Enfilade

From the Call for Papers (with the French version here) . . .

L’univers de Watteau: Réseaux et influences autour d’Antoine Watteau (1684–1721)
Musée de l’Armée – Hôtel National des Invalides, Paris, 17–18 November 2021

Proposals due by 15 October 2020

Pierre Antoine Quillard, The Four Seasons: Spring, ca. 1725–29, oil on canvas, 42.5 × 33.5 cm (Madrid: Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza en depósito en el Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, inv. CTB.1930.90).

To commemorate the tricentenary of the death of Antoine Watteau (Valenciennes, 1684–1721, Nogent-sur-Marne), a two-day symposium will be held in Paris, at the Musée de l’Armée – Hôtel National des Invalides, in partnership with the Fine Arts Paris fair, 17–18 November 2021.

Since the major retrospective of 1984, several important publications have been produced. In 1996, Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat co-signed the catalogue raisonné of Watteau’s drawings.¹ In 2010, Christoph Martin Vogtherr conducted an extensive survey (historical and material) of French paintings by Watteau and his entourage in the collections of Prussian palaces,² continued by an exhibition in the musée Jacquemart-André.³ Since 2014, Martin Eidelberg has been developing the Watteau and His Circle project, alongside the catalogue raisonné of his paintings: A Watteau Abecedario.

Eidelberg’s Watteau and His Circle project is the inspiration for this symposium. His research on artists who gravitated around Watteau, such as Pierre Antoine Quillard⁴ or Nicolas Lancret,⁵ together with the work of other scholars on those and other artists in the orbit of Watteau, have called into question the tradition of the solitary work of the artist. In 1932, Robert Rey was the first to consider Watteau’s followers as satellites, situating the artist as a central figure who set in motion an entire system around him.⁶ This term of satellites implies a notion of attraction and of concentric circles revolving around a central figure and occasionally crossing each other. However, within the framework of this symposium, this conception does not necessarily imply a hierarchy among the elements, but sees them interacting independently of their perceived importance. Masters, contemporaries, followers, friends, merchants, and collectors all took part in Watteau’s universe.

This symposium, Watteau and His Universe: Networks and Influences of Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), aims to study the figures gravitating around the painter who made him a central figure in eighteenth-century century French art.⁷ Close investigation of fellow painters, printmakers, merchants, collectors, amateurs, and friends is necessary in order to further our knowledge of Watteau. Communications will be expected to draw upon the works of art (drawings, paintings, etchings), so that they are exploited for their intrinsic value; the same goes for archival elements offering direct insight into the careers and interactions between Watteau and his universe.

The symposium will be divided into three parts:
1. Artists around Watteau
2. Watteau’s Social Milieu
3. Watteau on the Art Market: Collectors, Amateurs, Merchants

The symposium is organized in partnership with the international Fine Arts Paris fair (16–23 November 2021) and will be held in the auditorium of the Musée de l’Armée – Hôtel National des Invalides. Twenty-minute papers will be given in French and English (without translation). Since the organization of this symposium is a private initiative without public funding, please include at the end of your proposal your partner institution(s), your city of residence (in November 2021) and your ability or not to finance your trip. Requests for travel subventions will be studied on a case by case basis in order not to disadvantage students and independent researchers.

Publication of the symposium proceedings is planned within 12 months of the event. In order to speed up the publication process of the proceedings, upon notification of their acceptance, symposium participants will be asked to write their papers according to the established editorial standards. These will be forwarded with the approval notices.

Formatting
• Last name, first name, home institution
• Proposed title of the communication
• Summary of the proposal in 500 words (±10%, the count must appear at the end of the document)
• Illustrations (5 maximum, optional) – .word or .pdf document
• Proposals must be sent to watteau2021@gmail.com with the subject ‘NAME + Watteau 2021 Symposium’

For any questions, contact: Axel Moulinier (Doctoral student in History of Art, École du Louvre, University of Burgundy) via watteau2021@gmail.com.

Steering Committee
• Martin Eidelberg (Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University, New Jersey)
• Guillaume Faroult (Curator of 18th-century French paintings and British and American paintings, Paris, Louvre Museum)
• Margaret Morgan Grasselli (Visiting Lecturer, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University, and Visiting Senior Scholar for Drawings, Harvard Art Museums)
• Axel Moulinier (Doctoral student in History of Art, École du Louvre, Paris; University of Burgundy, Dijon)
• Louis-Antoine Prat (Art historian)
• Pierre Rosenberg, president (Member of the French Academy)
• Christoph Martin Vogtherr (Director General of the Foundation for Prussian Castles and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg)

Notes

1  Rosenberg P. et L.-A. Prat, Antoine Watteau, 1684–1721: Catalogue raisonné des dessins (Paris and Milan: Gallimard-Electa, Leonardo Arte, 1996), 3 volumes.
2  Vogtherr C.M., Französische Gemälde, I: Watteau, Pater, Lancret, Lajoüe (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, coll.« Bestandskataloge der Kunstsammlungen », 2011).
3  Vogtherr C.M. and M. Tavener Holmes, De Watteau à Fragonard: Les fêtes galantes, exhibition catalogue, Paris, musée Jacquemart-André, 2014 (Paris, Culture Espaces, Fonds Mercator, 2014).
4  Eidelberg M., “P. A. Quillard, An Assistant to Watteau,” The Art Quarterly (1970): 39–70.
5  Eidelberg M., “The Young Lancret and Watteau,” in Watteau and His Circle, http://208.106.158.90/younglancret.htm.
6  Rey R., Quelques Satellites de Watteau: Antoine Pesne et Philippe Mercier, François Octavien, Bonaventure de Bar, François-Jérôme Chantereau, thèse complémentaire pour le doctorat ès lettres (Paris: Librairie de France, 1932).
7  Huyghe R., “L’Univers de Watteau,” (préface) in Adhémar H., Watteau sa vie, son oeuvre (Paris: P. Tisné, 1950).

Selective Bibliography

• Dacier É., A. Vuaflart, and J. Hérold, Jean de Jullienne et les graveurs de Watteau au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Rousseau, 1922).

• Eidelberg M., “P. A. Quillard, An Assistant to Watteau,” The Art Quarterly (1970): 39–70.

• Eidelberg M., “Autour du nom de Quillard,” Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français (1979): 129–140.

• Eidelberg M., “Jean-Jacques Spoëde: Watteau’s ‘Special Friend’,” Gazette des beaux-arts (2000): 179–196.

• Eidelberg M., Watteau et la fête galante, exhibition catalogue, Musée des Beaux Arts de Valenciennes, 2004 (Paris and Valenciennes: Réunion des musées nationaux, Musée des beaux-arts de Valenciennes, 2004).

• Eidelberg M., Rêveries italiennes: Watteau et les paysagistes français au XVIIIe siècle, exhibition catalogue, Musée des Beaux Arts de Valenciennes, 2015-2016 (Gand: Snoeck, 2015).

• Glorieux G., A l’enseigne de Gersaint: Edme-François Gersaint, marchand d’art sur le pont Notre-Dame (1694–1750) (Paris: Champ Vallon, 2002).

• Glorieux G., “Michel-Joseph Ducreux (vers 1665–1715), marchand de masques de théâtre et d’habits de carnaval au temps de Watteau,” Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français de l’année (2007): 119–129.

• Moulinier A., “Les Satellites de Watteau,” Cahiers du dessin français (Paris: Galerie de Bayser, 2020).

• Moureau F. and M.M. Grasselli (dir.), Antoine Watteau (1684–1721): Le peintre, son temps et sa légende [colloque international, Paris, October 1984] (Paris and Genève: Champion, Slatkine, 1987).

• Rosenberg P., Watteau et son cercle dans les collections de l’Institut de France, exhibition catalogue, Chantilly, Musée Condé, 1996–1997 (Chantilly, Musée Condé, 1996).

• Sheriff M.D., ed., Antoine Watteau: Perspectives on the Artist and the Culture of His Time (Newark: University of Delaware, 2006).

• Vogtherr C.M., Französische Gemälde, I: Watteau, Pater, Lancret, Lajoüe (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, coll.« Bestandskataloge der Kunstsammlungen », 2011).

• Vogtherr C.M. and M. Tavener Holmes, De Watteau à Fragonard: Les fêtes galantes, exhibition catalogue, Paris, musée Jacquemart-André, 2014 (Paris, Culture Espaces, Fonds Mercator, 2014).

• Vogtherr C.M. and J. Tonkovich, Jean de Jullienne: Collector and Connoisseur (London: Wallace Collection, 2011).

• Wintermute A., Watteau and His World: French Drawing from 1700 to 1750, exhibition catalogue New York, Frick Collection, 1999–2000; Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, 2000 (London and New York: Merrell Holberton Publishers, American Federation of Arts, 1999).

From ArtHist.net:

Bodily Realities: Engaging the Discourse of Dis/Ability
46th Annual Cleveland Symposium for Graduate Students
Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Art, 30 October 2020

Proposals due by 17 July 2020 (extended from 26 June 2020)

The physical body is often a contested space for artists and art audiences, but one that offers abundant possibilities for exploring and expressing identity. Physical ability or disability is a key component of identity and can have a profound impact on artistic production, subject matter, and reception. Art can play a significant role in shaping the often problematic discourse surrounding this topic. Bodily Realities: Engaging the Discourse of Dis/Ability seeks to generate a dialogue about the relationship between ability and disability in the visual arts and art museums in an effort to understand the role of bodily differences in artistic practice, representation, and viewership. This symposium will address the ways in which the visual arts and artists either confirm or challenge the perceived dichotomy of the normative and non-normative physical body.

The Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University invites graduate students to submit abstracts for its 2020 Annual Symposium Bodily Realities: Engaging the Discourse of Dis/Ability. The Cleveland Symposium is one of the longest-running annual art history graduate symposia in the United States, organized by students in the joint graduate program with the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Petra Kuppers will provide the keynote address. Dr. Kuppers is a disability culture activist, a community artist, and a Professor of English, Women’s Studies, Theatre and Dance, and Art and Design at the University of Michigan. She also teaches on the low-residency MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Goddard College and leads The Olimpias, a performance research collective (www.olimpias.org). Thematically, her work encompasses disability studies, performance studies, critical theory and poetics, medical humanities, and the general fields of arts and expression, arts and health, and arts and community building. Her Disability Culture and Community Performance: Find a Strange and Twisted Shape (2011) explores arts-based research methods, and her most recent academic monograph is Theatre & Disability (2017). Her Studying Disability Arts and Culture: An Introduction (2014) is full of practical exercises for classrooms and studios. Her other academic books include Disability and Contemporary Performance: Bodies on Edge (2003), The Scar of Visibility: Medical Performance and Contemporary Art (2007), Community Performance: An Introduction (2007, second edition 2019), Somatic Engagement (2011), and Disability Arts and Culture: Methods and Approaches (2019).

This year’s symposium welcomes innovative research papers that explore the issues of ability and disability in and around the creation, reception, and circulation of the visual arts. Submissions may explore aspects of this theme as manifested in any medium as well as in any historical period and geographical location. Different methodological perspectives are welcomed.

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:
• The role of physical disability in the construction of identities
• How the body relates to notions of normativity, abnormality, and hybridity
• Disability as a physical reality, but a social construct
• Stigmatization and stereotypes of the disabled body
• The fragmented, altered, disfigured, or modified body
• The body as a site of trauma, violence, pain, and/or effort
• The body’s relationship to health, illness, and recovery
• Clinical uses of art and artistic practice for disabled and non-disabled bodies
• The intersections of body and mind in the discourse of disability
• The power dynamics of ability and disability
• Accessibility in the art museum and cultural sites
• Interactions with disabled bodies through performance
• The body as subject and/or medium in performance art and body art
• The bias of ableism in art historical discourse
• The in/visibility of disability
• The Disability Arts and Culture Movement

Current and recent graduate students in art history and related disciplines are invited to submit a 350-word abstract and a CV to clevelandsymposium@gmail.com by Friday, 26 June 2020. Selected participants will be notified by the end of July. Paper presentations will be 20 minutes in length and should be accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation. Three papers will be awarded prizes.

Please note: Planning for this year’s symposium is already underway, but given the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, we understand that plans may need to be amended. Alternative arrangements are being made to transition to an online platform should an in-person symposium be infeasible.

Please direct all questions to Katie DiDomenico and Mackenzie Clark at clevelandsymposium@gmail.com.

From the British Art Network:

Curating, Care, and Community
Online Seminar, 3 September 2020

Proposals due by 26 June 2020

This online seminar will seek to explore how to care for others both within and beyond the curatorial community. The word curator derives from the Latin word curare, ‘to care’. Curators are charged with the physical and intellectual care of collections—the artworks, objects, and narratives found within cultural institutions. However, it is evident to the seminar organisers, a group of early career curators from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, that the concept of care within the sector must stretch beyond the guardianship of cultural heritage, to the care and concern for those everywhere. With this in mind, what role does ‘care’ play in a more holistic sense in a curators work? How do we care for each other, within both the institutional and local communities? Contributions are invited from across a range of disciplines, read the full abstract and find out more information here.

From ArtHist.net and the NDENCA website:

New Directions in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Art
Online Seminar Series, 15 June — 9 September 2020

Proposals due by 15 June 2020

This digital series of five online seminars (one every fortnight) seeks to showcase new and innovative research being undertaken on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century art and its histories. We invite contributions for papers investigating any aspect of the artistic, visual, and material cultures of this period and produced across the globe. Sessions will be hosted via video conferencing software and will take the form of a 40-minute seminar, with time following for questions. We welcome proposals from PhD researchers, early career academics, and museum professionals, particularly those from underrepresented groups. Please send abstracts of 300 words and short biographies to ndencaseminar@gmail.com by 15 June 2020. The series is organised by Dr Freya Gowrley and Dr Madeleine Pelling.

From PMC:

British Art and Natural Forces: A State of the Field Research Programme
Paul Mellon Centre, London, October–November 2020

Proposals for various formats due by 30 June 2020

J.M.W. Turner, The Evening of the Deluge, ca. 1843, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches (London: National Gallery of Art, Timken Collection, 1960.6.40).

In the year 2020, the Paul Mellon Centre marks its 50th anniversary as an institution dedicated to the study of British art and architecture. It is a year in which artistic practice and the practice of art history have met with the unprecedented force of a global pandemic. In the midst of this crisis, the PMC is initiating a major, multi-part programme of research events that focuses on the encounter between artistic or art historical practice and the forces of the natural world, and places such encounters in both contemporary and historical perspectives.

In doing so, we hope not only to respond to the exigencies of the current moment, but to foreground some of the most vital activities and conversations taking place within the field of British art studies. In recent years, scholars have concentrated with new intensity on the overlaps between artistic, geophysical, biological and ecological bodies of knowledge.

The theme also speaks to many of the new interdisciplinary collaborations that are currently shaping art-historical practice, which have seen scholars of the visual arts working across different subject-fields to explore natural histories, indigenous forms of knowledge, animal studies, concepts of the post-human and revitalized theorisations of the sublime.

Finally, the theme of this series exploits the astonishingly rich and diverse representations of natural forces found throughout the history of British art, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day. The programme will seek to explore such representations in the light of current debates and theoretical frameworks, and with the acknowledgement that human agency and reflexive awareness are natural forces in their own right.

We welcome proposals for 20-minute research papers dealing with any period or category of British art and visual culture, and that address the ways in which artistic or art-historical thinking and practice have shaped or been shaped by the encounter with natural forces, whether benign or cataclysmic, short- or long-term, visible or invisible. We also welcome proposals from artists and others whose contributions might take unexpected forms.

Schedule and Format

The events in this programme will be hosted over October and November of 2020. They may encompass virtual, in-person, audio, and print modes: the formats will be confirmed in the early autumn, and will take shape in line with UK government advice on public gatherings. Spanning eight weeks, the events will be sequential in character, and are designed to forge and facilitate a set of expansive conversations that unfold over time.

How to Submit

Please send proposals of 400 words maximum together with a short biography of no more than 100 words to events@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk by 30 June 2020.

The Luminary & Co. Hotel, part of Marriott International’s Autograph Collection, is a new hotel, scheduled to open summer 2020.

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SEASECS 2021 — Oceans Rise, Empires Fall: Tidal Shifts in the Eighteenth Century
The Luminary & Co. Hotel, Ft. Myers, Florida, 18–20 February 2021

Session Proposals due by 15 June 2020
Individual Papers and Fully-formed Panels due by 15 October 2020

The 47th meeting of The Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (SEASECS) will take place 18–20 February 2021 in Ft. Myers, Florida, a historically rich, culturally vibrant city also known as a winter getaway for its warm temperatures, tropical scenery, and beautiful shorelines. Situated on the gulf coast and the banks of the Caloosahatchee River, Ft. Myers has a distinct history informed by its relationship with land and water, which inspires our theme: “Oceans Rise, Empires Fall: Tidal Shifts in the Eighteenth Century.” At this time, we invite session proposals related to this theme or any aspect of the long eighteenth century. We welcome proposals for traditional panel and roundtable topics as well as innovative session formats.

Please send your session proposal including title, short description of the session format and topic, and your contact information, to Mary Crone-Romanovski at mromanovski@fgcu.edu by 15 June 2020. Submitted panel topics will be included on the general CFP for SEASECS 2021. Fully-formed panels and individual paper proposals will be due by 15 October 2020.

The Art Institute of Chicago is launching a new digital journal, Art Institute Review:

Art Institute Review, Fall 2021: Instability
Issue edited by Delinda Collier and Robyn Farrell

Proposals due by 15 July  2020

Instability is the hallmark of our present moment—ways of living, working, and relating have been dramatically altered over the course of mere weeks. What if the current state of flux is but an expression of the mutable nature of reality? Encounters between cultures through colonization, migration, trade, and war have, through the instability they wrought, regularly propelled change. Technology in particular has a fraught relationship with instability, capable of exacerbating and ameliorating it simultaneously. How might we take this moment to understand instability and its effects, past and present, in radically different ways?

In the art world, instability is both catalyst and consequence. It is legible as a force that has shaped—and is actively reshaping—museum collections. It exists in the toppling of received art-historical hierarchies and the rewriting of dominant narratives, through means as diverse as academic scholarship and grassroots movements like Decolonize This Place. Artists of past centuries could not have foreseen that their work would be subject to the forces of instability, evolving over decades as its materials degrade. Conservators negotiate instability daily, paying attention to materials and environments in order to forecast and forestall deterioration. Some contemporary artists, meanwhile, deliberately flirt with instability as a creative force, experimenting with frailty, precariousness, organic materials, and viewer participation as ways of ceding control of their work.

The inaugural issue of the Art Institute Review invites you to interrogate instability in any of the multifarious ways it manifests in art objects, art history, and the art world. We seek proposals that critically engage instability in relation to technology, materiality, and making; narratives and identity; interpretive methodologies; museological concerns; and epistemologies of the field; and the intersection of these dimensions with social justice and equity. How has instability been not only a force to intervene against but also one that has fostered new, beneficial states or ways of being? In what ways is instability shaping new ways of practicing criticality, structuring our temporalities, or reframing our perceptions of conflict or compassion? Proposals may address art of any time or place. We especially welcome proposals focused on historically underrepresented objects or narratives and proposals from emerging scholars.

This issue is coedited by Delinda Collier, Associate Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Robyn Farrell, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, the Art Institute of Chicago.

To respond to the call for papers, please email a Word document to journal@artic.edu. Your proposal should contain the following:

• your name, email, and (if you wish) a link to your website
• which of the following formats your submission falls into: scholarly essay (4,000–6,000 words); conversation or dialogue (2,000–3,000 words); visual, textual, or sound art; other (please explain)
• working title
• a one- or two-sentence précis encapsulating the central idea of your contribution
• an abstract (no more than 250 words; see “What we’re looking for” at artic.edu/journal for more guidance)
• a brief description (no more than 100 words) of the ways, if any, in which your contribution will leverage the capabilities of digital presentation. Does your proposal require any features beyond text and individual static images?

Visit artic.edu/journal for further details on the journal and the submission process.

Metropolitan Museum Journal 56 (2021)
Submissions due by 15 September 2020

The Editorial Board of the Metropolitan Museum Journal invites submissions of original research on works of art in the Museum’s collection. The Journal publishes Articles and Research Notes. All texts must take works of art in the collection as the point of departure. Articles contribute extensive and thoroughly argued scholarship, whereas research notes are often smaller in scope, focusing on a specific aspect of new research or presenting a significant finding from technical analysis. The maximum length for articles is 8,000 words (including endnotes) and 10–12 images, and for research notes 4,000 words with 4–6 images.

The process of peer review is double-blind. Manuscripts are reviewed by the Journal Editorial Board, composed of members of the curatorial, conserva­tion, and scientific departments, as well as external scholars. Articles and Research Notes in the Journal appear both in print and online, and are accessible via MetPublications and the Journal‘s home page at the University of Chicago Press. The deadline for submissions for volume 56 (2021) is 15 September 2020.

Inspiration from The Met.

Submission guidelines are available here.

Please send materials to journalsubmissions@metmuseum.org.

An earlier version of this announcement (from ArtHist.net) appeared yesterday; here’s a more complete version from the Call for Papers, which includes the Spanish. Also, please note the qualification of the date:

Palaces for Rent: Real Estate in Madrid in the Eighteenth Century / Palacios en alquiler: Patrimonio inmobiliario en el Madrid del siglo XVIII
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, 12 November 2020*

Proposals due by 30 June 2020

This conference is the second in a series devoted to palaces in eighteenth-century European cities. The first conference, which focused on Rome, was hosted by the Art History Department at the UNED (Madrid) last year. In this second edition we seek to explore the case of Madrid during the eighteenth century. On the one hand, the majority of the nobility continued to live in rented palaces at the Court even though they owned properties within the city that they, in turn, rented out to other families. On the other, there was a discrepancy between the magnificence of the Spanish nobility and the quality and decoration of Madrid’s palaces. It was common for nobles to live in rundown old buildings, in most cases only slightly refurbished, which differed from other homes only in size. Over the course of the eighteenth century, and after the Alcázar was destroyed by fire, there was a noticeable change in the location of the city’s palaces. Firstly, the focus of the Court shifted towards the Buen Retiro, fostering the construction of new palaces on the eastern side of the Prado that conformed with both the canons of academic taste and the beautification and modernization of the capital promoted during the reigns of Ferdinand VI and, especially, Charles III. Secondly, during this period, domestic interiors underwent an important renewal as fashionable residences were adapted to new uses and social practices. This phenomenon, which reached its luxurious peak during the reign of Charles IV, provoked intense commercial activity as it spread to other social groups, such as the emerging bourgeoisie, the new administrative elite of the State, and the foreign diplomats who resided in the capital.

The purpose of this second conference is to gather specialists with different areas of expertise in order to delve into the uses and practices of housing in Madrid during the eighteenth century, taking into account the social and urban transformations of the city and the changes in the uses of domestic space in palaces, either coming whether by long-term residents (the nobility, the middle class, or public servants) or short-term ones (diplomats, travelers, businessmen, agents, etc.).

Potential topics for discussion could include but are not limited to:
• Palaces in Bourbon Madrid, architectural and artistic aspects.
• Internal organization of palaces, spaces and etiquette, from theory to practice.
• The palace as the place of courtly sociability and courtly society.
• Supply and demand in the housing market, sales or rentals.
• Decoration and interior design of the residences of the nobility.
• Structure of noble households in Madrid, servants, duties, etc.
• Ambassadors, legates, cardinals and other representatives and their Madrid residences.
• Topographies of noble and diplomatic power.

We invite scholars at all stages of their careers to propose 20-minute presentations, preferably focused on case studies. The official language for the conference is Spanish, but we accept English, Portuguese, Italian, and French. For the sake of clarity all communications with foreign colleagues, as well as their proposals, should be in English.

Candidates are invited to submit their proposals by 30 June 2020 to: palacesforrent@gmail.com. They should include an abstract (up to 500 words) and a brief CV with recent publications (max. 1 page). Unfortunately, it will not be possible to cover travel and accommodation costs for participants. Applicants will be notified of the final selection by 15 July 2020.

* The date could be subject to change in the following months due to COVID-19 crisis and the subsequent health regulations. In case there would be travel restrictions the organization of the congress would provide adequate solutions to allow e-participation for non local speakers.

Scientific Direction
Dra. Miriam Cera Brea, UNED
Dra. Pilar Diez del Corral Corredoira, UNED
Dr. Álvaro Molina Martín, UNED

Scientific Committee
Dra. Natalia González Heras, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Dra. Giada Lepri, La Sapienza, Roma
Dr. Carlos Sambricio, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Dra. Mercedes Simal, Universidad de Jaén
Dr. José Antonio Vigara Zafra, UNED

From the Château de Versailles:

The Myth of Versailles and European Courts, 18th and 19th Centuries
Château de Versailles, 17–19 June 2021

Proposals due by 31 October 2020

Étienne Allegrain, View of the Feasting Chamber Grove, 1688–93, oil on canvas (Château de Versailles, MV754).

In conjunction with the research programme Court Identities and the Myth of Versailles in Europe: Perception, Adherence, and Rejection (18th-19th centuries) led by the Centre de recherche since 2017.

At the end of the feudal age, the royal and princely courts represented a European phenomenon in terms of political, social and cultural content: monopolisation of power for the benefit of a single figure, gathering of a group of individuals around a sovereign and their family (princes, courtiers, domestic and military officers), development of a specific sociability and way of life, governed by ceremonial procedures, the search for ostentation and entertainment. These courts were as numerous and diverse as the dynasties that ruled them; nevertheless, some acquired a prescriptive value, such as the Court of Burgundy in the 15th century and the Italian courts of the 16th century. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was the French Court of the Bourbons, and in particular that of Louis XIV, that became archetypal: an illusionary world, based on a reality observed and experienced by the contemporaries of the kings of France, was constructed and maintained for a long time by European monarchies, up until their demise for the most part in the early 20th century, at a time when political configurations were changing, shifting from shared power with assemblies to the establishment of republics.

The two contradictory yet complementary elements that characterise the idea of myth—the real and the reconstruction of the real—are best embodied, in France at least, at Versailles. Both a royal residence, a mode of government and a social whole, Versailles is an architectural, administrative and spectacular expression of the ‘absolute’ power associated with the figure of Louis XIV. The objective of the programme Court Identities and the Myth of Versailles in Europe: Perception, Adherence, and Rejection (18th-19th Centuries), which will conclude this conference, is to analyse the modus operandi of the myth of Versailles in the monarchic Europe of the 18th and 19th centuries. Two fundamental questions must therefore be raised: how did the illusion surrounding Versailles among the contemporaries at court under the Ancien Régime and later visitors in the 19th century develop and what did it entail? And reciprocally, how did this illusion establish itself in the courts of Europe, with all possible nuances, ranging from imitation to rejection and simple adherence? The focus of this conference will therefore be twofold: understanding how the different aspects specific to the identity of Versailles have fuelled an illusion, but also discerning how this illusion gave rise to other accomplishments, whether architectural, ritual or political.

1. The production of the myth, from the real to the imaginary: creation, transformations, challenges (17th–19th centuries)

The myth of Versailles spread across the courts of Europe until the decline of parish civilisation in the early 20th century. It was built up through various accounts given by foreign visitors who established a personal relationship with the Bourbon Court, whether as contemporary witnesses direct from royal Versailles until 1789, or as curious visitors to the remains of a lost time, moved by a wide range of feelings, from nostalgia to castigation. This myth was developed on the basis of illusion, fed by an observed or imagined reality. It differs from the objective historical commentary: it is the subjectivity of the ‘visitor’ that gives rise to the myth.

In October 2019, the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles made available a database entitled Visitors to Versailles among its online resources. One of the aims of the conference will be to draw on this body of works in various ways:

A chronological approach
• Impressions of royal Versailles: contemporaries of the first Versailles of Louis XIV, changing views under Louis XV then Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, taking into account the legacy of Louis XIV as well as the changes to parish life and the spatial planning (word in the grounds, retreat to the Petit Trianon, creation of an English landscape garden, etc.).
• Versailles viewed after the Revolution: during the Empire, during the Restoration and in particular during the July Monarchy, a pivotal period that marked the shift from illusion to history with the construction of the musée de l’Histoire de France by Louis-Philippe and the accompanying literature (Alexandre de Laborde, etc…).

A sociological approach
• determine which actors participated in the development of the myth and acted as a vector. To understand their expectations and their perspectives, the discussion could cover the different criteria that forge that specific identity of visitors: their geographical origins, their social background, their language and their political, religious and national culture.

A thematic approach
• Ceremonial customs most often observed: the lever/coucher, public meals, mass, the movements of the king and the royal family between these various moments, as well as festivities and entertainment, etc.
• Locations that draw particular attention: the chateau façades, the Grande galerie, the Chambers of the king and queen, the State apartments, the chapel, the opera, the Petit and the Grand Trianon, the gardens and their ponds.
• More general elements that visitors systematically associate with Versailles: water system and the Machine de Marly, pomp and extravagant expenditure, the vanity of the kings of France and the idolatry of their subjects, Marie-Antoinette and her rural life in Trianon, and, after 1789, the consequences of the Revolution (damage, pillaging, sales, departure of the royal family for Paris).

2. The applications of the myth, from the imaginary to the real: receipt and vagaries of the Versailles paradigm (18th–20th centuries)

The second research focus aims to understand the effectiveness of this illusion of Versailles. By connecting the myth, as it was invented by visitors, to the accomplishments it gave rise to, we will seek to understand how a ‘model’ works and can (or not) become the norm. We therefore wish to examine the impact of Versailles on the courts of Europe by comparing the conduct and structure of these courts with the perceptions of their citizens with regard to the Versailles paradigm. With this in mind, the ways in which Versailles was experienced, transcribed, glamorised, denigrated, accepted, copied or refuted must be identified: how did the myth come about? Did it stimulate practices and creations, participate in the creation of a European and cosmopolitan spirit, while being both admired and hated? And if so, what were the motivations behind this? Why use Versailles as inspiration or conversely, reject it or remain unmoved?

Nevertheless, the aim is not to spark a comparative study, point by point, between a ‘model’ and its possible ‘imitation’ which would seek only to compare factual data. On the contrary: rather than approaching the question from the point of view of influence, we will consider it from the point of view of interactions, in order to understand the interplay between an illusion and its concrete applications in architecture, parish organisation, social and artistic practices (protocol, dance, theatre, music). The objective is to understand the underlying rationale, the motivations and the issues that presided over these dynamics of ownership: why in some cases draw on Versailles rather than on competing models, and conversely, why in other cases favour antagonistic trends over the Versailles paradigm? We must also ensure that this question is differentiated from that of a more global ‘French model’: which elements strike us at the Court of Versailles specifically?

Particular interest will go to proposals that examine European courts in the 18th century and even more so the 19th century, when Versailles had lost its initial vocation. We are notably looking for studies on the following themes:

• The means and challenges of variations on the theme of Versailles, as at Lunéville, Caserte and Herrenchiemsee.

• The legacy of Versailles in France, in the Imperial courts and in the ceremonial functioning of the Third Republic.

• The role of the myth of Versailles on the European stage throughout the 19th century, particularly with regard to recent monarchies: the Kingdom of Belgium (1831), the Kingdom of Greece (1833), the unified Kingdom of Italy (1861), the Kingdom of Romania (1881), the Tsardom of Bulgaria (1908), the Kingdom of Montenegro (1910), among others. The 19th century was the true century of courts, whose multiplication went hand in hand with the rise of nationalism. It was also the century of the dominance of new ‘models’—Prussian and Russian, in particular—to which Versailles could be compared.

Proposals for papers must be sent to Flavie Leroux, before 31 October 2020. The must include in 5,000 characters maximum, the title of the paper, the content of the paper (point of study, method used, sources used), biographical information, and the applicant’s contact details. These proposals for papers will be examined by the coordination committee and the steering committee. Applicants will receive a response regarding their participation in the conference by the end of December 2020.

Joint Coordination
• Gérard Sabatier, Professor Emeritus at the université de Grenoble II, project manager for the programme “Court identities and the myth of Versailles in Europe…”
• Mathieu da Vinha, Scientific Director of the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles
• Flavie Leroux, research fellow for the programme “Court identities and the myth of Versailles in Europe…”

Steering Committee
• Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
• Maciej Forycki, Uniwersytet Adam Mickiewicz, Poznań
• Mark Hengerer, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich
• Christine Jeanneret, Centre de recherche du château de Versailles and Danish National Museum, Frederiksborg, Danemark
• Jean-Marie Le Gall, université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
• Francine-Dominique Liechtenhan, Centre national de la recherche scientifique
• Philip Mansel, The Society for Court Studies, President of the GIP-CRCV
• Andrea Merlotti, Centro Studi La Venaria Reale
• Friedrich Polleroß, Universität Wien
• José Luis Sancho Gaspar, Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid
• Marie-Christine Skuncke, Uppsala Universitet
• Jonathan Spangler, Manchester Metropolitan University
• Thomas W. Gaehtgens, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles