Enfilade

From Reaktion Books, with distribution in the US by The University of Chicago Press:

Helen Pierce, The Profaned Pencil: A History of British Political Caricature, 1600–1860 (London: Reaktion Books, 2026), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1836392859, £29 / $42.

The first comprehensive survey of the rise of political caricature in the United Kingdom.

The Profaned Pencil surveys the vivid and unruly world of British political caricature between 1600 and 1860. It follows the rise of graphic satire from polemical seventeenth-century broadsides to the exuberant prints of the Georgian era and the mass-market illustrated press of Victorian Britain. Caricature lay at the intersection of politics, art, and the commercial print trade, with satirical images functioning as both entertainment and political commentary. From attacks on monarchs and ministers to reflections on class, gender, and war, caricatures became a powerful and popular means of informing public debate. Illuminating the artists, technologies, and markets that propelled this artform’s spread, Helen Pierce provides new insights into how caricature mediated authority, dissent, and identity over two and a half transformative centuries.

From Yale UP:

Joanna Stalnaker, The Rest Is Silence: Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-0300181340, $35. The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History.

A moving, intimate portrait of the Enlightenment philosophers as they faced the end of their lives and their historical moment.

Shortlisted for the Kenshur Prize, sponsored by The Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University.

What would the Enlightenment look like if we viewed it through the eyes of the philosophers as they were facing death? Joanna Stalnaker turns our usual perspective on the Enlightenment on its head, bringing to light a set of works written at the end of the Old Regime and at the end of their authors’ lives. These works, all written before the French Revolution, cast a retrospective glance over the intellectual movement their authors participated in, and over the authors’ own lives and works. Stalnaker shows that the beauty of these works stems from their authors’ efforts to give literary form to the materiality and fragility of their dying bodies. As they reflected on writing as a means of reaching posterity, Enlightenment philosophers embraced the possibility that neither their names nor their writings would survive long beyond the decomposition of their bodies. They inscribed the silence and nothingness of death into their last works.

Stalnaker’s book unsettles reigning interpretations of the Enlightenment as a precursor to our modernity and shows its protagonists at their moments of fragility and doubt, capturing their sense of an ending rather than the confidence in a glowing future so often attributed to them.

Joanna Stalnaker is professor of French at Columbia University. She is the author of a prizewinning first book, The Unfinished Enlightenment: Description in the Age of the Encyclopedia. She lives in New York City.

Distributed by Liverpool University Press:

Brent Elliott and Roger Bowdler, The British Cemetery: Architecture, Landscape, Sculpture (London: Historic England, 2026), 544 pages, ISBN: 978-1836245964, £50 / $85.

Covering 1700–2020, this book is the first major study of the British cemetery, tracing the rise of these new landscapes of remembrance from early modern times to the present. Victorian cemeteries drew on the Georgian churchyard tradition and a long-established interest in the burial customs of antiquity. New commercial opportunities were seized as church controls ended, with fast-growing urban populations demanding space for their dead. The results were magnificent: new combinations of layout, planting and myriad memorials arose, reflecting the eclectic taste and religious mood of the times. Virgin land on the edge of towns was adapted to receive mass burials, and the mason’s trade expanded rapidly to supply the growing market for family memorials. Chapters based on new research look at the evolution of buildings, planting, and tombs. Contemporary comments are extensively cited, and a picture emerges of these complex places, seething with family loss and communal memory. From grand mausoleum to humble burial plot, this survey casts light on all varieties of grave, and brings the story up to the present day.

Brent Elliott, formerly Librarian at the Royal Horticultural Society, member of the Victorian Society’s Buildings Committee, has been a committee member or trustee for Kensal Green, West Norwood, and Highgate Cemeteries.
Roger Bowdler worked at English Heritage/Historic England from 1989 to 2018 as a historian and Director of Listing. A specialist in commemorative art, he has written on church monuments, churchyards, mausolea, and war memorials.

From Yale UP:

Andrew Moisey, The Photographic World Picture: A New Prehistory of Photography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2026), 248 pages, ISBN: 978-0300285208, $65.

A dynamic prehistory of photography tracing the medium through more than four centuries of Western art.

The prehistory of photography is often told as a story of science, of a magic arising from the camera obscura and advances in chemistry, but not as a history of art. In this exhilarating and erudite book, Andrew Moisey uses a practicing photographer’s perspective to show how a sense of ‘being there’—the immediacy, takenness, and embodiment inherent in a photograph—originates in the Western art of everyday life before photography. Moisey argues that photography’s spirit appears in art before its invention—and that its invention sets the standard of first-person subjectivity on which Impressionism and Modernism were raised.

Spanning over four centuries from the Renaissance to today, the book shows how pictorial models of the present shift from ‘world pictures’ to embodied, situated encounters before photography’s invention, giving paintings and prints a crucial role in photography’s ancestry for the first time. Moisey then reverses the book’s perspective to reveal how photographic artists in the twentieth century used graphic abstraction to resurrect the early modern ‘world picture’ of life. Drawing on his experiences as both a scholar and a photographer, Moisey grounds his book in art history and his own first-hand experience.

Andrew Moisey is assistant professor in the Department of History of Art & Visual Studies at Cornell University.

Soon to be available in the UK with January distribution by Yale UP:

Adriano Aymonino, Paper Marbles: Design, Antiquarianism and Geology in Pier Leone Ghezzi’s Studio di Molte Pietre (1726) (London: Burlington Press, 2027), 384 pages, ISBN: 978-1916237872, £45 / $60.

Newly published by The Burlington Press in a hand-numbered edition of just 500 copies, Paper Marbles presents the first complete facsimile reproduction of Pier Leone Ghezzi’s Studio di Molte Pietre (1726), an extraordinary manuscript documenting the coloured marbles of ancient Rome through meticulously painted watercolours.

Pier Leone Ghezzi (1674–1755), was a polymathic artist, intellectual, draughtsman, antiquarian, and musician. For historians, his name is today largely associated with his witty caricatures of prominent figures in Roman society, as well as of French and British Grand Tourists. But at the same time he was also a stone carver and a skilled antiquarian—interests that resulted in the production of many drawings after antique sculptures, cameos, coins, and vases, of which the Studio di Molte Pietre represents just one, albeit exemplary, example.

Ghezzi, a skilled fresco painter, used the Studio di Molte Pietre whenever he needed to replicate ancient coloured marbles in paintings on the walls of palaces and villas in and around Rome. The volume, therefore, also constitutes a unique survival among similar repertoires that were used by Baroque and late-Baroque artist in their daily practice. Alongside remarkable images that have never before been reproduced in their entirety, this publication includes transcriptions and translations of Ghezzi’s annotations, as well as introductory, contextual and interpretative essays. These watercolours have never been reproduced in their entirety. A limited print run of 500 available, each hand numbered.

Adriano Aymonino is the Director of the MA in the Art Market and the History of Collecting at the University of Buckingham. His publications include Drawn from the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal (Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2015); Enlightened Eclecticism (PMC for Yale University Press, 2021 — winner of the 2022 William MB Berger Prize for British Art History), and a revised and updated edition of Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny’s Taste and the Antique (Brepols, 3 vols, 2024). He is currently working on a critical edition of Robert Adam’s Grand Tour correspondence, which will be hosted on the Sir John Soane’s Museum website (2025). He is also an associate editor for the Journal of the History of Collections.

c o n t e n t s

Introduction
Technical Note
1  Pier Leone Ghezzi: Drawings, Gems, Studi, and Stones
2  The Stones of Rome in the Age of the Grand Tour
3  Ghezzi’s Studio di Molte Pietre (1726)
4  Paper Marbles in Ghezzi’s Circle: Gaetano Piccini, ‘Draughtsman of Antiquities’, and the Elusive Giuseppe Lucchesi
5  Coloured Marble and Sectilia in the mid-1720s: the Tradition of Antiquarian Drawings and the Domus Transitoria
6  Publication, Visual Conventions and Reliability
7  Taxonomy and Geology; Nature and Art
Conclusion
Facsimile

Appendix
Bibliography
Index

From Liverpool University Press:

Elisa Cazzato, Italian Art, Spectacle, and Politics at the Paris Opéra: Ignazio Degotti, 1758–1824 (Liverpool: Voltaire Foundation, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2026), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-1805969198, $115. Also available digitally.

Ignazio Degotti (1758–1824) was one of the most influential scenographers working in Paris during the Revolution and Empire. As peintre en chef at the Paris Opéra for more than two decades, he worked at the centre of an institution where visual spectacle became a powerful instrument of artistic innovation and political representation. Drawing on extensive archival research in Italy and France, this book reconstructs Degotti’s career and situates his activity within the broader transformation of theatrical culture in the long eighteenth century. It shows how scenography functioned not merely as decoration but as a form of visual dramaturgy capable of structuring space, guiding the spectator’s gaze and giving political meaning to the performance.

Through case studies ranging from Revolutionary theatre to the grand operatic spectacles under Napoleon, the book reveals collaborative networks behind these performances. It also examines Degotti’s artistic relationships with figures such as Jacques-Louis David and the Greuze family, illuminating how sociability, friendship and artistic exchange shaped visual ideas in Napoleonic Paris. By placing scenography at the centre of Enlightenment visual culture, this study offers a new perspective on spectacle, artistic collaboration and the politics of performance while highlighting one of the least studied scenographers of the period.

Based at the University of Naples Federico II, Elisa Cazzato holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Sydney. Her research encompasses scenography, ephemeral art, spectacle, and artistic networks in the long eighteenth century. A former Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, she collaborated with New York University and Sorbonne Université.

c o n t e n t s

Preface
Opening the curtain: An introduction
Scenography as visual dramaturgy
The challenge of ephemerality
An interdisciplinary approach

1  Sceneography in the Age of the Enlightenment
Setting the scene: Scenography as an evolution of prospettiva, a Renaissance legacy
Seventeenth-century Italian paths: Machinery and perspective as illusion
Diverging tastes: Resisting change on seventeenth-century French stages
Key terms: Scénographie and Décoration, a lexical and Encyclopedic shift
Reform under the Enlightenment: The tableau as a spatial and emotional configuration of the stage

2  Ignazio Degotti (1758–1824): The Italian Milieu
The Degotti family in Turin: Origins and background
Models of ambitions: The Galliari family
Knowledge of the Classics and Roman encounters
The establishment of a staging identity
Mapping the last Italian journey: Naples

3  An Italian Artist in Paris: Works under the Revolution (1790–1797)
The power of hometown networks in a French environment
The experimental enterprise of the Théâtre de Monsieur: A Franco-Italian repertoire
A controversial example of pastiche: Le Retour aux isles des amis, ou le capitaine Cook (1790)
Lodoïska (1791): Fire, scenography and Revolutionary resonance
Visual challenges and changing aesthetics: Eliza (1792) and Médée (1797)
Degotti at the Théâtre de la République: the exotic décor of Abufar ou la Famille Arabe (1795)

4  Power and Spectacle at the Théâtre de l’Opéra: The Napoleonic Years (1795–1810)
From monarchy to empire: The Opéra’s institutional shifts and theatrical infrastructure
A missed opportunity for a functional atelier de peinture (1795)
Scenographic tableau in the making
Between image and order: Degotti and the politics of theatrical production
Staging the myth of Rome: Le Triomphe de Trajan (1807)
Napoleon’s self-promotion: La Mort d’Adam (1809)
The tortuous path to marketing imperialism: Fernand Cortez (1809)

5  Networks of the Napoleonic Period
Domestic stages: Collective ventures in private scenography
Standing together: Degotti and David
Intimate networks: Degotti, Louise-Gabrielle Greuze, and the private legacy

6  Afterlives of a Scenographer: Restoration, Transmission, and Loss (1814–1825)
Familiar faces, familiar problems: Degotti’s continued battles at the Opéra
Exeunt Degotti: The final years
Transmitting light: Degotti’s influence on Daugerre
A quiet dispersal of an artist’s life: A brother’s role
Closing the curtain: A conclusion

Appendices

From Böhlau Verlag and Perlego:

Lukas Nickel and Anette Froesch, eds., Placing China at the Courts of Europe, 1700–1800 (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2026), 308 pages, ISBN: 978-3412535407, €39.

China, the country at the far end of Asia, occupied the European imagination throughout the 18th century, although only adventurous traders and intrepid missionaries had actually seen it for themselves. Tales about its long history, literary tradition, ethical values, social harmony, and advanced economy stirred intellectual fascination, while a growing long-distance trade made porcelain, lacquer screens, paintings on silk and paper, and soapstone sculptures increasingly accessible. Rulers, nobility, and clergy sought to associate themselves with the famed culture in the east by collecting artworks and adding Chinese-inspired rooms and buildings to their palaces and gardens. As patrons in England, Spain, France, the German and Italian states, and the Habsburg empire shaped varying perceptions and connected diverse ideas with chinoiserie, this book investigates the phenomenon at courts across Europe. It is the result of a collaboration between the Institute of Art History of the University of Vienna and the Kulturstiftung Dessau-Wörlitz.

Lukas Nickel is Professor of Art History of Asia at the University of Vienna. His research focusses on Chinese art and archaeology, and the past interaction of East Asia with Europe.
Anette Froesch is Head of the Palaces and Art Collections Department at the Kulturstiftung Dessau-Wörlitz.

c o n t e n t s

Preface

• Introduction — Lukas Nickel and Anette Froesch
• Chinese-inspired Spaces and Their Connotations in Habsburg Austria and Beyond — Lukas Nickel
• Visual Expressions of a Political Discourse — Anette Froesch
• France and China — Stéphane Castelluccio
• A Dialectic of Taste — Emile de Bruijn
• Queen Elisabeth Farnese’s East Asian Collections — Maria Cinta Krahe Noblett
• Prussian Pioneers — Constantijn Johannes Leliveld
• Think Big — Cordula Bischoff
• Chinoiserie in Schönbrunn Palace — Elfriede Iby
• Pleasures in Elysium — Györgyi Fajcsák
• Italian Hands Painting nel gusto cinese — Denise Gubitosi
• Piedmont and China — Luca Malvicino
• In the Chinese Taste — Kristel Smentek

Index

From Brepols:

Jennifer Griffiths and Andrea Pearson, eds., Feminist Friendships, Collaborations, and Networks in the Visual Arts: Essays in Honor of Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2026), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-1915487315, €100.

Since the late twentieth century, a mounting body of studies has demonstrated that women contributed notably to the visual arts of nearly every culture, despite the ubiquity of patriarchal structures. The present volume looks to collaboration as a key factor in women’s ability to overcome those systemic obstacles in order to play decisive roles in the visual arts, whether as artists, patrons, art critics, gallerists, or interpreters in the public sphere. Until only recently, collaborations and other collective endeavors have largely been ignored by both the panoptic histories of art and the art markets, both of which are predicated on notions of individual agency and their implied prototype of idealized masculine autonomy. By means of seventeen case studies spanning from the Renaissance to the 1990s and covering several continents, the essays in this volume chronicle an enduring pattern of women artists, critics, and intellectuals pursuing their goals together. In elucidating the importance of the collaborative dynamic model, especially in its feminist iteration, these essays promote a fuller understanding of the visual arts across the globe and throughout the centuries.

This book is dedicated to the prominent feminist art historians Norma Broude and Mary Garrard, in admiration for their inspiring and influential collaborative publications on feminism and women in the visual arts.

Jennifer Griffiths is an art historian and editor who currently works at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome.
Andrea Pearson is a professor emerita of Art History at American University in Washington, D.C.

c o n t e n t s

Foreword — Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard

Introduction: On Feminist Alliances in the Visual Arts — Jennifer S. Griffiths and Andrea Pearson

1  Sisters in Art: Female Sodality in Early Modern Bologna — Babette Bohn

2  Female Networks and Collaboration: Spiritual Philanthropy, Convents, and Art Patronage in Seventeenth-Century Rome — Marilyn Dunn

3  A Female Maecenas: Vittoria della Rovere, Feminist Friendship, Collaboration, and the Arts in Baroque Florence — Adelina Modesti

4  The Banana Garden Poetry Club and Women’s Artistic Exchanges: Writing about Paintings and Friendships in Seventeenth-Century China — Lara C. W. Blanchard

5  Illustrating Nature in the Dutch Seventeenth Century: The Collective Power of a Female Community — Catherine Powell-Warren

6  Representations of Female Friendship: Vigée Le Brun’s Portrait of Mrs. Chinnery (1803) — Mary D. Sheriff

7  Brought into Friendship: Women, Social Networks, and Amitié in Some Portraits by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Gabrielle Capet — Melissa Hyde

8  ‘My Life Has Been Devoted to Friendship’: The Danish Painter Bertha Wegmann and the Feminist Reinvention of the Friendship Image — Carina Rech

9  Mary Cassatt and Louisine Havemeyer’s Friendship: A Personal, Professional, and Political Alliance — Ruth E. Iskin

10  An American Dantista and Her Friends — Jacqueline Marie Musacchio

11  ringl + pit, from Their House to Bauhaus: Collaborative Partnership, Modernist Photography, and Queer Visual Forms — Elizabeth Otto

12  Lesbian Collaboration as Subterfuge in the Works of Marcel Moore and Claude Cahun — Julie Cole

13  The Force of Futurist Friendship: Růžena Zátková, Natalia Goncharova, and Benedetta — Jennifer S. Griffiths

14  We Shall Overcome: Women, Art, and Anti-Fascist Networks in Buenos Aires — Georgina G. Gluzman

15  A Friendship Written in the Stars: The Artistic Constellation of Alma Thomas and Delilah Pierce — Elizabeth Carmel Hamilton

16  Black Feminist Art: Negotiating Networks and Identities — Lisa Farrington

17  Heresies’ Heresies: Collaboration and Dispute in a Feminist Publication on Art and Politics — Amy Tobin

List of Illustrations

From Thames & Hudson:

Damiët Schneeweisz, Rosalind McKever, and Adriana Concin, The Portrait Miniature: A New History (London: Thames & Hudson, 2026), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-0500481172, $50.

This richly illustrated study brings the fascinating stories behind this intimate art form to a broad audience and restores women to their place in the history of the portrait miniature.

The portrait miniature—a precious, hand-held painting, exchanged as a token of love or remembrance—has long been cherished for its ability to connect people. This book reveals the extraordinary stories, artistic achievement, and cultural and political impact behind these tiny artworks. This vibrant history of miniature painting, from its fifteenth-century origins to the early twentieth century, links art, fashion, and society in a captivating tale of identity and representation. The Portrait Miniature expands the story to explore the genre’s global reach and highlights the important role of women in its development. Illustrated with miniatures shown at or close to their actual size, as well as enlarged details that allow the reader to revel in the painters’ skill, this book celebrates some of the most sophisticated portraits ever accomplished.

Damiët Schneeweisz is assistant curator of paintings and drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a specialist in early modern European and American art and empire.

Rosalind McKever is curator of paintings and drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She specializes in modern European art, its reception in Britain and North and South America, and its relationship with fashion and design.

Adriana Concin is a research fellow and former assistant curator of paintings and drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She is a specialist in early modern portraiture and the history of collecting.