Exhibition | The Count of Artois, Prince and Patron
Château de Maisons, in Maisons-Laffitte, a northwest outer suburb of Paris, about 12 miles from the city center
(Photo: © EPV / Thomas Garnier)
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From the Château de Versailles:
The Count of Artois, Prince and Patron: The Youth of the Last King of France
Château de Maisons, Maisons-Laffitte, 14 November 2025 — 2 March 2026
The result of a partnership between the Centre des Monuments Nationaux and the Palace of Versailles, this exhibition traces the life of the Count of Artois (1757–1836), brother of Louis XVI and the future Charles X, through his residences, his artistic projects, and his passions. From the splendor of the Château de Maisons to the count’s exile in 1789, it reveals the journey of a refined prince at the heart of the 18th century.
The exhibition begins with a presentation of the Château de Maisons in the 18th century and then traces the life of the Prince of Artois from his birth to his exile. The prince’s personality, his life, his patronage, and his taste are explored through a great variety of objects: graphic arts, paintings, objets d’art, sculptures, furniture, curiosities, and books. The exhibition also highlights the prince’s interest in architecture, as he was the last owner of the Château de Maisons under the Ancien Régime. Sourced primarily from the collections of the Palace of Versailles, the exhibition benefits from additional prestigious loans from the National Archives, the National Library of France, the Louvre Museum, the Mobilier National, the Château de Fontainebleau, the Carnavalet Museum, the Musée de l’Armée – Invalides, the municipal library of Versailles, and the Fine Arts Museums of Amiens and Reims, as well as from private collections.
The exhibition as installed at the Château de Maisons
(Photo: © EPV / Thomas Garnier)
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The Count of Artois, Future Charles X
Reputed for his frivolous spirit and taste for luxury, the Count of Artois was both an attractive and controversial figure, eccentric yet conservative. Charles-Philippe of France, known under the title Count of Artois, was born in Versailles on 9 October 1757. He was the grandson of Louis XV and the brother of Louis XVI and the future Louis XVIII. He became King of France upon the death of the latter in 1824, under the name Charles X, and soon emerged as the representative of the most uncompromising Catholic faction. He was consecrated at Reims the following year. The July Ordinances of 1830, which restricted freedom of the press and dissolved the Chamber, triggered an uprising that became known as the Three Glorious Days. Faced with the revolt, Charles X abdicated and left France. His exile led him first to Scotland, then to Prague, and finally to Istria (a peninsula shared by Slovenia, Croatia, and Italy), where he died on 6 November 1836.
A Taste for Innovation
From an early age, the Count of Artois distinguished himself through his marked interest in splendor and refinement, coupled with an unrestrained passion for the modern currents of art and fashion. He was very close to Marie-Antoinette at the beginning of her reign, and they shared this common enthusiasm. However, unlike the queen, constrained by the demands of court etiquette, the Count of Artois enjoyed far greater freedom to adopt and promote the latest trends.
The château de Maisons, a masterpiece by François Mansart, was built from 1633 onward for René de Longueil, a magistrate of the Parliament of Paris. Designed as a pleasure residence, it became, as early as the 17th century, a place admired by the court. King Louis XIV himself visited it several times. In the following century, the estate entered a new era of splendor when, in 1777, the Count of Artois acquired it. He commissioned the architect François-Joseph Bélanger to transform the château with ambitious embellishment projects, refined interior decoration, and modern gardens. The count intended to make it both a setting for entertainment and a symbol of aristocratic refinement. But the upheavals of 1789 brought the work to a halt, and the prince’s property was confiscated.
After the Revolution, the château passed through various hands, from Marshal Lannes under the Empire to the banker Jacques Laffitte, who subdivided the park. The château was saved from ruin at the beginning of the 20th century thanks to its listing as a historic monument and its acquisition by the State. Today, restored and open to the public, the Château de Maisons remains a jewel of the Grand Siècle and still bears the mark of the Count of Artois’s lavish ambitions, whose tenure constitutes one of the most brilliant episodes in its history.
A Dialogue between Collections
The partnership established in 2013 between the Centre des Monuments Nationaux and the Palace of Versailles creates a dialogue between collections that are too often overlooked and major landmarks of France’s national heritage. Temporary exhibitions allow both institutions to pool their resources in order to offer as many people as possible the opportunity to discover, or rediscover, chapters of French history within the prestigious setting of national monuments. The CMN and the Palace of Versailles have concluded a deposit agreement that will allow the return and presentation, in situ, of works that were once at Maisons during the time of the Count of Artois, seized during the Revolution, and later kept at Versailles.
Curators
• Laurent Salomé, director of the National Museum of the Palaces of Versailles and Trianon
• Vincent Bastien, scientific collaborator at the Palace of Versailles
• Benoît Delcourte, chief curator at the Palace of Versailles
• Raphaël Masson, chief curator at the Palace of Versailles
• Clotilde Roy, responsible for enriching the collections of the Centre des Monuments Nationaux
• Gabriel Wick, doctor of history
Vincent Bastien, Benoît Delcourte, and Clotilde Roy, eds., Le Comte d’Artois, Prince et Mécène: La Jeunesse du Dernier Roi de France (Paris: Éditions du patrimoine, 2025), 96 pages, ISBN: 978-2757710821, €16.
At Christie’s | From the Collection of Arthur Georges Veil-Picard
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Happy Family (L’Heureuse Famille, alternatively: Young Couple Contemplating a Sleeping Child, The Return Home, or The Reconciliation), oil on canvas, 70 × 89 cm. Estimate: €1,500,000–2,000,000.
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From the press release (8 January) for the sale:
Chefs-d’oeuvre de la collection Veil-Picard, Auction #24451
Christie’s, Paris, 25 March 2026
On March 25, Christie’s is proud to present at auction a group of thirty masterpieces from the collection of Arthur Georges Veil-Picard (1854–1944). Rarely exhibited, this collection—whose works are often known only through black-and-white reproductions—remains among the most mysterious and coveted. Featuring works by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Hubert Robert, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, and Marie-Suzanne Roslin, the sale brings together the greatest names in 18th-century French painting and could, on its own, embody this golden age of art history in France. A true labor of love for the 18th century, the collection perfectly illustrates the joviality, sense of pleasure, and freedom so characteristic of the period. Estimated at €5–8 million, this exceptional ensemble represents a long-awaited event for collectors in search of masterpieces.
Marie-Suzanne Roslin, Madame Hubert Robert, née Anne-Gabrielle Soos, 1771, pastel. Estimate: €70,000–100,000.
Pierre Etienne, Vice President of Christie’s France and International Director of the Old Masters Department, and Hélène Rihal, Head of the Old Master and 19th-Century Drawings Department, note: “There are works one searches for over many years, desired even without having seen them. This is the case for these museum-quality pieces from the Veil-Picard collection, kept hidden within the family for decades. A heritage preserved with pride, which Christie’s is honored to unveil to the public for the first time. The sale is also an opportunity to pay tribute to Arthur Georges Veil-Picard, who assembled this unique collection purely out of his love for drawing and painting and his taste for marvelous images.”
Banker and brilliant entrepreneur at the helm of the renowned Pernod distillery, Arthur Georges Veil-Picard began building his collection in the early 20th century. A free-spirited collector—almost self-taught, instinctive, and passionate about the 18th century—he gathered important treasures in his private mansion in the Plaine Monceau district of Paris. Over forty years, he created an ensemble that remains a reference worldwide, especially among museum curators and collectors of Old Master paintings and drawings. A discerning connoisseur, Veil-Picard also inherited a lineage of knowledgeable collectors and generous benefactors of Alsatian origin. The Louvre and the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie in Besançon, the family’s hometown, benefited from this generosity on numerous occasions. Today, many works from the Veil-Picard collection are housed in the Louvre, Versailles, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Among Veil-Picard’s favorite artists, Fragonard best reflects the collector’s jovial character—he owned up to sixteen of his works, five of which are included in the sale. The centerpiece, The Happy Family, perfectly illustrates the ‘Fragonard style’ (€1,500,000–2,000,000). Painted in the 1770s, after the Italian journey that liberated the painter’s manner, this work showcases Fragonard’s lively, spontaneous brushwork. Its tender scene is enhanced by the voluptuousness of a deliberately playful composition. Of the various versions of the work, the one offered here is considered by scholars to be the first and most representative of Fragonard’s palette. Two other versions remain in private collections, and a preparatory study is held at the André Malraux Museum in Le Havre.
Hubert Robert, Madame Geoffrin’s Luncheon.
The same lightness is found in a delightful portrait, The Little Coquette, also known as The Peeping Girl (€400,000–600,000). This mischievous, tilted face offers the quintessence of Fragonard’s art: a painting of pleasure and spontaneity. Beyond its aesthetic and expressive qualities, it boasts a prestigious provenance, having belonged to Hippolyte Walferdin, a great admirer of 18th-century art, and later to Count de Pourtalès—collectors among the most enlightened of their time, still celebrated today. A charming, large wash drawing, Woman with a Dove, also came from Walferdin’s collection before being acquired by the Rothschild family (€200,000–300,000).
Intimate, confidential scenes remain highly prized by lovers of 18th-century painting. Works by Hubert Robert, Madame Geoffrin’s Luncheon and An Artist Presents a Portrait to Madame Geoffrin, perfectly exemplify this taste. Famous for her salon that gathered Enlightenment scholars and artists, Madame Geoffrin embodies the spirit of her century. These two paintings, depicting her in her drawing room and bedroom, brilliantly showcase Robert’s talent for capturing the atmosphere of his time. They are also the last works commissioned by this celebrated patron (estimate on request).
Among the twenty drawings in the collection, a large sheet in red chalk and black stone by Antoine Watteau stands out as a major rediscovery in the artist’s corpus. Illustrated in black and white in the 1996 catalogue raisonné of Watteau’s drawings, it was described there as “from an inaccessible private collection.” Reminiscent of the celebrated Pierrot in the Louvre, this Actor Holding a Guitar under His Arm has never been exhibited publicly (€600,000–800,000). A remarkable and joyful drawing by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin offers a vivid example of his talent as a chronicler of Parisian life. While female nudes were forbidden at the Academy, the artist depicts a painter and his model in the intimacy of the studio (The Private Academy, €150,000–200,000). A pastel by Marie-Suzanne Roslin, one of the rare female academicians of the Enlightenment, presents a delicate portrait of Madame Hubert Robert, née Anne-Gabrielle Soos (€70,000–100,000). Finally, in a more historical vein, the collection also includes two pairs of drawings dated 1783 by Jean-Michel Moreau, illustrating festivities held in honor of the Dauphin’s birth by the royal couple at the Hôtel de Ville (€300,000–500,000) and at the Palais Royal (€70,000–100,000).
Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, The Private Academy, 1776. Estimate: €150,000–200,000.
Exhibition | Virtue and Vice: Allegory in European Drawing
On view this spring at The Getty:
Virtue and Vice: Allegory in European Drawing
Getty Center, Los Angeles, 3 March — 7June 2026
This rotation from Getty’s collection explores how European artists from the 16th to 19th centuries made drawings to criticize bad behavior as well as praise virtuous deeds. Drawings of proper and improper conduct range from straightforward examples (charity, lust, and greed) to complex allegories (virtue, decadence, and friendship). Whether warning against sinful ways or celebrating how one should behave, drawings visualized moral codes, political ideologies, and social norms.
Image: Jacques de Gheyn II, Allegory of Avarice, ca. 1609, pen and brown ink, 18 × 13 cm (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003.23).
Exhibition | Learning to Draw
Hubert Robert, A Draftsman in the Capitoline Gallery, detail, ca. 1765, red chalk, 46 × 34 cm
(Los Angeles: Getty Museum, 2007.12)
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Now on view at The Getty:
Learning to Draw
The Getty Center, Los Angeles, 21 October 2025 — 25 January 2026
Drawing is a skill, gained like any other through study and practice. Combining the movement of the hand with the dedication of the mind, drawing was considered the foundation of the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture since the Renaissance. Proficiency in drawing was critical for exploring, inventing, and communicating ideas visually, but how was this foundational ability actually learned? This exhibition explores artistic training and the mastery of drawing in Europe from about 1550 to 1850.
Call for Papers | The Lessons of Rome
From ArtHist.net:
Les Leçons de Rome / The Lessons of Rome, 9th Edition
Lyon Museum of Fine Arts, 13 March 2026
Proposals due by 15 February 2026
This study day aims to provide a space of reflection for anyone who grasps Italy as an architectural, urban, and landscape research laboratory. Defining Italy as a laboratory involves analyzing contexts of urban policies as well as design experiences, theories, practices, legacies, mutations, and prospects. It means building knowledge and culture, learning and developing tools to conceive the present and to enrich contemporary practices. The Lessons of Rome will provide an opportunity to engage current and upcoming research, to share existing and generate new knowledge and dialogues with Italy. Professionals, students, PhD candidates, researchers, and people from various academic disciplines, schools, and nationalities are welcome. Th study day is organized in partnership by the Ecole nationale supérieur d’architecture de Lyon, the LAURE, the Institut Culturel Italien of Lyon, and the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts.
Researchers wishing to contribute are invited to send a proposal with a title, an abstract (about 200 words), and a short biography to rome@lyon.archi.fr before 15 February 2026. The official language of the day is French, but proposals and papers may also be submitted in English.
Scientific Committee
Nicolas Capillon, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
Julie Cattant, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
Benjamin Chavardès, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
Lorenzo Ciccarelli, Università degli studi di Firenze
Philippe Dufieux, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
Federico Ferrari, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Paris-Malaquais
Audrey Jeanroy, Université de Tours
Manuel Lopez Segura, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
Alessandro Panzeri, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
Davide Spina, The University of Hong Kong
Call for Papers | Rethinking Early Modern Prints, 15th–18th Centuries
From ArtHist.net:
Rethinking Early Modern Prints Today: New Questions and New Approaches
Actualités et perspectives de la recherche sur l’estampe à l’époque moderne
Université de Poitiers, CRIHAM, 24 September 2026
Proposals due by 16 February 2026
This symposium aims to bring together established researchers, early career scholars, PhD candidates, and students—in art history or related disciplines—to present and discuss current research and perspectives on prints in the early modern period (15th–18th centuries). It seeks to provide a forum for exchange devoted to recent approaches and ongoing projects, whether they focus on the practices and techniques of printmaking, on its networks of production, circulation, and exchange, or on the place of the printed image within visual and material culture. Presentations, lasting around twenty minutes, may address, without geographical restriction, any aspect of the production, circulation, or reception of prints, from historical, artistic, material or theoretical perspectives.
As part of the Creation, Corpus, Heritage (Création, corpus, patrimoine) program of the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires en Histoire, Histoire de l’Art et Musicologie (CRIHAM), the symposium will take place at the University of Poitiers and will also be available via videoconference. Please submit an abstract with a title (in French or English) of no more than 2500 characters (including spaces) and a short biographical note (institutional affiliation, contact details, and research topics) by 16 February 2026 to je.rechercheestampe@gmail.com.
Organizers
• Teoman Akgönül, University of Poitiers (CRIHAM) and INHA
• Amélie Folliot, Rennes 2 University (HCA)
• Estelle Leutrat, University of Poitiers (CRIHAM)
• Louise Quentel, University of Poitiers (CRIHAM)
Exhibition | Painters, Ports, and Profits
Unknown artist (Company style), Breadnut (Artocarpus camansi), ca. 1825, watercolor, gouache, and graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper, sheet: 15 × 19 1/4 inches (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund, B2022.5).
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From the press release for the exhibition, which opens today:
Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750–1850
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 8 January — 21 June 2026
Curated by Laurel Peterson and Holly Shaffer
The Yale Center for British Art presents Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750–1850 from January 8 through June 21, 2026. Spanning a century of artistic production, the exhibition reveals the material and technical innovations of the Indian, Chinese, and British artists whose work and lives were shaped by the British East India Company’s global reach. Featuring more than one hundred objects, Painters, Ports, and Profits highlights the beauty and range of the extraordinary artwork produced within the context of one of the most powerful and ruthless corporations in history.
“This exhibition brings to light an astonishing chapter of global art history, when artistic innovation and exchange flourished under the shadow of empire,” said Martina Droth, Paul Mellon Director of the Yale Center for British Art. “It tells the story of direct encounters between artists from different continents and traditions, who responded to one another by experimenting with new materials and methods. We are thrilled to share these important, and rarely seen, works from our collection and to invite new reflection on their artistic legacy.”
Between 1750 and 1850, the Company’s growing commercial, military, and political operations linked an incredibly varied group of artists—amateurs, soldiers, and professionals—into a vast network that stretched from London to Calcutta (Kolkata) to Canton (Guangzhou). As goods, people, and ideas circulated through the Company’s networks, artists experimented with papers, pigments, and methods, adapting techniques from different traditions to develop a striking visual language that connected art to the expanding global economy.
“We are excited to take visitors on a journey to ports and trading cities across India and China where artists produced captivating and innovative works of art,” said exhibition curators Laurel O. Peterson and Holly Shaffer. “The period of the East India Company is one in which art and business intersected. There is a profound tension between the ventures of a global corporation and the works of beauty created by the artists in its orbit. With technical brilliance, these artists ingeniously fused traditions and materials together to develop new ways of making, picturing, and selling.”
Years in development, the preparations for Painters, Ports and Profits included extensive original research and careful technical study by curators and conservators at the YCBA in collaboration with conservation scientists at Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage. The resulting exhibition illuminates the museum’s deep holdings of Asian art, showcasing many exceptional works that have hardly ever or never been displayed. Highlights of the exhibition include stunning small- and large-scale portraits, such as the monumental Woman Holding a Hookah at Faizabad, India (1772) by Tilly Kettle and the intimate Portrait of a Woman (ca. 1850) by an artist from the circle of eminent painter Lam Qua. Watercolor drawings of a great Indian fruit bat by Bhawani Das (1778–82) and breadnut by an artist once known (ca. 1825), among others, record the flora and fauna of the Company’s domain with striking naturalism. A spectacular thirty-seven-foot-long scroll uses delicate watercolor to depict the city of Lucknow, India, in panoramic detail, which recent technical analysis has revealed was completed by multiple artists working in collaboration.
Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750–1850 is organized by the Yale Center for British Art. The exhibition is curated by Laurel O. Peterson, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings at the YCBA, and Holly Shaffer, Associate Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University.
r e l a t e d p r o g r a m m i n g
First Look | Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750–1850
Thursday, 15 January, 4pm, Lecture Hall and Livestream
Spring Exhibitions Openings
Thursday, 26 February, 4pm, Lecture Hall and Livestream
Curator Tours
Thursdays, 22 January, 26 March, 16 April, 21 May, and 18 June, 4pm
Docent Tours
Saturdays, 3pm
The catalogue is published by YCBA and distributed by Yale UP:
Laurel O. Peterson and Holly Shaffer, eds., Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750–1850 (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2026), 280 pages, ISBN: 978-0300286540, $65. With contributions by Mark Aronson, Tim Barringer, Swati Chattopadhyay, Soyeon Choi, Anita Dey, Gillian Forrester, Navina Najat Haidar, Richard R. Hark, Emma Hartman, Brooke Krancer, Margaret Masselli, Kaylani Madhura Ramachandran, Romita Ray, Yuthika Sharma, Marcie Wiggins, Winnie Wong, and Tom Young.
Featuring more than one hundred objects drawn primarily from the YCBA’s collection, including architectural drawings, watercolors, and hand-colored aquatints, the catalog critically reconsiders the vibrant creative exchanges between artists in India, China, and Britain during a period driven by ruthless commercial and colonial expansion.
New Book | The Royal Pavilion, Brighton
From Yale UP:
Alexandra Loske, The Royal Pavilion, Brighton: A Regency Palace of Colour and Sensation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-0300266665, $50.
The first in-depth study since the 1980s of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, a building that is often considered the most impressive architectural expression of the Romantic imagination and that has become a hallmark of Regency style
Created between 1787 and 1823 by George IV, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton is perhaps the most daring and enchanting example of a building that expresses the European fascination with what in the early nineteenth century was considered the ‘Orient’, in particular China and India. The building, with its Indian-inspired exterior, was the work of the renowned architect John Nash, who with the contributions of several other gifted and inventive architects, artists, and designers, created a building that draws you in, takes you on a journey, and plays with your senses. Featuring new photography, this lavishly illustrated book will provide a fresh look at the sumptuous Chinoiserie interiors of the Royal Pavilion and their enduring appeal. Drawing on recent research, conservation projects, and the unprecedented loan exhibition A Prince’s Treasure: From Buckingham Palace to the Royal Pavilion (2019–22), this book celebrates the colours and sensual beauty of these interiors while situating the Royal Pavilion in the context of the time of its creation and development under royal ownership, from its beginning in the wake of the French Revolution, through its transformation and extension during and just after the Napoleonic Wars, to its fate and legacy in the early Victorian era.
Alexandra Loske is a British-German art historian, writer, and curator with a particular interest in late-eighteenth and early nineteenth-century European art and architecture, specialising in the history of colour. She has been working at the University of Sussex since 1999, where she also studied art history and completed an AHRC-funded DPhil in 2014. The subject of her doctoral thesis was the use of colour and the application of colour theory in the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. Since 2014 Alexandra has been a curator at the Royal Pavilion. Since 2022, she has been the curator of the Royal Pavilion and Historic Properties at Brighton & Hove Museums.
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Note added (21 January 2026) — Alexandra Loske gave an online talk related to the book on 22 October 2025. The event was hosted by Cooper Hewitt and moderated by Jamie Kwan, the museum’s Assistant Curator of Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design. A recording of the talk is available here.
New Book | A Guide to Regency Dress
From Yale UP:
Hilary Davidson, A Guide to Regency Dress: From Corsets and Breeches to Bonnets and Muslins (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025), 248 pages, ISBN: 978-0300282412, $25.
An accessible, fun, yet authoritative guide to male and female Regency fashions.
Celebrated dress historian Hilary Davidson brings together nearly 20 years of research on Regency fashion in an illustrated guide for the first time. All the elements of the Regency wardrobe of both men and women—from coats, gowns and undergarments to shoes, accessories, beauty, hair and jewellery—are assembled, along with their textiles and trimmings. A Guide to Regency Dress is an essential companion to navigate the fashion world of Jane Austen or re-create the Regency look.
Hilary Davidson is associate professor and chair of MA Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. She has curated, lectured, broadcast, and published extensively in her field and is author of Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion and Jane Austen’s Wardrobe.
Exhibition | Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture
Aimee Ng, the exhibition’s curator, is the subject of a recent feature by Alexandra Starr in The New York Times (20 December 2025). From the press release (3 November 2025) for the exhibition:
Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture
The Frick Collection, New York, 12 February — 11 May 2026
Curated by Aimee Ng
Thomas Gainsborough, Mary, Countess Howe, 1763–64, oil on canvas, 243 × 154 cm (English Heritage, Kenwood House, London).
Beginning 12 February 2026, The Frick Collection will present its first special exhibition dedicated to the English artist Thomas Gainsborough, and the first devoted to his portraiture ever held in New York. Displaying more than two dozen paintings, the show will explore the richly interwoven relationship between Gainsborough’s portraits and fashion in the eighteenth century. The works included represent some of the greatest achievements from every stage of this period-defining artist’s career, drawn from the Frick’s holdings and from collections across North America and the United Kingdom.
The trappings and trade of fashion filled the artist’s world—in magazines and tailor shops, at the opera and on promenades—and his portraits were at the heart of it all. This exhibition invites visitors to consider not only the actual clothing the painter depicted, but also the role of his canvases as both records of and players in the larger conception of fashion: encompassing everything from class, wealth, labor, and craft to formality, intimacy, and time. Recent technical investigations also shed light on Gainsborough’s artistic process, including connections to materials that fueled the fashion industry.
Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture is organized by Aimee Ng, the museum’s Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator. She states: “The spectacular and at times, to modern eyes, absurd fashions in portraits by Thomas Gainsborough and his contemporaries continue to fascinate viewers today. The appeal of these demonstrations of taste, status, and wealth persists in tension with increased recognition, over the last few decades, of the injustices that often made such extravagance possible. This exhibition necessarily deals with clothing and personal attire, while exploring how fashion was understood in Gainsborough’s time, how it touched every level of society, and how portraiture itself was as much a construction and invention as a sitter’s style.”
Aimee Ng, Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture (New York: Rizzoli Electa, 2026), 200 pages, ISBN: 978-0847876235, $50. With an additional essay by Kari Rayner.
The exhibition is complemented by a richly illustrated catalogue authored by Aimee Ng, with an additional essay by Kari Rayner, Associate Conservator of Paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Along with entries for each work in the show, the catalogue features essays on portraiture and self-fashioning in Gainsborough’s era, on materials and techniques that linked clothing and paintings, and on the roles of class and time in eighteenth-century style. The volume considers how and why Gainsborough and his sitters—from dukes and duchesses to the artist’s family members to the once-enslaved writer and composer Ignatius Sancho—shaped how they would be immortalized in paint. The book also touches on the longstanding appeal of Gainsborough’s art, particularly its renewed popularity a century after the painter’s death among American collectors such as the Fricks, Vanderbilts, and Huntingtons.
Major support for Gainsborough: The Fashion of Portraiture is provided by an anonymous donor in honor of Ian Wardropper. Additional funding is provided by Barbara and Bradford Evans, Kathleen Feldstein, Michael and Jane Horvitz, Dr. Arlene P. McKay, The Helen Clay Frick Foundation, James K. Kloppenburg, David and Kate Bradford, Katie von Strasser – InspiratumColligere, the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation, Edward Lee Cave, Mr. and Mrs. Hubert L. Goldschmidt, Jennifer Schnabl, the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation, Bradley Isham Collins and Amy Fine Collins, Siri and Bob Marshall, Bailey Foote, Alexander Mason Hankin, Brittany Beyer Harwin and Zachary Harwin, and Otto Naumann and Heidi D. Shafranek. The exhibition catalogue is funded by Dr. Tai-Heng Cheng.
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