New Title | Landscapes of London
From Yale UP:
Elizabeth McKellar, Landscapes of London: The City, the Country, and the Suburbs, 1660–1840 (London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2013), 276 pages, ISBN: 978-0300109139, $85.
The idea of a “Greater London” emerged in the 18th century with the expansion of the city’s suburbs. In Landscapes of London, Elizabeth McKellar traces this growth back to the 17th century, when domestic retreats were established in outlying areas. This transitional zone was occupied and shaped by the urban middle class as much as by the elite who built villas there. McKellar provides the first major interdisciplinary cultural history of this area, analyzing it in relation to key architectural and planning debates and to concepts of national, social, and gender identities. She draws on a wide range of source materials, including prints, paintings, maps, poetry, songs, newspapers, guidebooks, and other popular literature, as well as buildings and landscapes. The author suggests that these suburban landscapes—the first in the world—were a new environment, but one in which the vernacular, the rustic, and the historic played a substantial part. This fascinating investigation shows London as the forerunner of the complex, multifaceted modern cities of today.
Elizabeth McKellar is senior lecturer and staff tutor in the
history of art, Open University.
Exhibition | Vincoli d’Amore: Spose in Casa Gonzaga
From the Palazzo Ducale in Mantova:
Vincoli d’Amore: Spose in casa Gonzaga tra XV e XVIII secolo
Museo di Palazzo Ducale, Mantua, 18 October 2013 — 6 January 2014
Curated by Paola Venturelli and Daniela Ferrari
Si inaugura venerdì 18 ottobre alle ore 16.30 nell’Atrio degli Arcieri la mostra Vincoli d’Amore. Spose in casa Gonzaga tra XV e XVIII secolo, a cura di Paola Venturelli e Daniela Ferrari e promossa dall’Archivio di Stato di Mantova in collaborazione con la Soprintendenza BSAE di Mantova. Insieme alle curatrici intervengono Giovanna Paolozzi Strozzi, Soprintendente e Direttore del Museo di Palazzo Ducale, Francesca Zaltieri, Assessore alla Cultura della Provincia di Mantova e Renata Casarin Presidente del Soroptimist International Club di Mantova.
Spose di casa Gonzaga o spose giunte in casa Gonzaga lungo un arco di tempo che coincide con gli anni del dominio di questa grande dinastia, dagli inizi del XV secolo all’aprirsi del XVIII. Solo di alcune conosciamo le fattezze. Di poche gli interessi, i pensieri e le attitudini, rimanendo la maggior parte quasi priva di spessore storico e relegata nello sfondo della Grande Storia. Pedine, le cui mosse, abilmente studiate, porteranno tuttavia a costruire la Grande Storia dei Gonzaga. I loro matrimoni, voluti per allacciare vincoli di parentela con i principali casati, italiani o d’Oltralpe, erano infatti il frutto di oculate strategie dinastiche. Vincoli, qualche volta “d’amore”, anche spirituale – sull’imitazione del matrimonio mistico di Santa Caterina -, che cambiarono il panorama esistenziale delle nostre protagoniste.
La mostra è allestita negli ambienti in cui alcune delle protagoniste di questa esposizione hanno mosso i primi passi della loro vita coniugale. Presenti le duchesse Eleonora d’Asburgo ed Eleonora de’ Medici, ritratte nella supersite porzione della pala della Santissima Trinità, eseguita da Pieter Paul Rubens (ca. 1605), che domina la Sala degli Arcieri.
Oxford Art Journal, December 2013
From the latest issue of the Oxford Art Journal:
• Tim Ingold, “Lines in Time / Review of Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton, Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline (2010),” Oxford Art Journal 36 (December 2013): 463–64.
• Mechthild Fend, “Allegory and Fantasy: Portraiture Beyond Resemblance / Review of Sarah Betzer, Ingres and the Studio: Women, Painting, and History (2012) and Melissa Percival, Fragonard and the Fantasy Figure: Painting and Imagination (2012),” Oxford Art Journal 36 (December 2013): 465–67
• Richard Taws, “Ruins and Reputations / Review of Nina Dubin, Futures and Ruins: Eighteenth-Century Paris and the Art of Hubert Robert (2010) and Elizabeth Mansfield, The Perfect Foil: François-André Vincent and the Revolution in French Painting (2012),” Oxford Art Journal 36 (December 2013): 467–70.
The Burlington Magazine, December 2013
The (long) eighteenth century in The Burlington:
The Burlington Magazine 155 (December 2013)
E D I T O R I A L
• Richard Shone, “Home is Where the Art Is,” p. 807.
Houses once occupied by distinguished residents are a special strand of the heritage industry that increasingly dominates a nation in thrall to all aspects of the past. We are constantly being exhorted to save and preserve this or that—a factory, a view, a manor house, a pier, a site of outstanding natural beauty, the historic habitat of wildlife, or, indeed, of the famous dead. Some of the shrines we visit are more larded with authenticity than others. Inevitably, the further back in time the illustrious lives were lived, the fewer objects there are likely to be which were familiar to the inhabitants. Was this her chair; was this really his easel? The aspic of preservation continually wobbles between the authentic and the fake. We do not always know—are not always told—whether something is ‘of the same period’ or ‘similar to’ or a ‘replica of’ what may or may not have been originally there, under the eye, the hand, the bottom or the feet of the presiding genius. Much depends on the piety of heirs and descendants, the
changing ownership of the house and the fluctuating stakes of fame. . . .
The latest appeal for an artist’s house has much to recommend it and should attract supporters beyond British shores. It concerns the restoration and preservation of J.M.W. Turner’s rural retreat at Twickenham, west London. This is an exceptional project and not simply a matter of tidying up and putting a blue plaque on the front. Turner designed this house himself, and plans for it abound in sketchbooks of c.1810–12, after he had purchased two plots of land near the Thames. The intention is to remove later additions (not serious) and reveal its compact interior, obviously influenced by his friend John Soane’s house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. For Turner, Sandycombe Lodge was for rest and recreation such as fishing (when he could ‘angle out the day’) and hosting friends on excursions for picnics, rather than for long residence and staying guests. Turner sold the house in 1826 and the adjoining meadow in 1848 (to the Windsor, Staines and South Western Railway). Under the auspices of the Turner’s House Trust, the appeal for £2 million is well underway, with support already assured from the Heritage Lottery Fund, among many other organisations and private donors, although further funding is still needed.2 It is expected that the public will be able to visit in 2016.
2. For an entertaining and informative account of the house, see C. Parry-Wingfield, with Foreword by A. Wilton: J.M.W. Turner. The Artist and his House at Twickenham, London 2012. Donations can be sent to the Trust at 11 Montpelier Row, Twickenham, tw1 2nq, or at www.turnerintwickenham.org.uk.
The full editorial is available here»
A R T I C L E S
• Gauvin Alexander Bailey and Fernando Guzmán, “The Rococo Altarpiece of St Ignatius: Chile’s Grandest Colonial Retable Rediscovered,” pp. 815–20.
An examination of the Rococo altarpiece of St Ignatius in Santiago, Chile, and of the European influences on this great retablo.
• David Pullins, “Dating and Attributing the Earliest Portrait of Benjamin Franklin,” pp. 821–22.
A re-evaluation of a painting now found to be the earliest known portrait of Benjamin Franklin, added to an earlier figure of a man by Robert Feke (c.1746–48).
R E V I E W S
• Elizabeth Goldring, Review of Laura Houliston, ed., The Suffolk Collection: A Catalogue of Paintings (English Heritage, 2012), p. 835.
• Michael Rosenthal, Review of Leo Costello, J.M.W. Turner and the Subject of History (Ashgate, 2012), p. 836.
• Basile Baudez, Review of the exhibition Soufflot: Un architecte dans la lumière, pp. 850–51.
• Xavier F. Salomon, Review of the exhibition Il Gran Principe Ferdinando de’ Medici (1663–1713) collezionista e mecenate, pp. 851–53.
• Angela Delaforce, Review of the exhibition Da Patriarcal à Capela Real de São João Baptista, pp. 855–56.
• Jamie Mulherron, Review of the exhibition Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800, pp. 856–58.
Exhibition | Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici, 1663–1713
From the Uffizi:
The Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici (1663–1713): Collector and Patron of the Arts
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, 26 June — 3 November 2013, extended until 6 January 2014
Curated by Riccardo Spinelli
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
To mark the 300th anniversary of the death of Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici (1663–1713), the Galleria degli Uffizi is planning to devote a celebratory exhibition to this key figure who was one of the most important collectors and patrons of the arts in the entire history of the Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany. The son of Cosimo III and of Marguerite-Louise d’Orléans, Ferdinando nurtured two overriding interests, in the theatre and music and in the figurative arts, from a very early age. The exhibition sets out to convey the complexity of his interests and the innovative nature of his approach which drew the leading artists of the era (musicians, instrumentalists, painters and sculptors) to Florence between the end of the 17th century and the first decade of the 18th. The exhibition is broken down into sections illustrating the complex issues surrounding the prince’s cultural inclinations, while also presenting the buildings in which his patronage was played out.
An introductory iconographic section displays likenesses of the prince and of his family, with works by Giovan Battista Foggini, Justus Suttermans and Anton Domenico Gabbiani.
This is followed by a second section illustrating the early years of Ferdinando’s art collecting and patronage which focused in particular on his beloved villa at Pratolino where, alongside musicians, singers, costumiers and composers, he also hosted the Bibbiena family from Bologna, masters in the art of stage design. At the same time, the residence was being transformed in its interior decor and embellished with the work of Ferdinando’s favourite painters at the time, including Livio Mehus, Pier Dandini and Domenico Tempesti, all of whom were Tuscans, but also such “foreigners” as Crescenzio Onofri from Rome or Cristoforo Munari from northern Italy, all of them engaged in producing works closely linked to the villa and to the performances and other leisure activities that were held in it.
The third section is devoted to the renovation of Palazzo Pitti, of the Pergola Theatre and of the cathedral of Florence on the occasion of Ferdinando’s wedding to Princess Violante Beatrix of Bavaria in 1689. The ducal palace underwent radical transformation in its piano nobile, in the bridal couple’s apartments and in the mezzanines above, which were renovated in a spectacularly imaginative way, evinced in the exhibition by the memoirs and preparatory drawings of the artists who executed in the work (Luca Giordano, Diacinto Maria Marmi, Alessandro Gherardini, Giovan Battista Foggini and Anton Domenico Gabbiani). At the same time, the section also explores the ceremonies and festivities held in Florence to mark the prince’s wedding, using drawings and documents for the purpose.
The fourth section illustrates the prince’s growing interest in the figurative arts, both in contemporary sculpture and in painting, with the leading artists active at the time, many of whom were experts in such ‘modern’ late 17th-century genres of as still-life and portraiture. Thus this part of the exhibition contains both religious and secular works (by Carlo Dolci, Carlo Loth, Baldassarre Franceschini and Il Volterrano) and examples of ‘painted nature’ (by Jacopo Ligozzi, Bartolomeo Bimbi, Margherita Caffi, Fardella, Houbracken and Michelangelo Pace da Campidoglio). Of equal interest in the section is the presence of sumptuary objects, pieces of furniture and everyday items testifying to Ferdinando’s sophisticated tastes, with works by the leading engravers, marquetry inlayers and silversmiths then active at court.
The highly significant fifth section explores the tastes of the Grand Prince as collector, with some of the 16th- to 18th-century paintings removed from churches in Tuscany and elsewhere, including Andrea del Sarto’s Madonna of the Harpies, Lanfranco’s Ectasy of St. Margaret of Cortona, Annibale Carracci’s Farnese Altarpiece, and lastly, the Madonna of the Long Neck by Parmigianino, one of Fernando’s most prestigious acquisitions in the field of Renaissance art as the 17th century drew to a close.
The sixth section is devoted to the grand prince’s favourite villa of all, Poggio a Caiano, whose decoration he renovated with the greatest magnificence. He chose a room on its piano nobile to house one of his most original collections comprising ‘works in miniature’, which is eloquently recreated in the exhibition through a selection paintings that once formed part of it, illustrating the prince’s catholic tastes in collecting.
The seventh section of the exhibition illustrates the prince’s taste for major Florentine statuary at the close of the 17th century, while in the sphere of painting it looks at the change in Ferdinando’s taste in favour of ‘foreign’ schools—far more modern than anything local artists could produce—such as the Venetian school (of which he was enamoured in his youth), the Bolognese school and the Ligurian school (with work by Crespi, Cassana, Fumiani, Sebastiano and Marco Ricci, Magnasco and Peruzzini) whose leading painters were summoned to Florence, where they produced some of their masterpieces specifically for the prince.
The final section is devoted to the last years of Ferdinando’s life, exploring the results and repercussions of his art patronage and collecting, and displaying the drawings for a celebratory monument that it was planned to erect in his memory, the sketches for that project, and material relating to his funeral.
Available from Artbooks.com:
Riccardo Spinelli, ed., Il gran principe Ferdinando de’ Medici (1663–1713) Collezionista e Mecenate (Firenze: Giunti, 2013 ), 430 pages, ISBN: 978-8809786103, $77.50.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
This smaller exhibition was on view until recently at the Villa of Poggio a Caiano:
For the Grand Prince Ferdinando:
Still lifes, vedute, bambocciate and caramogi from the Medici Collections
Medici Villa of Poggio a Caiano, 5 July — 5 November 2013
Curated by Maria Matilde Simari
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The Villa of Poggio a Caiano was one of the favourite residences of the Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici (1663–1713), son of the Grand Duke Cosimo III and destined to succeed his father in the government of Tuscany. In concomitance with the major exhibition devoted to the Grand Prince in the Uffizi Gallery, the idea is to recall the figure of Ferdinando in the site of his favourite villa, too. It was here that Ferdinando spent the spring and autumn, riding his Berber horses, attending sophisticated concerts and operas performed in the theatre of the villa and devoting himself to the organisation of his own particular collection of miniature paintings, the so-called ‘Gabinetto di opere in piccolo’ which went on to become a famous example of a late seventeenth-century collection.
Significant evidence of Ferdinando’s commissions for the Villa of Poggio has fortunately survived in the large fresco dating to 1698 by Anton Domenico Gabbiani showing Cosimo de’ Medici being presented to Jupiter by Florence, which can be seen on the ceiling of the dining room on the first floor. This painting shows the celebratory and official side of court taste, but other aspects of the personality of Ferdinando, who was a curious man, interested in a wide range of artistic genres, also deserve to be explored.
An itinerary extending through fourteen rooms of the Still Life Museum is devoted to the Grand Prince as a collector of still lifes, highlighting the works that were certainly part of his collection. At the end of this itinerary is a room devoted to two different aspects of his tastes as a collector: the miniatures and the genre paintings, comprising in the latter group the views, the bambocciate and the grotesque and humorous paintings portraying pygmies and dwarves, or the whimsical caramogi.
The Grand Prince Ferdinando was attracted not only by great figure painting and by the works of the most famous painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Titian, Parmigianino and Sebastiano Ricci) but also by artists engaged in collateral aspects and genres that can certainly not be defined as minor, since they made a very particular and novel impression on seventeenth-century taste: the flower painters, the painters of vedute, the Dutch petits maîtres, the bamboccianti painters of everyday life and the caricaturists.
The inventory of the assets of the Grand Prince drawn up at his death in 1713 records no less than sixteen paintings depicting caramogi (deformed, dwarf-like figures) intent upon various games and activities, for one of which the author’s name is specifically mentioned: the Brescia artist Faustino Bocchi, a renowned specialist in ‘the painting of pygmies’ who appears to have sojourned at the grand ducal court, and whom Ferdinando may in any case have met during a trip to Veneto and Lombardy in 1688. His interest in this particular grotesque genre can be linked to the recollections of Ferdinando as a passionate lover of amusing sonnets, ‘burlette burlesche’, of poets in ottava rima, comedians and ham actors.
The small collection of works displayed in the room dedicated to the Grand Prince Ferdinando in the Still Life Museum of the Villa of Poggio a Caiano offers a synthetic overview of the vedute, the bambocciate and the caramogi that he loved, displaying works not normally visible to the public since they are conserved in the repositories of the Florentine Galleries and of other institutions. Also on display is an as yet unpublished painting by Bartolomeo Ligozzi on which the date and signature have been discovered.
The show is rounded off by a selection of ancient manuscripts and printed books connected with the eclectic personality of Ferdinando: a cultured, passionate and curious collector who is also remembered as a cordial and affable man with a great sense of humour. As one of the manuscript memoirs recalls: “With his departure, spirit and joy too took their leave of Florence and Tuscany.”
Exhibition | Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond
From The Holburne Museum:
Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond
The Holburne Museum, Bath, 25 January — 5 May 2014
Derby Museum and Art Gallery, dates TBA
Joseph Wright, Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the
Islands in the Bay of Naples, ca. 1776–80 (London: Tate)
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
I have taken the Liberty to give this Letter of Introduction to my Friend Mr. Wright of Derby, Who since his Return from Italy is come to Bath, & Designs to settle there.
Erasmus Darwin, 22 November 1775
Joseph Wright ‘of Derby’ (1734–1797) lived and worked in Bath between November 1775 and June 1777. This brief and little-known episode in Wright’s life marked a crossroads in his career; yet it has never been explored in detail. Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond will place Wright in the context of the many artists, musicians, writers, business people and scientists living and working in the Georgian spa and present for the first time a comprehensive view of his life and work during those eighteen months. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue will also go ‘beyond’ to examine the effect of his time in Bath and his travels in Italy on Wright’s later work.
Joseph Wright, The Rev. Dr. Thomas Wilson and his adopted Daughter Miss Catherine Sophia Macaulay, 1776 (Chawton House Library)
Wright came to Bath to paint portraits, hoping to build on the success of Thomas Gainsborough who had recently left for London. The exhibition will include the three remaining portraits that the artist certainly made in Bath, including his painting of the elderly Rev. Thomas Wilson with the young daughter of Catharine Macaulay, the radical historian.
Whilst in Bath Wright worked up landscape studies he had made in Italy, producing spectacular views of Vesuvius in Eruption and the dazzling firework displays of Rome, the highlight of a visit to the artist’s studio in Brock Street. It was whilst in Bath that he first began to explore subjects from sentimental contemporary literature, which in turn have a strong impact on his portrait composition, and the exhibition will include some of his most beautiful depictions of figures alone in the landscape.
We are grateful to Derby Museum, which holds the world’s largest and finest collection of Wright’s work, for its generous loans to this exhibition which will include The Indian Widow, The Alchymist and some beautiful drawings. Other lenders include the National Gallery, Musée du Louvre, Tate, the British Museum, the Walker Art Gallery and the Fitzwilliam Museum. This exhibition will travel to Derby Museum and Art Gallery.
A study day is scheduled for 24 February 2014.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From I. B. Tauris:
Amina Wright, Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2014), 112 pages, ISBN: 978-1781300213, £16 / $30.
Joseph Wright (1734–1797) arrived in Bath from his native Derby in November 1775. Recently returned from a tour of Italy, he came to the fashionable spa town to re-establish his business as a portrait painter, hoping to fill the vacancy left by Thomas Gainsborough the previous year. This book, the first to examine Wright’s little-known Bath period, places the artist in the context of a city then at the height of its unique cultural significance. Using rarely-seen illustrations of his work, it considers his attempts to conquer a saturated portrait market with images of local celebrities, and his use of domestic spaces for public exhibition. His celebrated views of fireworks in Rome and the terrors of Vesuvius were first shown in Bath. Beautifully illustrated and highly readable, Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond sheds new light on a key moment in this important English artist’s career, deepening our understanding of his life and work as a whole.
Amina Wright is Senior Curator at the Holburne Museum in Bath, UK, and has been Curator of Fine Art there since 2001. She was closely involved in the Holburne’s major redevelopment project, completed in 2011, as well as a number of exhibitions relating to British eighteenth-century painting, drawings and Georgian Bath. Previous publications include the exhibition catalogues Pictures of Innocence: Children in Portraits from Hogarth to Lawrence (2005) and Pickpocketing the Rich: Portrait Painting in Bath 1720–1800 (2002).
Recent Reviews Posted at BSECS
Recent reviews at BSECS:
Nelson, Navy, Nation: The story of the Royal Navy and the British people, 1688–1815
Location: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Event Date: December 2013
Reviewed By: Evan Wilson, University of Oxford
This new gallery shows there’s more to the eighteenth-century Navy than Nelson, but his fans will still get their fix.
KPM. Gestalten, Benutzen, Sammeln / Creating, Using, Collecting: 250 Jahre Porzellan aus der Königlichen Manufaktur Berlin
Location: Schloss Charlottenburg
Event Date: November 2013
Reviewed By: Caroline Cannon-Brookes
Berlin celebrates the 250th anniversary of its Royal Porcelain Manufactory.
David d’Angers: Making the Modern Monument
Location: The Frick Collection, New York City
Event Date: November 2013
Reviewed By: Lucy Gellman, Florence B. Selden Fellow, Yale University Art Gallery
A welcome, if somewhat underwhelming, stateside debut for the ‘other’ David.
Exhibition | Rococo to Neoclassicism from the Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia
From Artbooks.com:
Dipinti tra rococò e neoclassicismo da Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia e da altre raccolte
Palazzo Ducale Castromediano di Cavallino, Lecce, 21 September — 15 December 2013
La mostra è dedicata alla memoria di Fiammetta Luly Lemme (Ancona, 20 marzo 1937 – Roma, 29 marzo 2005), avvocato, collezionista e studiosa d’arte, moglie dell’avvocato Fabrizio Lemme, che con lei ha condiviso i medesimi interessi per l’arte e il collezionismo, che ancora coltiva. La collezione Lemme, formata con la consulenza di insigni studiosi quali Federico Zeri, Italo Faldi e Giuliano Briganti, fornisce un rilevante materiale di studio per la conoscenza della pittura barocca, rococò e proto-neoclassica, con particolare attenzione al Settecento romano. Nel 1998 i coniugi Lemme donarono al Museo del Louvre venti quadri e una scultura, collocati nella “Sala Lemme,” mentre altri ventuno furono donati contestualmente alla Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini, oggi organicamente inseriti nel nuovo allestimento.
Il 28 maggio 2007 Fabrizio, Giuliano e Ilaria Lemme hanno formalizzato la donazione al Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia del nucleo più importante della collezione, costituito da 128 dipinti, in gran parte già oggetto di notifica del Ministero dei Beni Culturali e Ambientali come insieme di elevato interesse storico artistico (Decreto del 1 dicembre 1998). La raccolta è confluita nel Museo del Barocco Romano, ubicato nella dimora chigiana, formato a partire dal nucleo di dipinti del ‘600 lasciati nel 2002 dallo storico dell’arte Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco. Ulteriori donazioni provenienti da altre raccolte (Ferdinando Peretti, Oreste Ferrari, Renato Laschena, etc.) hanno potenziato il museo di Palazzo Chigi, arricchendo le già rilevanti raccolte di provenienza chigiana, acquisite con la dimora nel 1989.
Il presente evento si pone in continuità ideale ed è una prosecuzione in termini didattici e storicoartistici della mostra Dipinti del Barocco Romano da Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, tenuta a Cavallino di Lecce tra settembre e dicembre 2012, circoscritta alla pittura romana del ‘600. L’esposizione si volge al ‘700, il secolo dei lumi, l’età d’oro del Grand Tour d’Italie, che ebbe in Roma il proprio centro pulsante, propagandosi in tutta Italia. Tuttavia, oltre agli artisti attivi nella capitale pontificia, sono presenti in mostra anche pittori della scuola napoletana, provenienti o attivi nel regno borbonico. Spicca in ambito meridionale la figura di Corrado Giaquinto, il massimo artista pugliese del secolo ed uno dei più grandi del ‘700. Sono presenti anche tele di Paolo de Matteis, pittore della scuola napoletana attivo anche nel Salento. Le opere esposte provengono in gran parte da Palazzo Chigi, sia dalla collezioni storiche chigiane che dal Museo del Barocco. Sono presenti anche alcune opere in collezione privata, compresi ulteriori dipinti raccolti da Fabrizio Lemme negli ultimi anni o provenienti da una prestigiosa collezione privata inglese.
Francesco Petrucci, Dipinti tra rococò e neoclassicismo da palazzo Chigi in Ariccia e da altre raccolte (Rome: Gangemi, 2013), 128 pages, ISBN: 978-8849227086, $48.50.
New Book | History of Design, 1400–2000
From Yale UP:
Pat Kirkham and Susan Weber, eds., History of Design: Decorative Arts and Material Culture, 1400–2000 (New Haven: Yale University Press for the Bard Graduate Center, 2013), 712 pages, ISBN: 978-0300196146, $80.
Spanning six centuries of global design, this far-reaching survey is the first to offer an account of the vast history of decorative arts and design produced in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Indian subcontinent, and the Islamic world, from 1400 to the present. Meticulously documented and lavishly illustrated, the volume covers interiors, furniture, textiles and dress, glass, graphics, metalwork, ceramics, exhibitions, product design, landscape and garden design, and theater and film design. Divided into four chronological sections, each of which is subdivided geographically, the authors elucidate the evolution of style, form, materials, and techniques, and address vital issues such as gender, race, patronage, cultural appropriation, continuity versus innovation, and high versus low culture.
Leading authorities in design history and decorative arts studies present hundreds of objects in their contemporary contexts, demonstrating the overwhelming extent to which the applied arts have enriched customs, ceremony, and daily life worldwide over the past six hundred years. This ambitious, landmark publication is essential reading, contributing a definitive classic to the existing scholarship on design, decorative arts, and material culture, while also introducing these subjects to new readers in a comprehensive, erudite book with widespread appeal.
Pat Kirkham is a professor at the Bard Graduate Center, where Susan Weber is founder and director.
Exhibition | The Tapestry Collection of the Petit Palais
Now on view in Nancy, as noted at Arachné, a research group blog dedicated to tapestries:
Chefs-d’œuvre de la tapisserie: La collection du Petit Palais, Paris
Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 25 October 2013 — 27 January 2014
Curated by Charles Villeneuve de Janti and Patrick Lemasson
Le Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, possède l’une des plus belles collections de tapisseries des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Issues de grandes manufactures européennes, elles furent élaborées et tissées en matériaux précieux d’après les cartons de peintres majeurs tels que Le Brun, Champaigne, Boucher, à l’instar du carton pour La Destruction du Palais d’Armide par Charles Coypel, l’un des chefs-d’œuvre du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy.
Ces œuvres, pouvant mesurer jusqu’à 5 mètres de hauteur, permettront aux visiteurs de découvrir un art de cour spectaculaire faisant écho à celui dévoilé dans l’exposition L’Automne de la Renaissance : d’Arcimboldo à Caravage. Pour des raisons de conservation, ces pièces sont très rarement présentées au public. Ce prêt du Petit Palais constitue donc une faveur exceptionnelle.
Didier Rykner provides a review at La Tribune de l’Art (4 November 2013).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The catalogue is available from Artbooks.com:
Patrick Lemasson, Chefs d’oeuvres de la Tapisserie: La collection du Petit Palais, Paris (Milan: Silvana, 2013), 72 pages, ISBN: 978-8836627257, $29.
Enfilade 
leave a comment