Enfilade

From Amsterdam UP:

Mechthild Fend, Jennifer Germann, and Melissa Hyde, eds., Thinking Women and Art in the Long Eighteenth Century: Strategic Reinterpretations (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2025), 414 pages, ISBN: 978-9048558827, €153 / $168.

This collection of essays represents state-of-the-art feminist scholarship in the field of eighteenth-century French and British art and visual culture. Topics range from women and their activities in art and science, to gendered representations of childhood and animals to fashion, femininity and temporality. Some chapters center on individual genres like hunting portraits, or on specific paintings, such as David Martin’s Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray (ca. 1780) or Marie Guillemine Benoist’s Portrait of a Young Black Woman (Madeleine) (1800). Others make contributions on the work of familiar actors like Jean-Siméon Chardin or Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. The volume also brings to the fore lesser-known figures including Marie-Thérèse Reboul, Madeleine Basseporte, Marguerite Le Comte, and Gabrielle Capet. Written by eleven distinguished (art) historians, the assembled essays engage with and honor the work of the late Mary D. Sheriff, whose unpublished chapter on women artists’ self-portraiture opens the book.

Mechthild Fend is Professor of History of Art, Goethe-University Frankfurt. She specializes in French eighteenth- and nineteenth-century art, with particular interests in feminist art history and its historiography, images of the body, and medical imagery. Her books include Fleshing out Surfaces: Skin in French Art and Medicine, 1650–1850, published in 2017.
Jennifer Germann is an art historian specializing in women’s history and eighteenth-century French and British art. She has published in Eighteenth-Century Studies, American Art, and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture. She is the author of Picturing Marie Leszczinska (1703–1768): Representing Queenship in Eighteenth-Century France (2015).
Melissa Hyde is Professor of Art History and Distinguished Teaching Scholar, University of Florida. She publishes on gender, the visual arts, and women artists and Rococo and its afterlives in the long eighteenth century in France. Books include Becoming a Woman in the Age of Enlightenment (with Mary Sheriff) (2017), as well as numerous edited volumes.

c o n t e n t s

Acknowledgements
Preface

Introduction
Mary D. Sheriff: Charting New Possibilities for Feminist Art History — Mechthild Fend, Jennifer Germann, and Melissa Hyde

Overture
1  Women and Modes of Self-Portraiture: Fashion, Motherhood, Sensibilité — Mary D. Sheriff

Part I | Art as Social Practice
2  The Woman Artist and the Uncovering of the Social World — Lynn Hunt
3  ‘La touche d’une femme’: Women Artists in the Age of Revolutions — Paris Spies-Gans

Part II | Gender and Fashion
4  Chardin’s Girls: The Ethics of Painting — Ewa Lajer-Burcharth
5  Thinking Animals: Dogs and Men in Eighteenth-Century French Hunting Art — Amy Freund
6  Temporality and Figures de mode: Fashion, Costume, and Gender in Eighteenth-Century Drawings and Prints — Susan L. Siegfried

Part III | Women in Natural History
7  Marie-Thérèse Reboul (Mme Vien): More Than a Footnote in Art History — Melissa Hyde
8  Mlle Basseporte’s Jardin, Mlle Biheron’s Cabinet: Artist-Scientists and Their Spheres of Sociability — Nina Rattner Gelbart

Part IV | Encounters in Portraiture
9  Marguerite Le Comte’s Smile: Portrait of an Amatrice — Mechthild Fend
10  Imperial Family Portraits: Gender, Race, and Social Rank in The Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray — Jennifer Germann
11  Madeleine of the Americas: Resituating Benoist’s Portrait of a Young Black Woman in Colonial Art — Anne Lafont

Index

Coming this spring from Yale UP, with a brilliant preview by Dr. Childs now available in the latest issue of The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust (Winter 2024–25) . . .

Adrienne L. Childs, Ornamental Blackness: The Black Figure in European Decorative Arts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-0300246094, $65.

Exploring the role the decorative arts played in the representation of Black people in European visual and material culture

This revelatory look at European decorative arts addresses the long-ignored implications of the depiction of Black bodies on luxury objects from the Baroque period through the nineteenth century. Adrienne L. Childs traces the complex history of the vogue for representing the Black body as an ornamental motif throughout spaces of wealth and refinement. Objects such as furniture, porcelain, clocks, silver, light fixtures, and more conveyed the taste for exoticism and portrayed the laboring Black body in the guise of décor. These objects also express larger ideas about the concept of race, romantic notions of distant lands, the harsh realities of slave labor in the colonies, the presence of Black servants in wealthy European households, and the culture of luxury consumption.

Ornamental Blackness demonstrates how seemingly benign decorative objects can embody the complexities of race, slavery, and representation. Childs examines the tensions inherent in the system of codes in which the Black body can be enslaved, reviled, feared, subjugated, and assaulted on one hand and a symbol of opulence on the other. In this important volume she establishes a framework for understanding the racialized aesthetics of luxury.

Adrienne L. Childs is an art historian and curator and is the Senior Consulting Curator at The Phillips Collection.

The volume originated from a June 2021 conference on the topic. From the University of Heidelberg’s arthistoricum.net, where all contents are available free of charge

Gaëtane Maës, Isabelle Pichet, and Dorit Kluge, eds., L’expérience sensorielle dans les expositions au XVIIIe siècle / The Sensory Experience in 18th-Century Art Exhibitions (Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net-ART-Books, 2024 / Passages online, Volume 25), 274 pages, ISBN: 978-3985011544 (hardcover) / ISBN: 978-3985011537 (PDF).

In the 18th century, the art exhibitions organised in the Louvre in Paris by the Académie royale de Peinture et de Sculpture created an unprecedented cultural event, which quickly aroused the curiosity and envy of the public in the French provinces and other nations. A visit to the Salon du Louvre or any other art exhibition, where the desire to be entertained and to learn are intertwined, is an experience that appeals to all the senses. It is therefore possible to introduce the notion of ‘sensory experience’, since not only sight, but also hearing, touch, smell and taste are called upon in varied and complex ways at every moment of the visit. Using a variety of approaches, this book aims to capture the sensations experienced by visitors to art exhibitions in Europe during the long eighteenth century (1680–1815), drawing on visual and textual sources from the period.

c o n t e n t s

Introduction — Gaëtane Maës, Dorit Kluge, Isabelle Pichet (translated from the French by Nicole Charley)

Partie 1 | L’expérience sensorielle dans les œuvres
• Viewing Blindness at the Paris Salon — Emma Barker
• Les saisons en exposition: L’expérience des sensations à travers les sculptures de Jean-Antoine Houdon — Friederike Vosskamp
• Exhibitions of Automata in Ireland in the Age of Enlightenment — Alison Fitzgerald

Partie 2 | L’expérience sensible dans les œuvres
• Depicting identity or emotion? Clairon vs. Dumesnil at the Salon of the Louvre — Gaëtane Maës
• Ducreux’s Yawning: Attention, Sensation, and the Ambiguity of Affect — Lisa Hecht
• Les plaisirs du public: L’érotisation du regard dans les expositions de la Royal Academy au XVIIIe siècle — Jan Blanc
• The Minds and Bodies of Women in the Salon Views of Gabriel de Saint-Aubin: A ‘peintre de la vie moderne’ in the Age of Enlightenment — Kim de Beaumont

Partie 3 | L’expérience spatiale de la visite
• Une surface au service de l’expérience sensorielle: Le mur des espaces d’exposition au XVIIIe siècle — Valérie Kobi
• Le conditionnement de l’expérience du sensible — Isabelle Pichet
• L’émerveillement « rationalisé » des visiteurs des ‘country houses’ dans la Grande-Bretagne du XVIIIe siècle — Sophie Soccard

Partie 4 | L’expérience de la critique
• ‘I’m Dying up Here!’: Disappointing History Painting — Mark Ledbury
• L’aveugle aux Salons de Denis Diderot — You Gyeong Lee
• L’identité de la critique d’art allemande: Un glissement du visuel/descriptif vers l’auditif/narratif — Dorit Kluge
• Le langage du corps face à l’art: Entre affection, discussion et contemplation — Markus Castor

Résumés
Abstracts
Auteurs
Crédits

From Amsterdam UP:

Martin Nixon, Architecture, Opportunity, and Conflict in Eighteenth-Century Sicily: Rebuilding after Natural Disaster (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023), 284 pages, ISBN: 978-9463725736, €134 / $154.

The catastrophic Sicilian earthquake of 1693 led to the rebuilding of over 60 towns in the island’s south-west. The rebuilding extended into the eighteenth century and gave opportunities for the reassertion and the transformation of power relations. Although eight of the towns are now protected by UNESCO, the remarkable architecture resulting from this rebuilding is little known outside Sicily.

This is the first book-length study in English of this interesting area of early modern architecture. Rather than seek to address all of the towns, five case studies discuss key aspects of the rebuilding by approaching the architecture from different scales, from that of a whole town to parts of a town, or single buildings, or parts of buildings and their decoration. Each case study also investigates a different theoretical assumption in architecture, including ideas of the Baroque, rational planning, and the relegation of decoration in architectural discourse.

Martin Nixon is Assistant Professor of Art History at Zayed University, United Arab Emirates. His research interests include Southern Italian art and architecture, architecture and political power, urbanism and territorial transformation, the reception of architectural ornament, and questions of cultural and stylistic hybridity in architecture. Nixon completed his doctoral dissertation on the eighteenth-century rebuilding of the Val di Noto, Sicily with York University in 2018. In 2011, he received the John Fleming Travel Award to assist his doctoral research in Sicily. He completed an MA in Art History at the Open University in December 2007 with a dissertation on the eighteenth-century Sansevero Chapel in Naples.

c o n t e n t s

List of illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction
1  Sicily as a Colonial Possession c. 1600–1750: Subordination and Resistance
2  The Hexagonal Towns of Avola and Grammichele: Urbanism, Fortification, and Coercion
3  The Palaces of Noto: Ornament, Order, and Opportunism
4  The Palazzo Biscari in Catania: Lightness, Refinement, and Distinction
5  The Palazzo Beneventano in Scicli: Trauma and Violence
6  The Palaces of Ragusa: Abundance, Famine, and the Grotesque
Conclusion

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

From Bloomsbury:

Matthew McCormack, Shoes and the Georgian Man (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2025), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-1350358676 (hardback), £85, $100 / ISBN: 978-1350358669 (paperback), £29, $40.

Shoes are everyday objects, but they are loaded with meaning. This book reveals how shoes played a powerful role in the wider story of shifts in gender relations in 18th-century Britain. It focuses on the relationship of shoes with the body and its movements, and therefore how what we wear on our feet relates closely to social, occupational, and gender roles. It also uses footwear to explore topics such as politics, war, dance, and disability. Thinking about shoes as material objects, McCormack studied historic shoes first-hand in museums, in order to ascertain their physical properties and what they would have been like to wear. Worn shoes preserve traces of the wearer’s body in their indentations, stretches and scuffs, providing a unique primary source about their wearer. This approach forges new connections between the histories or material culture, gender, and the body, and sheds new light on what it meant to be a man in the 18th century.

Matthew McCormack is Professor of History at the University of Northampton, course leader for MA History, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Higher Education Academy. His previous books include The Independent Man: Citizenship and Gender Politics in Georgian England, Embodying the Militia in Georgian England, and Citizenship and Gender in Britain, 1688–1928. He edited the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2015–20).

c o n t e n t s

List of Figures
Acknowledgements

Introduction
1  Georgian Men and Their Shoes
2  Shoes and the Body
3  Shoes and Politics
4  Boots and Masculinity
5  Gout Shoes and Disability
6  Dancing Feet
7  The Soldier’s Shoe
Conclusion: Wearing Georgian Shoes

Select Bibliography
Index

Registration for an online conversation about the book is available via Eventbrite:

Online Conversation: Shoes and the Georgian Man
Tuesday, 11 March 2025, 2pm EDT

Serena Dyer talks with Matthew McCormack about his new book, Shoes and the Georgian Man, published by Bloomsbury in January 2025. By Leicester Branch of the Historical Assn.

From Reaktion Books with distribution by The University of Chicago Press:

Chris Filstrup and Jane Merrill, The Turban: A History from East to West (London: Reaktion Books, 2025), 264 pages, ISBN: 978-1836390749, £20 / $30.

A superbly illustrated history of the turban, from Arabian origins to global cultural icon.

A turban is a strip of cloth folded and wrapped around the head; however, this description includes multifarious forms across space and time. This book follows the turban as it moves from the Arabian Peninsula through the Ottoman Empire to Europe and the Americas. It directs the reader’s gaze from traditional and religious uses of the turban into the realms of international trade, Renaissance art and contemporary fashions. Turbans, as this book shows, have moved in and out of Western culture, at times considered archaic and forgotten, then noticed and reinstated as major accessories. Today Sikh men are recognized by their distinctive headwraps, and the turban remains an important part of Black culture. This book explores the turban’s many adaptations worldwide.

Chris Filstrup was Chief of the Oriental Division at the New York Public Library and Dean of Libraries at Stony Brook University. He is co-author with Jane Merrill of The Wedding Night (2011) among other titles. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
Jane Merrill has written for many national U.S. magazines and is the author of The Showgirl Costume (2018) and other cultural histories. She lives in Saint George, Maine.

c o n t e n t s

Introduction
1  A Path into Western Iconography
2  Trade, Diplomacy and Depiction
3  Nabobs, Adventurers and Travellers
4  Masques and Turquerie
5  Riding the Magic Carpet
6  A Neoclassical Accessory
7  Individual Expressions: Africa and the Caribbean
8  Cultural Tourism and Authenticity since 1900

References
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index

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

Nina Edwards, The Virtues of Underwear: Modesty, Flamboyance and Filth (London: Reaktion Books, 2024), 224 pages, ISBN: 978-1789149562, £20 / $28.

Unravels the intimate narratives woven into the fabric of our most personal garments.

Stories are woven into the fabric of our most personal garments. From the first loincloths to the intricate layers of shapewear, the concealed world of underwear is capable of expressing individual desire and also aspects of society at large. An indicator of the vagaries of fashion, underwear can be simple or elaborate. It both safeguards and exposes, reflecting our hopes and experiences. Underwear can embarrass and excite, amuse and shame us. This book illuminates the sometimes profound significance of the garments we wear beneath our outer clothing. It discusses the history of both women’s and men’s underwear, and global cultures of dress.

Nina Edwards is a freelance writer based in London. Her books include Darkness: A Cultural History (2018) and Pazazz: The Impact and Resonance of White Clothing (2023), both published by Reaktion Books.

c o n t e n t s

Introduction
1  What Is Underwear For?
2  Codpiece and Corset
3  Modesty and the Immodest Torso
4  Outer to Under and Back Again
5  Fabric and Fit
6  Medical and Other Practical Matters
7  Economic and Religious Concerns
8  The Underwear Drawer

Glossary
References
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index