Exhibition | 300 Years of the Cemetery for Foreigners in Rome
Rudolph Müller, The Protestant Cemetery in Rome with the Tomb of Julius August Walther von Goethe (1789–1830), ca. 1840s
(Klassik Stiftung Weimar)
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From Rome’s Non-Catholic Cemetery for Foreigners:
At the Foot of the Pyramid: 300 Years of the Cemetery for Foreigners in Rome
Ai piedi della Piramide, Il cimitero per gli stranieri a Roma – 300 anni
Am Fuße der Pyramide: 300 Jahre Friedhof für Ausländer in Rom
Casa di Goethe, Rome, 23 September — 13 November 2016
Curated by Nicholas Stanley-Price
“The most beautiful and solemn cemetery I have ever beheld” declared the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Since the height of the Grand Tour, non-Catholic foreigners dying in Rome have been buried in front of the pyramid-tomb of Caius Cestius. In 2016 the Protestant Cemetery (now officially the Non-Catholic Cemetery for Foreigners) in Rome will celebrate its 300th anniversary. For this occasion the Cemetery, in partnership with the Casa di Goethe, has planned an exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints from the 18th to early 20th centuries to illustrate the history of this place dedicated to citizens of Protestant faith who died in papal Rome.
The curator of the exhibition is Dr Nicholas Stanley-Price. It is sponsored by the 15 embassies that administer the Cemetery (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America), under the Presidency of H.E. Peter McGovern, Ambassador of Canada in Italy.
The area of today’s cemetery was made available in 1716 by Pope Clement XI, initially to serve as a burial-ground for members of the Stuart court in exile from Britain. After a few decades, permission was given to erect funerary monuments to those buried there. The first such monument, which survives today, is to Georg Anton Friedrich von Werpup from Hanover, who died in 1765. His grave and that of the chamberlain to the Marquis of Ansbach, Wolf Carl Friedrich von Reitzenstein († 1775), are depicted in a drawing by Jacob Philipp Hackert (Vienna, Albertina).
They were followed by many others. It is the last resting-place not only of August von Goethe, son of the poet, but also numerous painters, sculptors, architects, as well as poets and scholars who lived in Rome or nearby. Among others, we mention Christopher Hewetson († 1799), the sons of Wilhelm von Humboldt († 1803 e 1807), John Keats († 1821) and Percy Bysshe Shelley († 1822), John Gibson († 1866), Gottfried Semper († 1879), Antonio Gramsci († 1937) and Gregory Corso († 2001).
Famous artists such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Bertel Thorvaldsen, William Wetmore Story and John Gibson designed funerary monuments for the Cemetery. Their fascination with the place has in turn inspired other artists to produce paintings, poems or monuments: from Goethe to Schinkel, from Oscar Wilde to d’Annunzio, and from Turner to Munch. The exhibition will, for the first time, provide a panorama of how European and American artists of different periods have depicted the Cemetery in paintings, drawings and prints, documenting at the same time the gradual changes in the appearance of the Cemetery. Some of the exhibits will be overall views of the area adjacent to the Pyramid and others of individual tombs. Various depictions of night-time funerals illustrate the difficult conditions in which the Protestants had to be buried. In addition to works by the artists already mentioned, there will be works by Jacques Sablet, Bartolomeo Pinelli, Salomon Corrodi, Walter Crane and others. The loans, already confirmed, come from different European museums and from private collections in Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, and the United States of America. The exhibition catalogue will be published in three different editions (English, German and Italian).
Exhibition | Everyday English: The Hooker Ceramics Collection
Bristol, Double-Ogee Cup and Saucer, ca. 1775; Hard-paste porcelain (Collection of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Gift of Mrs. Charlotte Stout Hooker, 2008.DA.2.31.2a, b)
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From Dixon Gallery and Gardens:
Everyday English: The Charlotte Stout Hooker Gift of English and Continental Ceramics
Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, 31 July — 9 October 2016
Everyday English considers the marketing and consumption of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English porcelain through the Dixon’s Charlotte Stout Hooker Gift of English and Continental Ceramics. Everyday English also highlights Mrs. Hooker’s accomplishments as a collector, exhibiting both her popular useful wares and rare ornamental finds.
From Laura Gray McCann’s posting for Dixon’s blog (8 January 2016) . . .
In 2008, the Dixon received 384 pieces of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English porcelain and pottery, and Asian and Continental ceramics from the collection of Mrs. Charlotte Stout Hooker. Mrs. Hooker’s collection was a natural fit for the Dixon—the nascence of her English porcelain came from her mother, Warda Stevens Stout, whose collection of eighteenth-century German porcelain came to the Dixon in 1985. Mrs. Hooker continued to collect, adding a more popular dimension to her collection. In 2003, Art & Antiques Magazine named her one of the top 100 collectors in the country.
Now, it is time to put the spotlight on the Hooker Collection! As we did with the Stout Collection, we are publishing a catalogue of the Hooker collection, The Charlotte Stout Hooker Gift of English and Continental Ceramics. The catalogue celebrates Mrs. Hooker’s achievements as a collector and provides the public with a record of the works in collection. The release of the catalogue will coincide with an exhibition of the Hooker Collection, Everyday English: The Charlotte Stout Hooker Gift of English and Continental Ceramics this summer. . .
New Book | Portrait of a Woman in Silk
Scheduled for September release from Yale UP:
Zara Anishanslin, Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 432 pages, ISBN: 978-0300197051, $45.
Through the story of a portrait of a woman in a silk dress, historian Zara Anishanslin embarks on a fascinating journey, exploring and refining debates about the cultural history of the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world. While most scholarship on commodities focuses either on labor and production or on consumption and use, Anishanslin unifies both, examining the worlds of four identifiable people who produced, wore, and represented this object: a London weaver, one of early modern Britain’s few women silk designers, a Philadelphia merchant’s wife, and a New England painter.
Blending macro and micro history with nuanced gender analysis, Anishanslin shows how making, buying, and using goods in the British Atlantic created an object-based community that tied its inhabitants together, while also allowing for different views of the Empire. Investigating a range of subjects including self-fashioning, identity, natural history, politics, and trade, Anishanslin makes major contributions both to the study of material culture and to our ongoing conversation about how to write history.
Zara Anishanslin is assistant professor of history and art history at the University of Delaware.
Exhibition | Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture
Opening in August at the Yale University Art Gallery:
Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650–1830
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 19 August, 2016 — 8 January 2017
Curated by Patricia Kane
Christopher Townsend and Samuel Casey, Desk and Bookcase, Newport, R.I., 1745-50. Mahogany and sabicu (?) with silver hardware. Private collection.
This groundbreaking exhibition presents a comprehensive survey of Rhode Island furniture from the colonial and early Federal periods, including elaborately carved chairs, high chests, bureau tables, and clocks. Drawing together more than 130 exceptional objects from museums, historical societies, and private collections, the show highlights major aesthetic innovations developed in the region. In addition to iconic, stylish pieces from important centers of production like Providence and Newport, the exhibition showcases simpler examples made in smaller towns and for export. The exhibition also addresses the surprisingly broad reach of Rhode Island’s furniture production, from the boom of the export trade at the turn of the 17th century and its steady growth throughout the 18th century to the gradual decline of the handcraft tradition in the 19th century. Reflecting on one of New England’s most important artistic traditions, Art and Industry in Early America encourages a newfound appreciation for this dynamic school of American furniture making.
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And due out in October from Yale UP:
Patricia Kane with Dennis Carr, Nancy Goyne Evans, Jennifer Johnson, and Gary Sullivan, Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650–1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 504 pages, ISBN: 978-0300217841, $85.
The most comprehensive publication available to date on the topic, Art and Industry in Early America examines furniture made throughout Rhode Island from the earliest days of the settlement to the late Federal period. This stunning volume features more than 200 illustrations of beautifully constructed and carved objects—including chairs, high chests, bureau tables, and clocks—that demonstrate the superb workmanship and artistic skill of the state’s furniture makers. Written by distinguished scholars, the book presents new information on the export trade, patronage, artistic collaboration, and the small-scale shop traditions that defined early Rhode Island craftsmanship. In addition to iconic, stylish pieces from important centers of production like Newport and Providence and by well-known makers such as John Goddard and Samuel and Joseph Rawson, Jr., the catalogue showcases simpler examples made in smaller towns. More than 100 catalogue entries detail marks and inscriptions, bibliography, and provenance and feature many new photographs, encouraging a deeper understanding of this dynamic school of American furniture making.
Patricia E. Kane is the Friends of American Arts Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Yale University Art Gallery.
New Book | The Villa Laurentina of Pliny the Younger
From L’Erma di Bretschneider:
Jerzy Miziolek, The Villa Laurentina of Pliny the Younger in an 18th-Century Vision (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2016), 250 pages, ISBN: 978-8891308443, €75 / $94.
The book deals with a paper reconstruction of Pliny the Younger’s (c. AD 61–112) villa near Ostia, some twenty kilometres from Rome. This unique work was created in Rome in the years 1777–78 by a young Pole, Count Stanisław K. Potocki (1755–1821) in cooperation with Giuseppe Manocchi and other outstanding artists of the time. The work, originally in the Potocki collection in Wilanów, is today housed in the iconographic collection of the National Library, Warsaw. It contains over thirty large-format, color drawings. In the late 18th century, probably during his last sojourn in Italy (1795–97), Count Potocki wrote a 24-page-long commentary to his work, entitled Notes et Idées sur la Villa de Pline. This hitherto unpublished manuscript commentary and reconstruction drawings of the villa are now published together with a virtual visualisation of the villa produced in 3D Studio Max 2014.
Jerzy Miziolek is professor of the visual arts and the classical tradition at the University of Warsaw (Institute of Archaeology). He is the author of seven books and more than 150 papers and reviews. He has delivered more than forty papers and lectures at foreign universities and international symposia concerning Early Christian, Renaissance, and neoclassical art.
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C O N T E N T S
Introduction
I. Stanislaw Kostka Potocki: Archaeology and Artistic Culture in the 2nd Half of the Eighteenth Century
1 The Fascination with Antiquity and Its Influence in the 2nd Half of the Eighteenth Century
2 Stanisław Kostka Potocki in the Memoirs of Eyewitness
3 Stanisław Kostka Potocki’s Studies at the Royal Academy in Turin
4 Stanisław Kostka Potocki’s Travels around Italy in 1774–82
5 In the Company of Princess Izabela Lubomirska: Stanisław Kostka Potocki’s Sojourn in Italy in 1785–86
II. The Laurentina: Pliny the Younger’s Seaside Villa and Its Reconstruction in the Pure Taste of the Century of Trajan
1 A Literary Portrait of the Laurentina: The Dwelling-Place of the Muses
2 The Owner of the Laurentina
3 The Search for the Remnants of the Laurentina in the Eighteenth Century and Later
4 Pliny ‘s Letter on the Laurentina in European Culture from the Renaissance to Neoclassicism
5 Artists Employed by Stanisław Kostka Potocki and Their Drawings
6 Reconstruction Drawings of the Laurentina and Remarks on the Notes et Idées sur la Villa de Pline
7 Reconstruction of Pliny ‘s Villa, Decoration of the Main Rooms, Patterns, and Inspirations
8 The Cryptoportico with Adjacent Pavilions and the Heliocaminus
9 Some notes on the Ideas Guiding the Plan for Pliny ‘s Villa by Potocki
III. The Third Dimension of Pliny the Younger ‘s villa: Virtual Reconstruction of the Laurentina
Instead of an Epilogue: The Laurentina of Potocki ‘s Vision and the Artistic Cultures of Neoclassical Warsaw
Appendices
Pliny the Younger, Letter to Gallus (2, 17)
Stanisław Kostka Potocki, Notes and Ideas on Pliny ‘s Villa
Notes and Explanations in the Portfolios Containing the Drawings
Bibliography
New Book | Klassizismus in Aktion: Goethes ‘Propyläen’
Published by Böhlau with details from De Gruyter:
Daniel Ehrmann and Norbert Christian Wolf, eds., Klassizismus in Aktion: Goethes ‘Propyläen’ und das Kunstprogramm der Weimarer Klassik (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2015), 458 pages, ISBN: 978-3205201540, 59€ / $83 / £45.
Der Band setzt sich mit der von Johann Wolfgang Goethe von 1798 bis 1800 herausgegebenen Kunstzeitschrift Propyläen auseinander und nimmt dabei nicht nur bekannte Essays des Herausgebers, sondern auch Beiträge Friedrich Schillers, Johann Heinrich Meyers und Wilhelm von Humboldts in den Blick. Erstmalig wird so eine zentrale Programmschrift des deutschen Klassizismus in ihrem inneren Zusammenhang gemustert und in ihren zeitgenössischen Kontexten interdisziplinär untersucht. Dadurch kann die literaturhistorische und ästhetikgeschichtliche Bedeutung des publizistischen Projekts neu ermessen werden. Der Forschung soll so ein vertiefender Einblick in das innere Gefüge und die spannungsreiche Beschaffenheit des klassizistischen Weimarer Kunstprogramms eröffnet werden.
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I N H A L T S V E R Z E I C H N I S
EINLEITUNG
• Daniel Ehrmann / Norbert Christian Wolf, Klassizismus in Aktion. Zum spannungsreichen Kunstprogramm der Propyläen
KULTUR UND AUTONOMIE
• Sabine Schneider, »Ein Unendliches in Bewegung«. Positionierungen der Kunst inderKultur
• Hans-Jürgen Schings, Laokoon und La Mort de Marat oder Weimarische Kunstfreunde und Französische Revolution
• Daniel Ehrmann, Bildverlust oder Die Fallstricke der Operativität. Autonomie und Kulturalität der Kunst in den Propyläen
NATUR UND DIE KÜNSTE
• Elisabeth Décultot, Kunsttheorie als Übersetzung. Goethes Auseinandersetzung mit Diderots Versuch über die Mahlerey
• Dieter Borchmeyer, Weimarer Opernästhetik. Goethes Essay Ueber Wahrheit und Wahrscheinlichkeit der Kunstwerke
• Ernst Osterkamp, Das Drama und die Kunst des Klassizismus in den Propyläen
NORMATIVITÄT UND VIELSTIMMIGKEIT
• Johannes Grave Natur und Kunst, Illusion und Bildbewusstsein. Zu einigen Bildern in Goethes Beiträgen für die Propyläen
• Norbert Christian Wolf, Vielstimmigkeit im Kontext. Goethes ›kleiner KunstRoman‹
Der Sammler und die Seinigen in entstehungsgeschichtlicher und gattungstheoretischer Perspektive
• Martin Dönike, »Antike Kunstwerke«. Johann Heinrich Meyers altertumskundliche Beiträge zu den Propyläen
KLASSIZISTISCHE UND ANTIKLASSIZISTISCHE KUNSTPRAXIS
• Frank Büttner, Die Weimarischen Kunstfreunde und die Krise der Kunstakademien um 1800
• Johannes Rössler, Über das Helldunkel. Re exionen zu Druckgraphik und Reproduktionsmedien in den Propyläen
• York-Gothart Mix, ›Das Unendliche und das Endliche‹. Die Propyläen und die kunstphilosophische Debatte über die Arabeske als romantisches Erkenntnisbild
VOR UND NACH DEN »PROPYLÄEN«
• Gerrit Brüning, Glückliches Ereignis im Zeichen der Kunst. Die Propyläen als Frucht der Zusammenarbeit Goethes und Schillers
• Claudia Keller, Die ungeschriebenen Propyläen – Klassizismus im Experiment
• Peter Sprengel, Goethe-Nachfolge als Architekturphantasie. Zum Motiv der Propyläen im Werk Gerhart Hauptmanns
Abbildungen
Siglenverzeichnis
Verzeichnis der Beiträgerinnen und Beiträger
Personenregister
Exhibition | Versailles: Treasures from the Palace
Hall of Mirrors (Galerie des Glaces), 1678–84
(Château de Versailles)
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Press release (18 July 2016) from the NGA:
Versailles: Treasures from the Palace
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 9 December 2016 — 17 April 2017
The NGA has revealed details of the sumptuous treasures from the Palace of Versailles, which will be on show in Canberra this December. Versailles: Treasures from the Palace is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see and experience a mesmerising period in French history in Australia. For the first time ever, the treasures will travel from France to entice visitors into a world of power, passion and luxury through this epic exhibition. More than 130 paintings, intricate tapestries, gilded furniture, monumental statues and other objects from the Royal gardens, and personal items from Louis XIV to Marie-Antoinette, will bring to life the reigns of three kings, their queens and mistresses in a fascinating and tumultuous period of French history. The exhibition will celebrate the lives, loves, and passions of the people of Versailles through a full program of activities including music performances, children’s programs, and public events.
François Hubert Drouais, The Sourches Family (‘Le Concert Champêtre’), 1756, oil on canvas (Château de Versailles, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Christophe Fouin)
“We are delighted to bring the grandeur of the culture of Versailles exclusively to Canberra and make it possible for all Australians to access and appreciate the social, political and cultural aspects of this unique phenomenon. If ever absolute power can be expressed through unbridled opulence, this is it,” said Gerard Vaughan, NGA Director.
“Along with astonishing treasures, like the marble bust of Louis XIV, or the glamorous formal portrait of Marie- Antoinette, we are bringing to Australia the entire 1.5 tonne statue of Latona and Her Children from one of the main fountains of the Palace of Versailles,” said Dr Vaughan. “The authenticity of this cultural experience will leave a lasting imprint on all our visitors.”
The exhibition contrasts small personal items, such as the precious golden reliquary which belonged to Louis XIV’s mother, or Marie-Antoinette’s hand-crafted chair and harp, with huge works including six-metre tapestries from the most important Gobelins series ever produced for Louis XIV, and a monumental conversation piece of the Sourches family which requires individual freight.
“Versailles is at the heart of French cultural expression as much as the NGA is the heart of Australian visual expression and we are very excited to bring this historic exhibition to Australia,” said Catherine Pégard, President of the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles.
“The opportunity to send such important French treasures has been made possible because of the major restoration program at Versailles, and we are thrilled to see that the outcome of the work will be the enjoyment of thousands of Australians,” said Christophe Lecourtier, Ambassador of France to Australia.
“The NGA is bringing to Canberra yet another spectacular show, which will attract people from all over the country and the world this summer,” said Andrew Barr, ACT Chief Minister. “These shows are important to the local tourism sector and I’m confident that this show will be another success for the Gallery.”
New Book | Hogarth’s Legacy
Distributed by Yale UP:
Cynthia Roman, ed., Hogarth’s Legacy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-0300215618, $80.
The legacy of graphic artist William Hogarth (1697–1764) remains so emphatic that even his last name has evolved into a common vernacular term referring to his characteristically scathing form of satire. Featuring rarely seen images and written contributions from leading scholars, this book showcases a collection of the artist’s works gathered from the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University and other repositories. It attests to the idiosyncratic nature of his style and its international influence, which continues to incite aesthetic and moral debate among critics. The eight essays by eminent Hogarth experts help to further contextualize the artist’s unique narrative strategies, embedding the work within German philosophical debates and the moral confusion of the Victorian period and emphasizing the social and political dimensions that are part and parcel of its profound impact. Endlessly parodied and emulated, Hogarth’s distinctive satire persists in its influence throughout the centuries and this publication provides the necessary lens through which to view it.
Cynthia Roman is curator of prints, drawings, and paintings at the Lewis Walpole Library.
New Book | Artistes, savants et amateurs: Art et sociabilité
A collection of essays that emerged from the conference Art et Sociabilité au XVIIIe siècle
(Paris, 23–25 June 2011) is now available from Mare et Martin:
Jessica Fripp, Amandine Gorse, Nathalie Manceau, and Nina Struckmeyer, eds., Artistes, savants et amateurs: Art et sociabilité au XVIIIe siècle (1715–1815) (Paris: Les Éditions Mare et Martin, 2016), 296 pages, ISBN: 979-1092054422, 35€.
La notion de sociabilité a fait l’objet, depuis quelques années, d’un renouvellement historiographique important. La complexité de cette notion impose pour son étude une approche pluridisciplinaire qui fasse appel aussi bien à la sociologie qu’à la philosophie, à l’anthropologie qu’à l’histoire de l’art.
Ce volume rassemble des études de spécialistes internationaux et explore la diversité des échanges sociaux dans le monde artistique du XVIIIe siècle. En examinant la sociabilité des divers acteurs de la création artistique, ces textes analysent les réseaux formés par le commerce des objets matériels, à travers l’étude des collections, du marché de l’art ou des expositions, et par le commerce des idées, à travers l’étude des écrits sur l’art et de l’art de la conversation. Le rôle des pratiques sociales au sein de la sphère publique dans l’évolution de la production artistique et des échanges matériels, économiques et intellectuels constitue donc l’objet de cet ouvrage collectif.
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T A B L E D E S M A T I È R E S
Préface, Étienne Jollet
Introduction: La sociabilité, une notion équivoque, Jessica L. Fripp, Amandine Gorse, Nathalie Manceau et Nina Struckmeyer
I. LA SOCIÉTÉ DES ARTISTES
• Le peintre-gentleman : un modèle de sociabilité et ses variations dans l’Angleterre du dix-huitième siècle, Elisabeth Martichou
• Entre hommage et parodie : une conversation graphique entre Watteau et Oppenord, Jean-François Bédard
• Behind Closed Doors: Charles-Antoine Coypel and le théâtre de société, Esther Bell
II. LA COMMUNAUTÉ PROFESSIONNELLE
• A case study in sociabilité: Bachelier’s École royale gratuite de dessin, Reed Benhamou
• La sociabilité à l’Académie de France à Rome sous le directorat de Charles-Joseph Natoire (1752–1775), Susanna Caviglia
• Les cercles des artistes allemands à Paris autour de 1800, Frauke Josenhans / Nina Struckmeyer
• Painters and Parish Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris: Art, Religion, and Sociability, Hannah Williams
III. LES REPRÉSENTATIONS DE LA SOCIABILITÉ
• Friendship at the Salon, Jessica L. Fripp
• Fêting the Hunt in Eighteenth-Century Painting, Julie Anne Plax
• Le tableau de mode et Hogarth – la peinture de genre dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle : entre autodérision et critique sociale, Jörg Ebeling
IV. LES LIEUX DE LA SOCIABILITÉ
• Les chimères de la République des Arts. Fonction et expérimentation du fac-similé scientifique dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle, Valérie Kobi
• Les dictionnaires des Beaux-Arts au XVIIIe siècle : pour qui et pourquoi ?, Gaëtane Maës
• Le commerce de la peinture dans les Salons de Diderot, Stéphane Lojkine
• L’œil du spectateur : incarnation d’une nouvelle sociabilité, Isabelle Pichet
• Des hommes et des œuvres : sociabilités et associations dans le musée parisien autour de 1800, Noémie Étienne
V. LES MODÈLES DE LA SOCIABILITÉ
• Paris/Provinces : une sociabilité savante et artistique au XVIIIe siècle vue au travers des correspondances privées, ou les échanges épistolaires comme instruments de la sociabilité, Patrick Michel
• Les classiques de Weimar en dialogue avec la culture parisienne, Boris Roman Gibhardt
• Les Souvenirs d’Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun : distinction et sociabilité dans une Vie d’artiste, Bernadette Fort
Illustrations
Bibliographie générale
Auteurs Remerciements
Index
Exhibition | In the Light of Naples: The Art of Francesco de Mura
Francesco de Mura, The Visitation, ca. 1750, oil on canvas, 37 × 46 1/2 inches
(Winter Park: Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College)
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Opening in September at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum:
In the Light of Naples: The Art of Francesco de Mura
Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, 17 September — 18 December 2016
Chazen Museum, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 20 January — 2 April 2017
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, 21 April — 2 July 2017
Curated by Arthur Blumenthal
In the Light of Naples: The Art of Francesco de Mura will be the first-ever exhibition of the art of Francesco de Mura (1696–1782), arguably the greatest painter of the Golden Age of Naples. The Cornell Museum owns a major painting by De Mura, The Visitation, which is the impetus for this show.
Francesco de Mura, the indisputable leader in his day of the Neapolitan School and the favorite of the reigning Bourbon King Charles VII, was the chief painter of decorative cycles to emerge from the studio of Francesco Solimena (1657–1747), the celebrated Baroque artist. De Mura’s refined and elegant compositions, with their exquisite, light, and airy colors, heralded the rococo in Naples, and his later classicistic style led to Neo-Classicism. De Mura’s ceiling frescoes rivaled those of his celebrated Venetian contemporary, Giambattista Tiepolo (1696–1770). Yet, today, he lacks his proper place in the history of art. This show seeks to answer why this is so: If he was so celebrated and admired in his lifetime, why is De Mura so little known today?
The exhibition—which, in 2017, will travel to the Chazen Museum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Loeb Art Center at Vassar College—will feature more than 40 works by De Mura from such collections as Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Minneapolis Art Institute, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and other public and private collections. In addition, there will be loans from Naples, Paris, and London.
Included will be the Cornell Museum’s recently acquired Solimena painting, as well as the Cornell’s newly identified oil by a follower of Solimena. Dr. Arthur Blumenthal, Director Emeritus of the Cornell, is the Guest Curator of the show, which will have a scholarly catalogue with essays by such art historians as Nicola Spinosa, former Superintendent of the National Museums in Naples and foremost expert on De Mura. Through De Mura’s original creations in the exhibition, the Cornell will finally be giving this richly deserving Neapolitan artist—the last Baroque artist—his due.
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Catalogue available in September from Artbooks.com:
Arthur Blumenthal, ed., In the Light of Naples: The Art of Francesco de Mura, (London: Giles, 2016), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-1907804854, $50.
Francesco de Mura (1696–1782), one of the greatest painters of the Golden Age of Naples, at last gains the attention he deserves in this first-ever scholarly publication. De Mura’s refined and elegant compositions, with their exquisite light and color, heralded the Rococo in Naples, while his later classicistic style led to the simplicity and sculptural quality of Neoclassicism. In the Light of Naples: The Art of Francesco de Mura reveals the power of his work through more than 200 colour illustrations, including details from his great frescoes, as well as images of many of his key paintings—published here for the first time. The indisputable leader in his day of the Neapolitan School and the favorite of the reigning Bourbon King Charles VII (1735–59), Francesco de Mura was the chief painter of decorative cycles to emerge from the studio of Francesco Solimena (1657–1747), the great Baroque artist. Outstanding works in Naples include the enormous oil painting of The Adoration of the Magi (ca.1728) for the church of Santa Maria Donnaromita, and the stunning frescoes of The Adoration of the Magi (1732) in the apsidal dome of the church of the Nunziatella and, on the ceiling of the nave of the same church, The Assumption of the Virgin (1751). Nearly a third of De Mura’s works were destroyed in the American and British bombing of Naples during World War II, including, most tragically, his series of frescoes at the abbey of Monte Cassino.
Arthur Blumenthal is Director Emeritus of Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College.
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Note (added 21 December 2016) — Malcolm Bull reviews the exhibition for The Burlington Magazine 158 (December 2016), pp. 1006–07:
In the mid-eighteenth century, Francesco de Mura (1696–1782) was universally acknowledged to be the leading artist in Naples . . . But his fortune since then has been less favourable . . . Most of De Mura’s work remains in situ, making it hard to mount a representative exhibition. In these circumstances it is not surprising that this, the first-ever exhibition of the artist’s work, In the Light of Naples: The Art of Francesco de Mura at Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL (to 18th December), where this reviewer saw the show, required a decade of planning by its curator, Arthur Blumenthal. The result is, however, a triumph. . . Although this is a small exhibition, there is enough to convince even the most skeptical viewer that De Mura is an artist of the first rank (1006).
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