Enfilade

Opening soon at the Cognacq-Jay:

Révéler le Féminin: Mode et Apparences au XVIIIe Siècle

Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris, 25 March — 20 September 2026

Curated by Pascale Gorguet Ballesteros, Adeline Collange-Perugi, and Saskia Ooms

Jean-Charles Nicaise Perrin, Portait of Madame Perrin, 1791 (Musée des Arts et de l’Archéologie de Valenciennes; photo by Thomas Douvry).

Présentée au musée Cognacq-Jay en collaboration avec le Palais Galliera, l’exposition Révéler le féminin: Mode et Apparences au XVIIIe siècle propose une immersion dans l’univers fascinant des féminités au siècle des Lumières.

Portraits, scènes galantes et pièces textiles historiques dialoguent pour explorer la diversité des représentations de la féminité telles qu’elles se déploient dans les mises en scène du XVIIIe siècle. L’exposition souligne l’essor d’un style français dont l’élégance séduit alors les cours et l’aristocratie européennes, révélant une histoire du costume à la fois ancrée dans une réalité matérielle et nourrie par l’imaginaire.

Au cœur de cette époque, la France s’impose comme le théâtre incontournable du raffinement et du prestige. Les artistes tels que Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Jean-Marc Nattier, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, ou encore Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun excellent à traduire l’éclat des étoffes comme la profondeur des âmes, offrant à leurs modèles une aura de grâce et de pouvoir. Le parcours de l’exposition, qui met en lumière ces œuvres virtuoses, s’enrichit de portraits marqués par une dimension psychologique nouvelle, où l’intimité et le naturel prennent une place centrale, sous l’influence anglaise. En parallèle, les pastorales de François Boucher et les fêtes galantes d’Antoine Watteau façonnent une féminité idéalisée et poétique.

Enfin, des photographies contemporaines de Steven Meisel, Esther Ségal, ou encore Valérie Belin, ainsi qu’une création Chanel par Karl Lagerfeld, suggèrent en contrepoint une réflexion sur la persistance des codes et l’héritage du XVIIIe siècle dans la mode actuelle, entre exigence sociale et imaginaire de la beauté.

Commissariat
• Pascale Gorguet Ballesteros, conservateur général du patrimoine, responsable des départements mode XVIIIe et Poupées au Palais Galliera
• Adeline Collange-Perugi, conservatrice du patrimoine et responsable de la collection art ancien, Musée d’arts de Nantes
• Saskia Ooms, attachée de conservation au musée Cognacq-Jay

Révéler le Féminin: Mode et Apparences au XVIIIe Siècle (Paris: Paris Musées, 2026), 112 pages, ISBN: 978-2759606382, €25.

Now on view at Portugal’s National Museum Soares dos Reis, with an English summary from the Instagram account of Trois Crayons:

The presence of many French artists in Portugal from the beginning of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century—and their impact on the development of Portuguese art, especially the decorative arts—is the great revelation of this selection of works.

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Drawings by European Masters in Portuguese Collections III: France

Desenhos de Mestres Europeus em Coleções Portuguesas III: França

Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis, Porto, 13 December 2025 — 26 April 2026

Curated by Nicholas Turner

Com mecenato do BPI | Fundação La Caixa e apoio das Tintas CIN, esta é a primeira exposição dedicada a desenhos franceses de coleções públicas e privadas portuguesas, e a terceira e última de uma série de exposições organizadas com o intuito de divulgar o pouco conhecido acervo de desenhos de antigos mestres conservado no nosso país.

A primeira exposição, Desenhos de Mestres Europeus em Coleções Portuguesas (2000–01), apresentou aos visitantes obras de referência de todas as escolas, enquanto a segunda, Desenhos de Mestres Europeus em Coleções Portuguesas II: Itália e Portugal (2021), se centrou na influência da arte italiana no desenvolvimento da arte portuguesa desde o século XVI até ao início do XIX.

Com a exposição Desenhos de Mestres Europeus em Coleções Portuguesas III: França pretende-se mostrar que a história da influência do desenho francês em Portugal é diferente, apesar de acidentada e sujeita a flutuações políticas. De facto, a presença de muitos artistas franceses em solo nacional desde o início do século XVIII até ao início do século XX—e o seu impacto no desenvolvimento da arte portuguesa, especialmente das artes decorativas—é a grande revelação da presente seleção de obras.

Quer fugindo de ambientes políticos difíceis ou evitando a forte concorrência na corte francesa, pelo menos meia dúzia de émigrés franceses, como Pierre-Antoine Quillard, Pierre Massart de Rochefort ou Jean-Baptiste Pillement, representados nesta exposição, deixaram a sua marca—e os seus desenhos—em Portugal. Este legado torna-se claro a partir de uma grande variedade de pinturas, desenhos e obras ilustradas que foram executadas no nosso país.

Com curadoria de Nicholas Turner, um dos mais prestigiados especialistas internacionais na área do desenho, a exposição Desenhos de Mestres Europeus em Coleções Portuguesas III: França, inclui 88 obras, quatro das quais em formato de livro, ficando patente ao público até 26 abril 2026.

Nicholas Turner, Desenhos de Mestres Europeus em Coleções Portuguesas III: França (Porto: Blue Book, 2026), 216 pages, ISBN: 978-9899223318, €40.

Installation view of the exhibition Eterno e Visione: Roma e Milano Capitali del Neoclassicismo
(Milan, Gallerie d’Italia, 2025)

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Now on view at the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan:

Eterno e Visione: Roma e Milano Capitali del Neoclassicismo

Gallerie d’Italia, Milan, 28 November 2025 — 6 April 2026

Curated by Francesco Leone, Elena Lissoni, and Fernando Mazzocca

From 1796, the year of Napoleon’s descent into Italy, until 1815, marked by the defeat at Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna, a radical political, economic, and social change took place on the peninsula. The momentous turning point of the Napoleonic Age also significantly involved the artistic scene. Only Rome and Milan escaped the decadence of major artistic centres like Florence, Venice, Genoa, and Naples. The Eternal City persisted as the universal capital of the arts due to the abundance of its heritage, from both antiquity and the Renaissance of Raphael and Michelangelo. Artists from all over the world continued to flock to Rome to learn their trade, and the city’s economy profited greatly from the presence of their studios and the activity of various workshops, which produced internationally appreciated bronzes and mosaics. The exhibition aims to evoke this exceptional creative season, comparing the highest level of artistic production of these two ‘capitals’, projected towards modern Europe while remaining firmly attached to the greatness of the past.

The leading artists in the exhibition are two brilliant men who were close friends: Antonio Canova, one of the most important artists of all time, and Giuseppe Bossi, an extraordinary painter, great connoisseur of Leonardo, and a sophisticated collector, as well as founder of the Pinactoca di Brera. Visitors can admire Antonio Canova’s masterpiece—previously thought to have been lost—the large model of a horse currently undergoing exceptional restoration. Other masterpieces by Bossi, Canova, and Andrea Appiani illustrate the creation of the image of Italy, in its well-known and then more popular iconography, due precisely to their genius.

The exhibition also highlights of one of history’s most ambitious architectural projects, conceived by the Bolognese architect Giovanni Antonio Antolini: the famous Foro Bonaparte, which, although never realised, had a major influence on the transformation of Napoleonic Milan into a modern city inspired by the magnificence of antiquity. With this utopian and visionary undertaking, Milan aspired to become the new Rome, pursuing the great ideal dream of classicism. Equally fascinating will be the re-enactment of Napoleon’s coronation as King of Italy in Milan Cathedral, through the exhibition of the so-called Italian Honours: the cape, crown, sceptre, and other splendid objects used during the ceremony, all of which underwent major restoration by Intesa Sanpaolo for the 19th edition of “Restituzioni” in 2022.

Roberto Bizzocchi, Elisa Baccini, Fernando Mazzocca, Francesco Leone, Elena Lissoni, Charles-Eloi Vial, et al., Eterno e Visione: Roma e Milano Capitali del Neoclassicismo (Turin: Allemandi, 2025), 368 pages, ISBN: 978-8842227137, €39.

Now on view at Versailles:

1725: Native American Allies at the Court of Louis XV

1725: Des alliés amérindiens à la cour de Louis XV

Château de Versailles, 25 November 2025 — 3 May 2026

Curated by Jonas Musco, Paz Núñez-Regueiro, and Bertrand Rondot

In 1725, four Native American chiefs and a Native American woman from the Mississippi Valley were received in France as part of an unprecedented diplomatic mission. The event marked the climax of efforts by the French crown to build relationships with Indigenous nations in North America, amidst ongoing conflicts between European colonial powers and the Indigenous allies. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to explore the history and lives of the Native American nations of the Mississippi Valley in the 18th century, their connections with France, the extraordinary Atlantic crossing undertaken by their leaders, and their meeting with Louis XV, the royal court, and the capital.

The Indigenous Mississippi Valley in the 18th Century

The first section of the exhibition immerses visitors in the complex world of Native American societies of the Mississippi Valley at the time the French began exploring and settling the area. The encounter between these two civilizations soon led to a lasting alliance based on close diplomatic ties. The exhibition introduces the major Indigenous nations at the heart of this story through a contemporary map specially created for the show, alongside rare 18th-century maps. Some of these nations were already allied with the French through earlier treaties, notably reinforced in 1701 by the Great Peace of Montreal, a historic treaty exceptionally presented to the public.

Through a series of rare portraits—some of the only surviving from that period—a different image of Native societies emerges, far from the 19th-century Plains stereotypes. The selection of artefacts includes a remarkable feathered headdress made in the 18th century for a high-ranking chief, likely the oldest of this type known in the world. The presentation continues with a glimpse into their seasonal way of life, alternating between farming and hunting. Their relationship with the living world is also spiritual, involving social connections with more-than-human beings, such as the thunderbirds—powerful spirits often depicted on hides presented to the French as diplomatic gifts.

The Founding of a French Colony: Louisiana

The second section focuses on the close ties developed between the French and their Indigenous allies after the founding of the Louisiana colony. A selection of objects illustrates the cultural blending that emerged in the early 18th century: war clubs decorated with fleur-de-lis, necklaces made of imported beads, and European knives sheated in Native-style scabbards. The most emblematic items are a peace pipe richly decorated with feathers and a painted hide depicting it.

In 1724, to strengthen the alliance, the Compagnie des Indes proposed inviting the Native leaders to the court of young Louis XV. Étienne Véniard de Bourgmont, commander of the Missouri post, contacted the Otoe, Osage, and Missouria nations—their responses, transcribed in diplomatic correspondence, will be featured in the exhibition—while the Illinois sent Chicagou, the Michigamea chief and conveyed the words of Mamantouensa, chief of the Kaskadia, through Jesuit missionary Nicolas Ignace de Beaubois.

Forming the delegation was not without difficulty. Several other nations planned to send representatives, but the shipwreck of the vessel meant to transport them to France discouraged many from continuing. Ultimately, the delegation consisted of four chiefs and the daughter of a Missouri chief. They set sail in the spring of 1725. From that moment, the delegates were treated as international ambassadors, and a document reveals they were served ‘at the captain’s table’, an honor reserved for elite guests.

The Delegation’s Reception at Court

The final section traces the steps of the Native American chiefs’ visit to France—Paris, Versailles, and Fontainebleau—and details the royal court’s diplomatic protocol for receiving foreign embassies. Thanks to invaluable accounts from the Mercure de France, we follow their movements: meetings with the directors of the Compagnie des Indes, the organizers of the journey, and with princes and princesses of the royal blood.

The exhibition highlights the audience granted by Louis XV to the chiefs on November 25, 1725, at Fontainebleau. This was the most symbolic moment of the visit, during which the chiefs gave speeches to the king, who responded with marked interest in his guests. After touring Versailles, Marly, and Trianon, the delegates were honored with an invitation to hunt alongside with the king at Fontainebleau. They gladly accepted and participated ‘in their own way’—on foot and armed with bows.

The exhibition pathway, punctuated with excerpts from the Mercure de France, presents gifts similar to those exchanged between the Native delegates, the king and the government: prestigious headdresses, bows, and a peace pipe for the Native visitors, and a gold medal and other precious artifacts for the French. Portraits of the main French figures and, for the first time in France, a portrait of a Miami Native American will bring this historic meeting to life.

The exhibition concludes with a reference to the ‘Danse des Sauvages’, a famous piece by Jean-Philippe Rameau added to his opera Les Indes galantes. Inspired by the dance of two Native chiefs at the Comédie-Italienne, this rarely discussed source of inspiration reveals the enduring cultural impact of the 1725 delegation in France.

A special visitor program will allow guests to hear from Native members of the exhibition’s scientific committee as they reflect on the modern-day relationship between their nations and France, echoing this long-shared history.

Curators
• Jonas Musco, Historian, Research Associate
• Paz Núñez-Regueiro, Chief Curator of Heritage, Musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac
• Bertrand Rondot, Chief Curator of Heritage, Palace of Versailles

The exhibition is developed within the framework of the research project CRoyAN – Royal Collections of North America—coordinated by the musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac, in dialogue with four Native nations: the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, the Quapaw Nation, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, and the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. The exhibition is organized thanks to the patronage of The CORA Foundation. The exhibition is co-organized with the musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac.

Jonas Musco, Paz Núñez-Regueiro, and Bertrand Rondot, 1725: Des alliés amérindiens à la cour de Louis XV (Paris: Liénart, 2025), 160 pages, ISBN: 978-2359064766, €29.

From the press release (3 December 2025) for the exhibition:

Longing: Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms of the Northwest Himalayas

Cincinnati Art Museum, 6 February — 7 June 2026

Curated by Ainsley Cameron

Krishna Playing with the Gopis in the Yamuna River, ca. 1770, India, Himachal Pradesh, Nurpur, opaque watercolor and gold on paper, (Cleveland Museum of Art, purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection and Millikin Purchase Fund, 2018.118).

Featuring more than 40 works of art, Longing: Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms of the Northwest Himalayas will present colorful court paintings from present-day India dating between the 17th and 19th centuries. Practicing unique techniques, artists produced these small, portable paintings primarily for royal, noble, and priestly patronage. The paintings were often given as gifts between regional nobility, families, and political allies creating large networks of artistic exchange.

Influenced by the region’s culture and politics, the artworks portray longing in several ways: through paintings of devotees who long to connect with the divine, through individuals and couples who yearn for romance, and through rulers and noblemen who longed to be at the center of political control. The exhibition encourages visitors to experience art as multisensory. Select paintings will be paired with scent or touch opportunities, while others are paired with musical soundscapes, to heighten the works’ bhava (emotion or mood) and encourage multiple ways to physically, intellectually, and emotionally connect with the art.

“This exhibition explores paintings through the lens of a shared human emotion,” reflects Ainsley M. Cameron, PhD, Curator of South Asian Art, Islamic Art & Antiquities at CAM. “Through color, form, and composition, paintings that portray devotional and cultural values, amorous alliance, or political gain also reveal an emotive force reflective of the region in which they were produced. I’m excited to share the vibrant painting histories of the Pahari region with Cincinnati audiences, to encourage our visitors to actively participate in their museum experience, to interact with art in multiple ways, and to forge new connections with the works on display.”

Longing is part of a larger research project connecting the South Asian art collections at the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), and the National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) in Washington, DC. Alongside scholars based in India, curators from these three museums are working collaboratively to research, publish, and display works from the Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Ralph Benkaim Collection. Beginning in April 2026, the CMA and the NMAA will also present exhibitions of paintings from the Pahari kingdoms. These three distinct thematic exhibitions are presented in the publication Pahari Paintings: Art and Stories, a lavishly illustrated volume that foregrounds recent research in paintings from this mountainous region. Published by the Cleveland Museum of Art and Yale University Press, the volume celebrates both the Benkaim Collection and this cross-institutional collaboration.

Sonya Rhie Mace, Sarang Sharma, and Vijay Sharma, eds., Pahari Paintings: Art and Stories (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2026), 368 pages, ISBN: 978-0300286489, $65. With contributions by Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Ainsley Cameron, Debra Diamond, and Vrinda Agrawal

Attributed to an artist from the generation (ca. 1725–ca. 1785) after Nainsukh and Manaku, Krishna and His Family Admire a Solar Eclipse, from a Bhagavata Purana (Ancient Tales of the Lord), canto 10.82 (detail); India, Himachal Pradesh state, 1775–80; opaque watercolor on paper (Washington DC: National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Freer Collection, Purchase from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection—Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F2017.13.5).

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Opening this spring at the National Museum of Asian Art:

Of the Hills: Pahari Paintings from India’s Himalayan Kingdoms

National Museum of Asian Art, Washington DC, 18 April — 26 July 2026

Curated by Debra Diamond

The tallest mountains on earth rise from the plains of northern India in a series of steep hills, snowy peaks, and narrow valleys. From the same Himalayan region arose some of the world’s most beautiful—yet least understood—works of art. Discover the extraordinary beauty and unique history of paintings made for Hindu kings in India’s Pahari (hill) region between the 1620s and 1830s. Pahari artists worked in radically different styles ranging from lyrical and naturalistic to boldly colored and abstracted. Of the Hills: Pahari Paintings from India’s Himalayan Kingdoms illuminates new scholarship on the collaborative artist communities in which most painters worked. Learn about the political, cultural, and religious contexts of these forty-eight exquisite works, and look closely to enter a world of fine detail that delights and astounds.

The exhibition celebrates the remarkable collection of Pahari paintings the museum acquired from renowned art historian Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Ralph Benkaim. Some of these artworks have never been exhibited publicly before. We’ve brought these rare pieces into conversation with our historic collections and paintings on loan from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Of the Hills is accompanied by the major publication Pahari Paintings: Art and Stories and runs concurrently with Pahari exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Sonya Rhie Mace, Sarang Sharma, and Vijay Sharma, eds., Pahari Paintings: Art and Stories (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2026), 368 pages, ISBN: 978-0300286489, $65. With contributions by Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Ainsley Cameron, Debra Diamond, and Vrinda Agrawal

Rama and Lakshmana with the sage Vishvamitra​, from the ‘Shangri’ Ramayana, ca. 1700, Northern India, Pahari kingdoms, gum tempera and ink on paper; page: 22 × 32 cm (Washington, DC: National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection—Funds provided by the Friends of the National Museum of Asian Art, S2018.1.9).

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Opening this spring at The Cleveland Museum of Art:

Epic of the Northwest Himalayas: Pahari Paintings from the ‘Shangri’ Ramayana

The Cleveland Museum of Art, 19 April — 16 August 2026

Curated by Sonya Rhie Mace

Forty paintings are reunited from a widely dispersed pictorial series that presents the story of the Hindu divine hero Rama. The timeless tale, more than 2,000 years old, remains a cultural force across southern Asia. Potent themes of righteousness, vengeance, and loyalty are explored through dramatic episodes in which demons are vanquished, lovers are separated, and monkeys, bears, and a man-eagle save the day. Magic abounds, and emotions fly with warriors’ arrows. Three digital stations present more than 100 gently animated images of paintings from multiple collections reassembled into their original episodic sequences.

Created with blazing colors for a royal collection around 1700, the ‘Shangri’ Ramayana has been a beloved and enigmatic series among scholars and collectors for the past century. New evidence from previously unpublished paintings reveals many more artistic styles and triple the number of total folios than have been previously recognized. It argues in favor of a collaborative model of production involving artists from across the alpine region of Pahari India, which straddles the present-day state of Himachal Pradesh and that of Jammu and Kashmir. Twelve lenders generously contributed to this focused exhibition. The unbound pictorial series began to be divided as early as the 1760s, suggesting that its spiritual merit was intended to be shared among multiple owners. Its title derives from the kingdom of Shangri, where a member of the royal family sold his 275 folios to a dealer in Delhi, beginning in 1962. Hundreds more paintings, however, have been in other royal collections.

The exhibition celebrates the publication of the Catherine Glynn Benkaim and Ralph Benkaim Collection of Pahari paintings, which includes three pages of the ‘Shangri’ Ramayana that are on view and contextualized in Epic of the Northwest Himalayas. The exhibition runs concurrently with Pahari exhibitions at the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. and the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Sonya Rhie Mace, Sarang Sharma, and Vijay Sharma, eds., Pahari Paintings: Art and Stories (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2026), 368 pages, ISBN: 978-0300286489, $65. With contributions by Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Ainsley Cameron, Debra Diamond, and Vrinda Agrawal

Now on view at the MBA Draguignan:

Le Phare Rembrandt: Le Mythe d’un Peintre au Siècle de Fragonard

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Draguignan, 15 November 2025 — 15 March 2026

Rembrandt Workshop (possibly Carel Fabritius), A Girl with a Broom, 1646–51 (Washington DC: National Gallery of Art, 1937.1.74).

Le Phare Rembrandt invite le public à plonger dans l’univers de Rembrandt à un moment crucial : un demi-siècle après sa mort (en 1669), son nom devient un véritable mythe en Europe, et particulièrement à Paris, devenue capitale du marché de l’art. De plus en plus de tableaux du maître hollandais y sont importés, pour ensuite être exportés vers l’Allemagne, l’Angleterre ou la Russie.

L’originalité de l’exposition réside dans sa volonté de faire découvrir comment l’art de Rembrandt a été perçu au XVIIIe siècle en France, où ses œuvres influencent profondément les artistes et collectionneurs. À travers une sélection de cinquante œuvres visibles à l’époque, dont des peintures attribuées à Rembrandt ou réalisées par des artistes ayant étudié ou collectionné son travail tels que Chardin ou Fragonard, l’exposition explore les thèmes de l’imitation et de l’appropriation de son art.

Le Phare Rembrandt: Le Mythe d’un Peintre au Siècle de Fragonard (Paris: In Fine éditions d’art, 2025), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-2382032343, €35. With contributions by Jaco Rutgers, Jacqueline Carroy, Isabelle Arnulf, Jean-Pierre Maranci, Ivan Alexandre, Dominique Païni, Érick Desmazières, Gaëtane Maës, Anna Tummers, Jan Blanc, Quentin Buvelot, Dominique Brême, Ariane James-Sarazin, Yohan Rimaud, Laura Bossi.

From the CODART announcement:

This ambitious exhibition explores the undiminished aura of the Dutch master, focusing on two fascinating portraits seized during revolutionary confiscations and attributed to Rembrandt in the eighteenth century. . . .

Willem van Haecht, The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest, 1628, oil on panel
(Antwerp, Rubenshuis, City of Antwerp Collection, Rubenshuis)

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Now on view in Vienna at the Liechtenstein Garden Palace:

Dealing in Splendour: A History of the European Art Market

Noble Begierden: Eine Geschichte des Europäischen Kunstmarkts

Gartenpalais Liechtenstein, Wien, 30 January — 6 April 2026

Curated by Stephan Koja, Christian Huemer, and Yvonne Wagner

With a history reaching back over four centuries, the Collections of the Princely Family of Liechtenstein are part of a long tradition of collecting that spans many generations. Essential to this at all times has been a policy of active collecting. In the past as in the present, new acquisitions shaped the appearance of the galleries. The art collection has thus been formed not only by the personal tastes of the various princes but also by the art market with its changing sales strategies, trend-setting individuals, and economic factors.

Against this background, Dealing in Splendor addresses the fascinating history of the European art market. Spotlights will be shone on structures, centres of innovation, influential personalities, and marketing methods from antiquity to the nineteenth century, revealing that many of these methods have changed very little up to the present day. Auctions were held in ancient imperial Rome. In Antwerp, art trade fairs were already attracting an international clientele in the sixteenth century, and the first catalogues raisonnés of Old Masters were compiled by art dealers in the eighteenth century.

These and other enthralling insights into the history of the European art market await you at the Liechtenstein Garden Palace in Vienna, with major works from the Princely Collections appearing alongside sensational loans in the largest annual temporary exhibition we have mounted to date. The extensive catalogue will boast essays by leading experts in the field of art market scholarship, bringing interdisciplinary approaches to bear in a volume that will provide a comprehensive overview of the subject.

Art as a Commodity: The Flourishing Art Market of Antiquity

Even in ancient Roman times, there was a flourishing art market, sustained by a network of collectors, connoisseurs, buyers, and agents. Early forms of serial production and market adjustment were already developed and continued to have an effect into the early modern age. The great demand for classical Greek works led to a burgeoning production of replicas, variations, and reduced-size copies, which Roman collectors acquired specifically for particular rooms and functions. Workshops all over the Mediterranean specialized in reproducing famous representational formulas in order to provide objects in various price ranges—from monumental copies in marble to small bronze statuettes.

International Trade: Forchondt

Prince Karl Eusebius I von Liechtenstein had a particularly long and intensive connection with the Forchondt family of dealers. They had an international presence with branches in Antwerp, Vienna, and the Iberian Peninsula, shipping works of art and furniture in all price categories to destinations as far afield as South America. Karl Eusebius’s son, Prince Johann Adam Andreas I, was likewise a client of the Forchondts, from whom he purchased many of his most important acquisitions, including paintings by Rubens and van Dyck. This business relationship with the Forchondts, holders of an imperial privilege as jewellers to the imperial court, lasted until the reign of Prince Joseph Wenzel I.

Serial Production in the Fifteenth Century

In the Italian city-states of the fifteenth century, the emergent ruling families, foremost among them the Medici in Florence, made systematic use of art patronage. By erecting imposing monuments, they shaped the appearance of the cities and demonstrated their power. They commissioned chapels and altarpieces, and alongside the Church were the most prominent and important patrons of the era. However, there were also classes of customers with smaller purses. The prices for works of art depended on the materials used, the time and labour involved, and the prestige of the masters who had made them. The workshops produced particularly popular motifs in various price ranges, some being offered for sale as ready-made works, without having been previously commissioned. Outlay and labour were reduced by turning out multiple copies of a work with just minor variations, or by serial production in suitable materials such as terracotta.

The Brueg(h)el Dynasty

Pieter Bruegel the Elder was one of the most important Flemish painters of his time. His compositions were so successful that copies of his works were made in his workshop and in those of his descendants. A whole dynasty of painters and numerous imitators drew on his works even after his death, continuing to sell them, often with only minimal changes, at a healthy profit.

The Beginnings of Large-scale Production in the Low Countries

One notable feature of Holland’s seventeenth-century Golden Age was the unusual wealth of art works, particularly paintings, in the homes of its burghers. In order to keep up with demand artists developed methods that shortened their working hours and increased their productivity. To achieve this, they specialized in particular genres, one such practitioner being Jan van Goyen, whose reduced palette both limited his material expenses and became his hallmark. His landscapes earned him international acclaim. Jan Davidsz. de Heem was famous for his opulent still lifes. Rachel Ruysch made a successful speciality of the flower still life.

Souvenirs from the Grand Tour

Baccio Cappelli and Girolamo Ticciati, Galleria dei Lavori, Badminton Cabinet, 1720–32 (Collection of the Princely Family of Liechtenstein, acquired in 2004 by Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein).

In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, journeys taking in the centres of European culture were an important part of the education of scions of the nobility. In British society in particular, the so-called Grand Tour was regarded as the height of fashion, with the result that in the countries visited, in particular Italy with Rome as its cultural centre, a veritable industry grew up to cater for these young tourists, with accommodation, cicerones, and guidebooks to the sights—and souvenirs of the sights to take back home. The most popular of these were the views known as capricci—compositions of various statues, ruins, and edifices that in reality stood nowhere near one another. In Rome, the most successful artists in this field were Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Giovanni Paolo Pannini. It was regarded as especially prestigious to have one’s likeness painted by a well-known portraitist, or best of all by Pompeo Girolamo Batoni. The phenomenon of the souvenir was possibly carried to its greatest extreme by Henry Somerset, third duke of Beaufort, who commissioned the monumental Badminton Cabinet from the grand-ducal Galleria dei Lavori in Florence.

From Dilettante to Connoisseur: Edme-François Gersaint

During the eighteenth century, Paris and London became centres of innovation in the art market. There the auction scene was given fresh impetus with the arrival of influential experts and auctioneers, elegant auction rooms, printed sale catalogues, and exhibitions that became veritable social spectacles. A pioneering role in these developments was played by Edme-François Gersaint, who blazed new trails with his shop on the Pont Notre Dame, his auctions, and his detailed auction catalogues.

Art Historians, Expertise, and the Establishment of Canons of Works

Attributions and provenances—which had assumed increasing importance over the previous century—now lay in the hands of scholars, whose opinions as proclaimed in catalogues raisonnés influenced contemporary tastes and above all the price of works included in these publications. The value of the works increased or decreased depending on their purported authenticity (or lack of it). In many cases the criteria for authenticity were necessarily limited to stylistic characteristics. These were duly contested, in scholarly circles and elsewhere. This can be seen particularly clearly in the case of Rembrandt, whose body of works expanded or contracted depending on the scholar surveying his oeuvre.

Art for the Masses: The Revolutionary Art Market of the Nineteenth Century

In the nineteenth century the art market was revolutionized. New forms of presentation and serial production and the reproduction of images in huge numbers made art into a mass medium that circulated all over the world. Firms such as Goupil et Cie professionalized these mechanisms by systematically providing reproductions of famous works of art for various categories of buyer. At the same time dealers such as Charles Sedelmeyer established the phenomenon of the art spectacle, which—accompanied by deliberately dramatic presentation, advertising, and skilful use of media—attracted huge crowds. Thus, in the nineteenth century various innovative strategies directed at a wide sector of the public came together to shape the art market of the time, forming the basis for the present-day art business.

Curators
Stephan Koja, Director of the Princely Collections of Liechtenstein
Christian Huemer, Head of the Belvedere Research Center
Yvonne Wagner, Chief Curator of the Princely Collections of Liechtenstein

Christian Huemer and Stephan Koja, eds., Dealing in Splendour: A History of the European Art Market (Berlin: De Gruyter Brill, 2026), 448 pages, ISBN: 978-3689241063 (German) / ISBN: 978-3689241070 (English), €59 / $65.

The exhibition recently closed in Dublin with the catalogue available from Churchill House Press and Centro Di:

Artists and Pirates: Satirical Prints in Georgian London and Dublin

Irish Architectural Archive, Dublin, 13 November 2025 — 8 January 2026
The Driehaus Museum, Chicago, 15 May — 13 September 2026

Curated by Silvia Beltrametti and William Laffan

Single-sheet satire emerged in the louche milieu where politics and high society of late Georgian London intersected. Artists such as James Gillray (1756–1815) and Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827) combined devastating wit with graphic brilliance to lampoon the great and the good, the vain and the vacuous, creating timeless images inspired by moments of fleeting controversy or scandal. Availing of a legal loophole under which copyright law protecting images did not apply to Ireland, a business of pirating caricatures by London satirists also flourished in Regency Dublin. The work of these Dublin plagiarists—which though derivative is paradoxically inventive and vibrant—as well as prints of Irish subject matter by English caricaturists such as Gillray, is the subject of this exhibition and the accompanying publication. Caricature dealt with the great political issues of the day, including religious toleration and contested concepts of liberty, but was also a vehicle to explore less elevated and often risqué (sometimes scatological or pornographic) subject matter. Single-sheet satire, Georgian England’s greatest artistic innovation, and its smaller but still dynamic offshoot in early nineteenth-century Dublin offer a fascinating—and very funny—chronicle of the human comedy.

Silvia Beltrametti and William Laffan, eds., Artists and Pirates: Satirical Prints in Georgian London and Dublin (Fenit, County Kerry: Churchill House Press with Centro Di, 2025), 184 pages, ISBN: 978-8870385939, €30. With additional contributions by James Kelly (Professor of History at Dublin City University), David Fleming (Professor of History at the University of Limerick), and Ben Casey (PhD candidate, University of Maynooth).

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Note (added 15 February 2026) — The original posting omitted the Chicago venue, though a note suggested the possibility, with reference to the Centro Di website. At The Driehaus Museum, the show will be titled Ink and Outrage: 18th-Century Satirical Prints in London and Dublin.