Exhibition | Rococo & Co: From Nicolas Pineau to Cindy Sherman
Closing soon at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs:
Rococo & Co: From Nicolas Pineau to Cindy Sherman
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 12 March — 18 May 2025
Curated by Bénédicte Gady, with Turner Edwards and François Gilles
This exhibition celebrates the restoration of a unique collection of nearly 500 drawings from the workshop of the sculptor Nicolas Pineau (1684–1754), one of the main proponents of the Rocaille style, which Europe adopted as Rococo. A practitioner of measured asymmetry and a subtle interplay of solids and voids, Nicolas Pineau excelled in many fields: woodwork, ornamental sculpture, architecture, prints, furniture and silverware. The presentation of this major Rococo figure is extended to include a workshop that plunges the visitor into the heart of the creation of Rococo panelling. Asymmetries, sinuous lines, chinoiserie dreams and animal images illustrate the infinite variations of the Rococo style. Finally, from the 19th to the 21st century, this aesthetic has found numerous echoes, from neo-styles to the most unexpected and playful reinterpretations.
The exhibition explores the evolution of the Rococo style and its reappearance in contemporary design and fashion, including Art Nouveau and psychedelic art. Nearly 200 drawings, pieces of furniture, woodwork, objets d’art, lighting, ceramics, and fashion items engage in a playful dialogue of curves and counter-curves. Nicolas Pineau and Juste Aurèle Meissonnier are joined by Louis Majorelle, Jean Royère, Alessandro Mendini, Mathieu Lehanneur, the fashion designers Tan Giudicelli and Vivienne Westwood, and the artist Cindy Sherman.
Bénédicte Gady, Turner Edwards, and François Gilles, eds., Nicolas Pineau 1684–1754: Un sculpteur de rocaille entre Paris et Saint-Pétersbourg (Paris: Éditions Les Arts Décoratifs, 2025), 504 pages, ISBN: 978-2847425123, €85.
The Burlington Magazine, April 2025
The long 18th century in the April issue of The Burlington:
The Burlington Magazine 167 (April 2025) | Art in Britain
e d i t o r i a l
RA Lecture Illustration of the Colonnade at Burlington House, produced by the Soane Office. ca.1806–17, pen, pencil, wash and coloured washes on wove paper, 72 × 67 cm (London: Sir John Soane’s Museum).
• “Boughton’s Heavenly Visions,” pp. 327–29.
Boughton in Northamptonshire is an improbable dream of a house. It is an essay in restrained French Classicism that was gently set into the English countryside in the late seventeenth century, encasing an older building. The house was chiefly the creation of the francophile Ralph, 1st Duke of Montagu (1638–1709), who served as Charles II’s ambassador to the court of Louis XIV. Its most splendid internal feature is the so-called Grand Apartment, which consists of a parade of impressive state rooms.
a r t i c l e s
• William Aslet, “The Discovery of James Gibbs’s Designs for the Façade of Burlington House,” pp. 354–67.
A reassessment of drawings by Gibbs in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, demonstrates that, as well as the stables and service wings and celebrated colonnade, the architect provided an unexecuted design for the façade of Burlington House, London—an aspect of the project with which he has hitherto not been connected. This discovery deepens our understanding of one of the most important townhouse commissions of eighteenth-century Britain and the evolving taste of Lord Burlington.
• Adriana Concin, “A Serendipitous Discovery: A Lost Italian Portrait from Horace Walpole’s Miniature Cabinet,” pp. 368–75.
Among the portraits in Horace Walpole’s renowned collection at Strawberry Hill were a number of images of Bianca Cappello, a Medici grand duchess of some notoriety. Here the rediscovery of a late sixteenth-century Italian miniature once displayed in Walpole’s cabinet is discussed; long thought to depict Cappello, it is now attributed to Lavinia Fontana.
• Edward Town and Jessica David, “The Portraits of Alice Spencer, Countess of Derby, and Her Family by Paul van Somer,” pp. 376–85.
Research into a portrait at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, has revealed the identities of twelve Jacobean portraits attributed to the Flemish painter Paul van Somer. The portraits were probably commissioned by Alice Spencer, Countess of Derby, and create a potent illustration of her dynastic heritage. [The research depends in part upon the eighteenth-century provenance of these portraits.]
r e v i e w s
• Anna Koldeweij, Review of the exhibition Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art (Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 2024–25; Toledo Museum of Art, 2025; MFA, Boston 2025), pp. 393–96.
• Christine Gardner-Dseagu, Review of the exhibition catalogue Penelope, ed. by Alessandra Sarchi and Claudio Franzoni (Electa, 2024), pp. 404–07.
• Andreina D’Agliano, Review of the exhibition catalogue, Magnificence of Rococo: Kaendler’s Meissen Porcelain Figures, ed. by Alfredo Reyes and Claudia Bodinek (Arnoldsche, 2024), pp. 412–14.
• Stephen Lloyd, Review of Susan Sloman, British Portrait Miniatures from the Thomson Collection (Ad Ilissum, 2024), pp. 418–19.
• Natalie Rudd, Review of Discovering Women Sculptors, ed. by Marjorie Trusted and Joanna Barnes (PSSA Publishing, 2023), pp. 422–23.
Exhibition | Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting
Saitō Motonari, Illustrations of Uji Tea Production, 1803, Edo period (1615–1868), handscroll (57 feet) of thirty-two sheets reformatted as a folding album (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2023.237).
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Now on view at The Met:
The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and
Painting from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10 August 2024 — 3 August 2025
Curated by John Carpenter
In East Asian cultures, the arts of poetry, calligraphy, and painting are traditionally referred to as the ‘Three Perfections’. This exhibition presents over 160 rare and precious works—all created in Japan over the course of nearly a millennium—that showcase the power and complexity of the three forms of art. Examples include folding screens with poems brushed on sumptuous decorated papers, dynamic calligraphy by Zen monks of medieval Kyoto, hanging scrolls with paintings and inscriptions alluding to Chinese and Japanese literary classics, ceramics used for tea gatherings, and much more. The majority of the works are among the more than 250 examples of Japanese painting and calligraphy donated or promised to The Met by Mary and Cheney Cowles, whose collection is one of the finest and most comprehensive assemblages of Japanese art outside Japan.
The exhibition is made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation Fund.
Information on the objects exhibited can be found here»
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The catalogue is distributed by Yale UP:
John Carpenter, with Tim Zhang, The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2025), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1588397805, $65.
In East Asian cultures, the integration of poetry, painting, and calligraphy, known as the ‘Three Perfections’, is considered the apex of artistic expression. This sumptuous book explores 1,000 years of Japanese art through more than 100 works—hanging scrolls, folding screens, handscrolls, and albums—from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. John T. Carpenter provides an engaging history of these interrelated disciplines and shows evidence of intellectual exchange between Chinese and Japanese artists in works with poetry in both languages, calligraphies in Chinese brushed by Japanese Zen monks, and examples of Japanese paintings pictorializing scenes from Chinese literature and legend. Many of the works featured, including Japanese poetic forms, Chinese verses, and Zen Buddhist sayings, are deciphered and translated here for the first time, providing readers with a better understanding of each work’s rich and layered meaning. Highlighting the talents of such masters as Musō Soseki, Sesson Shūkei, Jiun Onkō, Ryōkan Taigu, Ike no Taiga, and Yosa Buson, this book celebrates the power of brush-written calligraphy and its complex visual synergy with painted images.
John T. Carpenter is the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese Art in the Department of Asian Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has been with The Met since 2011. From 1999 to 2011, he taught the history of Japanese art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and served as head of the London office of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. He has published widely on Japanese art, especially in the areas of calligraphy, painting, and woodblock prints, and has helped organize numerous exhibitions at the Museum, including Designing Nature (2012–13), Brush Writing in the Arts of Japan (2013–14), Celebrating the Arts of Japan (2015–17), The Poetry of Nature (2018–2019), and The Tale of Genji: A Japanese Classic Illuminated (2019).
Tim T. Zhang is Research Associate of Asian Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
c o n t e n t s
Director’s Foreword
Preface
Becoming a Collector of Japanese Art — Cheney Cowles
Acknowledgments
Note to the Reader
Introduction
Inscribing and Painting Poetry: The Three Perfections in Japanese Art — John T. Carpenter
Catalogue
1 Courtly Calligraphy Styles: Transcribing Poetry in the Heian Palace
Entries 1–13
2 Spiritual Traces of Ink: Calligraphies by Medieval Zen Monks
Entries 14–31
3 Reinvigorating Classical Poetry: Brush Writing in Early Modern Times
Entries 32–59
4 Poems of Enlightenment: Edo-Period Zen Calligraphy
Entries 60–84
5 China-Themed Paintings: Literati Art of Later Edo Japan
Entries 85–111
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Credits
Exhibition | 100 Ideas of Happiness
Moon Jar, white porcelain, Joseon Dynasty, 18th century
(Seoul: National Museum of Korea)
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From the press release for the exhibition:
100 Ideas of Happiness: Art Treasures from Korea
Residenzschloss, Dresden, 15 March — 10 August 2025
For the first time in over 25 years, precious artifacts that give an overview of Korean art and cultural history are on display in Germany. The exhibition 100 Ideas of Happiness takes place thanks to a cooperation with the National Museum of Korea, which is supported by the Korea Foundation.
Embedded in the baroque Paraderäume (Royal State Apartments) and the Neues Grünes Gewölbe (New Green Vault) of the Dresden Residenzschloss (Royal Palace), the show opens up an exciting dialogue between cultures. The central theme is the timeless question of the various ideas of happiness—including the desire for eternal life, peace in this world and the next, inner strength or pure joie de vivre— as expressed in works of art through colours, symbols, and the choice of subject matter.
On display are around 180 outstanding individual objects and groups of objects, including valuable grave goods, precious jewellery, royal robes, and exquisite porcelain from several eras of Korean history. The objects give a multifaceted impression of Korea’s artistic traditions from the time of the ancient kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla (57 BC–935 AD) to the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897). Numerous loans are on show for the first time in Europe. The central themes of the presentation are ancient funerary traditions, the role of Buddhism and Confucianism as state-endorsed religions, the legacy of ceramic art, and the significance of the traditional Korean attire, the Hanbok, in the past and present.
A tour of the exhibition through the Paraderäume concludes with a selection of Korean artworks from the ethnographic collections of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections). These include folding screens, armour, and weapons collected by German travellers in Korea at the beginning of the 19th century. They offer valuable insights into Korea at that time and document the beginnings of a cultural exchange between Korea and Germany. An important item is the folding screen from the GRASSI Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig. Its title is 100 Ideas for Happiness and Longevity and gave the exhibition its name.
The second exhibition venue within the Residenzschloss is located in the Sponsel Room of the Neues Grünes Gewölbe. Surrounded by the treasures of Augustus the Strong, a selection of precious gold jewellery from the royal tombs of the Silla Dynasty is displayed there. These objects—including the famous gold crown from Geumgwanchong, one of the most important royal tombs in Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Silla kingdom—are among Korea’s national treasures. An elaborately decorated belt made of pure gold, a wing-shaped headdress, and magnificent earrings and rings (presented in the exhibition as an ensemble for the first time in many years) also come from this tomb. They are cultural and historical testimonies to the great significance of the Silla Kingdom.
Claudia Brink and Sojin Baik, 100 Ideen von Glück: Kunstschätze aus Korea (Dresden: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2025), 216 pages, ISBN: 978-3954988631, €34.
Exhibition | Biedermeier: The Rise of an Era
Now on view at the Leopold Museum, with the full press release available at Art Daily . . .
Biedermeier: The Rise of an Era / Eine Epoche im Aufbruch
Leopold Museum, Vienna, 10 April — 27 July 2025
Curated by Johann Kräftner with Lili-Vienne Debus
Day Dress, ca. 1816 (Wien Museum; photo by Birgit and Peter Kainz).
The fascinating era of the Biedermeier, which lasted from around the time of the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15 to the revolutions of 1848, delineates a period in Europe that was shaped by political upheaval and social revolts, which profoundly changed society. The congress resulted in the restitution of absolutism and princely rule, heralding a long phase of political restoration founded on a suppression of democratic aspirations. The resigned population turned away from politics and revolutionary ideals for fear of reprisals, seeking refuge in the private sphere. Themes of longing for security and harmony in everyday life entered the pictorial worlds of the Biedermeier.
Aside from all the political friction, the Biedermeier was also an era of great innovation and esthetical changes. The most important driving force was the industrial progress, which led to the construction of the first railway lines and spectacular suspension bridges, like the one connecting Buda and Pest. These technological revolutions resulted in decisive changes in the development of art. Many of these innovations did not emanate from Vienna as the center of the Habsburg Monarchy, but rather from the splendid cities of the crown lands, such as Budapest, Prague, Ljubljana, Trieste, Venice, and Milan.
The art of the monarchy was shaped by international exchange. Thus, the exhibition showcases not only the Viennese masters, including Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller and Friedrich von Amerling, but also Miklós Barabás and József Borsos from Budapest, Antonín Machek and František Tkadlík from Prague, as well as the artists active in Lombardy-Venetia Francesco Hayez and Jožef Tominc (Giuseppe Tominz).
Secretary, Bohemia, ca. 1820 (Prague: The Museum of Decorative Arts; photo by Gabriel Urbánek and Ondřej Kocourek).
Despite the severe poverty of the time, which affected large segments of the population, the simultaneous economic upturn yielded a bourgeoisie whose members wanted to be depicted in confident portraits. Alongside portraits celebrating realistic likenesses of the depicted and the documentation of their social status, the pictorial worlds were dominated by themes from everyday life: family portraits, genre paintings, and renderings of the artists’ own surroundings. Despite the Biedermeier’s typical restrictions to the microcosm of the everyday and one’s immediate surroundings, artists of the period also looked further afield to far-flung countries and cities in order to satisfy people’s curiosity and interest in foreign cultures. Featuring around 190 works from Austrian and international collections, ranging from paintings and graphic works to furnishings, glassware and dresses, the exhibition presents a varied picture of this era.
Curator: Johann Kräftner
Curatorial Assistance and Project Coordination: Lili-Vienne Debus
Johann Kräftner and Hans-Peter Wipplinger, eds., Biedermeier: Eine Epoche im Aufbruch / The Rise of an Era (Cologne: Walther König, 2025), 328 pages, ISBN: 978-3753308159, €40.
The catalogue, in German and English, includes essays by Lili-Vienne Debus, Sabine Grabner, Johann Kräftner, Stefan Kutzenberger, Michaela Lindinger, Fernando Mazzocca, Juliane Mikoletzky, Adrienn Prágai and Radim Vondráček, as well as a prologue by Hans-Peter Wipplinger.
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Note (added 23 April 2025) — This posting originally appeared April 22; it was moved back to April 21st for improved continuity with other posts.
Exhibition | Art and Power in the Age of the Doges of Genoa
Some 100 works—paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts—from the 17th and 18th centuries are now on view in Turin for this exhibition produced in collaboration with the National Museums of Genoa–Palazzo Spinola and the National Gallery of Liguria.
Magnificent Collections: Art and Power during the Age of the Doges of Genoa
Reggia di Venaria, Torino, 10 April — 7 September 2025
Curated by Gianluca Zanelli, Marie Luce Repetto, Andrea Merlotti, and Clara Goria, with Donatella Zanardo
Anton von Maron, Portrait of Maria Geronima Pellegrina ‘Lilla’ Cambiaso and Her Daughter Caterina, 1792, oil on canvas (Genoa: Palazzo Spinola di Pellicceria).
In mostra alla Reggia di Venaria le straordinarie raccolte d’arte di alcune delle più importanti famiglie del patriziato genovese (i Pallavicino, i Doria, gli Spinola, i Balbi) conservate a Palazzo Spinola di Pellicceria, insieme alle più recenti acquisizioni dei Musei Nazionali di Genova con prestiti da altri musei e collezioni private.
Un patrimonio unico di arte e storia che annovera celebri dipinti di Peter Paul Rubens, Antoon Van Dyck, Orazio Gentileschi, Guido Reni, Carlo Maratta, Luca Giordano, e poi ancora Hyacinthe Rigaud e Angelica Kauffman, oltre ai maestri della grande scuola figurativa genovese. Attraverso un centinaio di opere tra dipinti, sculture, argenti e arredi del Sei e Settecento, si proporrà un percorso espositivo, suddiviso in sei sezioni, riferito alle raccolte del palazzo poi divenuto museo, ma anche il racconto del secolo d’oro di Genova ‘la Superba’, teatro del Barocco, antica repubblica retta dai dogi, con la sua regalità e fasto. La mostra continua il grande filone dedicato alla storia, all’arte, alla cultura e alla magnificenza delle corti inaugurato dalla riapertura della Reggia e proseguito negli anni.
Gianluca Zanelli and Marie Luce Repetto, eds., Magnifiche collezioni: Arte e potere nella Genova dei Dogi (Genoa: Sagep Editori, 2025), 128 pages, ISBN: 979-1255902041, €18.
New Book | The Fricks Collect
After a $220million renovation that lasted nearly five years, The Frick reopens today. There’s been lots of media coverage; I especially enjoyed Patricia Leigh Brown’s piece in The New York Times (1 April 2025), highlighting various artists and craftspeople who contributed. –CH
From Rizzoli:
Ian Wardropper, with a foreword by Julian Fellowes, The Fricks Collect: An American Family and the Evolution of Taste in the Gilded Age (New York: Rizzoli Electa, 2025), 160 pages, ISBN: 978-0847845750, $50.
Before his New York home became a museum, Henry Clay Frick engaged some of his era’s most important art dealers to build a notable collection and the best decorators to create suitable Gilded Age interiors to accommodate the works. This story traces the journey that led to the creation of one of America’s finest art collections.
At its heart, this story centers on Frick and his daughter Helen Clay Frick, both pivotal figures in the formation of the renowned Frick Collection. The volume delves into the Fricks’ exposure to and acquisition of some of the finest art of their time. With an exquisite blend of textual narrative and ample imagery showcasing masterpieces and the sumptuous interiors of homes in Pittsburgh and New York, the book offers a captivating narrative of ambition, wealth, and cultural patronage.
White, Allom & Co. and Elsie de Wolfe worked with Frick on the decoration of his houses and influenced the choice of many furnishings the owner acquired and that formed the backdrop for his paintings. As was commonplace at the time, decorators often collaborated with dealers in creating spaces suitable for the esteemed works of art. Further influential figures who shaped the era’s cultural landscape include Frick’s business partner Andrew Carnegie and noted art dealers Joseph Duveen in London and Charles Carstairs of M. Knoedler & Co. in New York. Presenting the glittering halls of their homes and the masterpieces adorning the walls of The Frick Collection, this volume is a testament to the enduring allure of art and the power of patronage in shaping cultural institutions.
Ian Wardropper is the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director of The Frick Collection. Julian Fellowes is an English novelist, director, and screenwriter, best known as the creator and head writer of the popular TV series Downton Abbey.
Exhibition | Music and the Republic
Now on view at the Musée des Archives Nationales:
Music and the Republic: From the French Revolution to the Popular Front
Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, 26 March — 14 July 2025
Curated by Marie Ranquet, Sophie Lévy, and Christophe Barret
L’exposition Musique et République, de la Révolution au Front populaire—organisée avec le concours du Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris—souhaite mettre en lumière les liens entre la musique et la construction de la République. De la Révolution, qui organise de nouvelles institutions et utilise la musique pour fonder un sentiment patriotique, au Front populaire de 1936, qui fait le pari de l’émancipation sociale du citoyen par l’accès aux loisirs et à la culture, la formation et la pratique musicale permettent à la fois le partage d’un patrimoine sonore commun et l’expression personnelle, parfois subversive.
Les Archives nationales retracent l’histoire de cette rencontre entre le citoyen et la musique. Des partitions inédites retrouvées dans les fonds des Archives nationales, des instruments de musique étonnants ou oubliés, des correspondances politiques, des commandes passées à des compositeurs prestigieux et de nombreux autres documents, racontent une histoire mouvementée : celle d’un siècle et demi de production, d’éducation et de pratique musicales, envisagées en regard de l’idée républicaine.
Commissariat scientifique
• Marie Ranquet, conservatrice en chef du patrimoine aux Archives nationales
• Sophie Lévy, responsable des archives au Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris
Commissariat technique
• Christophe Barret, chargé d’expositions au département de l’Action culturelle et éducative des Archives nationales
Musique et République: De la Révolution au Front populaire (Paris: Éditions Snoeck, 2025), 168 pages, ISBN: 978-9461619464, €30. With contributions by Adrián Almoguera, Mathias Auclair, Rémy Campos, Myriam Chimènes, Peter Hicks, Sophie Lévy, Marie Ranquet, Émeline Rotolo, and Charles-Éloi Vial.
The Burlington Magazine, March 2025
The long 18th century in the March issue of The Burlington:
The Burlington Magazine 167 (March 2025)
Cover of The Burlington Magazine with a recent acquisition at The Met: Longcase equation regulator, clockmaker: Ferdinand Berthoud, case maker: Balthazar Lieutaud, ca. 1752 (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016.28a–e).
e d i t o r i a l
• “A Frick Renaissance,” p. 203–05.
On 17th April 2025 the Frick Collection on Fifth Avenue re-opens after a long period of redevelopment. When an old friend has a face lift, the results can be disconcerting. Happily, the impact here is, however, reassuringly subtle—as the splendid Gilded-age character of one of New York’s iconic cultural institutions has been retained, while elegant new facilities have been deftly integrated.
a r t i c l e s
• Julia Seimon, “Two Boys with a Bladder in the J. Paul Getty Museum and Joseph Wright of Derby’s Early Candlelights,” pp. 242–57.
A careful re-assessment of Joseph Wright of Derby’s painting of Two Boys with a Bladder in the Getty’s collection, supported by documentary discoveries, clarifies the circumstances of the painting’s creation and first exhibition and has significant implications for dating several of the artist’s other painted and drawn works.
s h o r t e r n o t i c e s
• Oliver Fairclough, “Paul Sandby and Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn Revisited,” pp. 258–61.
• Christina Milton O’Connell, “Observations about the Abandoned Portrait beneath Gainsborough’s Blue Boy,” pp. 26–65.
r e v i e w s
Cover of Être sculpteur à Florence au temps des derniers Médicis, featuring a photograph of Giovanni Battista Foggini’s Adoration of the Shepherds, ca. 1675, marble (Saint Petersburg: Hermitage).
• Nicola Ciarlo, Review of Kira d’Alburquerque, Être sculpteur à Florence au temps des derniers Médicis (CTHS, 2023), pp. 292–94.
• Adam Bowett, Review of Stephen Jackson, Scottish Furniture 1500–1914 (NMS Publishing, 2024), pp. 296–98.
• Penelope Curtis, Review of the exhibition catalogue Souvenirs de jeunesse: Entrer aux Beaux-Arts de Paris 1780–1980, edited by Alice Thomine-Berrada (Beaux-Arts de Paris, 2024), pp. 298–99.
• Alan Powers, Review of Edward McParland, The Language of Architectural Classicism: From Looking to Seeing (Lund Humphries Publishers, 2025), pp. 299–300.
• Max Marmor, Review of Julius von Schlosser, The Literature of Art: A Manual for Source Work in the History of Early Modern European Art Theory, translated by Karl Johns (Ariadne Press, 2023), p. 303.
s u p p l e m e n t
• Sarah Lawrence, “Recent Acquisitions (2014–24) of European Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” pp. 305–24.
Exhibition | Andrea Appiani (1754–1817)
Now on view at the Château de Bois-Préau in Rueil-Malmaison (as noted at Art History News) . . .
Andrea Appiani (1754–1817): Napoleon’s Painter in Italy
Musée national des châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau, 16 March — 28 July 2025
Curated by Francesco Leone, Fernando Mazzocca, and Simone Ferraro
Une centaine d’oeuvres—peintures, dessins, gravures, médailles appartenant à des collections européennes publiques et privées—sont réunies pour la première rétrospective organisée en France sur cet artiste, considéré comme le plus important peintre de la période néo-classique au nord de l’Italie. L’exposition révélera un portraitiste attachant et un fresquiste brillant, malgré la destruction d’une partie de ses décors peints au Palais Royal et dans certains hôtels particuliers milanais durant les bombardements de 1943.
Victorieux à la bataille du Pont de Lodi le 10 mai 1796, le général Bonaparte fait son entrée dans Milan le 15. Il y rencontre Appiani dont le talent est reconnu pour des décors de théâtre, d’hôtels particuliers et d’églises ainsi que des portraits. La manière de l’artiste a déjà perdu de la relative raideur de ses débuts et le peintre-décorateur sait combiner la précision et la fermeté du trait avec la délicatesse du modelé et la suavité de la matière. Trois ans plus tard, au retour des Français, à l’occasion de la Deuxième campagne d’Italie, Appiani se voit confier par Napoléon la charge de sélectionner les oeuvres d’art prélevées dans les églises et les couvents pour enrichir et faire rayonner les musées du Nord de la péninsule.
L’ascension d’Appiani, iconographe de la république puis du Royaume d’Italie est consacrée par le nombre important de commandes publiques et privées qu’il reçoit alors. En cinq séquences chronologiques et thématiques, l’exposition permet de montrer l’oeuvre de l’artiste à la fois fresquiste et peintre de chevalet : La carrière pré-napoléonienne, Les Fastes de Napoléon, Portraits publics et privés, Décors à fresque et, Fortune artistique d’Appiani.
Présentée dans les salons du château de Bois-Préau, l’exposition révèle au public le talent et la richesse de l’oeuvre de cet artiste au service de l’Empereur. L’exposition présente la manière sensible, monumentale ou intimiste du plus grand artiste milanais de son temps : les débuts d’un peintre formé au dix-huitième siècle, les scènes de la geste napoléonienne et de la république naissante, les effigies de Napoléon et Joséphine, les études et dessins préparatoires pour les décors des hôtels particuliers et des églises.
Exposition produite par le GrandPalaisRmn.
Rémi Cariel, ed., Andrea Appiani: Le peintre de Napoléon en Italie (Paris: Éditions Flammarion, 2025), 224 pages, ISBN: 978-2711880737, €40.
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At the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris:
Rémi Cariel and Alessandro Morandotti | Andrea Appiani et la tradition artistique de la Lombardie
Institut culturel italien, Paris, 31 March 2025, 6.30pm
A l’occasion de l’exposition temporaire Andrea Appiani (1754–1817): Le peintre de Napoléon en Italie, l’Institut Culturel Italien rend hommage à ce grand peintre italien avec une conférence autour de sa figure. La conférence explorera sa vie et sa carrière avec une attention particulière aux racines de sa culture. Avec Rémi Cariel, conservateur en chef du patrimoine en charge des collections de peintures, sculptures et arts graphiques du Musée Malmaison et Alessandro Morandotti, professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne et président du cursus d’Histoire de l’Art de l’Université de Turin.
Book tickets here»
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