Enfilade

From the Call for Papers:

Neoclassicism in the Extended Field: A Global Project

Online, 28–30 May 2026

Organized by Faraz Olfat and Rebecca Yuste

Proposals due by 1 February 2026

Neoclassicism—rooted in the aesthetic, philosophical, and political traditions of Greece and Rome—stands as a defining current of the long nineteenth century, especially the period from 1750 to 1860. Often linked to state-building, emerging national identities, and the rise of secular modernity, the movement was shaped significantly by figures such as Robert Adam, Jacques-Louis David, Angelica Kauffman, Thomas Jefferson, Antonio Canova, and Abbé Laugier. Their ideas circulated broadly, aided by expanding imperial networks, print culture, and the development of photography. As a result, Neoclassical forms and ideals appeared far beyond Europe, taking shape in the colonial Americas, the Middle East, South Asia, and across the African continent. Art academies and new modes of image dissemination further amplified access to classical models once limited to travelers and on-site observers.

This conference asks what happens when Neoclassicism moves beyond its traditionally understood geographic center in Western Europe. How was the movement introduced, promoted, adapted, and transformed in non-Western contexts? How did Greco-Roman traditions intersect with existing local architectural, artistic, and archaeological legacies? And in what ways did Neoclassicism participate in, or respond to, global imperial structures?

We invite papers that expand, complicate, or challenge established narratives of Neoclassicism across media from the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum through the first decade of the twentieth century. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
• Transmission of Neoclassical design through colonial networks
• Photography, pattern books, architectural treatises, and academic training (including the École des Beaux-Arts)
• Governmental architecture, libraries, financial institutions, religious monuments, private residences, or unrealized projects
• Theoretical or historiographic studies that question conventional boundaries of the movement

We welcome contributions that offer new perspectives, illuminate understudied regions, or reconsider the global dynamics that shaped Neoclassical expression. As this will be an online symposium, we are especially eager to hear from scholars working in Asian, African, and Latin American geographies. Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words along with a CV to faraz.olfat@yale.edu by the 1st of February 2026. We will communicate decisions by the beginning of March. For any questions or concerns contact Rebecca Yuste at rmy2107@columbia.edu.

Keynote Speaker
Meredith Martin — Professor of Art History, New York University

Chairs
Faraz Olfat — PhD candidate, Department of the History of Art, Yale University
Rebecca Yuste — PhD candidate, Department of Art History & Archaeology, Columbia University, and Junior Fellow, Garden and Landscape Studies, Dumbarton Oaks

Ruines d’un Gymnase à Pergame, detail, from the second volume of Choiseul-Gouffier, Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce (1809).

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Utpictura 18 is now accepting proposals for a special issue, scheduled for publication in January 2027:

Utpictura18 | Images d’architecture au tournant des Lumières

Edited by Séverine Guillet and Fabrice Moulin

Proposals due by 30 January 2026; final articles will be due by 10 July 2026

Entreprises éditoriales, aux contours génériques mouvants, les “Voyages pittoresques” se développent de façon très importante à partir du dernier tiers du XVIIIe siècle et dans la période romantique. Ils sont les héritiers de traditions littéraires savantes occidentales, qui ont participé, par la découverte et l’observation, à l’ouverture et à l’élargissement du monde et du savoir: lointainement, le récit viatique humaniste, et plus directement les voyages antiquaires des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, ou encore les recueils d’antiquités ainsi que les voyages à visée scientifique et encyclopédique des Lumières.

Ancré, au départ, dans un double territoire, méditerranéo-oriental d’une part (le Voyage pittoresque ou description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile de Saint-Non en 1781; le Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce de Choiseul-Gouffier en 1782), et national d’autre part (le Voyage pittoresque de la France, initié par Laborde dès 1780), le voyage pittoresque, dont les horizons s’élargissent parfois jusqu’aux Indes ou au Nouveau Monde, est aussi bien une affaire d’histoire (avec en vue l’antique, ou le passé médiéval) que de géographie (paysages lointains ou proches, urbains, ruraux, alpins…). Parmi les nombreuses publications françaises qui s’affichent sous ce titre, on compte, sur cette période, au moins une quarantaine d’ouvrages illustrés. En dépit des disparités qui traversent ce corpus, a fortiori sur une période de quarante ans, les voyages pittoresques illustrés ont en commun, bien souvent, une forte ambition éditoriale: ce sont le plus souvent de luxueux ouvrages, de grand format, financés non sans difficultés par des souscriptions, voire des subventions. Ils sont richement illustrés de gravures (plus tard de lithographies) extrêmement soignées. Ils partagent surtout le projet, inscrit aussi dans leur titre (qui joint parfois le «voyage» au «tableau», et le «pittoresque» au «sentimental», puis au «romantique»), de faire voir, de rendre visible l’expérience singulière et sensible du voyage. Par l’image comme par le texte, le pittoresque traduit d’abord une nouvelle sensibilité au paysage, qui, à travers le vécu du voyage, cherche avant tout à produire de l’effet sur le spectateur-lecteur. Depuis Choiseul, qui place, dans son prospectus, le Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce sous le signe du désir de «communiquer […] une partie des sensations qu’[il] ven[ait] d’éprouver» jusqu’à Nodier, qui dit écrire, avec le Voyage pittoresque de l’ancienne France, un «voyage d’impressions», le voyage pittoresque configure la communication d’une expérience.

Des expériences d’architecture en images?

Qu’ils participent tantôt de la culture de l’observation scientifique des Lumières (en articulant, à loisir, savoirs archéologiques et topographiques, histoire naturelle, études de mœurs…) ou de l’affirmation d’une nouvelle sensibilité romantique (notamment à l’histoire et au passé national), ces voyages pittoresques placent l’architecture, délibérément ou non, au cœur de leurs enquêtes. Dans un article, adossé à une thèse restée inédite mais importante pour l’étude de ce corpus, Caroline Jeanjean-Becker constate que si «la forme et le fond de ces récits évoluent au cours de la période […] l’intérêt des voyageurs pour les monuments et la manière dont ils sont érigés demeure une constante. [Ces voyages] constituent donc autant d’histoires de l’architecture et d’expression d’une sensibilité à l’architecture» (Jeanjean-Becker 1999). L’intérêt des historiens de l’architecture pour ces voyages n’a fait que confirmer cette intuition (Szambien 1988; Armstrong 2013, par exemple). D’une certaine manière, c’est même autour du savoir et de l’imaginaire architectural que l’entreprise du voyage pittoresque s’invente (avec les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce de Leroy, précurseur du genre) et qu’elle aurait pu trouver son apogée (avec le projet initial, mais abandonné car trop ambitieux, du baron Taylor de donner une «histoire de l’architecture chez tous les peuples», qui se resserra finalement sur les Voyages pittoresques de l’ancienne France).

Inabouti, ce rêve éditorial d’une histoire universelle de l’architecture dans les premières années du XIXe siècle, nous invite néanmoins – c’est tout le sens de ce projet de numéro – à lire la production des voyages pittoresques illustrés comme autant, sinon d’histoires, du moins de récits imagés, d’expériences figurées d’architecture. Avec des accents culturels différents selon les périodes, les intentions éditoriales, les auteurs et les artistes, qu’ils soient portés par l’esprit de découverte encyclopédique des Lumières, ou la nouvelle sensibilité au paysage, par la passion archéologique de l’antique ou le goût pour les vestiges médiévaux, par l’attirance exotique ou la constitution d’un patrimoine national, tous ces ouvrages ont en commun de produire et diffuser, avec les moyens mécaniques de l’imprimé, un nombre colossal d’images qui font basculer l’essentiel du savoir et du plaisir promis au lecteur du voyage, du régime du discours vers celui du visible. Comment ces voyages pittoresques, en permettant la circulation et la comparaison massive d’images d’architectures – tantôt lointaines, inconnues ou redécouvertes, tantôt ancrées dans la France et ses provinces – participent-ils d’une nouvelle forme d’histoire de l’architecture par les images? et, plus généralement, d’une culture visuelle du bâti? Comment cette galerie, ce museum imaginaire et livresque (le musée s’invente d’ailleurs à cette époque) dialogue-t-il avec d’autres traditions visuelles de l’architecture, d’autres corpus d’images (comme ceux de Fischer von Erlach ou de Piranèse, par exemple); mais aussi avec les recueils d’antiquités ou encore les traités d’architecture et leurs illustrations, voire des illustrations de fictions? Comment ces illustrations donnent-elles à voir l’inscription complexe du savoir architectural (que l’iconographie humaniste avait surtout centré sur la question des proportions et des ordres), dans l’expérience multiple et dynamique du voyage? Comment se traduisent, dans les vues des voyages pittoresques, la série de nouveaux rapports dont se nourrit l’imaginaire architectural du tournant des Lumières? Rapport à la nature et au paysage (quelle part du bâti dans les esthétiques pittoresque et sublime?); rapport aux passés (quelles reconfigurations historiques, entre retour à l’antique et conscience d’une histoire nationale?); rapport à la subjectivité (la poétique ou la mélancolie des ruines, par exemple); rapport aux mœurs et aux sociétés (quand le bâti participe de l’enquête ethnographique naissante).

Cet appel se veut une invitation à circuler dans ces corpus gravés, dessinés, lithographiés, en croisant les approches plurielles de l’histoire de l’art, de l’architecture et du livre, de l’histoire littéraire, mais aussi de la sémiologie, ou des études visuelles. Les quelques grands circuits suivants pourront guider les recherches et les enquêtes, sans exclusive:

L’architecture et l’expérience du voyage

On pourra interroger les différentes modalités selon lesquelles les perceptions, les savoirs, les découvertes d’architecture s’intègrent dans l’expérience globale et mouvante, intellectuelle et sensible, du voyage. Quelle place pour l’architecture au sein du système des savoirs construit par le voyage et son illustration? Comment l’information d’architecture s’articule-t-elle aux autres types de savoirs véhiculés par l’image (savoir géologique, géographique, historique, ethnographique, épigraphique, numismatique…)? De même, quelle place occupe la thématique de l’architecture et son iconographie au sein du projet éditorial? Dans quelle mesure l’enquête architecturale reste-t-elle, comme le suggérait Caroline Jeanjean-Becker «le souci principal» du voyageur? Parfois, cet intérêt est délibérément formulé et mis en avant (comme dans le Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phénicie, de la Palestine et de la Basse-Egypte de Louis-François Cassas ou le Voyage pittoresque des isles de Sicile… de Jean-Pierre-Louis Houël), posant la question de la nature de cet intérêt. Dans cette perspective, l’étude des discours préfaciels et préliminaires, des péritextes promotionnels, voire des traces de métadiscours sur le projet iconographique pourrait permettre de dégager une sorte de poétique de l’image d’architecture, qui interroge les fonctions différentes qu’on lui assigne et les publics auxquels on la destine: restitution scientifique pour le savant et l’amateur? sauvegarde patrimoniale ou mémorielle? recherche de l’«effet» pour le lecteur? À l’inverse, on pourra se pencher sur les cas où le bâti s’invite sans qu’on l’y attende, jusqu’à occuper, dans le texte et dans l’image, une place importante, parfois à réévaluer, dans des voyages a priori tournés vers l’évocation de la nature ou l’observation des mœurs. Au-delà des approches qui ont volontiers privilégié le champ antiquaire ou l’histoire monumentale, on pourra se demander comment l’expérience du voyage, comme laboratoire d’une ethnographie naissante et au gré des mutations du pittoresque, a contribué à élargir les représentations de l’architecture, en portant une attention nouvelle à des formes du bâti encore relativement négligées par la littérature d’architecture: habitat modeste, rural ou typique, architectures vernaculaires ou industrielles (moulins, manufactures…), constructions édilitaires (pont, aqueduc, fontaine…) mais aussi logements fragiles, provisoires ou nomades (on pense, par exemple, aux frêles tentes des habitants d’Anatolie, que Choiseul-Gouffier fait représenter au milieu des vestiges de temples antiques). Quelle nouvelle visibilité pour ces bâtiments et constructions? Pour quelles nouvelles formes d’inscription du bâti dans les représentations de la société et des pratiques humaines? Enfin, entre exotisme (dans les expéditions de Grèce, du Levant ou d’Egypte…) et imaginaire national (depuis les Antiquités de France de Clérisseau, conçues comme parallèlement au Voyage pittoresque de la Grece de Choiseul-Gouffier, jusqu’à l’ancienne France de Taylor et Nodier), on pourra interroger les rôles fluctuants des motifs d’architecture dans les constructions politiques, idéologiques et poétiques des identités culturelles.

L’architecture mise en scène

«On a peint ce qu’on a vu, et on l’a peint avec amour » déclare le comte de Choiseul-Gouffier dans le prospectus du Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce. Cela pose la question, abordée dans le premier axe, de ce que les voyageurs voient effectivement, mais aussi celle de la manière dont ils le restituent «avec amour». Un questionnement autour de la mise en scène de l’architecture dans les voyages pittoresques permettra ainsi de s’emparer de corpus graphiques plus ou moins connus et de créer des ponts avec d’autres ensembles issus des livres d’architecture, d’histoire naturelle (où le bâti est parfois présent en tant que décor ou élément de contexte, comme dans les Tabulae sceleti… (1747) d’Albinus et Wandelaar), de fiction (tel le Voyage du jeune Anacharsis de l’abbé Barthélémy), ou avec l’œuvre de dessinateurs, architectes et graveurs (Piranèse, Clérisseau, Pâris, Wailly…).

On pourra plus précisément mettre en avant des filiations à travers la circulation de modes de représentation de l’architecture entre ces différentes sources: jeux d’échelles, cadrage, point de vue, mise en page, etc., dans la lignée de ce qu’a fait, par exemple, Susan M. Dixon pour Piranèse et Houël (Dixon 2003). Un questionnement autour de la circulation de motifs et même de gravures (par exemple entre le Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce et le Voyage du jeune Anacharsis), sera également bienvenu.

Le même Choiseul-Gouffier affirme que les «planches utiles» de son ouvrage, à savoir les cartes, les relevés d’édifices et d’éléments architecturaux, supposent un «goût vif pour l’architecture et des connaissances en géographie». Mais ce type de gravures côtoie aussi des scènes d’intérieur, des vues d’ensemble et paysagères, des reconstitutions parfois: autant de représentations jugées moins utiles mais susceptibles, en parlant à l’imagination, de plaire à un plus large lectorat. Cette tension ou complémentarité entre deux registres figurés caractérise un grand nombre d’ouvrages de la période étudiée. Il s’agira ainsi d’envisager les choix de représentation opérés dans les voyages pittoresques comme autant d’éléments d’une culture livresque plus vaste: comment s’articulent ces différents modes de représentation de l’architecture, entre recherche de rigueur, d’exactitude et d’effet voire d’émotion? À quels régimes de connaissance se raccrochent-ils? Au cœur de cette thématique se trouvent les vues animées de figures. S’agit-il de figures de convention, contemporaines ou historiques, ou bien de protagonistes du récit et/ou d’acteurs du projet éditorial (le comte de Choiseul-Gouffier abordé par un moine sur l’île de Patmos, ou Voltaire dessiné au premier plan d’une vue de Ferney dans les Tableaux de la Suisse de Laborde)? Qu’ajoutent-elles à l’intelligence des lieux représentés et quelle médiation apportent-elles au lecteur (guide, dessinateur, voyageur…)? Habitent-elles ces lieux ou sont-elles simplement disposées autour? La question de l’absence de ces figures, le cas échéant, pourra aussi être posée. Enfin, on s’intéressera au rapport de l’architecture à la nature, afin de mieux cerner les contours problématiques d’un pittoresque et d’un sublime qui seraient proprement architecturaux. Au-delà du motif de la ruine ou du tombeau, qu’on pourra suivre dans leurs glissements de l’antique vers le médiéval, le ressort principal des gravures, moins souvent étudié, réside aussi dans l’inscription du bâti (quel qu’il soit) dans l’écrin du site naturel (de la cabane rustique au village, en passant par le pont), voire la fusion métaphorique de leurs frontières: dans le texte comme dans l’image, la nature s’appréhende parfois comme artefact (terrasses, ponts, forteresses, colosses…) et l’artefact comme production naturelle (les visions piranésiennes de l’océan de débris, des murailles qui deviennent roches…). Autant de variations sur la confrontation entre l’homme et la nature, qu’on pourra étudier, en écho avec les grandes rêveries philosophiques des Lumières (celles d’un Diderot du Salon de 1767, d’un Bernardin de Saint-Pierre dans les Études de la Nature) ou les méditations romantiques (comme celles d’un Chateaubriand).

La fabrique du livre illustré: une architecture entre estampe et texte

Les voyages pittoresques sont souvent le résultat de véritables entreprises éditoriales qui ont pu durer de longues années. Peut-on d’ailleurs parler d’un résultat unique? Parutions par livraisons, puis en volumes, puis rééditions: ce que l’on désigne comme un voyage pittoresque recouvre parfois plusieurs réalités matérielles. Dans la lignée de ce qui a déjà été proposé pour certaines de ces entreprises (celles de Choiseul-Gouffier, de Laborde et de Saint-Non, par exemple), il conviendra alors d’éclairer la fabrique de ces livres. Que sait-on des premières démarches de leur(s) concepteur(s)? Quel était l’objectif de départ et à quoi cela a-t-il abouti? Derrière un ou deux noms, de multiples acteurs ont généralement contribué à ces entreprises. Dessinateurs, peintres, architectes, graveurs, écrivains, érudits, entrepreneurs, souscripteurs, imprimeurs, éditeurs…: on pourra, dans la mesure du possible, retracer certaines collaborations, certains parcours d’artistes (voir par exemple les rares études sur les architectes Fauvel ou Foucherot (Zambon et Pinon 2007)). Cela permettra d’éclairer et d’interroger les choix opérés, d’une technique de gravure à un mode de financement, ainsi que les chaînes de production, de l’artiste à l’éditeur et du dessin à la gravure, par exemple. La question de la publicité et de la réception pourra également être abordée.

Enfin, l’un des enjeux majeurs du voyage pittoresque – dans sa fabrication comme sa réception – c’est l’articulation complexe entre l’illustration et le texte. La représentation de l’architecture s’élabore dans le rapport entre ces deux régimes, iconique et textuel. Selon quelles tensions? Quelles complémentarités? Quels décrochages, quelles circulations pour le lecteur? Quels dialogues, quels passages entre les logiques narratives ou descriptives du voyage d’une part et l’organisation de la collection d’images (parfois en recueil et livraisons) qui fixent l’édifice ou cherchent à l’animer, d’autre part?

Si la promotion de l’illustration, tout au long de la période, tend à faire primer l’image, «partie principale», sur le texte «accessoire» (Choiseul), dans quelle mesure le discours (explicatif, descriptif, narratif) ne détient-il pas malgré tout certaines clefs de la lisibilité de l’image d’architecture ? Comment le texte du voyageur, traversé lui-même par d’autres textes, nourri de références livresques (Choiseul voyage «un Homère à la main») en vient-il à habiter et animer les lieux et les sites représentés? À les creuser par le récit, le mythe, ou l’expérience vécue? Comment, à l’inverse, l’illustration s’affranchit-elle du texte, selon quels décalages, pour quelle autonomie?

La période retenue pour les enquêtes s’ouvre naturellement avec les trois premiers voyages pittoresques illustrés édités par Saint-Non, Choiseul et Laborde, pour se refermer dans les années 1820, avec, notamment le premier volume des Voyages pittoresques de l’Ancienne France de Taylor et Nodier. En effet, à partir des années 1825, une double révolution scientifique (avec l’invention de l’archéologie moderne) et technique (le succès définitif du procédé lithographique), inaugure une nouvelle ère pour le livre illustré, le tourisme moderne et l’approche scientifique du monument historique. Cette périodisation a aussi l’avantage de placer l’imaginaire des voyages pittoresques en perspective avec ce moment, à la fois cohérent et tourmenté, du tournant des Lumières, dont bien des mutations culturelles se cristallisent, justement, dans les représentations du paysage. On laissera néanmoins ouverte la possibilité d’explorations comparatives en amont (en convoquant, par exemple, l’influence de la tradition savante des voyages d’antiquaires ou, dans un autre registre, les premiers voyages pittoresques au format de guides pratiques pour la découverte des beaux-arts à Paris ou ailleurs) et les prolongements en aval vers les mutations du genre après 1830, ou la réception et l’exploitation postérieure des gravures. D’une manière générale, nous serons ouverts à l’examen de propositions de contributions dédiées à des périodes plus tardives du XIXe siècle, pourvu qu’elles présentent, d’une façon ou d’une autre, un ancrage dans les enjeux et la période du tournant des Lumières.

De même, si le volume envisage de centrer les contributions sur les publications en France, on pourra nourrir la réflexion en montrant comment ces images d’architectures s’inscrivent dans un contexte européen, marqué notamment par la double influence anglaise, antiquaire (les premières grandes expéditions en Grèce de Richard Pococke, Stuart et Revett ou encore Wood et Dawkins) et esthétique (avec les élaborations théoriques autour du pittoresque chez Gilpin notamment).

A selected bibliography of primary and secondary sources is available here»

Calendrier et consignes

Les propositions d’articles (250-300 mots) devront être envoyées, accompagnées d’une courte bio-bibliographie, avant le 30 janvier 2026 à Séverine Guillet, guillets@parisnanterre.fr, et à Fabrice Moulin, moulinfabrice@yahoo.fr. Le comité donnera sa réponse à la mi-mars 2026.

Les articles dont les propositions auront été retenues devront nous parvenir avant le 10 juillet 2026. Longueur maximale des articles: 35000 signes, espaces compris. Se conformer aux consignes de mise en page (à lire avant de commencer à rédiger). Chaque article pourra être illustré de 15 images maximum. Les consignes sur la préparation des dossiers iconographiques seront données aux auteurs en mars 2026. Publication prévue en janvier 2027.

Numéro coordonné par
Séverine Guillet, université Paris Nanterre (HAR)
Fabrice Moulin, université Paris Nanterre (CSLF)

Comité scientifique:
Odile Parsis-Barubé, Université de Lille, IRHIS
Gilles Bertrand, Université Grenoble Alpes, LUHCIE
Elise Pavy, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne, PLURIELLES
Jean-Marie Roulin, Université Jean-Monnet Saint Etienne, IHRIM
Christopher Drew Armstrong, University of Pittsburg, Dpt of History of Art and Architecture

Éditeur de la revue Rubriques:
Université d’Aix-Marseille, CIELAM
Maison de la recherche
29, avenue Robert-Schuman-Schuman
13621 Aix-en-Provence cedex 01

Directeur de la publication: Stéphane Lojkine

From ArtHist.net and the Call for Papers:

The Jews, the Arts, and the Mediterranean, 1450–1750

Les Juifs, Les Arts, et la Méditerranée, 1450–1750

Palazzo Alberti, Florence, 12 June 2026

Organized by Piergabriele Mancuso and Jorge Morales

Proposals due by 1 March 2026

Supported by The Medici Archive Project (Florence), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Université Paris-Saclay), and Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi (Venice)

A period of major sociopolitical transformations and profound cultural and spiritual ruptures—from the discovery of the New World to the rise of religious dissent—the early modern era marked for Jews the beginning of a long phase of arbitrary legal impositions, among which were the creation of ghettos, first in Italy and then in the rest of Europe. Despite these legal, economic, and social discriminations, small groups of Jewish intellectuals, artists, musicians, and artisans managed to weave fruitful relationships with the cultural and political elites of Italian and Southern European courts. Starting from this premise, some strands of historiography have often failed to recognize the interpenetrating interactions that took place beyond, and the connections that were triggered between different social groups thanks to the porous nature of the barriers of separation.

Clear evidence of this phenomenon can be found in the world of craftsmanship and the arts, both visual and musical. A systematic review of historical sources shows that in these areas the legal restrictions imposed upon Jews were repeatedly disregarded—by Jews and Christians alike. Such ‘exceptions’ often extended far beyond the specific spheres of the disciplines involved, giving rise to more complex exchanges.

This conference aims to identify, contextualize, and historically define the significance of these phenomena; to analyze the education, working conditions, and material production of Jewish musicians, artists, and artisans in the early modern Mediterranean. All forms of artistic production (music, visual arts, performing arts) and craftsmanship were essential activities for the functioning of daily life, and in particular for the artistic life (theater, concerts, performances, visual arts) of a court, a city, or a given place.

The organizers—Piergabriele Mancuso (The Medici Archive Project) and Jorge Morales (Université de Versailles–Saint-Quentin)—invite proposals for 20-minute unpublished papers in English, Italian, and French that address topics including, but not limited to:
• Collecting and Patronage Patterns (Visual Arts, Literature, Music and Theater)
• Decorative Arts
• Jews as Artistic Brokers
• The Ottoman Empire and the West
• The Jewish Maghreb
• Port Cities and Cultural Exchange
• Women and the Arts
• Book and Print Culture
• Artistic Dialogue between Sephardic, Italian, and Ashkenazi Cultures
• The Architecture of Sacred Spaces
• Northern European Jews in the Mediterranean
• Artistic Theory and Practice

To apply, please send a PDF with an abstract (max 250 words) and a short bio (max 100 words) by 1 March 2026 to education@medici.org. Successful applicants will be notified on 1 April 2026. We plan to include selected papers in an edited volume published by the Medici Archive Project Series with Brepols/Harvey Miller.

From ArtHist.net:

Artists Overseas: Foreign Artists in the Czech Lands and Czech Artists Abroad

Prague, 21–22 May 2026

Proposals due by 31 December 2025

Mobility, migration, and cultural exchange have profoundly shaped visual culture across the centuries. Owing to their location in the heart of Europe, the Czech lands have long served not only as an important crossroads through which many artists passed, but also as an attractive destination for foreign creators, particularly during periods of cultural flourishing. At the same time, movement occurred in the opposite direction: artists born or trained in the Czech environment frequently undertook shorter or longer journeys abroad. The motivations for mobility were diverse—from forced emigration for political, religious, or economic reasons to the pursuit of more stimulating training, new professional experiences, or more prestigious commissions. This two-way movement significantly influenced the local visual language, aesthetic preferences, and institutional frameworks of artistic life.

The conference aims to examine this topic from multiple perspectives ranging from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. We welcome papers focusing both on biographical portraits of figures who experienced artistic mobility, as well as on broader analyses of migration patterns among artists within particular periods or between specific countries and regions. Attention may also be given to the cultural transfer that mobility generated, or to the social aspects of the issue, such as the ways in which foreign artists became integrated into local structures and adapted to new environments. On a more general level, contributions may address perceptions of otherness and foreignness that the work and lives of migrant artists typically represented for their host societies. Finally, we also welcome papers dealing with the characteristics of important sources or source types, and analyses of how such materials can be used for research purposes.

The theme is open to art historians, archivists, historians, and specialists from related fields. The only requirement is that each paper should be grounded in the evidence of archival sources. We invite those interested in active participation to submit a proposal in the form of an abstract (maximum 1000 characters) accompanied by a brief biographical note. The expected length of each presentation is 20 minutes. Publication of the papers is planned. The conference languages are Czech and English. The organising committee reserves the right to select papers. Please send abstracts with brief biographies to uhlikova@udu.cas.cz and radka.heisslerova@ngprague.cz by 31 December 2025.

Organized by the National Gallery Prague and the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

From the Call for Papers:

Gulliver’s Travels at 300: The Global Afterlives of a

Bestseller in Print, Transmedial Adaptations, and Material Cultures

The Seventh ILLUSTR4TIO International Symposium

St. Bride Library, London, 23–25 September 2026

Proposals due by 15 March 2026

Plenary Lecture: Professor Daniel Cook (University of Dundee)
Artist’s Talk: Martin Rowson, in conversation with Brigitte Friant-Kessler

After Gulliver’s Travels was first published in 1726 and became, in the words of English dramatist John Gay, ‘universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery’, Jonathan Swift’s contemporaries provided mixed reviews of this prose satire, reflecting on its moral value, social landscape, political subtext, comic scenes, and general appeal as a fictional travelogue. The long list of famous figures who commented publicly or privately during Swift’s century on Captain Lemuel Gulliver’s memoirs includes Alexander Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Samuel Richardson, Walter Scott, Abbé Desfontaines, Voltaire, Madame du Deffand, Johann Christoph Gottsched, and Christoph Martin Wieland. During its three-centuries-old existence, Gulliver’s Travels has been rewritten and reedited, imitated and parodied, abridged and expanded, visualised and adapted, commodified and collected…. ‘If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed’, wrote George Orwell in 1946, ‘I would certainly put Gulliver’s Travels among them’. And as Will Rossiter (@Satyrane), who is an X (previously Twitter) user and literary scholar, summed up its appeal using this platform on 2 June 2016, ‘the afterlife of Gulliver’s Travels is built into the text itself’. Less concerned with literary rhetoric and textual semantics, artists seized upon Gulliver’s Travels to engage creatively with a text punctuated with humorous scenes, set in apocryphal lands, and sewn with inventive plot twists, and in which the main character interacts with miniature creatures, giants, flying islands, and talking horses. In the process, they generated a multifaceted iconographic corpus that rivals those of eighteenth-century bestsellers such as Robinson Crusoe and Candide, which have benefited, however, from substantial critical attention.

As its tercentennial anniversary approaches, Gulliver’s Travels has established itself as a canonical text and global bestseller. It still resonates with readers, young and old alike, throughout the world, is successfully taught in university classrooms, inspires new visual and textual remediations and adaptations, and captures the consumer’s gaze from a wealth of material objects. Considered ‘a great classic’ written by ‘the preeminent prose satirist in the English language’, it is ranked number 3 on The Guardian’s 100 Best Novels (as ‘a satirical masterpiece that’s never been out of print’), 35 in Raymond Queneau’s Pour une bibliothèque idéale (listing books forming an ideal library), 55 on the BBC’s 100 Greatest British Novels (based on a poll distributed to book critics outside the U.K.), 62 on The Telegraph’s 100 Novels Everyone Should Read (inventorying ‘the best novels of all time’), as well as unnumbered in Die Zeit’s Bibliothek der 100 Bücher (a collection with pedagogical aims from the well-respected German newspaper) and Harold Bloom’s Western canon, listing works ‘of great aesthetic interest’. In the Greatest Books of All Time, an inventory generated by an algorithm from 130 lists compiling the best books including the aforementioned ones, Gulliver’s Travels is classified as number 36. The Dean’s fictional travelogue has inspired a fascinating array of afterlives, ranging from the conventional (e.g. Sawney Gilpin’s 1760s oil paintings of Gulliver interacting with the Houyhnhnms and Thomas Stothard’s 1782 designs for The Novelist’s Magazine), to the loosely connected (Max Fleischer’s 1939 technicolour Gulliver’s Travels, recently restored for BluRay, and Gulliver’s Wife, Lauren Chater’s 2020 historical novel giving voice and agency to a midwife and herbalist whose presence in the source-text is minimal), to the transgressive (a fumetto: Milo Manara’s 1996 Gullivera; and American sailors from the Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan dressing up as Gulliver and parading in the Gulliver-Kannonzaki Festival), and to the playful (the giant Gulliver figure tied to the ground in Turia Gardens located in Valencia, Spain, with stairs, ramps, and ropes for children to climb up and down, as well as fast slides).

It is the enduring power and presence of Gulliver’s Travels in a diverse spectrum of fields, from scholarly editions to transmedial adaptations to popular culture events, that are of great interest to the conference organisers for this event. Papers that propose new, previously unpublished interpretations of the lively afterlives and global peregrinations of Gulliver’s Travels across time and space, or in various media and contexts, using interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches, are particularly welcomed.

Avenues for reflection include, but are not limited to, fresh perspectives on:
• the reception of Gulliver’s Travels in specific timeframes, geographic locations, and cultural contexts;
• Gulliver’s Travels in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century print (limited editions, serialised publications, chapbook adaptations, children’s books, ephemera, etc.);
• (illustrated) translations of Gulliver’s Travels in their editorial/linguistic/cultural contexts;
• Gulliver’s Travels and print culture (editorial paratexts, book collections, readers’ marginalia, extra-illustrated editions, etc.); or other graphic literature such as comics;
• images inspired by Gulliver’s Travels (paintings, frontispiece portraits, series of illustrations, standalone prints, graphic satire, maps, book covers, film posters, etc.) – focusing, for example, on visual commonplaces, iconographic paradigms, text-image relations, or Gulliver in the press;
• material Gulliveriana (board games, ceramic objects, playing cards, fans, keychains, bags, etc.) in relation to consumer culture and the Swift industry;
• the fun Gulliver (amusement parks, funfairs, cosplay, etc.);
• Gulliver’s Travels on stage (plays, musicals, operas, songs, sheet music) or on screen (film, TV, internet platforms, webzines, webcomics, video games, etc.)
• Gulliver’s Travels in the classroom: innovative pedagogical approaches to a world classic;
• decolonising Gulliver’s Travels and its links to the global British Empire;
• bringing Swift’s travelogue to life: curating exhibitions or events related to Gulliver’s Travels.

This international symposium celebrating the 300th anniversary of Gulliver’s Travels will be held under the auspices of the St. Bride Library in London, U.K. and in conjunction with a print workshop. In keeping with Illustr4tio’s aim to animate a dialogue between practitioners and critics, proposals are invited from illustrators, authors, printmakers, publishers, curators, collectors, and researchers. Papers can be presented in English or French. Proposals (500 words), accompanied by a bio-bibliographical note (100–150 words), should be sent to gulliverat300@yahoo.com by 15 March 2026. The publication of a selection of revised papers with previously unpublished material is envisaged. We will be able to accommodate requests for an early decision to support funding applications (please indicate your deadline in the submission).

Organising Committee
Nathalie Collé (Université de Lorraine)
Leigh G. Dillard (University of North Georgia)
Brigitte Friant-Kessler (Université de Valenciennes)
Christina Ionescu (Mount Allison University)

Illustr4tio is an international research network on illustration studies and practices. It aims at bringing together illustrators, authors, printmakers, publishers, curators, collectors, and researchers who have a common interest in illustration in all its forms, from the 16th century to the 21st century.

c o n t e n t s

Barchas, Janine. ‘Prefiguring Genre: Frontispiece Portraits from Gulliver’s Travels to Millenium Hall.’ Studies in the Novel 30.2 (Summer 1998): 260–86.

Borovaia, Olga V. ‘Translation and Westernization: Gulliver’s Travels in Ladino’. Jewish Social Studies, New Series 7.2 (Winter 2001): 149–68.

Bracher, Frederick. ‘The Maps in Gulliver’s Travels’. Huntington Library Quarterly 8.1 (November 1944): 59–74.

Bullard, Paddy, and James McLaverty. Jonathan Swift and the Eighteenth-Century Book. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Collé, Nathalie. ‘“[T]o Mix Colours for Painters” and Illustrate and Adapt Gulliver’s Travels Worldwide: Street Murals, Adaptability and Transmediality’. In Adaptation and Illustration, edited by Shannon Wells-Lassagne and Sophie Aymes, Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), 47–68.

Cook, Daniel. Gulliver’s Afterlives: 300 Years of Transmedia Adaptation. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025.

Colombo, Alice. ‘Rewriting Gulliver’s Travels under the Influence of J. J. Grandville’s Illustrations’. Word & Image: A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry 30.4 (October-December 2014): 401–15.

Cook, Daniel. ‘Vexed Diversions: Gulliver’s Travels, the Arts and Popular Entertainment.’ In The Edinburgh Companion to the Eighteenth-Century British Novel and the Arts, edited by Jakub Lipski and M.-C. Newbould (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024), 228–43.

Cook, Daniel, and Nicholas Seager, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Gulliver’s Travels. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2024.

Didicher, Nicole E. ‘Mapping the Distorted Worlds of Gulliver’s Travels’. Lumen: Selected Proceedings from the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies 16 (1997): 179–96.

Duthie, Elizabeth. ‘Gulliver Art’. The Scriblerian 10.2 (1978): 127–31.

Edwards, A. W. F. ‘Is the Frontispiece of Gulliver’s Travels a Likeness of Newton?’. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 50.2 (July 1996): 191–94.

Friant-Kessler, Brigitte. ‘L’encre et la bile: Caricature politique et roman graphique satirique au prisme de Gulliver’s Travels Adapted and Updated de Martin Rowson’. In L’Image railleuse, ed. Laurent Baridon, Frédérique Desbuissons, et Dominic Hardy (Paris: Publications de l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, 2019), 315–44.

Gevirtz, Karen Bloom. Representing the Eighteenth Century in Film and Television, 2000-2015. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

Goring, Paul. ‘Gulliver’s Travels on the Mid-Eighteenth-Century Stage; Or, What is an Adaptation?’ Forum for Modern Language Studies 51.2 (2015): 100–15.

Halsband, Robert. ‘Eighteenth-Century Illustrations of Gulliver’s Travels’. In Proceedings of The First Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift, ed. Hermann J. Real and Heinz J. Vienken (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1985), 83–112.

Hui, Haifeng. ‘The Changing Adaptation Strategies of Children’s Literature: Two Centuries of Children’s Editions of Gulliver’s Travels’. Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 17.2 (Fall 2011): 245–62.

Léger, Benoit. ‘Nouvelles aventures de Gulliver à Blefuscu: traductions, retraductions et rééditions des Voyages de Gulliver sous la monarchie de Juillet’. Meta 49.3 (September 2004): 526–43.

Lenfest, David. ‘A Checklist of Illustrated Editions of Gulliver’s Travels, 1727-1914’. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 62.1 (1968): 85–123.

Lenfest, David. ‘LeFebvre’s Illustrations of Gulliver’s Travels’. Bulletin of the New York Public Library 76 (1972): 199–208.

McCreedy, Jonathan, Vesselin M. Budakov, and Alexandra K. Glavanakova (eds.). Swiftian Inspirations: The Legacy of Jonathan Swift from the Enlightenment to the Age of Post-Truth. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2020.

Real, Hermann Josef. The Reception of Jonathan Swift in Europe. London: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005.

Rivero, Albert J., ed. Gulliver’s Travels: Contexts, Criticism. New York: Norton, 2002.

Sena, John F. ‘Gulliver’s Travels and the Genre of the Illustrated Book’. In The Genres of Gulliver’s Travels, ed. Frederik N. Smith (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990), 101–38.

Tadié, Alexis. ‘Traduire Gulliver’s Travels en images’. In Traduire et illustrer le roman au XVIIIe siècle, ed. Nathalie Ferrand (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2011), 149–68.

Taylor, David Francis. ‘Gillray’s Gulliver and the 1803 Invasion Scare’. In The Afterlives of Eighteenth-Century Fiction, ed. Daniel Cook and Nicolas Seager (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 212–32.

Wagner, Peter. Reading Iconotexts: From Swift to the French Revolution. London: Reaktion, 1995.

Welcher, Jeanne K. ‘Eighteenth-Century Views of Gulliver: Some Contrasts between Illustrations and Prints’. In Imagination on a Long Rein: English Literature Illustrated, ed. Joachim Möller (Marburg: Jonas Verlag, 1988), 82–93.

Welcher, Jeanne K. Gulliveriana VII: Visual Imitations of Gulliver’s Travels, 1726–1830. Delmar, N.Y.: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1999.

Welcher, Jeanne K. Gulliveriana VIII: An Annotated List of Gulliveriana, 1721–1800. Delmar, NY: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1988.

Welcher, Jeanne K. and Joseph Randi. ‘Gulliverian Drawings by Richard Wilson’. Eighteenth-Century Studies 18.2 (Winter 1984-1985): 170–85.

Womersley, David. Gulliver’s Travels. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

From ArtHist.net:

Plant Lives: Sacred Interdependencies in the Arts of the Americas

Yale Institute of Sacred Music, New Haven, 11 April 2026

Proposals due by 16 January 2026

In 1831, the preacher Nat Turner testified that hieroglyphics had appeared to him on leaves and corn stalks, relaying divine messages that inspired him to lead a rebellion of enslaved Virginians. The capacities of plants to transmit divine insights across time is the starting point for this one-day conference, which explores the ways in which plants perform, evoke, and embody sacred relations throughout the Americas. In addition to considering plants as agents of divination, the conference and the subsequent planting celebration will look to plants as a means of reviving sacred interdependencies in art and musical practices. Coconut shells and seed beads frequently appear in contemporary Santeria divinations; the banjo is a cousin of gourd-based stringed instruments originating in Africa and Brazil; African American eco-feminist musicians have revived shekere and coconut percussion instruments since the 1980s. Images of plants are also powerful reminders of the tastes, smells, and other sensory experiences lost to migration.

We are interested in 20-minute papers or performances that discuss plants, planting, or plant-derived materials in relation to ecology and the sacred. On the evening of the conference, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music will host a public groundbreaking for a gourd garden at the Urban Naturescapes Native Plant Nursery in New Haven’s Newhallville neighborhood. We hope the event will activate questions such as: How have plants sustained spiritual relationships across geographic contexts? How can we see plants as living archives that impact what we remember in the here and now?

Possible topics include:
• The role of plants in precolonial or Indigenous cosmologies
• The production of plant-based musical instruments
• The cultural patrimony of sacred plants
• Plants and planting in sacred music repertoires
• Planting and agricultural work as teaching tools
• Plants that defy normative categorization, e.g. weeds
• The preservation of sacred plant lineages, such as through seed banks or community food projects
• Motifs in sacred art and architecture
• Queer intimacies with organic matter or vegetation

The Yale Institute of Sacred Music will cover the cost of hotel accommodates in New Haven and will provide a $250 stipend toward travel. Interested participants should send a 250-word abstract, along with the presenters’ names and affiliations, if any, to plantlivesconference@gmail.com by 16 January 2025. All abstracts will receive a response by 23 January 2025. Questions can be directed to Katie Anania at katie.anania@yale.edu.

From the Call for Papers and ArtHist.net (which includes the Call for Papers in German). . .

Visualizing Antiquity: On the Episteme of Early Modern Drawings and Prints V:

The Copy of the Copy … of the Copy: Techniques of Pictorial Reception of

Antiquity in the Early Modern Period

Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 3 July 2026

Organized by Elisabeth Décultot, Arnold Nesselrath, Cristina Ruggero, and Timo Strauch

Proposals due by 11 January 2026

Various early modern depictions of Harpocrates (the Greek form of the Egyptian child-god Horus).

In virtually all domains of human creativity, the outcomes—whether deliberately or inadvertently—are subject to the principle of repetition. This phenomenon likewise characterizes the history of acquiring knowledge about antiquity. Once information has been recorded in written or visual form, it typically becomes the point of departure for subsequent reproductions. The material documented at the beginning of the transmission process is copied and disseminated for as long as it is considered useful, with the copies themselves generally functioning as further agents of replication.

In this process, copies function not merely as duplicates in a subordinate hierarchical relationship to the ‘original’, but as powerful resources of knowledge. They enable the preservation, transmission and creative transformation of knowledge about specific objects, monuments and forms. In transmission chains that are often only partially preserved—and frequently lack the now-lost ‘original’—, copies are rather the standard means of transmission. As such, they provide essential insights into historical developments, reveal methodological approaches, and support the production of knowledge by making ongoing engagement with ancient models visible.

The fifth colloquium in the series Visualizing Antiquity: On the Episteme of Early Modern Drawings and Prints focuses on copying processes in graphic arts that deal with antique or supposedly antique artefacts. The primary aim is not to examine the function of repetition as an artistic exercise or attempt at stylistic emulation, but rather the role of copies in the context of the transmission and transformation of knowledge. Images ‘live on’ by being traced, redrawn, re-engraved or otherwise transformed in order to preserve and convey concepts, forms and concrete objects, or to illustrate and continue discourses about them.

The entire chain of possible lines of transmission will be examined: from the study of the ‘original’—a term that in this context needs to be questioned itself—to proven or inferred copies in drawing or print, to their use in antiquarian, academic or artistic contexts. What material, institutional and epistemic structures determined the circulation of these images? How did repeated transmission influence the perception of antiquity, and were objects and images reinterpreted or creatively transformed despite being copies? Did the actors involved—draughtsmen, engravers, antiquarians or publishers—address the methodology of copying and the quality of the reproductions? What significance did the point of origin of the tradition have, and how did the status of graphic art as a medium between documentation, illustration and imagination change? Are there differences depending on the type of objects being passed on, for example in the case of records of antique architecture and their use in architectural theory (editions of Vitruvius)?

Possible topics, with further suggestions also welcome:
• Examples of ‘long-chain’ transmission of ancient artefacts and monuments in 17th- and 18th-century graphic arts
• (Non-)availability of lost and missing artefacts and monuments
• Manipulation and conjecture in the process of replication
• Breaks and ruptures in established patterns
• Copying as practice and method
• Technical reproduction processes: from drawing to drawing, from drawing to print, from print back to drawing
• Copies in drawing and print as instruments of knowledge circulation and preservation
• Academic, antiquarian and publishing contexts of graphic reproduction
• Copies as a means of documentation, systematisation and virtual collections

The colloquium thus aims to highlight the process of copying as a mode of cultural and media transmission—as a process in which images, and with them knowledge, remain in motion.

Researchers are invited to submit proposals for 20-minute presentations in German, English, French, or Italian, ideally combining case studies with broader perspectives. Proposals (max. 400 words) can be submitted until 11 January 2026, together with a short CV (max. 150 words) to thesaurus@bbaw.de with the keyword ‘Episteme V’. Hotel and travel expenses (economy-class flight or train; 2 nights’ accommodation) will be reimbursed according to the Federal Law on Travel Expenses (BRKG). Publication of the contributions to the colloquium in expanded form is planned.

Bildwerdung der Antike: Zur Episteme von Zeichnungen und Druckgrafiken der

Frühen Neuzeit V: Die Kopie der Kopie … der Kopie: Techniken der bildlichen

Antikenrezeption in der Frühen Neuzeit Bildwerdung der Antike

Organized by the Academy Research Project Antiquitatum Thesaurus. Antiquities in European Visual Sources from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Conceived by Elisabeth Décultot, Arnold Nesselrath, Cristina Ruggero, Timo Strauch.

From ArtHist.net:

Sculpture and Trompe l’œil in European Ceramics,

From Bernard Palissy to the Present

Hôtel de la Roche, Mons, Belgium, 10–13 July 2026

Proposals due by 12 December 2025; full papers due by 30 April 2026

Second Edition of the Annual Conference on European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

A combined effort of the Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ébénistes and the Low Countries Sculpture Society, whose libraries and archives have merged and are housed in the Hôtel de la Roche (1750) at Mons, the Annual International Conference had its inaugural edition in July 2025. This edition, dedicated to European ceramics, aims to address issues relating to figurative sculpture in the round, to relief sculpture and to trompe l’oeil, all in the medium of ceramics. This includes the imitation of other materials, such as wood or precious stones, and the mimetic representation of animals and plants. Sculpture and trompe l’oeil are recurring themes but have been little studied in a comprehensive manner in European ceramic art, not even in Art Deco ceramics, which frequently use sculptural forms, both in tableware and in purely decorative pieces.

The term trompe l’oeil comes from the world of easel painting, and the conference will be an opportunity to define more precisely the use and usefulness of this term in the world of ceramics. Our conference proposes to study cases that can shed light on this practice, from the Renaissance to the present day, in terms of the rendering of forms, colours, and textures. These cases may concern the production, consumption, collecting and display of these types of ceramics throughout Europe and North America, from the Renaissance to the present day. Issues of design history, collaborations between creators and producers, artists and artisans, as well as the relations with any other people involved in the production of these ceramics may be studied. The theme will draw, in particular but not exclusively, on the rich tradition of ceramics in the Low Countries, from Antwerp majolica, via Tournai porcelain and Bouffioulx stoneware, to contemporary productions.

The conference has an international and multidisciplinary orientation. As such, we hope to attract lively participation from junior and senior scholars in the history of ceramics, sculpture, archaeology, ethnography, as well as practitioners of restoration-conservation in the same and other relevant fields. Short papers (maximum 30 minutes) of new research or work in progress may be presented in English or French. A minimal passive knowledge of English and French are highly recommended to enable full participation in the ensuing discussions, which form the core of the seminar. The Society covers accommodation expenses for foreign speakers at the conference, as well as group meals and the optional excursions. On the other hand, travel arrangements to and from Mons are the responsibility of the individual participants and their travel expenses will not be reimbursed.

The conference will take place without audience (apart from the speakers, moderators and a few benefactors), but it will be filmed and broadcast live on YouTube for free, on our dedicated channel, The Low Countries Sculpture Society. The conference proceedings will be published in 2027 in a new academic journal dedicated to European sculpture and decorative arts, based on our annual international conferences.

Please send participation proposals with a 200-word abstract of the intended paper and a 200-word CV by email to info@lcsculpture.art. We prefer to receive your abstract written in your mother tongue. We will then have it professionally translated into English and French for our Scientific Committee. We will inform of the Scientific Committee’s decision in December. Full papers, with their accompanying PowerPoint presentation, will then be due by 30 April for peer review and final paper acceptance.

Scientific Committee
Jean-Dominique Augarde, Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ebénistes, Paris / Mons
Yves De Leeuw, collector and exhibition curator at the château d’Ecaussinnes-Lalaing, Fondation van der Burch
Bernard Dragesco, Dragesco-Cramoisan Gallery, Paris / Château de Barly
Errol Manners, E & H Manners Gallery, London
Sylvie Milasseau-Wengraf, art historian, Switzerland
Tamara Préaud, formerly Cité de la Céramique, Sèvres, and president, The French Porcelain Society, London
Miriam E. Schefzyk, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Volker Seiberth, University of Heidelberg / The Low Countries Sculpture Society
Pier Terwen, art historian and conservator of sculpture and ceramics, Leiden

Organizing Committee
Katia Berseneva, Ecole du Louvre, Paris / The Low Countries Sculpture Society
Théodore and Clotilde de Brouwer, château d’Ecaussinnes-Lalaing, Fondation van der Burch
Guillaume Hambye, notary, Mons
Laurence Lenne, Galerie Art & Patrimoine, Ath
Léon Lock, The Low Countries Sculpture Society, Brussels / Mons
Grégory Maugé, Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ébénistes, Paris / Mons
Thierry Naveaux, The Low Countries Sculpture Society, Brussels / Mons
Sébastien Tercelin de Joigny, Tercelin de Joigny Gallery, Mons / Seneffe
Jenny Tondreau, Collegiate church of Sainte-Waudru, Mons

Punch bowl, made in China, 1788–89, hard paste porcelain, overglaze polychrome enamels, gilding
(Historic Deerfield, HD 2772)

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From Historic Deerfield:

The Local and the Global in New England

Historic Deerfield, 7 March 2026

Proposals due by 9 January 2026

A one-day symposium sponsored by Historic Deerfield, Inc. and the Grace Slack McNeil Program for Studies in American Art at Wellesley College.

New England has always been a place characterized by movement, exchange, and connectivity. People, animals, objects, and ideas traversed the land and waterways long before European colonization, which in turn transformed trade, technology, migration, and warfare in the region. This one-day symposium aims to gather scholars and researchers who explore the nature of local, regional, and global networks in New England from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. By bringing together a diverse range of scholars from multiple disciplines, we hope to elucidate how objects—from fine and decorative arts, to buildings, to everyday pieces of material culture—linked New England localities to far-flung makers and markets.

We are interested in a broad range of papers that address how material things complicate our sense of what was local and what was global about the region now called New England, including:
• How do objects, from tools to trade goods, reveal patterns of circulation within and beyond this region?
• How can material things challenge our understanding of distance and proximity?
• How did the creation and exchange of objects both useful and decorative shape the creation of particular New England identities?
• How was the trade of objects local and global entwined with concepts of refinement, social class, and exclusion?
• What methods can scholars and Native knowledge keepers offer to better understand items as they moved in and out of Indigenous and settler communities over time?
• How can objects reveal histories of cultural plurality, transculturation, and survivance?
• How does the movement of objects suggest ways that urban makers and markets mutually constituted those objects’ meanings with their rural counterparts?
• Did New Englanders’ gendering of particular objects, and consumption generally, reflect or diverge from related notions held elsewhere?
• How do networks of exchange crystallize into unique hybrid forms?
• How can we find all these narratives in not only form and function, but also the material substance of these objects?
• And how do responses to these questions complicate the very definition of ‘New England’?

We welcome proposals for 20-minute presentations. Speakers invited to present will receive overnight accommodation and dinner on Friday, March 6 and lunch on Saturday, March 7. We can also offer some reimbursement of travel expenses (with receipts) and a modest honorarium. Presenters will be expected to participate fully in the in-person symposium program on site in Deerfield, MA. Please email, as one document, a 250-word proposal and a CV (not longer than two pages) to Erika Gasser at egasser@historic-deerfield.org. Proposals should include the title of the paper and the presenter’s name and title/affiliations, if any. The deadline for submissions is 9 January 2026; the selection committee will respond to submitters in February.