New Book | Daring: The Life and Art of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun
The life of Vigée Le Brun, as targeted to teenagers; from The Getty (for the context of the cover design, see Elisabeth Egan, “The Book Cover Trend You’re Seeing Everywhere,” The New York Times 21 June 2025) . . .
Jordana Pomeroy, Daring: The Life and Art of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (Los Anges: Getty Publications, 2025), 112 pages, ISBN: 978-1947440104, $22.
The dramatic life story of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, one of the greatest portrait painters of all time.
Supremely talented and strategically charming, Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842) overcame tragedy and broke gender barriers to reach the height of success as a portrait painter, first in Paris, and then across Europe. After losing her father at age twelve and facing financial insecurity, she fought to gain access to artistic training and opportunity. She was pressured to marry at age twenty, to an art dealer who both helped and harmed her career. Vigée Le Brun deployed her intelligence and beauty to attract powerful clients, who relied on her to style the personal identities they projected to the world. Vigée Le Brun’s salons were the talk of Paris, and she became court painter to Marie Antoinette. Then came the French Revolution, when marginalized groups demanded change to centuries-old systems of oppression. Vigée Le Brun was forced to reexamine her alliances and run for her life, taking her young daughter but leaving her husband behind. Making her way through the countrysides and capitals of Europe and Russia—including a stay at the imperial court of Catherine the Great—the artist conquered fear and adversity to refashion her life and art. Ages thirteen and up.
Jordana Pomeroy is director and CEO of the Currier Museum of Art and former chief curator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Exhibition | Marie Antoinette Style
Manolo Blahnik, Antonietta, 2005.
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Curator Sarah Grant provides a preview of the exhibition with a focus on scent in a recorded talk from the study day The Museum and the Senses, held at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts (February 2025). From the press release for the exhibition:
Marie Antoinette Style
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 20 September 2025 – 22 March 2026
Curated by Sarah Grant
Opening in September 2025 at V&A South Kensington, Marie Antoinette Style will be the UK’s first exhibition on the French queen Marie Antoinette (1755–1793). It will explore the origins and countless revivals of the style shaped by the most fashionable queen in history. Marie Antoinette not only contributed to the fashions, interiors, gardens, and fine and decorative arts of her own time, but continued to influence more than two and a half centuries of graphic and decorative arts, fashion, photography, film, and performance. This excessive, lavish, and feminine style will come to life through some 250 objects, including exceptional loans from the Château de Versailles never before seen outside France. Historical and contemporary fashion, alongside audio visual installations and immersive curation, will explore how and why Marie Antoinette, the person, has provided a constant source of inspiration. The exhibition will consider afresh the legacy of this complex figure whose style, youth, and notoriety have contributed to her timeless appeal. The exhibition will also trace the cultural impact of the Marie Antoinette style and her ongoing inspiration for leading designers and creatives, from Sofia Coppola and Manolo Blahnik to Moschino and Vivienne Westwood.
François-Hubert Drouais, Portrait of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, in a Court Dress, 1773, oil on canvas (London: V&A, Jones Collection, 529-1882).
On display will be exceptionally rare personal items owned and worn by Marie Antoinette including richly embellished fragments of court dress, the Queen’s own silk slippers, and jewels from her private collection. Other highlights include personal effects such as the queen’s dinner service from the Petit Trianon, a selection of her accessories, and intimate items from her toilette case. A scent experience will re-create scents of the court and the perfume favoured by the Queen herself. The exhibition will also feature contemporary clothing including couture pieces by designers such as Moschino, Dior, Chanel, Erdem, Vivienne Westwood, and Valentino, along with costumes made for Sofia Coppola’s Oscar winning Marie Antoinette (staring Kirsten Dunst), as well as shoes designed for the film by Manolo Blahnik.
Sarah Grant, curator of Marie Antoinette Style, said: “The most fashionable, scrutinised, and controversial queen in history, Marie Antoinette’s name summons both visions of excess and objects and interiors of great beauty. The Austrian archduchess turned Queen of France had an enormous impact on European taste and fashion in her own time, creating a distinctive style that now has universal appeal and application. This exhibition explores that style and the figure at its centre, using a range of exquisite objects belonging to Marie Antoinette, alongside the most beautiful fine and decorative objects that her legacy has inspired. This is the design legacy of an early modern celebrity and the story of a woman whose power to fascinate has never ebbed. Marie Antoinette’s story has been re-told and re-purposed by each successive generation to suit its own ends. The rare combination of glamour, spectacle, and tragedy she presents remains as intoxicating today as it was in the eighteenth century.”
Presented chronologically, the first section, Marie Antoinette: The Origins of a Style, begins in 1770 and ends at Marie Antoinette’s execution in 1793. It sets the scene by presenting her life and the story of the beginnings of the style she shaped. On display will be key pieces of furniture, fashion, jewellery, porcelain, and musical instruments from her court, revealing her roles and interests as queen consort. It will consider the way in which she embraced some aspects of enlightenment thought, through her approach to maternity and childhood and support of new technologies. It will also address the ‘let them eat cake’ mythology and mythmaking that surround the queen to this day, drawing on recent research on early modern women, queenship, and celebrity. Highlights in this section include a replica of the Boehmer and Bassenge diamond necklace, from the diamond necklace affair of 1784–85, commissioned for Madame du Barry in 1772. The original necklace was famously stolen, broken up, and sold in Bond Street; the replica will sit alongside the Sutherland diamond necklace from the V&A collection, thought to be made from the original diamonds.
The first section will also display exceptionally rare loans that have never before left France, including personal effects such as the queen’s dinner service from the Petit Trianon, her accessories, and items from her toilette case. Other personal items include the queen’s armchair from the V&A’s collection with Marie Antoinette’s monogram and a jatte téton / bol sein or ‘breast cup’—one of four from the queen’s Sèvres Rambouillet dairy service delivered in 1787—which has led to the persistent though erroneous belief that it was modelled on the queen’s own breast, inspiring modern-day examples. Finally, this section includes the last note Marie Antoinette wrote before she died, on a blank page in her prayer book.
The second section, Marie Antoinette Memorialised: The Birth of a Style Cult, explores the revival of Marie Antoinette’s style in the mid-1800s, at the impetus of Empress Eugénie. A romanticised and sentimental view of the queen took hold, and a phenomenal wave of interest continued throughout the century, peaking again in the 1880s and 1890s. Elements of Marie-Antoinette’s style became the ‘French’ or ‘French Revival’ style—the dominant style in Britain and North America for over fifty years. English collectors sought to acquire objects, furniture, and mementoes associated with the queen, and important collections of eighteenth-century French art were formed. Highlight objects include fancy dress costumes by Worth and other couturiers and photographs by Eugène Atget and Francis Frith.
Marie Antoinette: Enchantment and Illusion, the exhibition’s third section, looks to the late 19th century when the Marie Antoinette style entered a new phase of fantasy, magic, and fairy tales. The queen’s image came to embody escapism and beauty, as well as decadence and debauchery. Objects and artworks will illustrate this shifting narrative through the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods, including the evening dress designs of couturiers such as Jeanne Lanvin and the Boué Soeurs, alongside luminous watercolour illustrations by Golden Age illustrators Erté, George Barbier, and Edmund Dulac.
The final section, Marie Antoinette Re-Styled, considers the modern and contemporary legacy of the Marie Antoinette style from the 20th century to the present day, in fashion, performance, and pop culture. Couture pieces by designers such as Moschino, Dior, Chanel, Erdem, Vivienne Westwood, and Valentino alongside photographs by Tim Walker and Robert Polidori will highlight Marie Antoinette’s continued influence on fashion globally. Costumes, accessories, film, and stills will bring to life the queen’s enduring legacy in film, stage, and even music videos. Artist Beth Katleman and designer Victor Glemaud will also showcase contemporary works inspired by elements of Marie Antoinette’s timeless style and period.
Support for the V&A is more vital than ever. Marie Antoinette Style is sponsored by Manolo Blahnik, with support from Kathryn Uhde.
Sarah Grant, ed., with forewords by Antonia Fraser, Manolo Blahnik, and Sofia Coppola, Marie Antoinette Style (London, V&A Publishing, 2025), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-1838510541, £40 / $70.
Exhibition | 1793–1794: Un Tourbillon Révolutionnaire
A second iteration of the exhibition on view previously at the Musée Carnavalet:
1793–1794: Un Tourbillon Révolutionnaire
Musée de la Révolution française, Vizille, 27 June — 23 November 2025
Entre 1793 et 1794, « l’An II de la République » marque les débuts mouvementés de la toute première république française. Des idéaux de la Révolution aux grands procès politiques, de la liesse aux insurrections populaires, les premiers mois du nouveau régime emportent tout sur leur passage, jusqu’au quotidien des Français. Un véritable tourbillon révolutionnaire, nourri d’espoirs et de peurs.
Cette exposition revient sur des mois décisifs pour l’histoire de France : l’arrestation des Girondins, l’assassinat de Marat, l’exécution de Marie-Antoinette jusqu’à la chute de Robespierre. Voici donc « la Terreur », décryptée à la lumière des recherches historiques les plus récentes.
L’exposition 1793–1974: Un tourbillon révolutionnaire est une adaptation de l’exposition Paris 1793–1794: Une année révolutionnaire conçue par le musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris.
Exhibition | Traits of Genius
Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard, Pastorale / Homère et les Bergers, 1810; graphite, brown wash, black ink, and white highlights on beige paper; 55 × 88 cm (Louvre, INV 26657).
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The exhibition presents some sixty drawings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, his wife Marguerite Gérard, and their son Alexandre-Évariste from the collections of the Louvre:
Les Traits du Génie: Dessins du Louvre par Jean-Honoré Fragonard,
Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard, et Marguerite Gérard
Musée International de la Parfumerie, Grasse, 27 June — 26 October 2025
Cet été, le Musée International de la Parfumerie vous invité à découvrir l’œuvre de Jean-Honoré Fragonard, l’un des plus grands peintres du XVIIIe siècle, à travers une exposition exceptionnelle. Né à Grasse en 1732, Fragonard a marqué son époque par son talent unique, tout en restant profondément attaché à sa ville natale. Bien que Paris ait été son principal lieu de vie, son mariage avec Marie-Anne Gérard, issue d’une famille de parfumeurs grassois, ainsi que ses séjours réguliers à Grasse, témoignent de l’attachement de l’artiste à sa ville d’origine.
L’exposition propose une sélection de plus de soixante dessins de Fragonard, jamais exposés à Grasse et rarement montrés ailleurs. Ces œuvres, provenant des collections du département des Arts Graphiques du musée du Louvre, offrent un regard privilégié sur le processus créatif de Fragonard. Que ce soit des autoportraits, des souvenirs de voyages, des études de figures ou des projets d’illustration, les dessins de Fragonard nous donnent un aperçu de l’étendue du génie de l’artiste et offrent au visiteur grassois une proximité inédite avec l’essence de son œuvre.
Fragonard n’a pas seulement marqué l’histoire de la peinture. Son influence s’étend également aux arts décoratifs, et notamment à l’univers de la parfumerie, un domaine dans lequel Grasse occupe une place centrale. Pour illustrer ce lien, l’exposition présente une série de flacons de parfum en porcelaine du XVIIIe siècle, prêtés par la société Givaudan. Que vous soyez passionné d’art, d’histoire ou simplement curieux, cette exposition est une occasion unique de plonger dans l’univers de Jean-Honoré Fragonard, de découvrir ses œuvres et d’explorer les liens entre son art et l’univers du parfum.
From Silvana:
Laure Decomble, Olivier Quiquempois, Xavier Salmon, and Martine Uzan, Les Traits du Génie: Dessins de Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard et Marguerite Gérard (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2025), 200 pages, ISBN: 978-8836661534, €29.
c o n t e n t s
• Grasse et Jean-Honoré Fragonard — Olivier Quiquempois
• Crayonnages et lavis de Fragonard: Quelques considérations sur certains amateurs et collectionneurs — Xavier Salmon
Oeuvres
• Les Fragonard, une famille d’artistes — Laure Decomble
• Voyager et apprendre — Laure Decomble
• Regarder et inventer — Xavier Salmon
• Fragonard, illustrateur — Olivier Quiquempois
• Les Flacons de la Séduction — Martine Uzan
English Texts
Bibliographie
Exhibition | Adèle de Romance (1769–1846)
Now on view at the Fragonard Museum in Grasse (with more information available here, pp. 124–27):
Adèle de Romance: A Liberated Painter / Peintre Libre
Musée Fragonard, Grasse, 14 June — 12 October 2025
Curated by Carole Blumenfeld
After dedicating the summer 2023 exhibition to the Lemoine sisters and their cousin Jeanne Élisabeth Chaudet, the Jean-Honoré Fragonard Museum will celebrate Adèle de Romance in 2025. This painter, whose life was as brilliant as it was tumultuous, embodies all the opportunities that the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century offered to talented artists.
Born from an illegitimate union between the Marquis Godefroy de Romance, Adèle de Romance (1769–1846) was eventually recognized and adopted by her father at the age of 8. Her younger half-sister, whose personal life perfectly met their father’s expectations, received many signs of trust from him. Despite this, Adèle de Romance now had a name and enjoyed one of the largest collections of Nordic and French paintings, including many works by Fragonard. Concerned with her education, the Marquis de Romance guided all her personal choices, from her passion for painting to the birth of her first child at the age of 18. Adèle then married the miniaturist François Antoine Romany, a mismatched union whose sole purpose was to give her a status. When her father left France in August 1791 to defend the counter-revolutionary ideas that mattered to him, Adèle de Romance was forced to conceal her partly aristocratic origins and to live… by her brushes.
After a divorce, which she willingly kept her married name, she began a series of small portraits of prominent figures. She took advantage of the fame of her subjects and, for four decades, played with a multitude of surnames, embracing public exposure and presenting dozens of works. Witnessing the upheavals of her time, she made the most of the political and social context that favored portraiture. Better than many other artists, she succeeded in capturing the desire for reinvention of the personalities she painted, presenting a gallery of portraits that reflected France. Adèle de Romance participated in a time when images were about to play an unprecedented role. Portraits, a rather insignificant genre in a monarchy—where only one person matters and everyone else is nothing—acquired a new level of interest in a Republic. It then became a vector of virtues, talents, services, and memories.
Adèle de Romance did not have the privilege of joining the royal collections, the birthplace of today’s national collections. Paying tribute to this painter who managed to live from her art first required finding her works. Thus, with the exception of the rich corpus preserved in the collections of the Comédie-Française, the paintings of Adèle de Romance held in French public collections are not only rare but rarely exhibited. Many of her portraits remained with the descendants of the sitters, who kindly allowed them to be displayed for the Grasse exhibition, thus honoring this woman who, very early on, understood that culture and artistic talents were a remarkable passport to being accepted, regardless of her origins, and having a voice in a world dominated by men.
From Silvana:
Carole Blumenfeld, Adèle de Romance, dite Romany, 1769–1846 (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2025), 232 pages, ISBN: 978-8836661121, €35.
Adèle de Romance appartient à cette caste ténue de femmes qui, sans jamais se poser en séditieuses, surent hanter les lisières du monde établi et frayer, dans les anfractuosités d’un ordre contraignant, un sentier d’autonomie patiemment conquis. Douée d’un discernement affûté et d’un sens exquis de la conjoncture, la portraitiste sut, avec adresse et aplomb, tirer parti des ondulations du temps et des vents favorables, pour jouer des équivoques de sa propre identité et en faire un atout, pour ses modèles et pour elle-même. Adèle de Romance devint pleinement maîtresse de son destin en peignant les visages d’autrui, qu’elle signait parfois de son nom de naissance, « de Romance », mais le plus souvent : « Romany », « Rom… », « Romanée », « de Romany » ou « DR »… Ces jeux de recomposition nominale, souples et ductiles, savamment dosés, relèvent d’une poétique du nom propre, où l’identité se dit autant par esquive que par assertion.
c o n t e n t s
Philippe Costamagna — Preface
Carole Blumenfeld — Peindre pour s’appartenir: Marie Jeanne de Romance, Adèle de Romance, dite Romany, Adèle Romanée, Adèle Romany-de-Romance, AR
Carole Blumenfeld — Catalogue des Oeuvres Exposées
Arbre généalogique d’Adèle de Romance
Chronobiographie
Liste des œuvres présentées aux Salons
Annexes
Index
Bibliographie
New Book | Les Pierres de la Nation
From Mare et Martin:
Maddalena Napolitani, Les pierres de la Nation: Les collections minéralogiques de l’Ecole des mines de Paris, 1760–1860 (Paris: Les Éditions Mare et Martin, 2025), 362 pages,
ISBN: 978-2362220838, €48.
Les pierres de la Nation raconte l’histoire des collections de minéralogie de l’Ecole des mines de Paris, les considérant surtout sous le point de vue de leurs caractéristiques esthétiques et artistiques, à un moment clé pour l’histoire du collectionnisme : celui de la naissance des musées et du patrimoine. De leur constitution pendant les années 1760, à la création du musée de minéralogie dans les années 1850–1860, passant par les bouleversements révolutionnaires, ces collections contribuent à bâtir de nouveaux récits historiques au fil des changements socio-politiques, et se lient au territoire national et à la création de ses monuments et musées.
Maddalena Napolitani | Docteure histoire de l’art, ses recherches, à la croisée avec l’histoire des sciences concernent l’histoire des collections, des musées et du patrimoine scientifique, ainsi que les rapports entre esthétique et sciences de la Terre à l’âge moderne (XVIIIe–XIXe siècles). Italienne, elle travaille à présent au Musée Galileo (Florence) et a travaillé en France (ENS de Paris, Université de Grenoble), participant aussi à des expositions sur les collections mixtes des cabinets de curiosités.
New Book | Les Peintures italiennes du musée Napoléon, 1810–1815
As noted at the Art History News blog; from the publisher:
Stéphane Loire, Les Peintures italiennes du musée Napoléon, 1810–1815: Édition illustrée et commentée du volume I de l’inventaire Napoléon (Paris: Les Éditions Mare et Martin, 2025), 760 pages, ISBN: 978-2362221026, €149.
Ce volume est l’édition illustrée du premier des dix-sept registres manuscrits formant l’Inventaire Napoléon (1810–1815), dont quatre se rapportent aux quelque six mille peintures figurant dans cet inventaire. L’Inventaire Napoléon est le premier inventaire des collections du musée du Louvre après sa création en 1793 sous le nom de Muséum français, devenu en 1803 Musée Napoléon. Comprenant notamment les oeuvres issues des saisies révolutionnaires et napoléoniennes, en France comme à l’étranger, et donnant pour la plupart des estimations financières, il est essentiel pour l’histoire du patrimoine artistique que le Louvre a abrité à l’époque de la Révolution et du Premier Empire. Mais il enregistre aussi la dispersion d’une partie de ce patrimoine dans d’autres institutions publiques françaises à partir de 1798, ainsi que sa restitution partielle à divers pays à partir de 1814 : c’est un document de première importance pour l’histoire de nombreux musées, en France et en Europe.
Stéphane Loire est conservateur général, adjoint au directeur du département des Peintures du musée du Louvre.
Berger Prize 2025 Longlist Announced
From The Walpole Society:
Berger Prize 2025 Longlist
The longlist of eighteen titles for the 2025 Berger Prize was announced on July 9 at the Walpole Society Summer Party, held at the Warburg Institute. The chair of the judging panel, Dr Jonny Yarker, noted that this year’s prize received its highest ever number of submissions, from a wide range of publishers. The shortlist is scheduled to be announced September 16. The winner and prize ceremony is scheduled for November 12. The overall winner will receive £5000, while the five other shortlisted books will each receive £500.
• Fay Blanchard and Anthony Spira, eds., Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour (Philip Wilson Publishers).
• Rosie Broadley, ed., Francis Bacon: Human Presence (National Portrait Gallery).
• Bruce Boucher, John Soane’s Cabinet of Curiosities: Reflections on an Architect and his Collection (Yale University Press).
• Esther Chadwick, The Radical Print: Art and Politics in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain (Paul Mellon Centre).
• Bryony Coombs, Visual Arts and the Auld Alliance: Scotland, France and National Identity c.1420–1550 (Edinburgh University Press).
• Paul Gough, Gilbert Spencer: The Life and Work of a Very English Artist (Yale University Press).
• Bendor Grosvenor, The Invention of British Art (Elliott & Thompson).
• Elain Harwood and Alan Powers, eds., Ernö Goldfinger (Liverpool University Press).
• Mark Laird, The Dominion of Flowers: Botanical Art & Global Plant Relations (Paul Mellon Centre).
• Cristina S. Martinez and Cynthia E. Roman, eds., Female Printmakers, Printsellers and Publishers in the Eighteenth Century: The Imprint of Women 1735–1830 (Cambridge University Press).
• Nicholas Olsberg, The Master Builder: William Butterfield and His Times (Lund Humphries).
• Madeleine Pelling, Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Profile Books).
• Eleonora Pistis, Architecture of Knowledge: Hawksmoor and Oxford (Brepols).
• Dorothy Price, Esther Chadwick, Cora Gilroy-Ware, and Sarah Lea, Entangled Pasts, 1768–Now: Art, Colonialism and Change (Royal Academy of Arts).
• Natalie Prizel, Victorian Ethical Optics: Innocent Eyes and Aberrant Bodies (Oxford University Press).
• Jeff Rosen, Julia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography (Paul Mellon Centre).
• Fiona Smyth, Pistols in St Paul’s: Science, Music, and Architecture in the Twentieth Century (Manchester University Press).
• Gavin Stamp, Interwar British Architecture 1919–39 (Profile Books).
New Book | Canova: La Riconoscenza
From Hirmer, with distribution by The University of Chicago Press:
Fernando Mazzocca, Canova: La Riconoscenza (Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2025), 200 pages, ISBN: 978-3777443034, $52.
Antonio Canova (1757–1822) invented a new genre with his ‘ideal heads’. They were intended as gifts for close friends and persons he admired as an expression of his affection and gratitude. Starting with his famous bust, La Riconoscenza, this magnificent large-format volume offers an impressive survey of his unique expressions of friendship. La Riconoscenza, Canova’s masterpiece, was long thought to have been lost. Created as a tribute to his most important critic, the cultural theorist Quatremère de Quincy, the sculpture was commissioned by the artist Marquise de Grollier as a gift for their mutual friend. Together, these three distinguished individuals left their mark on the cultural life of their time. Here, Fernando Mazzocca traces the history of the genesis of La Riconocenza through the remarkable correspondence of Canova, de Grollier, and de Quincy.
Fernando Mazzocca is a leading Canova specialist and a former professor at the Università Ca’ Foscari in Venice and La Statale in Milan.
The Decorative Arts Trust Announces 2025 Publishing Grants
From the press release:
The Decorative Arts Trust is thrilled to announce the five recipients of our 2025 Publishing Grants. The Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama; the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut; The Preservation Society of Newport County in Newport, Rhode Island; and Victoria Mansion in Portland, Maine, received Publishing Grants under the ‘Collections and Exhibitions’ category. Dr. Mariah Kupfner received a Publishing Grant for ‘First-Time Authors’.
In August 2026, the publication of Roll Call: 200 Years of Black American Art will be an integral part of the 75th anniversary celebration of the Birmingham Museum of Art. Planned alongside a companion exhibition, the publication will also serve as a comprehensive survey of the Museum’s collection of works by African American and Black American artists who live(d) and work(ed) in America, including its superb holdings of Southern quilts and ceramics.
Elizabeth Foote, Bed rug, ca. 1778, Colchester, CT, hand-embroidered wool on plain woven wool ground (Courtesy of the Connecticut Historical Society, Gift of Mrs. J.H.K. Davis).
In 2022, the Florence Griswold Museum presented the exhibition New London County Quilts & Bed Covers, 1750–1825, which showcased exquisite, rarely-seen quilted petticoats, appliqued bed covers, bed rugs, and stuffed whitework quilts hand-crafted by women and girls of this region of Connecticut. The accompanying publication, set to be completed by April 2027, shares the scholarship generated for the exhibition, addressing an understudied and continuously evolving area of material culture that will open emerging areas of study for rising scholars.
Treasures of the Newport Mansions, the first ever collections catalogue for The Preservation Society of Newport County (PSNC), will span centuries and highlight the organization’s distinctive material content. Among the most significant in the United States, PSNC’s holdings uniquely encompass extraordinary objects within their original historical contexts. Presenting approximately 100 objects, the catalogue, which will be published by February 2027, will highlight advanced research made by experts and early-career scholars across multiple disciplines.
Victoria Mansion’s ‘Bold, Designing Fellows’: Italian Decorative Painters and Scenic Artists in the United States, 1820–1880 is inspired by many years of research on the Bolognese artist Giuseppe Guidicini. Previously unknown, Guidicini was responsible for the 1860 design and decoration of the wall and ceiling paintings that fill Victoria Mansion. The publication is set to be completed by May 2026 and will chronicle Guidicini’s history from his training in Bologna to his accomplishments in New York, Cincinnati, and Richmond.
Publishing Grant recipient Dr. Mariah Kupfner is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Public Heritage at Penn State Harrisburg and earned her PhD from Boston University. She will publish Crafting Womanhood: Needlework, Gender, and Politics in the United States, 1810–1920 with the University of Delaware Press in August 2026. This publication looks closely at gendered textiles, reading them as essential sources of historical meaning and self-making.
Visit the Decorative Arts Trust’s website to learn more about the Publishing Grants program. Applications for the next round of grants are due by 31 March 2026.
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