Enfilade

The exhibition closed a few weeks ago, but the catalogue is available from ArtBooks.com:

A Life as a Work of Art: Anton Maria Zanetti and His Collections
Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice, 29 September 2018 — 7 January 2019

Curated by Alberto Craievich

Anton Maria Zanetti (1679–1767) was a central figure in the eighteenth-century history of Venetian collecting and in the world’s endorsement of Venetian art. An art patron and influential intermediary on behalf of nobles and sovereigns, commissioning and purchasing works by Venice’s most famous artists, Zanetti was perhaps the most influential character in the Venetian art scene of the time. Known as ‘il Vecchio’, or ‘di Girolamo’—to distinguish him from his namesake younger cousin, a famous librarian at the Marciana Library in Venice—Zanetti was not only a passionate collector but also a talented draughtsman and skilled engraver.

After his father’s death in 1711, he was forced to provide for the rest of the family as an insurance agent, but despite difficulties, this did not prevent him from following his own inclinations. A friend to artists such as Canaletto, Rosalba Carriera, Sebastiano and Marco Ricci, and Giambattista Tiepolo, Zanetti was in close contact with the most important European collectors. He himself assembled an extraordinary collection of antique gems, drawings, and prints that was dispersed after his death. He also promoted splendid publishing initiatives, most notably two volumes on ancient sculpture, now conserved in the vestibule of the Marciana Library and one of the most beautiful and luxurious illustrated publications of the entire eighteenth century. An inexhaustible collection of letters, now spread among libraries and private collectors, documents his dense network of relationships and friendships and offers a rare insight into the cultural life of the period.

To commemorate this extraordinary figure, the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia presents an exhibition highlighting Zanetti’s activities as an artist and patron. Testimonies from his life in the form of books, letters, engravings, and drawings—none of which are usually exhibited for conservation reasons—will be shown together with art from his collection, including works by Tiepolo, Sebastiano and Marco Ricci, Palma il Giovane, and others, now preserved in the city’s museums, including the Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia, the Giorgio Cini Foundation, the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, and Venice’s civic museums, as well as in several private collections.

Alberto Craievich, La Vita Come Opera d’Arte: Anton Maria Zanetti e le sue collezioni (Antiga: Crocetta del Montello, 2018), 336 pages, ISBN: 978-8884351029, €38 / $60 (on sale for $42).

Caspar van Wittel, Piazza Navona, 1699, oil on canvas, 97 × 216 cm (Madrid: Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on loan at the Museo Nacional Thyssen- Bornemisza).

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Now on view at the Kunsthal KAdE:

Maestro Van Wittel: Dutch Master of the Italian Cityscape / Hollandse meester van het Italiaanse stadsgezicht
Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, 26 January — 5 May 2019

Kunsthal KAdE and Museum Flehite introduce the Netherlands to a world-renowned Dutch master who remained largely unknown in his country of birth, the Netherlands. Caspar Adriaensz van Wittel (1653–1736), also known as Gaspare Vanvitelli, became famous and revered in his adopted homeland of Italy. During the 17th and 18th century, he painted Rome, Naples, and Venice in minute detail, influencing famous Italian cityscape painters such as Canaletto and Bellotto. Van Wittel was born in Amersfoort, left around 1673 for Italy, earned a good reputation for himself there, and never returned to the Netherlands. Today, the vast majority of his works are in collections in Italy, England, and Spain. In the Netherlands, there are only a few drawings and a single gouache: View of Amersfoort in Museum Flehite. With the exhibition Maestro Van Wittel: Dutch Master of the Italian Cityscape, Museum Flehite and Kunsthal KAdE honour this master with a major retrospective from 26 January through 5 May 2019. It puts his extensive oeuvre in the context of his Dutch learning period and his influence on the later Italian vedutisti.

The exhibition at Kunsthal KAdE presents the entire Van Wittel story: the places he painted, the style he developed, his Dutch roots, his high-born patrons, and his undeniable influence in Italy. With this retrospective, Museum Flehite and Kunsthal KAdE want to give Caspar van Wittel his place in the canon of Dutch art history as maestro of the Italian cityscape.

Van Wittel’s Dutch Period

Caspar van Wittel was a student of Matthias Withoos, who had trained at Jacob van Campen’s painting school at the Randenbroek country estate in Amersfoort. Withoos’ masterpiece is his View of Amersfoort; commissioned in 1671 by the city government at the time, it was painted in the time that Van Wittel was training with him and therefore it is possible that the young student—he was 16 or 17 years old at the time—worked on it. Van Wittel relocated to Hoorn with Withoos in 1672. As a result of the move, he was neighbours with the painters Jan van der Heyden and Gerrit Berckheyde, who had developed a ‘pure’ rendering of the cityscape in Amsterdam and Haarlem. This ‘Dutch’ way of painting is conveyed in Van Wittel’s work.

Inventor of the Italian Cityscape

Accompanied by a fellow young painter—Jacob van Staverden—Van Wittel travelled to Rome sometime around 1673. In Rome, he found himself in the Dutch Schildersbent (‘painters’ clique’) faction of the Bentvueghels (‘birds of a feather’), a group that had been an artists’ colony for decades in the eternal city. In Rome, he became acquainted with the work of Lieven Cruyl and Abraham Genoels, who made topographic drawings of the city. He also met Cornelis Meyer, a mechanical engineer who was striving to land an assignment from the Pope to build water works along the Tiber. Meyer asked the young Caspar—now in his mid-20s—to help with the illustrations for the manuscript. One of the subjects that Van Wittel drew was Piazza del Popolo, the square where Van Wittel arrived in Rome from the north. Ultimately, he would paint this square some 15 times in his career, always from the same perspective.

From that moment (around 1680), Van Wittel also began capturing other places in Rome with his signature precision: the Tiber with its bridges and the Castel Sant’Angelo on the banks, the Piazza Navona, the Colosseum, St. Peter’s Square, the Quirinal, Villa Borghese, churches, streets, and smaller squares. He often repeated these compositions numerous times, too, working from a single basic drawing. From Rome he travelled to Naples, the countryside surrounding Rome (Tivoli), Florence, and Venice. In the lagoon city of Venice, he captured the view of San Marco and the Doge’s Palace from the water. He painted the majestic La Salute church at the entrance to the Grand Canal. Nowadays it belongs to the standard repertoire of Venetian cityscape painting, but Van Wittel was the first to paint it.

Van Wittel Inspires Canaletto

Around 1719, the young Venetian painter Antonio Canal was in Rome to paint several decorative pieces with his father. It is highly likely that he met Van Wittel during this time and saw a number of his Venetian cityscapes. Filled with inspiration, Canal, who would quickly be called Canaletto, dedicated himself entirely to this subject. At the time, the Grand Tour—an educational trip for young members of the nobility—became incredibly popular and Canaletto, together with his cousin Bernardo Bellotto, became the go-to painters of Venetian cityscapes that were snapped up by the travellers. Incidentally, Van Wittel led the way here, too; he had provided Grand Tour travellers—including Thomas Coke—with these sorts of ‘picture postcards’. Upon his return to England, Coke built Holkham Hall in the north of Norfolk, which was inspired in part by his travels in Italy and the work of architect Palladio.

Once he arrived in Rome, Van Wittel established an extensive network of patrons that included not only Roman aristocracy such as the Sacchetti and Colonna families—in whose palaces he took up residence from time to time—but also the Spanish nobleman Medinaceli, who lived in Rome as an ambassador, became the viceroy of Naples in 1696 and commissioned a total of 35 paintings by Van Wittel, most of which were views of Naples and around the city.

Photographer Wilschut Follows in Van Wittel’s Footsteps

As part of the exhibition, Rotterdam photographer Hans Wilschut was asked to follow in Van Wittel’s footsteps and capture a number of the places in Rome, Naples, Venice, and Amersfoort that Van Wittel frequently painted. Some of these places have remained essentially the same; some have been completely transformed. Just as Van Wittel liked to capture the urban hustle and bustle in his cityscapes at the time, Wilschut shows people today in the iconic settings. Hans Wilschut is also featured in the exhibition Stadsbeelden (‘Cityscapes‘) at Museum Flehite, from 9 February through 19 May 2019.

Works from International Collections in Amersfoort

The exhibition presents around 45 paintings and gouaches and approximately 30 drawings by Van Wittel from Italian, English, Spanish, German, and French collections. In addition, there are about 30 paintings and drawings by Dutch and Italian masters.

An events programme to accompany the exhibition will be organised in cooperation with the Friends of Caspar van Wittel Foundation. Bekking & Blitz will publish an exhibition catalogue in Dutch and English. This is the first time that a monograph on the artist will be available in these languages. The catalogue costs €30.

The exhibition Maestro Van Wittel: Dutch Master of the Italian Cityscape is made possible by the generous support of the Turing Foundation, the Mondriaan Fund, Fonds 21, the Municipality of Amersfoort, the Cultural Heritage Agency, and the Province of Utrecht.

On view in Genoa at the Palazzo Reale:

Anton Maria Maragliano (1664–1739), Lo spettacolo della scultura in legno a Genova
Palazzo Reale di Genova, 10 November 2018 — 10 March 2019

Curated by Daniele Sanguineti

From November 10th 2018 to March 10th 2019 Teatro del Falcone in Palazzo Reale Museum hosts the first monographic exhibition dedicated to the Genoese sculptor Anton Maria Maragliano (1664–1739). Viewers can admire the artist’s masterpieces, testaments to the persuasive power of painted and gilded wood to personify the protagonists of Paradise: from the elegant Marian statues, to the graceful Crucifixes, to the great processional machines with the martyrs of the saints.

Maragliano’s ability to meet the needs of clients through beautiful images and strong emotional impacts made possible the obtaining of a monopoly that forced the sculptor to develop a structured business model. Two generations of students were welcomed in the rooms of Strada Giulia, in the heart of Genoa, where Maragliano had his workshop, giving rise to the phenomenon of divulging the master’s language which represents the most fascinating, though problematic, aspect of the approach to sculptor: and the pupils of the students pursued this popularization beyond the end of the century. The exhibition presents a dual approach: on the one hand, it displays a chronological path, with Maragliano’s cultural references, the beginnings, the artist’s workshop; on the other hand, it displays thematic sections, articulated in groups of works divided according to iconography.

The exhibition opens with a section dedicated to artistic precedents for the young Maragliano, from Giuseppe Arata and Giovanni Battista Agnesi, to Giovanni Battista Bissoni and Marco Antonio Poggio. The places that Maragliano evoked through a series of documents, engravings, and watercolors usefully tell the stages of apprenticeship and the environments that hosted the master’s workspace over the years. The magnificent San Michele Arcangelo of Celle Ligure, requested of Maragliano in 1694, and the San Sebastiano for the Disciplinanti of Rapallo, commissioned in 1700, testify to the role of models in tune with the most up-to-date figurative culture rooted in Genoa thanks to the painter Domenico Piola and the French sculptor Pierre Puget. These sculptures, capable of translating into the three-dimensionality of the artefact the engaging grace of contemporary painting and Bernini’s sculpture, reveal the new, delicate dynamism of Baroque culture.

The practice of work, from the manipulation of clay models to the collaboration with painters—especially those of Casa Piola—constitute a deepening of particular interest that make comprehensible the ideational project in the entirety of its process. The progressive juxtaposition of Crucifixes—large and small, from a chapel, from a high altar, or from a procession—shows the substantial renewal conferred by Maragliano on the iconography until obtaining a repeatable formula on the part of the students. A series of spectacular Madonnas seated on the throne and an extraordinary processional chest—the Sant’Antonio Abate contemplates the death of Saint Paul the Hermit now relevant to the brotherhood of Mele—highlight the theatrical values ​​of Maragliano’s compositions, for which the biographer Ratti, reporting the judgment of the people, wrote, “have all the air of Paradise.”

Penitential themes from Holy Week are illustrated in the enthralling section on the Passion. Alongside works of small format, including nativity statues are exhibited refined objects—sacred and profane—commissioned by noble families for their private collections. The journey ends with an allusion to the complex management of Maragliano’s heritage, thanks to the presence of some pieces made by his primary students.

The catalogue is published by Sagep and available from Artbooks.com:

Daniele Sanguineti, et al., Maragliano (1664–1739), Lo spettacolo della scultura in legno a Genova (Genova: Sagep Editori, 2018), 288 pages, ISBN: 978-8863735970, €30 / $60.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Death of Cleopatra
(The Horvitz Collection; photo by Michael Gould)

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Opening this month at FUAM, the exhibition is a variation of Storytelling: French Art from the Horvitz Collection; from the press release:

A French Affair: Drawings and Paintings from The Horvitz Collection
Fairfield University Art Museum, Fairfield, Connecticut, 25 January — 29 March 2019

Curated by Alvin Clark

The Fairfield University Art Museum is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, A French Affair: Drawings and Paintings from The Horvitz Collection, which will be on view from January 25 through March 29, 2019, in the museum’s Bellarmine Hall Galleries in Bellarmine Hall on the campus of Fairfield University.

Produced by some of the most prominent artists of the Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical epochs, the 80 works on view comprise two separate exhibitions—Imaging Text: Drawings for French Book Illustration and Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century French Paintings. All come from The Horvitz Collection, one of the world’s finest and most distinguished holdings of French art.

History, mythology, poetry, portraiture, and everyday life provided a vast storehouse of subject matter for French artists from the 16th through the mid-19th centuries. A French Affair features paintings and drawings in all these genres by celebrated artists such as Charles Le Brun, Nicolas de Largillière, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, and Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy Trioson. The impressive selection of 70 drawings, some exhibited with related prints, focuses on a particular category—designs for book illustration—thereby highlighting not only the creative inventiveness of the artists who formulated lavish visual imagery from the written word, but also the rich literary traditions of France and the vibrant book publishing industry they spawned.

“It is a privilege for the Fairfield University Art Museum to present this captivating array of paintings and drawings by some of the leading protagonists of French art of the ancien régime and post-Revolutionary period, lent by the renowned Horvitz Collection,” said Linda Wolk-Simon, Frank and Clara Meditz Director and Chief Curator.

Particularly rich is the drawings exhibition component of this two-part presentation, Imaging Text, which highlights for visitors the importance of book illustration and the robust publishing trade in France as a catalyst for artistic invention. The new prominence of illustrations in printed books, and the heightened demand for draftsmen to produce such images, offered many artists entree into elite artistic, literary, and social circles beginning in the late 17th century. The choice selection of paintings from the same moment, with their bravura handling of light and color and masterful depictions of human form and inanimate objects, speaks to the rigorous artistic training and traditions, promoted by the French Academy and the Salon (the official annual art exhibition), in which all artists of the period—painters, sculptors, draftsmen, printmakers—were schooled.

Renowned for its breadth and quality, The Horvitz Collection has been the focus of many national and international exhibitions and scholarly publications, and it now contains nearly 2,000 drawings, paintings, and sculptures. The exhibition is curated by Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Curator, The Horvitz Collection and the J.E. Horvitz Research Curator, Emeritus, Department of Drawings, Division of European and American Art, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg. An illustrated catalogue of the drawings is available.

Alvin Clark and Elizabeth M. Rudy, Imaging Text: French Drawings for Book Illustration from The Horvitz Collection (Boston: The Horvitz Collection, 2018), 76 pages, ISBN: 978-0991262533, $10.

S E L E C T E D  P R O G R A M M I N G

Thursday, January 24, 5:00pm
Collecting French Art: A Conversation with Jeffrey Horvitz and Alvin Clark

Saturday, February 2, 12:00pm
Sarah Cantor (Kress Interpretative Fellow), Gallery Talk: Drawing for Books in 18th-Century France

Thursday, February 7, 11:00am
Michelle DiMarzo (Curator of Education and Academic Engagement), Art in Focus: Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, Sylvia and the Satyr, 1800

Tuesday, February 12, 6:00pm
Performance: ekphrasis vii — Fairfield University MFA students will read original pieces inspired by the works on view in A French Affair: Paintings and Drawings from The Horvitz Collection

Thursday, February 21, 5:00pm
Sarah Cantor (Kress Interpretative Fellow), Gallery Talk: Drawings to Prints

Wednesday, March 6, 5:00pm
Elizabeth Rudy (Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Associate Curator of Prints, Harvard Art Museums), Lecture: 18th-Century French Drawings — part of the Edwin L. Weisl, Jr. Lectureships in Art History, funded by the Robert Lehman Foundation

Wallis’s Elegant and Instructive Game exhibiting the Wonders of Art in Each Quarter of the World, ca. 1820
(New Haven: Yale Center for British Art)

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Opening this month at YCBA:

Instruction and Delight: Children’s Games from the Ellen and Arthur Liman Collection
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 17 January — 23 May 2019

Curated by Elisabeth Fairman with Laura Callery

By the beginning of the eighteenth century in Britain, parents and teachers had begun to embrace wholeheartedly a suggestion from the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) that “Learning might be made a Play and Recreation to Children.” The material culture of this period, and the subsequent generation, reveals a significant shift in thinking, as adults found fresh value in childhood and in play for its own sake. British publishers leapt at the chance to design books and games for both instruction and delight. This small display celebrates the recent gift of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century children’s games and books to the Center by Ellen and Arthur Liman, Yale JD 1957.

Instruction and Delight: Children’s Games from the Ellen and Arthur Liman Collection has been curated by Elisabeth Fairman, Chief Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Center, with the assistance of Laura Callery, Senior Curatorial Assistant.

A catalogue appeared in 2017 from Pointed Leaf Press:, with additional information (and images) from this HyperAllergic piece by Claire Voon).

Ellen Liman, Georgian and Victorian Board Games: The Liman Collection (New York: Pointed Leaf Press, 2017), 182 pages, ISBN: 978-1938461439, $65.

Now on view at the Vatican:

Winckelmann: Masterpieces throughout the Vatican Museums
Winckelmann: Capolavori diffusi nei Musei Vaticani
Vatican Museums, 9 November 2018 — 9 March 2019

Curated by Guido Comini and Claudia Valeri

A ‘journey within the journey’ along the entire Vatican Museums tour itinerary, this ‘dispersed’ exhibition celebrates the great German scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann, father of modern archaeology and precursor of today’s art historians. Preceded by and announced in May at the study day on the Montalto Collection in Villa Negroni, Winckelmann: Masterpieces throughout the Vatican Museums symbolically brings to a conclusion the many initiatives organized to honour the renowned archaeologist in the dual anniversary year of 2018—300 years since his birth and 250 since his tragic death in Trieste.

In the years of his ‘dazzling’ stay in Rome (1755–1768), the Vatican Museums as we know them did not yet exist, but Winckelmann already visited the Vatican Belvedere and returned repeatedly to admire the statues conserved there. Indeed, it was due to his favourable judgement that many antiquities that he studied during his visits to the monuments and collections of the Eternal City were then purchased by the pontiffs. The exhibition, curated by Guido Cornini and Claudia Valeri, is intended to highlight precisely this role of the Vatican collections as a cornerstone for the studies, theories, and writings of the renowned German archaeologist. All sectors of the museums have been involved in this impressive and original exhibition project that offers the visitor a thematic itinerary with pauses for in-depth analysis of 50 selected works—on the basis of the role Winckelmann attributed to them in the construction of his aesthetic thought.

Room XVII of the Pinacoteca is dedicated to the presentation of the figure and his age. The screening of a film and the display of some of his most important writings help explain the atmosphere and cultural climate of Rome around the mid-eighteenth century. Winckelmann arrived in 1755 for a brief stay and instead spent the rest of his life in Italy; enchanted by the grandiose beauty of the antiquities, he devoted all his attention and prodigious talent to them.

Guido Comini and Claudia Valeri, Winckelmann: Masterpieces throughout the Vatican Museums (Vatican City: Edizioni Musei Vaticani, 2018), 232 pages, ISBN: 978-8882714307, $58. Also available in Italian.

Utagawa Toyokuni, One Hundred Looks of Various Women, 1816
(Roger Weston Collection)

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Press release (4 October 2018) for the exhibition:

Painting the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Masterpieces from the Weston Collection
Art Institute of Chicago, 4 November 2018 — 27 January 2019

Curated by Janice Katz

The Art Institute of Chicago presents Painting the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Masterpieces from the Weston Collection, a collection formed by Roger Weston over the last twenty-five years which captures compellingly the beginning, major developments, and final flowering of ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) painting. Encompassing folding screens, hanging scrolls, handscrolls, and albums, these works are technically accomplished masterpieces by the most famous artists in Edo (present-day Tokyo) and beyond. Ukiyo-e comprises both paintings and prints, so it is especially meaningful that such a complete collection of paintings can be shown at a museum known for its significant holdings of prints.

Chobunsai Eishi, Woman Writing a Poem on a Fan, 1789/1801 (Roger Weston Collection).

The floating world (ukiyo) flourished in the bustling urban centers of Kamigata (Kyoto, Osaka) and Edo from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. People of all ranks shared in metropolitan amusements, including the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters and the kabuki theater. The extraordinary paintings in the exhibition, which focus almost exclusively on the beautiful people (bijinga) who were the celebrities of this milieu, offer a privileged, intimate view of the floating world and its many attractions. Ukiyo-e paintings were commissioned works executed by well-known artists, among them Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–1806). Lavish, one-of-a-kind objects, the paintings display the makers’ extraordinary technical skill and address a wide range of subjects, including actors, courtesans, geisha, musicians, and scenes of everyday life in Edo.

“When visitors walk away from this show, we want them to have an understanding that the floating world is full of individuals looking to forge a unique identity for themselves as urban, sophisticated, fashionable and trendy, just as we do in our modern-day society,” said Janice Katz, the Roger L. Weston Associate Curator of Japanese Art.

The exhibition, staged in the museum’s Regenstein Hall, will be the largest exhibition exclusively of ukiyo-e paintings in the U.S. With approximately 160 pieces of art on display, the sheer size of the exhibition is spectacular. Visitors can find parallels between ukiyo-e and present day culture—the exploration of fashion and celebrity, the desire to seek out unique experiences—as well as a thread of influence that can be traced though to the fantasy worlds of Japanese anime and manga.

The paintings are organized in chronological order throughout eight rooms, charting the birth of ukiyo-e and key moments in its evolution. To give visitors the ability to observe the skill of the artists up close, the glass cases housing the works will have a depth of just eight inches. The experience of the exhibition is further enhanced with dynamic maps of the city, educational videos, and digital tablets.

The Art Institute of Chicago will be the exclusive venue for this exhibition. A one-day international symposium will be held on November 15, 2018. In addition, a complementary exhibition in the Weston Wing and Japanese Art Galleries featuring prints and paintings from the Art Institute’s collection will be on view from October 6, 2018 to February 10, 2019. Painting the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Masterpieces from the Weston Collection is generously sponsored by Roger L. and Pamela Weston.

Janice Katz and Mami Hatayama, eds., Painting the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Masterpieces from the Weston Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2018), 350 pages, ISBN: 978-0300236910, $65.

From the seventeenth through the nineteenth century, artists in Kyoto and Edo (now Tokyo) captured the metropolitan amusements of the floating world (ukiyo in Japanese) through depictions of subjects such as the beautiful women of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters and performers of the kabuki theater. In contrast to ukiyo-e prints by artists such as Katsushika Hokusai, which were widely circulated, ukiyo-e paintings were specially commissioned, unique objects that displayed the maker’s technical skill and individual artistic sensibility. Featuring more than 150 works from the celebrated Weston Collection, the most comprehensive of its kind in private hands and published here for the first time in English, this lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched volume addresses the genre of ukiyo-e painting in all its complexity. Individual essays explore topics such as shunga (erotica), mitate-e (images that parody or transform a well-known story or legend), and poetic inscriptions, revealing the crucial role that ukiyo-e painting played in a sophisticated urban culture.

Janice Katz is Roger L. Weston Associate Curator of Japanese Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Mami Hatayama is curator of the Weston Collection.

Installation view of The Claggetts of Newport: Master Clockmakers in Colonial America (Newport: Redwood Library & Athenaeum, photo by Michael Osean).

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Press release (via Art Daily) for the exhibition:

The Claggetts of Newport: Master Clockmakers in Colonial America
The Redwood Library and Athenæum, Newport, 13 December 2018 — 21 April 2019

Curated by Gary Sullivan and Benedict Leca

In an era when it emerged alongside New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston as one of the five main port cities of the American Enlightenment, Newport famously distinguished itself by its uniquely progressive society, but also by its cultural refinement, exemplified as much by the Redwood Library—America’s first purpose-built library and earliest public neoclassic building—as by the masterpiece clocks produced by the Claggett dynasty. The Claggetts of Newport: Master Clockmakers in Colonial America features 35 clocks, the largest assemblage of Claggett and Wady clocks ever brought together—many never exhibited publicly. It examines the range of the Claggetts’ clock production in terms of their technical sophistication, decorative finesse, and context of fabrication.

“As the pinnacle of what was often the most expensive item in an elite colonial home, these clocks reflect the cultural aspirations of early Americans, and the role that Newporters played in fashioning an American style that contrasted with European fashions,” said Redwood Executive Director and exhibition co-curator Benedict Leca.

Drawn from a full roster of public and private collections, the exhibition includes pieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brown University, The Preservation Society of Newport County, Old Sturbridge Village Collection, and the Rhode Island Historical Society. It features twenty clocks by William Claggett, including his masterpiece: the arch-dial, eight-day quarter-striking clock in japanned case belonging to the Redwood. Thomas Claggett is represented by eleven clocks, while James Wady—to whom only eleven clocks are ascribed—by four clocks, including one using a convex block-and-shell pendulum door, a feature that typified Newport clocks. Among other highlights is a table clock with japanned surface by William Claggett; a trio of Thomas Claggett clocks in related, uniquely regional cases, one a dwarf clock and another a musical clock by him; and two uncased eight-day time and strike movements enabling visitors to peer into the mechanics of a working clock.

The exhibition includes many clocks borrowed from private collections that feature significant provenance information. Preserved by Rhode Island families, some for 300 years, the identities of the original owners of several examples are documented and early family histories are known for others, shedding light on the value, details of construction and the circumstances governing commissions.

“This is an unprecedented presentation of clocks that is unlikely ever to be duplicated. With the recent book devoted to the Claggetts by Fennimore and Hohmann, the Claggetts’ achievement as a highpoint of early American craftsmanship can now be comprehensively appreciated,” said exhibition co-curator Gary Sullivan, the leading authority on early American clocks.

Organized by the Redwood Library & Athenæum—the sole venue—The Claggetts of Newport: Master Clockmakers in Colonial America juxtaposes significant early square dial clocks with later, highly elaborate clocks featuring japanned cases and complex movements indicating the day, tides, and phases of the moon. The clocks’ increasing technical and decorative elaboration over the course of the eighteenth century coincided with the growing prosperity of Newport’s merchant class, whose patronage fueled the city’s emergence as a major colonial artistic center.

The exhibition charts a complex narrative that teases out the three distinct personalities that comprise the Claggett dynasty—William Claggett (1694–1748), his assumed relative Thomas Claggett (d. 1797), and William’s son-in-law James Wady (ca. 1706–1759). As well, the show offers insights on the network of sub-contracted specialist case makers, brass founders and glaziers that the Claggett workshop relied on to produce their clocks.

The technical expertise required to produce a clock, whereby founders cast brass parts that clockmakers filed into the finished movement and positioned inside custom casework made these more than “a great ornament to [a] Room.” The Claggett’s ascendency as clockmakers coincides with the entry of science into public discourse through newly-formed philosophical societies, such as Newport’s Literary and Philosophical Society (1730), the group integral to the founding of the Redwood Library, whose members met to discuss current political and scientific issues. William Claggett himself experimented with electricity, and evidence abounds that clocks were conceived as far more than time pieces: in a 1725 pamphlet Benjamin Franklin compares God’s regulation of the world to the movement of a clock, a metaphor used and critiqued later by the philosopher George Berkeley.

The Claggetts of Newport: Master Clockmakers in Colonial America is co-curated by Gary R. Sullivan and Benedict Leca. The Redwood gratefully acknowledges support from the Edward W. Kane and Martha J. Wallace Family Foundation, and by several donors who wish to remain anonymous. Further support for the gallery presentation comes from Cornelius C. Bond and Ann E. Blackwell, and an in-kind donation by Sandra Liotus Lighting LLC. A catalog recording the exhibition will be available in 2019.

Donald Fennimore and Frank Hohmann, with an Introduction by Dennis Carr, Claggett: Newport’s Illustrious Clockmakers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-0300233797, $65.