week)
Each in-person Summer School course is full-time, and while you can take only one course per week, you are able to pursue a particular interest in a period or theme across two or more weeks. The teaching day generally lasts from 10:00 to 16:30, with registration from 9:30 on the first day. Morning or afternoon classroom sessions are complemented by object-focused study in London’s museums, galleries, printrooms, churches, and other sites. We benefit greatly from The Courtauld Gallery. It features as a teaching resource in many of our courses, and is the venue for post-graduate talks introducing aspects of our collections and for our Summer School party. The fee for all Summer School on-campus courses is £645 (each online course is £395).
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#6 Harvey Shepherd | Rococo to Revolution: French Art and its Geographical Contexts, 1700–1789
In-person, 23–27 June 2025
This course will examine the ever-changing roles of French art during the turbulent eighteenth century, from the later years and death of Louis XIV to the Revolution of 1789. Students will consider the role that French art played in forming identities and tastes across the world; from shaping desirable aristocratic luxury to envisaging radical futures.
French art and taste of the eighteenth century will be encountered through a series of ever-widening geographical contexts. The opening classes will examine the political and economic centres of France, looking at the Château de Versailles, as well as the artistic culture of Paris and its society during the Enlightenment and the early years of the French Revolution. Alongside the court and the capital, we will consider France’s periphery and its neighbours, examining interactions with cities like Lyon and Marseille, and both peacetime connections and wartime rivalries with European states such as Great Britain, The Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire. Lastly, the course considers the wider global contexts of French art as it was both collected and sent abroad, examining the colonial and imperial interactions of France in an increasingly connected world, from the court of Qing China to Senegal, India, and the Caribbean.
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#7 Nicola Moorby | Travelling Light: Turner, Constable, and the Shape of British Art
In-person, 23–27 June 2025
This course will explore a fascinating aspect of British art history, the parallel careers of John Constable and J.M.W. Turner. Between them, these giants of landscape painting revolutionised the status of their genre, transforming the depiction of place through empirical experience and emotive response.
However, their approaches were very different. Turner roamed throughout Britain and the Continent in search of inspirational scenery, combining observation of nature with literary and historical references. By contrast, Constable nurtured his vision at home, rooting himself in the familiar and the everyday. As well as comparing differences and similarities within their works, we shall examine the wider cultural contexts pertinent to their careers: the reproductive print market, the nineteenth-century experience of travel, and particularly the role of the Royal Academy in London, the arena where their robust professional rivalry was played out. We shall also look closely at the artists’ materials and techniques, particularly their innovations with oil paint, watercolour and their use of sketchbooks. The course culminates with a discussion of their respective artistic legacies and their changing reputations through the twentieth century and beyond.
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#13 Kyle Leyden | Constructing the Heart of Empire: London’s Public Architecture
In-person, 30 June – 4 July 2025 (the course is booked, but there is a waiting list)
Architecture is the art form whose presence, symbolic message and socio-political legacy cannot be avoided. The construction of great buildings is an undertaking imbued with significant symbolic and political currency which continues to have an unavoidable resonance with those who continue to interact with these spaces today.
Through an overview of key historical moments and an examination of several major architectural projects, this course will present London as a city in which architecture was consciously deployed as a potent device through which the changing essential values of, and core political vision for, the British Empire were communicated to Londoners, the wider British population and to foreign observers. It will also consider current debates about how post-imperial societies can and ought to deal with the highly contested legacies of these prominent urban spaces.
Engaging with diverse issues and concepts, the course gives students an opportunity to gain a solid understanding of the social and artistic history of London and its critical role as a stage for the theatre of Empire. It features visits to major public buildings and royal palaces and includes spaces that are otherwise inaccessible to the general public including the Royal Apartments of the Palace of Westminster, and the spectacular interiors of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
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#17 Giulia Martina Weston | Beyond Artemisia: Italian Women Artists in the Long 17th Century
In-person, 7–11 July 2025
Over the last decade a conspicuous number of monographic exhibitions has been devoted to Italian women artists of the early modern period, paving the way for notable scholarly findings, chief rediscoveries and newly emerged research avenues. Focusing on the careers and production of a selected group of artists, this course will unveil the most significant discoveries gathered so far, aiming to engage its attendees in a rich exchange on the roles played by these extraordinary women in their society as well as consider what lesson can be drawn today from their experiences.
Ranging from the pioneering examples set by Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana to the versatile output of Artemisia Gentileschi and Giovanna Garzoni, our enquiry will look at specific geographical areas (such as the Bologna of Elisabetta Sirani and Ginevra Cantofoli) and consider a wealth of artistic media, from minute artworks on parchment to Plautilla Bricci’s grand architectural designs. Visits to the National Gallery and The Courtauld Print Room will allow us to gain first-hand knowledge of this exquisite group of artists, and to consider their legacy in dialogue with the predominant art-historical canon.
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#23 Sheila McTighe | Re-Imagining the Everyday: Genre Paintings and Prints in 16th- to 18th-Century Europe
In-person, 14–18 July 2025
The secular subject matter we now call ‘genre’ imagery grew steadily in popularity through the early modern period across Europe. From depictions of peasants at work or play to the erotic intrigues of the aristocracy, genre imagery explores the full range of human behaviours, sometimes imagined, and sometimes rooted firmly in real life. We shall investigate this subject matter and the artistic practices of naturalism or realism with which it was often allied in works by artists like Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Sofonisba Anguissola, Caravaggio, Jacques Callot, Diego Velazquez, Georges de La Tour, Judith Leyster, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Antoine Watteau, and Jean-Siméon Chardin.
In contemporary writings about art, genre painting was often decried as unworthy of an ambitious artist. However, primary sources show that such art was highly sought after, whether by elite patrons commissioning paintings or by ‘middling’ people buying images made for the marketplace. Printed images were a constant source of new subjects drawn from modern life, while prints reproducing paintings further expanded the range of genre art and reached a wide audience. Among other, we shall discuss what the functions of everyday imagery might have been for such a diverse body of people. Classroom sessions will be complemented by visits to London’s rich collections of paintings and prints.
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