Spanish Drawings at The Frick This Fall
Press release (PDF) from The Frick:
The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya
The Frick Collection, New York, 5 October 2010 — 9 January 2011
Catalogue by Jonathan Brown, Lisa Banner, Susan Grace Galassi, Reva Wolf, and Andrew Schulz (Scala, 2010), ISBN: 9781857596519, $65
The greatest Spanish draftsmen from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century—Ribera, Murillo, and Goya, among them—created works of dazzling idiosyncrasy. These diverse drawings, which may be broadly characterized as possessing a specifically “Spanish manner,” will be the subject of an exclusive exhibition at The Frick Collection in the fall of 2010. The presentation will feature more than fifty of the finest Spanish drawings from public and private collections in the Northeast, among them The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hispanic Society of America, The Morgan Library & Museum, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Opening the show are rare sheets by the early seventeenth-century masters Francisco Pacheco and Vicente Carducho, followed by a number of spectacular red chalk drawings by the celebrated draftsman Jusepe de Ribera. The exhibition continues with rapid sketches and painting-like wash drawings from the rich oeuvre of the Andalusian master Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, along with lively drawings by Francisco de Herrera the Elder and his son and the Madrid court artist Juan Carreño de Miranda, among others.
The second part of the exhibition will present twenty-two sheets by the great draftsman Francisco de Goya, whose drawings are rarely studied in the illuminating context of the Spanish draftsmen who came before him. These works, mostly drawings from his private albums, attest to the continuity between his thematic interests and those of his Spanish forebears, as well as to Goya’s own enormously fertile imagination. The exhibition is organized by Jonathan Brown, Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Fine Arts, New York University; Lisa A. Banner, independent scholar; and Susan Grace Galassi, Senior Curator at The Frick Collection. It will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with entries by the show’s organizers and by Reva Wolf, Professor of Art History, State University of New York at New Paltz, and author of Goya and the Satirical Print in England and on the Continent, 1730–1850, and by Andrew Schulz, Associate Professor of Art History and Department Head at the University of Oregon and author of Goya’s Caprichos: Aesthetics, Perception, and the Body. The exhibition is made possible, in part, by the David L. Klein Jr. Foundation, Elizabeth and Jean-Marie Eveillard, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. The accompanying catalogue has been generously underwritten by the Center for Spain in America.
Grasmair Exhibition: Religious Painting in South Tyrol
From Südtirol.online:
Johann Georg Grasmair (1691–1751), Barockmaler in Tirol
Diözesanmuseum, Brixen, Italy 12 June — 31 October 2010
Johann Georg Grasmair, "König aus dem Aufsatzbild der Heiligen Drei Könige," 1729, (Brixen: Diözesanmuseum Hofburg)
Die Ausstellung in der Hofburg Brixen bietet erstmals einen repräsentativen Querschnitt durch die verschiedenen Werkgruppen von Johann Georg Grasmair, einem hervorragenden, aber wenig beachteten Meister der Tiroler Barockmalerei. Grasmair wurde 1691 als Sohn des Glockengießers Jörg Grasmair und seiner Ehefrau Anna Maria Maurer in Brixen geboren. Er erlernte zwar das Glockengießerhandwerk, widmete sich in weiterer Folge aber ganz der Malerei. Nach einer ersten Lehre bei Giuseppe Alberti in Cavalese begab er sich zunächst nach Venedig und dann weiter nach Rom, wo er von der Malerei Carlo Marattas und dessen Schule seine wichtigste künstlerische Prägung erhielt. Dem streng klassisch ausgerichteten römischen Barockstil in der Tradition Marattas blieb Grasmair zeitlebens verpflichtet.
Um 1721 kehrte er von seinem mehrjährigen Aufenthalt in Italien zurück, vermählte sich mit Anna Katharina Hueber aus Mauls und schuf erste Werke in Brixen, Klausen und Niederdorf. Von 1722–1724 war er als Hofmaler der Familie Fürstenberg in Donaueschigen (Baden-Württemberg) tätig.
ISBN: 9788888570143
1724 kehrte Grasmair nach Tirol zurück und ließ sich in Wilten bei Innsbruck nieder. Dort soll er, zeitgenössischen Berichten zufolge, still und anspruchslos bis zu seinem Tode am 28. Oktober 1751 gelebt haben, obwohl er mit den besten Künstlern seiner Zeit wetteifern konnte. Zu den wichtigsten Auftraggebern für Grasmair zählen die Klöster der Serviten und Jesuiten in Innsbruck sowie die Kirche im Allgemeinen, weshalb sein Werk vorwiegend religiöse Themen umfasst. Bekannt sind vor allem seine Altarbilder für renommierte Nordtiroler Kirchen wie den Dom von Innsbruck, die Basilika von Wilten, die Innsbrucker Landhauskapelle oder die Pfarrkirchen von Axams, Fulpmes und Schwaz. Auch in Südtirols Kirchen ist eine Reihe von Werken Grasmairs vorhanden, so etwa in Brixen in der Hofburgkapelle und in der Schutzengelkirche in Stufels, in Neustift, Bruneck, Sterzing, Klausen, Lajen, Lana, Untermais, Naturns und Montan. Einzelne Werke schuf Grasmair auch für das Trentino.
Neben sakralen Werken zeigt die Ausstellung auch wenig bekannte Landschaftsbilder und Darstellungen von allegorischen und mythologischen Themen, die Grasmair für adelige Auftraggeber schuf. Auch seine Ölskizzen und zahlreichen Zeichenstudien, die bisher kaum beachtet wurden, werden in der Ausstellung erstmals gewürdigt. Anders als viele Maler seiner Zeit widmete sich Grasmair ausschließlich der Ölmalerei und nicht auch der prestigeträchtigeren Freskomalerei. Trotzdem galt er bei seinen Zeitgenossen als hoch geschätzter Maler. Seine heute geringe Bekanntheit ist wohl hauptsächlich auf den begrenzten Schaffensraum (Tirol und Trentino) zurückzuführen. Von der künstlerischen Qualität seines Schaffens her ist Grasmair durchaus mit Paul Troger und Michael Angelo Unterberger zu vergleichen, auch wenn er deren überregionale Karriere nicht mitgemacht hat. Im Katalog zur Ausstellung ist erstmals das gesamte Schaffen des Künstlers berücksichtigt und mit einem umfassenden Werkverzeichnis dokumentiert.
Sino-French Relations in the Eighteenth & Ninteenth Centuries
From the museum’s website:
La Soie & le Canon, France-Chine (1700-1860)
Musée d’Histoire de Nantes, 26 June — 7 November 2010
Catalogue ed. by Bertrand Guillet, ISBN: 9782070129492, $72.50
En octobre 1700, L’Amphitrite, premier navire français à commercer avec la Chine, revient en France et c’est à Nantes, grand port de commerce colonial, qu’il vend sa cargaison : thé, soie, porcelaine, nacre, ivoire, panneaux laqués… Cette première arrivée massive d’objets et produits nourrit une véritable fascination pour la culture chinoise. C’est ainsi que se développe en France « un goût pour la Chine » dont on a oublié l’ampleur. Il est alimenté par les Jésuites présents à la cour de Chine. L’Europe devient sinophile. Artistes et artisans produisent dans le goût chinois. Jusqu’à la fin du 18e siècle, ce commerce au volume marginal mais dont l’influence se révèle marquante, est dominé par les Chinois qui dictent leurs conditions aux Occidentaux. Ces derniers n’arrivent cependant pas à introduire en retour leurs produits commerciaux. La Chine attire de plus en plus les convoitises et peu à peu, « le mythe » s’écorne. Les guerres de l’Opium au 19e siècle, avec en point d’orgue le sac du Palais d’été à Pékin en 1860, achèvent la bascule du rapport économique au profit des Européens et participent au déclin de l’Empire du Milieu.
L’exposition La Soie & le Canon met en lumière les relations franco-chinoises entre ces deux dates – 1700/1860 – et montre l’évolution du regard porté sur cet Extrême-Orient lointain qui suscita tour à tour fascination et rejet, en s’appuyant sur la présentation d’objets et documents prestigieux prêtés par de grands musées dont le musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet, partenaire associé au projet. Avec cette exposition d’histoire, le musée d’histoire de Nantes propose une démarche inédite en montrant les différentes phases qui ont caractérisé dès l’origine les relations entre la France et la Chine. Plus largement, l’exposition contribue à faire mieux comprendre notre rapport à la Chine d’aujourd’hui, toujours fascinante, souvent critiquée, alors que s’amorce un nouvel équilibre mondial dans lequel ce géant qui rassemble un cinquième de l’humanité joue un rôle de premier plan.
Exhibition: Gainsborough and the Modern Woman
From Art Daily (19 July 2010) . . .
Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman
Cincinnati Art Museum, 18 September 2010 — 2 January 2011
San Diego Museum of Art, 29 January — 1 May 2011
Curated by Benedict Leca
Thomas Gainsborough, "Portrait of Ann Ford" (later Mrs. Philip Thicknesse), 1760 (Cincinnati Art Museum)
The portraits of Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) made him perhaps the most famous British artist of the late eighteenth century. Nobles, statesmen, musicians and the range of men and women of the period’s merchant class all sat for him. But it is his portraits of notorious society women—widely considered among the greatest of the Western tradition—which attracted the most attention.
Eighteenth-century viewers appreciated these paintings differently than we do today. In his own time, Gainsborough’s portraits of actresses, performers and courtesans were seen as unconventional, if not radical, not only because of the type of woman they portrayed but also because of the unconventional way they were painted. “These stunning portraits not only give us a perspective on the history of portrait painting and celebrity, but also on the history of women’s progressive self-fashioning, which equally deserves art historical recognition. These are provocative women provocatively painted,” explains exhibition curator Benedict Leca.
Organized by the Cincinnati Art Museum in association with the San Diego Museum of Art, Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman is the first exhibition devoted to Thomas Gainsborough’s feminine portraiture, and the first to focus specifically on modernity and femininity in Georgian England from the perspective of Gainsborough’s groundbreaking portraits of women. Coinciding with the comprehensive cleaning and restoration of the Cincinnati Art Museum’s iconic Ann Ford (Mrs. Thicknesse), this exhibition unites a choice selection of thirteen paintings from renowned museum collections in the United States and Britain to illuminate the role that Gainsborough ’s extraordinary portraiture played in defining new, progressive feminine identities. Among others on view at the Cincinnati Art Museum, September 18, 2010 – January 2, 2011 will be Mrs. Siddons (National Gallery, London), Mrs Richard Brinsley Sheridan (National Gallery, Washington), Giovanna Baccelli (Tate Britain), Grace Dalrymple (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Viscountess Ligonier (Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens). The exhibition will also feature a small selection of period dresses from the Cincinnati Art Museum’s rich fashion arts and textile collection, thereby further contextualizing Gainsborough’s portraits while affording visitors a view of the material accessories of the “modern woman.” . . .
The Art Daily article is available here»
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Exhibition catalogue: Benedict Leca, Aileen Ribeiro, and Amber Ludwig, Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman (London: Giles, 2010), ISBN: 9781904832850, $49.95.
This beautifully illustrated volume focuses specifically on Thomas Gainsborough’s portraits of well-known, “liberated,” society women, and the way in which the artist executed these special commissions. Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman draws us away from his predominant reputation as a landscape painter, and shows how such portraits were both an affirmation by Gainsborough of his own position in the artistic world of Georgian England, and of the desire of his sitters (including leading artists, musicians, actresses and intellectuals) to be seen as self-assured progressive women.
Author Benedict Leca takes as his starting point the Cincinnati Art Museum’s famous and newly restored portrait of Ann Ford (1760), widely considered the finest of the masterpiece portraits created by Gainsborough at Bath in the early 1760s. He addresses this early portrait as typifying Gainsborough’s comparatively permissive attitude with regard to how notorious women should be presented, and offers a compelling view of Gainsborough’s peculiar manner of painting, one that established the artist as the foremost portraitist of modern life. Featuring portraits from international collections, including Tate Britain, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J Paul Getty Museum and the National Gallery, London, this ground-breaking new volume also includes an essay by Aileen Ribeiro examining the portrait of Ann Ford in detail, and by Amber Ludwig discussing the role of feminine identity in 18th-century London.
German Drawings in Washington
Press release from the National Gallery:
German Master Drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, 1580-1900
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 16 May — 28 November 2010
Curated by Andrew Robison, Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, will present for the first time worldwide 120 stunning German watercolors and drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection—one of the finest private European holdings of old master drawings. On view in the Gallery’s West Building from May 16 to November 28, 2010, German Master Drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, 1580–1900 will include rare and influential examples of German works on paper encompassing 16th-century mannerism, the 17th-century baroque, the 18th-century rococo, early 19th-century romanticism, and late 19th-century realism.
In 2007, the National Gallery of Art acquired 185 German and Italian works from the Ratjen Collection with the help of a dozen generous private donors as well as the Paul Mellon Fund and the Patrons’ Permanent Fund. Works included in the exhibition are by artists from Germany and German-speaking areas of Europe, German-born artists practicing abroad, and artists born in other areas who spent time working in Germany and adapting to German culture.
Organized chronologically throughout five rooms, the exhibition begins with outstanding early works by three of the most notable German mannerists: Friedrich Sustris (c. 1540–1599), living primarily in Munich; Hans von Aachen (1552–1615), working at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague; and Hans Rottenhammer (1564/1565–1625), living in Venice and Augsburg. Sustris’ sophisticated drawing An Elaborate Altar with the Resurrection of Christ and the Martyrdom of Saint Andrew (1570/1580) is one of the earliest Bavarian responses to Italian mannerist altars. Von Aachen’s The Madonna Enthroned with Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist (1589), a sacra conversazione (devotional scene) produced soon after his return from Venice, was a favored Venetian motif at the time. Rottenhammer’s colorful watercolor Minerva and the Muses (c. 1610) is directly inspired by Tintoretto, whose work he studied in Venice.
From the baroque period, Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), a favorite artist of both Rubens and Rembrandt, is represented by an extremely rare atmospheric gouache—Ceres Changes Stellio into a Lizard (1605/1608)—perhaps his finest work in the United States.
Ratjen especially pursued watercolors from the 18th century by the great painters—including Cosmas Damian Asam (1686–1739), Matthäus Günther (1705–1788), and Johann Baptist Enderle (1725–1798)—who filled Bavarian churches and palaces with elaborate rococo altarpieces and stunning ceiling frescoes. A remarkable series of Augsburg rococo drawings includes Johann Elias Ridinger’s (1698–1767) charming portrait of the first rhinoceros to come to northern Europe, endearingly nicknamed “Miss Clara” (1748).
Around the turn of the 18th century, German artists developed a particular fondness for nature, as represented here by an extensive series of luminous drawings and watercolors. Highlights include five evocative landscape watercolors by Johann Georg von Dillis (1759–1841) as well as Caspar David Friedrich’s (1774–1840) romantic masterpiece New Moon above the Riesengebirge Mountains (1810 or 1828/1835). (more…)
Piermarini Exhibition
Most famous for his Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Giuseppe Piermarini (1734-1808) is the subject of this exhibition that comes on the heels of the the bicentenary of his death. Also, see the website of the Piermarini Foundation (all pages are available only in Italian). The following description comes from the site of the European Architectural History Network (EAHN) . . .
Giuseppe Piermarini tra Barocco e Neoclassicismo — Rome, Naples, Caserta, Foligno
Palazzo Trinci di Foligno, 5 June — 2 October 2010
Curated by Marcello Fagiolo and Marisa Tabarrini
Giuseppe Piermarini, one of the most famous neoclassical figures in Italy, is best known as the architect of the Theatre alla Scala in Milan and refounder of good taste in Lombardy during the second half of eighteenth century. The exhibition is divided into chronological and thematic sections, beginning with a panorama of eighteenth-century Rome, the place of Piermarini’s apprenticeship, between the end of the pontificate of Benedict XIV (1740-1758) and the reign of Clement XIII (1758-1769). It then follows the architect to Naples in the studio of Vanvitelli, his time in Milan from 1769 and, finally, his return to his native Foligno in the early nineteenth century.
Note (added 5 August 2010) — The exhibition catalogue, Giuseppe Piermarini tra barocco e neoclassico. Roma, Napoli, Caserta, Foligno, edited by Marcello Fagiolo and Marisa Tabarrini (Perugia, 2010), ISBN: 9788896591277, is available through artbooks.com.
Prince Eugene of Savoy
From The Art Newspaper:
Agnes Husslein-Arco, ed., Prince Eugene: General-Philosopher and Art Lover (Munich: Hirmer Verlag), ISBN 9783777425511, $75.
Reviewed by Theodore K. Rabb, Professor Emeritus, Princeton University; posted 29 June 2010
. . . Ruling a multitude of languages and peoples, the Habsburgs were unique among Europe’s monarchs in their enthusiasm for foreign aristocrats at their court and as commanders of their armies. None repaid that welcome as handsomely as Eugene. In a few decades, he not only launched a once shrinking dynasty into an expansive era of conquest, but he helped make Vienna into one of the most dazzling capitals and cultural centres in Europe.
This catalogue records an exhibition (until 6 June) that pays tribute to the prince’s many achievements. It is held in the lower half of the Belvedere in Vienna, a two-part palace that is a contender for the title of the most imposing townhouse ever built, and which Eugene spent over a decade completing during the 1710s and 1720s. Although more than 300 objects are on display, ranging from sculptures to manuscripts, weapons to portraits, they barely scratched the surface of his possessions. His library alone, now owned by the national library, contained some 15,000 volumes. He had two Van Dycks, seven Guido Renis, and hundreds of Dutch and Italian paintings. At the heart of the Albertina’s collection of prints, the largest in the world, are the 255 volumes of engravings by masters such as Dürer that ultimately came from Eugene. . . .
For the full review, click here»
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The exhibition as described at EuroMuse (sorry that this one slipped by me until just recently). . .
Prinz Eugen: Feldherr, Philosoph, und Kunstfreund / General, Philosopher, and Art Lover
Lower Belvedere, Vienna, 11 February — 6 June 2010
Of Italian descent and a native French, Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663-1736), following his meteoric rise and splendid career as a military leader, became one of the most influential Austrians who had a long-lasting impact on the country’s fate and its art and cultural history. As a diplomat and counsel to the emperors Leopold I, Joseph I, and Charles VI, he travelled across Europe from one theatre of war to the next, playing a decisive role in determining the future of the House of Habsburg.
In 2010, the Vienna Belvedere, with its two palaces and Baroque gardens built by Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt in the early eighteenth century as a summer residence for Prince Eugene of Savoy, will be the venue of an exhibition presenting the prince as a general, statesman, and patron of the arts and sciences. Throughout his lifetime, he devoted himself to the compilation of a comprehensive collection of paintings, copper engravings, incunabula, illuminated manuscripts, and books, which he displayed in his Viennese palaces. From ever changing war sites, Prince Eugene corresponded with artists and artisans, landscape designers and architects, as well as the most influential thinkers of his time.
His acquisitions went down in the annals of European art and cultural history and facilitated the transfer of works of art from the court of the French king Louis XIV to Vienna. His interest in the natural sciences – in matters of which he relied on the expertise of the philosopher and scientist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – is reflected in a large collection of exotic animals and plants.
The exhibition will showcase exhibits from Prince Eugene’s art collections – predominantly paintings from the Galleria Sabauda in Turin and cimelia from the Bibliotheca Eugeniana – in an ambience simulating period interiors, thus conveying to the visitors the complex decoration of those buildings where Prince Eugene, as president of the Imperial War Council and member of the Privy Council, received such illustrious guests as the ambassador of the Ottoman Empire.
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Additional information on the exhibition is available at The Luxury Traveler.
Collection of Early Drawing Instruments
The following 2007 press release from Columbia University regarding the Alpern Collection of drawing instruments notes that “an exhibition and catalogue are in preparation.” Well, here they are (nearly so anyway). . .
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A pocket set of silver instruments with an ivory scale/protractor, housed in a silver-mounted case covered in shagreen – the skin of a sting ray. English, 2nd half of the 18th c.
February 28, 2007 An outstanding collection of early architectural drawing instruments has been donated to the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University by noted New York architectural historian Andrew Alpern.
The collection comprises 170 English, Continental and American sets and individual pieces spanning over 250 years of exquisite craftsmanship in silver, ivory, steel and brass. Sets range from small portable sharkskin or tortoise-shell cases containing the architect’s essential tools – pen, scales, dividers, compass and protractor – to large mahogany cases containing every aid imaginable for the aspiring draftsman. Assembled over a 40-year span, the collection is fully functional. According to Alpern, “Preparing construction drawings (as I have) employing 18th-century solid silver instruments of superb quality is vastly more satisfying than using ordinary modern ones.”
“We are tremendously grateful to Andrew Alpern for his gift of these rare and precious instruments” said Avery Library’s Director, Gerald Beasley, who added that “Computer-aided design has entirely supplanted their manufacture and use, but this only increases their research value to historians of architectural design.”
The collection, which also includes numerous trade catalogues and other rare books about the instruments, is available to researchers by appointment at Avery Library’s Department of Drawings and Archives. An exhibition and catalogue are in preparation.
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This elegant volume documents three hundred years of exquisite drawing tools, richly photographed and described, for architects, draftsmen, and engineers. Crafted in silver, ivory, steel, and brass, the instrument sets catalogued here range from small silver-mounted tortoiseshell pocket étuis to multitiered mahogany cases housing every professional aid imaginable. Computers have supplanted their manufacture and use, yet these exquisite traditional instruments are still fully functional. ISBN 9780978903732, $60 (September 2010).
Exhibition Marks the 300th Birthday of Johann Evangelist Holzer
The following comes from the website of the Domschatz- und Diözesanmuseum; there’s also a fine site dedicated to the exhibition (I’m sorry that all are only in German). . .
Johann Evangelist Holzer (1709-40), Painter of Light
Augsburg, 28 March — 20 June 2010
Eichstätt, 14 July — 31 October 2010
Innsbruck, 3 December — 13 March 2011
- Johann Evangelist Holzer, altarpiece in Eichstätt Schutzengelkirche
Johann Evangelist Holzer (1709-1740) gehört zu den großen Meistern des 18. Jahrhunderts. Kirchen und Klöster in Süddeutschland stattete er mit prächtigen Fresken und Altarblättern aus. Nach nur wenigen Schaffensjahren hatte der in Burgeis in Südtirol geborene Künstler, der lange in Augsburg wirkte und mit nur 31 Jahren in Clemenswerth an der niederländischen Grenze starb, ein bedeutendes Werk hinterlassen.
Seine Zeitgenossen setzten Holzer gar dem italienischen Maler Raffael gleich, heute ist sein Werk eine wahre Entdeckung. Vier Museen in Deutschland und Österreich haben sich das gemeinsame Ziel gesetzt, mit unterschiedlichen Schwerpunkten Leben und Werk dieses Malers und Grafikers des Spätbarock in einer Werkschau mit etwa 160 Exponaten erstmals umfassend vorzustellen.
In der barocken Residenzstadt Eichstätt wird die Kunst Holzers in ihrer ursprünglichen städtebaulichen und künstlerischen Atmosphäre besonders gut erlebbar. In der ehemaligen Jesuitenkirche präsentieren sich dem Besucher frisch restauriert, drei Altarblätter Holzers, darunter der Hochaltar als sein größtes Leinwandgemälde. Weitere Altarbilder sowie eine Computersimulation der Kuppel von Münsterschwarzach sind im Kuppelraum der ehemaligen Klosterkirche Notre Dame zu besichtigen. Im Festsaal der ehemaligen fürstbischöflichen Sommerresidenz bildet das zauberhafte Deckengemälde Holzers einen weiteren Höhepunkt.
Das Domschatz- und Diözesan als zentrale Anlaufstelle in Eichstätt präsentiert eine reiche Schau zu Holzers Früh- und graphischem Werk. Ein vielfältiges Veranstaltungsprogramm rundet die Werkschau ab, zu der ein umfangreicher Katalog erscheint.
Engraving Watteau
Antoine Watteau et l’art de l’estampe / Antoine Watteau and the Art of Engraving
Musée du Louvre, Paris, 8 July — 11 October 2010
Exhibition catalogue by Marie-Catherine Sahut and Florence Raymond, ISBN: 9782847421521 ($50)
A hundred engravings from the oeuvre of Antoine Watteau, mostly from the Edmond de Rothschild collection, illustrate the art of engraving in the 18th century. Before his premature death at age thirty-seven, the painter, engraver, and tireless draftsman Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) set his seal on the 18th century with the grace and spontaneity of his art. The oeuvre was engraved almost at once—between 1724 and 1735—on the initiative of his friend and protector Jean de Julienne. This remarkable venture—four volumes totaling some six hundred plates after his drawings and paintings—was entrusted to fifty engravers. A crucible for young talents including François Boucher and Laurent Cars, the project played its part in the Europe-wide development of the Rocaille style, of which Watteau was one of the main instigators.
Curators: Marie-Catherine Sahut (Department of Paintings) and Pascal Torres-Guardiola (Department of Prints and Drawings)
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N.B. — The catalogue is available through artbooks.com (a full description, in English, is available here). The latest mailing from Artbooks.com also includes the forthcoming title edited by Christiane Naffah, Watteau et la fête galante (Paris: Musées nationaux, 2010), ISBN: 9782711856541 ($90).
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