Enfilade

From the conference programme:

Sculpture and Trompe l’œil in European Ceramics:

From Bernard Palissy to the Present Day

Second Edition of the Annual Conference on European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Online, 12–13 July 2026

A combined effort of the Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ébénistes and the Low Countries Sculpture Society, whose libraries and archives have merged and are housed in the Hôtel de la Roche (1750) at Mons, the Annual International Conference had its inaugural edition in July 2025. This edition, dedicated to European ceramics, aims to address issues relating to figurative sculpture in the round, to relief sculpture and to trompe l’oeil, all in the medium of ceramics. This includes the imitation of other materials, such as wood or precious stones, and the mimetic representation of animals and plants. Sculpture and trompe l’oeil are recurring themes but have been little studied in a comprehensive manner in European ceramic art, not even in Art Deco ceramics, which frequently use sculptural forms, both in tableware and in purely decorative pieces.

The term trompe l’oeil comes from the world of easel painting, and the conference will be an opportunity to define more precisely the use and usefulness of this term in the world of ceramics. Our conference proposes to study cases that can shed light on this practice, from the Renaissance to the present day, in terms of the rendering of forms, colours and textures. These cases may concern the production, consumption, collecting and display of these types of ceramics throughout Europe and North America, from the Renaissance to the present day. Issues of design history, collaborations between creators and producers, artists and artisans, as well as the relations with any other people involved in the production of these ceramics may be studied. The theme will draw, in particular but not exclusively, on the rich tradition of ceramics in the Low Countries, from Antwerp majolica, via Tournai porcelain and Bouffioulx stoneware, to contemporary productions.

The conference will take place without audience (apart from the speakers, moderators and a few benefactors), but it will be filmed and broadcast live on YouTube for free, on our dedicated channel, The Low Countries Sculpture Society. The conference proceedings will be published in 2027 in a new academic journal dedicated to European sculpture and decorative arts, based on our annual international conferences.

Scientific Committee
Jean-Dominique Augarde, Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ebénistes, Paris / Mons
Yves De Leeuw, collector and exhibition curator
Bernard Dragesco, Dragesco-Cramoisan Gallery, Paris / Château de Barly
Errol Manners, historic ceramics specialist, London
Sylvie Millasseau-Wengraf, art historian, Switzerland
Tamara Préaud, formerly Cité de la Céramique, Sèvres, and president, The French Porcelain Society, London
Miriam E. Schefzyk, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Volker Seiberth, University of Heidelberg / The Low Countries Sculpture Society
Pier Terwen, art historian and conservator of sculpture and ceramics, Leiden

Organising Committee
Katia Berseneva, Ecole du Louvre, Paris / The Low Countries Sculpture Society
Guillaume Hambye, notary, Mons
Laurence Lenne, Galerie Art & Patrimoine, Ath
Léon Lock, The Low Countries Sculpture Society, Brussels / Mons
Grégory Maugé, Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ébénistes, Paris / Mons
Thierry Naveaux, The Low Countries Sculpture Society, Brussels / Mons
Sébastien Tercelin de Joigny, Tercelin de Joigny Gallery, Mons / Seneffe
Jenny Tondreau, Collegiate church of Sainte-Waudru, Mons

s u n d a y ,  1 2  j u l y

9.30  Léon Lock (The Low Countries Sculpture Society) — Introduction

10.05  Keynote Lecture
• Patricia Ferguson (London) — Artifice and Spectacle: the Conceit of a Lettuce as Large as Life for the European Table in the Mid-18th Century

11.00  Break

11.30  Session 1 | Trompe l’œil and Mimesis I
Moderator: Errol Manners
• Melody Hsu (McGill University, Montreal) — Book Flask: Trompe l’Œil and Deception in Early Modern Europe
• Mariette Boudgourd (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris) —Jardinières bûches, verres paysages et cendriers poissons. De nouvelles formes de la nature « genre Palissy » au XIXe siècle en France

12.45  Lunch break

14.00  Session 2 | Trompe l’œil and Mimesis, II
Moderator: Volker Seiberth
• Nadia Mariana Consiglieri, Universidad de Buenos Aires — Reptiles, amphibians and trompe l’œil in a Bernard Palissy ceramic piece from the Museum of Decorative Arts in Buenos Aires
• Carina-Nathalia Madonna Visconti-Paff (Sapienza Università di Roma) — The Illusion of Lustre: Trompe l’œil in Hungarian Zsolnay Ceramics, Eosin Imitations of Metals and Nature in the Art Nouveau Style

15.15  Break

15.45  Session 3 | The Sculptor and the Sculptural in Ceramics
Moderator: Bernard Dragesco
• Jean-Dominique Augarde (Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ebénistes, Paris/Mons) — Piat Joseph Sauvage et le Salon de 1798

16.20  Keynote Lecture
• Errol Manners (historic ceramics specialist, London) — Louis-François Roubiliac and Chelsea Porcelain: A Reassessment

m o n d a y ,  1 3  j u l y

9.30  Session 4 | Manufactures, Workshops, and Sculptors in Ceramics
Moderator: Sylvie Millasseau-Wengraf
• Valérie Montens (Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels) and
Elise Urbain Ruano (Domaine & Musée royal de Mariemont) — Entre virtuosité technique et langage décoratif : la sculpture en porcelaine à la manufacture d’Ixelles de 1830 à 1953
• Carys Wilkins et Claire Blakey (National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh) — European Ceramic Sculpture Rediscovered at National Museums Scotland
• Grégory Maugé (Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ébénistes, Paris / Mons) and Léon Lock (The Low Countries Sculpture Society, Brussels / Mons) — La sculpture en céramique en Hainaut au XXe siècle