Enfilade

Opening at the end of the month at both The Hunterian and Mount Stuart:

The Art of Power: Treasures from the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart
Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow, 31 March 2017 — 14 January 2018
Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, 31 March 2017 — 14 January 2018

Curated by Caitlin Blackwell and Peter Black

Sir Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, 1773 (The Bute Collection at Mount Stuart).

This new exhibition offers a unique opportunity to see major paintings from the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute. Merging art, biography and cultural history, Art of Power uncovers the fascinating Enlightenment figure, John Stuart, Third Earl of Bute, and his collection of rarely-seen masterpieces.

The exhibition is split across two venues—The Hunterian and Mount Stuart—offering visitors the chance to experience two world-class collections. Art of Power: Treasures from Mount Stuart marks the tercentenary of Mount Stuart, an architectural jewel on the Isle of Bute which houses the Bute Collection, one of the foremost private collections of artworks and artefacts in the UK.

The exhibition reveals a selection of rarely-seen masterpieces collected by the fascinating Enlightenment figure, John Stuart, Third Earl of Bute (1713–1792), the first Scottish-born Prime Minister and ‘favourite’ of George III. After retiring from politics, Bute amassed a great art collection, which was particularly renowned for its Dutch and Flemish paintings. This major exhibition brings a selection of European and British masterpieces from the Bute Collection to the Hunterian Art Gallery, many of which have not been on public display in over a century.

Highlights include works by Dutch Golden Age masters like Jan Steen and Jacob van Ruisdael, Grand Manner portraits by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds and Allan Ramsay, and Italianate landscapes and history subjects by Claude Lorrain and Veronese. A portion of these works will be displayed at the Hunterian, along with works on paper, including botanical illustrations and satirical engravings from the collection. The remainder of the paintings will be displayed at Mount Stuart, where they will be accompanied by historical artefacts, such as costume, letters, and rare books.

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Caitlin Blackwell, Peter Black, and Oliver Cox, Art of Power: Masterpieces from the Bute Collection at Mount Stuart (New York: Prestel, 2017), 144 pages, ISBN: 978  37913  56631, $50.

John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, was one of history’s most enthusiastic art collectors. As tutor to Prince George, Bute became indispensable to the royal household. Soon after his accession to the throne, the King made Bute Prime Minister―a career that was cut short after the Peace of Paris in 1763.

Forced out of London by an angry mob, Bute retired to an estate at Luton, where he spent the rest of his years in private study and amassing a collection of 500 paintings, including major works by Venetian painters such as Tintoretto, Bordone, and Veronese. Bute had a special interest in Dutch and Flemish pictures, building the greatest collection of its kind in Britain. This book features over thirty masterpieces, mainly genre paintings and landscapes, and including jewel-like landscapes by Brueghel and Savery. The collection is housed at the Bute family’s Scottish seat, Mount Stuart, on the Isle of Bute. Essays by leading scholars delve into the history of Bute’s collection, focusing on his relationship with King George III, and his wide ranging passions, which resulted in rooms filled floor to ceiling with works of art.

Caitlin Blackwell is the inaugural Bute Fellow at Mount Stuart, which is located on the Isle of Bute off the coast of Scotland. Peter Black is curator at the Hunterian and has published widely on Dutch and Flemish art. Oliver Cox is Heritage Engagement Fellow at the University of Oxford.

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From CODART, with text from Peter Black, Curator of Dutch and Flemish Paintings and Prints, Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery (12 December 2016). . .

The Bute Collection is housed at Mount Stuart (1880–1912), the Gothic Revival Palace by Robert Rowand Anderson on the Isle of Bute. It contains, besides a truly great collection of 18th-century portraits, important Dutch and Flemish works that were collected in the 1760s and 1770s by John Stuart, Third Earl of Bute (1713–1792). Bute was tutor to King George III when he was Prince of Wales, advising him, among other things, on acquisitions for the royal collection. Soon after the coronation in 1760, Bute was given power by his former pupil, becoming Prime Minister in 1762. His main business was to negotiate the Peace of Paris, ending the Seven Years’ War. Within one year, however, Bute resigned and was forced to leave London to escape the London mob. He bought a country house at Luton, which he had remodeled by Adam, and landscaped by Capability Brown. There he settled down to become the most important British collector of Dutch paintings, assembling for the purpose a library and collection of prints and drawings (dispersed 1794–1809). At the time of his death, there were 500 works in the house. Bute had more than a penchant for Venetian art and the grand rooms on the ground floor were hung with works by Tintoretto, Veronese and Bordone, as well as some of the finest examples of the work of Francesco Zuccarelli. Masterpieces by Dutch artists in the library included a magnificent Windy Autumn Day landscape by Berchem (Mount Stuart), and Cuyp’s River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants (now in the National Gallery, London). That painting is said to have started the craze for Cuyp among British collectors when Bute acquired it in the early 1760s. The smaller Dutch paintings were accommodated on the upper floor, clustered in dense thematic hangs in the bedrooms and dressing rooms.

The exhibition of 26 pictures in Glasgow University provides a window onto the riches of Mount Stuart, which can be visited in a day-trip by train and ferry from Glasgow. They are generally smaller works, including jewel-like landscapes by Savery, De Momper/Brueghel, Jan van der Heyden, Cuyp, Berchem, and Ruisdael, as well as genre scenes by Steen, Teniers, Verelst, Metsu and Bega. Visitors to Mount Stuart will see the extraordinary collection of family portraits by Batoni, Ramsay and Reynolds as well as works by Hobbema, Steen, Willem van Herp and Pieter van Slingelandt.

Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute (Wikimedia Commons, July 2006).

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From CODART regarding the exhibition now on view at the Dordrechts Museum:

A Royal Paradise: Aert Schouman and the Imagination of Nature
Een Koninklijk Paradijs: Aert Schouman en de verbeelding van de natuur
Dordrechts Museum, 19 February — 17 September 2017

The Dordrechts Museum dedicates an exhibition to the Dordrecht painter Aert Schouman (1710–1792). On view will be a wall decoration of the Il Pastor Fido series. The paintings, only rediscovered in 2016, are an example of Schouman’s early work. The recently restored wall paintings of the Huis ten Bosch Palace will also be display. Due to the renovation work taking place at the palace, the series depicting the menagerie of Willem V may be exhibited in Dordrecht exclusively.

Het mooiste werk van dierenschilder Aert Schouman (1710–1792) komt samen in een feestelijke tentoonstelling voor kunst- en natuurliefhebbers. Absoluut hoogtepunt vormt de complete kamerbeschildering van Willem V uit Huis ten Bosch met daarop zijn bijzondere dierenverzameling. Deze ‘kamer in het rond’ is onlangs gerestaureerd en straks in het Dordrechts Museum nog één keer te bewonderen, voordat ze weer binnen de muren van het toekomstige woonpaleis van koning Willem-Alexander en koningin Máxima verdwijnt.

Met stukken uit musea en particuliere collecties in binnen- en buitenland laat de tentoonstelling het paradijs van Schouman zien vol inheemse en exotische dieren. Vooral zijn werken met schitterende vogels spreken tot de verbeelding. Schouman tekende bovendien de buitenplaatsen en tuinen die zijn rijke opdrachtgevers als aardse paradijzen lieten aanleggen.

Emile Havers, ed., Een Koninklijk Paradijs: Aert Schouman en de verbeelding van de natuur (Zwolle, W Books, 2017), 360 pages, ISBN: 978  94625  81852, 30€.

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Suriname map, 1718. Nieuwe Kaart van Suriname vertonende de stromen en land-streken van Suriname, Comowini, Cottica, en Marawini; Amsterdam, 1718 (Collection of Leonard L. Milberg).

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Closing on Sunday at the New-York Historical Society (the exhibition was shown at Princeton in 2016 under the title By Dawn’s Early Light: Jewish Contributions to American Culture from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War); from the press release:

The First Jewish Americans: Freedom and Culture in the New World
Princeton University Art Museum, 13 February — 12 June 2016
New-York Historical Society, 28 October 2016 — 12 March 2017

How did Jewish settlers come to inhabit—and change—the New World? Jews in colonial America and the young United States, while only a tiny fraction of the population, significantly negotiated the freedoms offered by the new nation and contributed to the flowering of American culture. The First Jewish Americans: Freedom and Culture in the New World follows the trajectory of a people forced from their ancestral lands in Europe, as well as their homes in South America and the Caribbean, to their controversial arrival in New Amsterdam in 1654 to the unprecedented political freedoms they gained in early 19th-century New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. In this ground-breaking exhibition, rare portraits, drawings, maps, documents, and ritual objects illuminate how 18th- and 19th-century artists, writers, activists, and more adopted American ideals while struggling to remain distinct and socially cohesive amidst the birth of a new Jewish American tradition.

Gerardus Duyckinck I, Portrait of Jacob Franks (1688–1769), oil on canvas (Bentonville, Arkansas: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art).

The exhibition explores the origins of the Jewish diaspora and paths to the New World, Jewish life in American port cities, and the birth of American Judaism in the 18th and early 19th centuries, as well as profile prominent Jewish Americans who made an impact on early American life.

European Jews fleeing persecution and seeking ports of refuge were propelled westward to the distant shores of New World colonies, which offered hope for a new beginning until the infamous Holy Inquisition followed them across the ocean. The exhibition powerfully illustrates this experience through the 1595 autobiography of Luis de Carvajal, a ‘converso’ Jew in Mexico and the nephew of a prominent governor, who was tried by the Inquisition and denounced more than 120 other secretly practicing Jews before he was burned at the stake in 1596. The recently rediscovered documents, which had gone missing from the National Archives of Mexico more than 75 years ago, will be on view at New-York Historical by special arrangement with the Mexican government before returning to Mexico.

The Jewish community in the New World dispersed throughout the colonies in the Caribbean, creating a network built on trade, family, and religious connections. Examples of these island communities and influences featured in the exhibition include a 1718 map of the Jewish settlement in Suriname, 18th-century texts of religious services for the circumcision of slaves, and Jamaican legal documents from 1823 that argued for Jewish voting rights.

During the colonial period, Jews clustered in the cosmopolitan and commercially minded port cities of New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, and within each city, an elaborate communal infrastructure grew that supported all aspects of Jewish life. Shearith Israel, the first Jewish congregation in colonial North America, built its home in Lower Manhattan in 1730. The congregation has loaned significant objects to the exhibition, such as a Torah scroll that was burned by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War and a rare set of Torah bells (or rimonim) designed by Myer Myers—one of colonial America’s preeminent silversmiths and an active congregation member. Also on view are six oil paintings circa 1735 of the prominent Levy-Franks family of New York, also members of the congregation. On loan from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, they emulate paintings of the British aristocracy.

The Philadelphia Jewish community grew during and after the Revolutionary War, with the city serving as a refuge for patriots fleeing British-occupied New York. Some Philadelphia Jews opposed Britain’s harsh restrictions on American trade by signing the Resolution of Non-Importation made by the Citizens of Philadelphia in 1765—one of the first official protests against British mercantile policy, which is on view in the exhibit. Also featured are portrait paintings of Philadelphia merchant Barnard Gratz, a signer of the resolution who supplied American militias; and of his niece Rebecca Gratz, who in 1819 established the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, the first Jewish lay charity in the country.

In the first decades of the 19th century, Charleston was home to more Jews than any other place in North America and became a site of cultural and religious ferment. Congregation K.K. Beth Elohim—whose elegant synagogue is depicted in an 1838 oil painting on view—was the birthplace of the Reform movement in 1824, when a group of 47 members petitioned to make worship more accessible by introducing innovations that included prayers in English. The leadership refused, so the petitioners seceded and established the Reformed Society of Israelites for Promoting True Principles of Judaism According to Its Purity and Spirit. The exhibition features the group’s 1825 prayer book and speeches promoting their initially radical position, which soon became main stream. Also on view are earlier examples of revolutions in American Judaism, such as an English translation of a Hebrew prayer book from 1766, Samuel Johnson’s English and Hebrew Grammar book from 1771, and a lunar calendar of Jewish festivals and Sabbath observance from 1806.

The exhibition also features profiles of prominent Jewish Americans of the 18th and early 19th centuries, whose writing, activism, and artistic achievements provide a window into an era of cultural vitality and change in the new Republic. Among the highlighted figures are renown artist Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), a Caribbean Jew born in St. Thomas whose 1856 landscape paintings on view capture waterfront scenes of his island home; and Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–1860), a New Orleans-born piano prodigy and composer who became the first classically trained American pianist to achieve international fame. Science and medicine were remarkably open to Jewish men during the 19th century. On display are books written by Jewish Americans that made major contributions to American science and medicine as those fields were developing during this period. The exhibition concludes with views of newly flourishing cities, including Cincinnati, Los Angeles, and San Francisco that became home to American Jews as they ventured westward.

The exhibit is based primarily upon loans from the Princeton University Jewish American Collection, gift of Mr. Leonard L. Milberg, Class of 1953, and Mr. Leonard L. Milberg’s personal collection.

Adam Mendelsohn, By Dawn’s Early: Light Jewish Contributions to American Culture from the Nation’s Founding to the Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Library, 2016), 352 pages, ISBN: 978  08781  10593.

Terrific installation photographs are available at Arts Summary.

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Sir William Hamilton’s volcano archive includes paintings he commissioned (Oxford: Bodleian).

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From the press release (16 January 2017) for the exhibition:

Volcanoes
Weston Library, Bodleian, Oxford, 10 February 2017 — 21 May 2017

Curated by David Pyle

A new exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries uses a spectacular selection of eye witness accounts, scientific observations, and artwork to chart how our understanding of volcanoes has evolved over the past two millennia. The exhibition examines some of the world’s most spectacular volcanoes including the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius—one of the most catastrophic eruptions in European history—and the 19th-century eruptions of Krakatoa and Santorini, two of the first volcanic eruptions to be intensely studied by modern scientists.

Today, satellites monitor volcanic activity and anyone with internet access can watch volcanic eruptions live in real time. In the past, volcanic eruptions were described in letters, manuscript accounts, and early printed books and illustrated through sketches, woodcuts, and engravings. Many of these fascinating accounts are preserved in the Bodleian’s historic collections and will be on display in Volcanoes at the Weston Library.

The human encounters with volcanoes that are traced in the exhibition range from Pliny the Younger’s account of the dramatic eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE to early Renaissance explorers who reported strange sightings of mountains that spewed fire and stones. Also explored is how scientific understanding of volcanoes and the Earth’s interior have developed over time, from classical mythology and early concepts of subterranean fires to the emergence of modern volcano science, or volcanology, in the 19th century. The exhibition brings together science and society, art, and history and will delight visitors of all ages.

The exhibition is curated by David M. Pyle, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, whose research uses historical sources to improve our knowledge of past volcanic activity and to shed light on what might happen in the future at young or active volcanoes. It will feature treasures from the Bodleian Libraries, some of which have never been on public display before. In addition, the exhibition will feature items on loan from the Natural History Museum in London and from the University of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History, the Museum of the History of Science, and Magdalen College. Highlights of Volcanoes include:
• Fragments of ‘burnt’ papyrus scrolls from the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum, which were buried during the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius
• The earliest known manuscript illustration of a volcano, found in the margin of a 14th-century account of the voyage of St Brendan, an Irish monk who travelled across the north Atlantic in the 6th century
• A stunning illustration of the Earth’s subterranean fires from Athanasius Kircher’s Mundus Subterraneus, an influential 17th-century work which proposed that volcanoes were created where the Earth’s internal fires escaped at the surface
• Spectacular 18th-century studies of Vesuvius by Scottish diplomat and early volcanologist William Hamilton who wrote one of the first descriptive monographs of an active volcano
• 18th- and 19th-century weather diaries and paintings that capture the distant effects and freak weather conditions caused by major volcanic eruptions in Iceland and Indonesia
• ‘Infographics’ from 19th-century natural historians Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Daubeny whose work has contributed greatly to our current understanding of volcanoes
• Lava and rock samples, maps, lecture notes, and scientific equipment from 19th-century volcanologists and explorers

The exhibition curator David Pyle said: “Humans have lived with volcanoes for millions of years yet scientists are still grappling with questions about how they work. This exhibition features historical representations and ideas about volcanoes that are captivating and dramatic but most importantly these works provide scientists today with valuable insights into how these enigmatic phenomena behave. Looking back at history can help us learn valuable lessons about how best to reduce the effects of future volcanic disasters.”

Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian said: “Volcanoes are one of the most extraordinary marvels of the natural world and have fascinated us for millennia. This exhibition draws on both the rich collections held at the Bodleian and cutting edge scientific research to demonstrate the power and fascination of volcanoes through time.”

David Pyle, Volcanoes (Oxford Bodleian Libraries, 2017), 224 pages, ISBN: ISBN: 978  18512  44591, £20.

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Press release for the exhibition now on view in Bremen:

In the Name of the Lily: French Printmaking in the Age of Louis XIV
Im Zeichen der Lilie: Französische Druckgraphik zur Zeit Ludwigs XIV
Kunsthalle Bremen, 1 February — 28 May 2017

Pierre Drevet after Hyacinthe Rigaud, Portrait of Louis XIV, 1714/15, 39 × 52 cm (Kunsthalle Bremen).

This exhibition presents outstanding French prints from 1650 to 1715, an era in which the magnificence of Absolutism reached its climax. During the reign of Louis XIV, a principal task of the fine arts was to spread the glory and splendour of the Sun King as a statesman, general, and patron far beyond the borders of his own country. Prints were especially suited to this purpose. They were easy to transport; they could be produced in great numbers; they were sold individually or sumptuously bound together; and they could unequivocally serve political aspirations. Engravings after paintings in the King’s collections, views of his palaces, and images of his military victories advanced them to highly respected prestige objects.

In 1660, Louis XIV freed engravers from the restrictions of the guild system and elevated them to the rank of free artists. In 1663 they were allowed to enter the Royal Academy, which provided standardized training and thereby ensured an extraordinarily high level of technical skills. The precision and inventiveness of engravers such as Gérard Edelinck, Robert Nanteuil, Pierre Drevet, and Jean Audran—who used subtle graduated tonality, sophisticated lighting, and elaborately worked surfaces—contributed significantly to the formation of a French style that set the standard for later printmaking.

The engraver Anton Würth (b. 1957), who has explored the aesthetic quality of 17th-century French engravings in depth, has been invited to make a guest contribution.

Only a few minutes’ walk away from Bremen’s central market square, the Kunsthalle Bremen’s building has stood in the Wall gardens for over 150 years. The gallery’s private owner is to this day is the Kunstverein in Bremen (the Bremen Art Association), founded by the citizens of Bremen in 1823, making it one of the oldest art associations in Germany. With more than 9,000 members, it counts today one of the strongest memberships in the Federal Republic of Germany. As the city’s most distinguished art and cultural institution, its impact extends far beyond the region. Generous endowments, private donations, bequests by friends of the arts and allocations from the City of Bremen municipality form the basis for the gallery’s successful pursuit of its historic activity. Over the centuries, a rich and diverse collection has been assembled, containing outstanding paintings and sculptures as well as precious holdings of graphic art.

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Christien Melzer and Anton Würth, Im Zeichen der Lilie: Französische Druckgraphik zur Zeit Ludwigs XIV (Bremen: Kunstverein Bremen, 2017), 96 pages, ISBN: 978-3935127332.

Der französische Kupferstich erlebte zwischen 1650 und 1715 eine besondere Blüte. Ausstellung und Katalog Im Zeichen der Lilie. Französische Druckgraphik zur Zeit Ludwigs XIV. stellen vom 1. Februar bis 28. Mai 2017 erstmals in der Kunsthalle Bremen eine Auswahl von rund 70 Kupferstichen und Radierungen von 25 Künstlern des Barock vor. Die Zeitspanne umfasst in etwa die Regierungszeit des französischen Sonnenkönigs, Ludwig XIV., der alle Künste der Staatsräson unterordnete. In der Druckgraphik erkannte er ein Massenmedium par excellence, um seinen Ruhm über die Grenzen Frankreichs hinaus zu verbreiten und seine Macht zu festigen. Zahlreiche, teils monumentale Kupferstiche in ausgezeichneter Qualität und hervorragender Erhaltung spiegeln die Machtentfaltung des französischen Monarchen. Auf höchstem technischem Niveau zeigen sie die Besitztümer des Königs, seien es Gemälde, Tapisserien, Fresken oder Gebäude. Dramatische Schlachtenbilder illustrieren die militärischen Erfolge des Königs, brillante Porträts hn unterordnete. In der Druckgraphik erkannte er ein Massenmedium par excellence, um seinen Ruhm über die Grenzen Frankreichs hinaus zu verbreiten und seine Macht zu festigen. Zahlreiche, teils monumentale Kupferstiche in ausgezeichneter Qualität und hervorragender Erhaltung spiegeln die Machtentfaltung des französischen Monarchen. Auf höchstem technischem Niveau zeigen sie die Besitztümer des Königs, seien es Gemälde, Tapisserien, Fresken oder Gebäude. Dramatische Schlachtenbilder illustrieren die militärischen Erfolge des Königs, brillante Porträts halten die Subjekte seines Staatswesens für die Ewigkeit fest, prachtvolle Allegorien führen seine Tugenden vor Augen. Die präzisen und zugleich höchst sinnlichen Stiche von Gérard Edelinck, Robert Nanteuil, Pierre Drevet oder Jean Audran zeichnen sich durch subtil abgestufte Tonalitäten, eine raffinierte Lichtregie und differenziert ausgearbeitete Oberflächen aus und etablierten einen genuin französischen Stil, der geschmacksbildend für ganz Europa werden sollte.

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Opening in May at The Frick:

The Pursuit of Immortality: Masterpieces from the Scher Collection of Portrait Medals
The Frick Collection, New York, 9 May — 10 September 2017

Curated by Aimee Ng and Stephen Scher

The Frick Collection recently announced the largest acquisition in its history—a promised gift of approximately 450 portrait medals from the incomparable collection of Stephen K. and Janie Woo Scher. Representing the development of the art of the portrait medal from its inception in fifteenth-century Italy to the nineteenth century, the Scher collection is arguably the world’s most comprehensive and significant collection of portrait medals. Comments Director Ian Wardropper, “Henry Clay Frick had an abiding interest in portraiture as expressed in the paintings, sculpture, enamels, and works on paper he acquired. The Scher medals will coalesce beautifully with these holdings, being understood in our galleries within the broader contexts of European art and culture. At the same time, the intimate scale of the institution will offer a superb platform for the medals to be appreciated as an independent art form, one long overdue for fresh attention and public appreciation.”

To celebrate the promised gift, The Frick Collection will mount an exhibition this spring entitled The Pursuit of Immortality: Masterpieces from the Scher Collection of Portrait Medals. The exhibition will explore the flourishing of the medallic arts in major European centers of artistic production and will feature superlative examples by masters of the art such as Pisanello (Italy), Dupré (France), and Reinhart (Germany). Taking and fresh approach to the study of medals, which have often been viewed in the past as specialist objects closer to the field of numismatics, this exhibition will examine medals within the larger context of art, honoring them as a triumph of sculptural production on a small scale. Visitors to the show will encounter a number of renowned sculptors who were also masters of the medal.

The Pursuit of Immortality: Masterpieces from the Scher Collection of Portrait Medals is organized by Aimee Ng, Associate Curator at the Frick, and Stephen K. Scher, an esteemed art historian as well as a collector. Accompanying the exhibition is a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue including an essay by Aimee Ng. (In the spring of 2018, a catalogue of the entire Scher Collection will be published, featuring essays by leading medals scholars and illustrated entries about each of the almost one thousand medals in the collection.)

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Aimee Ng, The Pursuit of Immortality: Masterpieces from the Scher Collection of Portrait Medals (London: Giles, 2017), 64 pages, ISBN: 978  19112  82068, £15 / $20.

Accompanying the exhibition is a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue including an essay by Aimee Ng. In the spring of 2018, a catalogue of the entire Scher Collection will be published, featuring essays by leading medals scholars and illustrated entries about each of the almost one thousand medals in the collection.

Aimee Ng is associate curator at The Frick Collection, New York, and a specialist in Italian Renaissance art. She has held curatorial and academic positions at the Morgan Library & Museum, where she was postdoctoral fellow at the Morgan’s Drawing Institute in 2014, and at Columbia University, where she earned her Ph.D. She was guest curator of The Poetry of Parmigianino’s ‘Schiava Turca’ (2014) and organizing curator of Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action (2015–16).

I’m nearly a year late with this posting, but the catalogue is still available. –CH

From the Louvre:

Un Musée révolutionnaire: Le musée des Monuments français d’Alexandre Lenoir
A Revolutionary Museum: Alexandre Lenoir’s Museum of French Monuments
Musée du Louvre, Paris, 7 April — 4 July 2016

Curated by Geneviève Bresc-Bautier and Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot

Dating from 1795, the Museum of French Monuments was France’s second national museum, coming in the wake of the Louvre, founded in 1793. It played a major part in the birth of the notion of heritage and the emergence of medieval history. However, it was closed in 1816 and its contents are currently to be found in institutions in France—the Louvre’s Department of Sculptures, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the basilica of Saint-Denis, the Musée de Cluny, Notre Dame, various churches in the Paris diocese—and abroad: mainly in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, but also in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The exhibition recounts the pioneering achievement of Alexandre Lenoir as museum curator, exhibition designer, and fervent heritage protector. It also explores the establishment and history of the Museum of French Monuments, whose exhibition style had a powerful influence on the sensibility and the arts of the period.

Organized by Geneviève Bresc-Bautier (Musée du Louvre), and Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot (Musée de Cluny-Musée National du Moyen Âge).

From Hazan:

Geneviève Bresc-Bautier and Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot, eds. Un Musée révolutionnaire: Le musée des Monuments français d’Alexandre Lenoir (Paris: Hazan, 2016), 380 pages, ISBN: 978 27541  09376, €45.

Alexandre Lenoir (1761–1839), fervent défenseur des arts face au vandalisme révolutionnaire, fut le créateur et l’administrateur du musée des Monuments français de 1791 à sa fermeture en 1816 et à la dispersion de ses collections.L’exposition qui se tiendra dans le hall Napoléon du musée du Louvre du 7 avril au 4 juillet 2016 s’attache dans un premier temps à présenter l’histoire et l’influence de cette institution et de son fondateur sur l’historiographie et la conservation du patrimoine français. Dans un second temps, l’exposition dévoile au public plusieurs ensembles de sculptures tels qu’ils étaient exposés au musée des Monuments français, notamment les statues-colonnes de Gaillon représentant Jeanne d’Arc et Louis XII ou encore le tombeau de Valentine Balbiani et du cardinal René de Birague. Plus qu’un catalogue d’exposition, la publication accompagnant cet événement constitue un véritable ouvrage de référence sur le musée des Monuments français. Dirigé par les commissaires d’exposition Geneviève Bresc-Bautier et Béatrice de Chancel, il rassemble vingt-huit textes d’historiens de l’art accompagnés de plus de deux cent cinquante illustrations, notamment les nombreuses vues de salles à l’aquarelle de Jean-Lubin Vauzelle qui font revivre un instant ce musée aujourd’hui disparu.

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Tommaso Gherardini, Classical Relief (detail), 1765, oil on canvas (Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, Gift of the Collection of Edward A. and Inge Maser, 2008.23).

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From the Smart Museum of Art:

Classicisms
Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 16 February — 11 June 2017

Curated by Larry Norman and Anne Leonard

Classicism, as an aesthetic ideal, is often associated with a conventional set of rules founded on supposedly timeless notions such as order, reason, and decorum. As a result, it can be understood as rigid, outdated, or stodgy. But classicism is actually far from a stable concept—throughout history, it has given rise to more debate than consensus, and at times has been put to use for subversive ends.

Organized by the Smart Museum of Art and informed by an interdisciplinary planning process involving faculty members from across the University of Chicago, Classicisms explodes the idea of classicism as an unchanging ideal. The exhibition features 70 objects spanning diverse genres, eras, and media—paintings, ancient and modern sculpture, cast plaster replicas, and works on paper. Together with a scholarly catalogue, the exhibition traces classicism’s meanings across the centuries from varying artistic, cultural, and ideological perspectives to reveal a multifaceted concept with a complicated history.

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Distributed by The University of Chicago Press:

Larry F. Norman and Anne Leonard, ed., Classicisms (Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 2017), 184 pages, ISBN: 978  0935  573572, $30. With essays by Richard T. Neer, Susanna Caviglia, Andrei Pop, Frederick A. de Armas, Benjamin Morgan, Jennifer Wild, Rebecca Zorach, and Glenn W. Most; and other contributions from Rainbow Porthé, Ji Gao, Esther Van Dyke, Caitlin Hoff, Rebecca Crisafulli, and James Nemiroff.

This volume explodes the idea of classicism as an unchanging ideal. Through essays and other contributions from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, it traces the shifting parameters of classicism from antiquity to the twentieth century, documenting an exhibition of seventy objects in various media from the collection of the Smart Museum of Art and other American and international institutions. With its impressive historical and conceptual reach—from ancient literature to contemporary race relations and beyond—this colorfully illustrated book is a dynamic exploration of classicism as a fluctuating stylistic and ideological category.

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Now on view at the Bibliothèque Mazarine:

Images and Revolts in Book and Prints, 14th–Mid-18th Century
Images & Révoltes dans le livre et l’estampe, 14e–milieu du 18e siècle
Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, 14 December 2016 — 17 March 2017

Curated by Tiphaine Gaumy

Since the late Middle Ages, revolts and uprisings have marked European history. For a long time, historians believed that due to the extent of illiteracy, opponents had very few means of self-expression. However, the increase and widespread appearance of contesting images during periods of insurgency provides evidence of a visual and popular culture existing long before the French Revolution. Significant examples can be observed during the Bohemian Hussite movement in the 15th century or during the Peasants War in the Holy Roman Empire (1525).

An iconography of revolts emerged and spread, especially on ephemeral and scarcely preserved materials, but also in manuscripts, and very soon on new media. Opponents expressed their discontent through pamphlets and prints. In response, authorities tried to contain the dissemination of seditious images and to display, through other images, their own legitimacy and authority. This visual production raises many questions. How did rebels influence their creation? How did technical innovations (printing) or spiritual ones (reformation, iconoclasm…) determine their spread, form and content? Can historians trust them?

The exhibition features a broad variety of images, from rebellions of Flemish cities in the 14th century, to peasants revolts and religious troubles of the 15th and 16th centuries, uprisings and revolutions in the mid-17th century (in France, Portugal, Naples, the British Isles), and Jansenist protests in the 18th century. They form an unknown and astonishing visual legacy and a key testimony to understanding the political culture of Europe.

An exhibition organised by the Bibliothèque Mazarine, in collaboration with the ANR project Culture des révoltes et révolutions.

Stéphane Haffemayer, Alain Hugon, Yann Sordet, and Christophe Vellet, eds., Images & Révoltes dans le livre et l’estampe, XIVe–milieu du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Bibliothèque Mazarine & Editions des Cendres, 2016), 315 pages, ISBN: 979  1090853  096, 38€.