Enfilade

Album of Darly prints in the Chester Beatty Collection (Wep 0494), with its much deteriorated eighteenth-century binding, as photographed in the Library’s conservation studio in 2015. More information is available at the Chester Beatty Conservation Blog.

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Now on view at the Chester Beatty Library:

Wicked Wit: Darly’s Comic Prints
Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle, Dublin, 11 September 2015 — 14 February 2016

Curated by Jill Unkel

Drawing on the Library’s own collections, this exhibition features over 100 hand-coloured, eighteenth-century etchings by the husband and wife team, Mary and Matthew Darly. From the time of their marriage, they worked in tandem designing, engraving and publishing prints using the signature, MD or MDarly.

This printer-publisher team produced well over 500 comic images of Caricatures, Macaronies, and Characters from no. 39 Strand (London) between 1770 and 1780. At the height of their fame, carriages lined the streets so their occupants could titter at the images on display in Darly’s Comic Exhibitions, held every spring from 1773 to 1778. By the end of the decade, they had become so popular that their publications were available throughout Great Britain and Ireland, Europe and even America. The name Darly became synonymous with the humorous images they produced.

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The catalogue is available for purchase through the Beatty Library’s shop:

Jill Unkel, Wicked Wit: Darly’s Comic Prints (Dublin: Chester Beatty Library, 2015), 80 pages, ISBN: 978-0957399822, 20€.

This fully illustrated catalogue is divided into a number of themes and opens with a general introduction to Mary and Matthew Darly. It then examines more specifically their comic prints, publications, and exhibitions. This is followed by a more detailed exploration of the various subjects presented in their comic images: stereotyped characters (and their relation to theatre), caricatures of notable contemporaries, satires of the dress of young macaroni (akin to a dandy or fop) men and their feathered-feminine counterparts, and finally the impolitical satires related to the war with the American Colonies.

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Press release (11 September 2015) from The Fitzwilliam:

Following Hercules: The Story of Classical Art
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 25 September — 6 December 2015

Curated by Caroline Vout

A colossal polystyrene statue of Hercules by contemporary artist Matt Darbyshire will be the star exhibit in a new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum exploring the story of classical art. How did artefacts made in the Mediterranean millennia ago come to define western art? To show us how Greece and Rome’s gods and heroes came to inhabit post-antique painting and sculpture, the Fitzwilliam Museum has called upon one of them to act as a guide: Hercules.

Hercules and the Erymanthian Boar, ca. 1790, Wedgwood, Etruria, Staffordshire, Jasperware plaque, h. 212 mm (Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum)

Hercules is one of the best-loved ancient heroes. Known in antiquity for completing twelve tasks or ‘labours’ that confirmed his status as a god, Hercules is today tasked with one more—to tell the story of classical art. Hercules is brought to life by each of the forty objects on display (from exquisite gems and coins, Renaissance drawings and bronzes, to eighteenth-century paintings, and Matthew Darbyshire’s giant polystyrene statue…). Their interaction also reveals how classical art was born, and gives classical art on-going relevance.

The exhibition takes its lead from its star exhibit, a colossal sculpture by Cambridge-born artist Matthew Darbyshire. Darbyshire’s intervention is a version of the Farnese Hercules, a marble statue unearthed in Rome in 1546, but is made from sheets of polystyrene—classical art for a consumerist age. Up close, its cut, crisp polystyrene layers make it appear pixelated, but step back, and the statue comes into focus, shining like marble. Back in 1850, two years after the Founder’s Building opened to the public, the Fitzwilliam Museum exhibited another Farnese Hercules, a plaster version, now in Cambridge’s Museum of Classical Archaeology. Before being given to the Fitzwilliam, it stood in a private house in Battersea, where it moved London’s artists to tears. The Fitzwilliam Museum’s own collection is well equipped with prototypes and later versions of the Farnese Hercules: from a bronze statuette of the first century BCE, through Hendrick Goltzius’s sixteenth-century engraving of the Farnese statue’s rear view, Wedgwood’s white on blue cameo plaque, and William Blake’s illustration of the statue for Abraham Rees’s The Cyclopædia, or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature. The Museum’s collection also provides competing images of Hercules—images of Hercules young, drunk, or dressed as a woman, in bronze, wood and painted porcelain. These give context to Darbyshire’s sculpture, underlining that classicism and modernism are not opposites. In the fast moving, digital age in which we live, we perhaps need tradition more than ever.

The exhibition is curated by Dr Caroline Vout, Reader in Classics in the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Christ’s College, and is part of her British-Academy funded research project entitled Classical Art: A Life History.

Caroline Vout, Following Hercules: The Story of Classical Art (Cambridge: The Fitzwilliam Museum, 2015), 48 pages, ISBN: 978-1910731024, £5.

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Note (added 2 December 2018) — The posting was updated to include information about the catalogue.

Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto (1697‒1768), An Island in the Lagoon, pen, brown ink with grey wash over ruled pencil lines on blue paper, 20 x 27.9 cm (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford).

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Press release (28 August 2015) for the exhibition opening this week at the Ashmolean:

Titian to Canaletto: Drawing in Venice
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford, 15 October 2015 — 10 January 2016

Curated by Catherine Whistler

Featuring a hundred drawings from the Uffizi, the Ashmolean, and Christ Church, Oxford, Titian to Canaletto is a groundbreaking exhibition based on new research. Venetian art has long been associated with brilliant colours and free brushwork, but drawing has been written out of its history. This exhibition highlights the significance of drawing as a concept and as a practice in the artistic life of Venice. It reveals the variety of purposes and techniques in drawing from Bellini, Titian and Tintoretto to Tiepolo and Canaletto. In a parallel exhibition, Jenny Saville Drawing, one of the UK’s most celebrated contemporary artists, Jenny Saville, has produced new work on paper and canvas in response to the Venetian Old Masters.

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682‒1754), Head of a Youth, black and white chalks on brownish paper, 31.5 x 29.9 cm (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)

Putting the words ‘drawing’ and ‘Venice’ together seems paradoxical. Writing on Venetian art has located creativity and artistic ambition in painting above all, emphasizing the materiality and sensuous effects achieved by Venetian artists. The intellectual and reflective qualities encapsulated in drawing are seen as irrelevant in the artistic world of Venice. The idea that Venetian artists did not use or value drawing was articulated in Florence, in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists of 1568. Vasari’s influential statements were repeated and elaborated by later writers, so that in 1770s London, Joshua Reynolds confidently asserted that artists in Venice did not care about drawing with all of its virtues of discrimination and judgement, and that they went straight to working with brushes on canvas. This potent literary tradition had a major impact on the survival of drawings.

Titian to Canaletto presents new research which traces continuities in Venetian drawing over three centuries, from around 1500 to the foundation of the first academy of art in Venice in 1750. The exhibition emphasizes the role of drawing from sculpture and from life in the education and identities of Venetian artists, and it reveals tensions between theory and practice in the activities of artists and of collectors. Venetian artists used drawing for innovating and experimenting, or as a tool for research and observation; a variety of drawings were made and admired as works of art in their own right. The exhibition poses questions about the survival and value of drawings: does the fact that we have so few by Titian mean that he did not draw? Why were many Venetian drawings thought unworthy of collecting?

Ironically, while the story that Venetian artists did not respect drawing was first told in Florence, one of the world’s great collections of Venetian drawings is held at the Uffizi where many drawings were acquired in the mid-seventeenth century for Leopoldo de’Medici. Not only are there masterpieces by Carpaccio, Bassano, Titian and Tintoretto, and high-quality works by lesser-known seventeenth- century artists, there are also drawings that reveal early attitudes to collecting and connoisseurship. The Uffizi will also lend drawings by Tiepolo that have never been shown before, to be grouped with the Ashmolean’s own superb collection. Pioneering collectors in England owned Venetian drawings, and loans of important works by Veronese and Tintoretto will come from the intact early eighteenth-century collection at Christ Church, Oxford, together with the extraordinary Portrait of a man, by Giovanni Bellini.

Dr Catherine Whistler, Keeper of the Department of Western Art, Ashmolean Museum, and curator of the exhibition, says: “The beauty and visual impact of these drawings speak eloquently of the importance of drawing in Venice. We hope this exhibition will challenge traditional views of Venetian art and provoke new thinking on some of the greatest names in Italian art from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century.”

Dr Alexander Sturgis, Director of the Ashmolean, says: “The Ashmolean is bringing to a close its year of drawings exhibitions with this landmark show. Titian to Canaletto includes some of the Ashmolean’s greatest treasures, brought together with examples from two of the world’s finest collections of Old Master drawings—that of the Uffizi and the Christ Church Picture Gallery. Many of the works in the exhibition have not been displayed in public since the 1950s. The captivating beauty of these drawings is evident in the response they have elicited from one of this country’s most distinguished contemporary artists, Jenny Saville, who has produced a new body of work inspired by pieces in the exhibition and her enduring love of Venetian art.”

In Jenny Saville Drawing, Jenny Saville will present a body of drawings, including several new and unseen works in a dedicated exhibition space that accompanies Titian to Canaletto: Drawing in Venice. The rich material and gestural qualities of Venetian drawings have been an inspiration for the thoughtful yet visceral works on paper and canvas that will be on view. For Jenny Saville, the blurred or grainy charcoal marks and the agile, robust pen lines of Venetian artists such as Titian or Palma Giovane become catalysts for exploring the nature and power of drawing, in new, highly charged works of art.

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The catalogue is distributed by ACC:

Catherine Whistler, ed., Drawing in Venice: Titian to Canaletto (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum/ Woodstocker Books, 2015), 256 pages, ISBN: 978-1854442994, $45.

Marcantonio Chiarini and Giacomo-Maria Giovannini, Disegni del convito fatto dall’illustrissimo signor senatore Francesco Ratta all’illustrissimo publico, eccelsi signori anziani and altra nobilità: terminando il svo confalonierato li 28. febraro 1693 (The Getty Museum). More information is available here.

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The Edible Monument revisits the exhibition mounted at the Getty in 2000, with the publication this fall of an accompanying catalogue.

The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, 13 October 2015 — 23 March 2016
Detroit Institute of Arts, 16 December 2016 — 16 April 2017

Curated by Marica Reed

Elaborate artworks made of food were created for royal court and civic celebrations in early modern Europe. Like today’s Rose Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day or Mardi Gras just before Lent, festivals were times for exuberant parties. Public celebrations and street parades featured large-scale edible monuments made of breads, cheeses, and meats. At court festivals, banquet settings and dessert buffets displayed magnificent table monuments with heraldic and emblematic themes made of sugar, flowers, and fruit. This exhibition, drawn from the Getty Research Institute’s Festival Collection, features rare books and prints, including early cookbooks and serving manuals that illustrate the methods and materials for making edible monuments.

Edited by Marcia Reed with contributions by Charissa Bremer-David, Joseph Imorde, Marcia Reed, and Anne Willan, The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2015), 192 pages, ISBN 978-1-60606-454-2, $35.

The Edible Monument considers the elaborate architecture, sculpture, and floats made of food that were designed for court and civic celebrations in early modern Europe. These include popular festivals such as Carnival and the Italian Cuccagna. Like illuminations and fireworks, ephemeral artworks made of food were not well documented and were challenging to describe because they were perishable and thus quickly consumed or destroyed. In times before photography and cookbooks, there were neither literary models nor a repertoire of conventional images for how food and its preparation should be explained or depicted. Although made for consumption, food could also be a work of art, both as a special attraction and as an expression of power. Formal occasions and spontaneous celebrations drew communities together, while special foods and seasonal menus revived ancient legends, evoking memories and recalling shared histories, values, and tastes. Drawing on books, prints, and scrolls that document festival arts, elaborate banquets, and street feasts, the essays in this volume examine the mythic themes and personas employed to honor and celebrate rulers; the methods, materials, and wares used to prepare, depict, and serve food; and how foods such as sugar were transformed to express political goals or accomplishments.

Marcia Reed is chief curator at the Getty Research Institute. She is coeditor of China on Paper (Getty Publications, 2007).

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C O N T E N T S

Acknowledgments

1  Marcia Reed—Food, Memory, and Taste
2  Marica Reed—Court and Civic Festivals
3  Marcia Reed—Feasting in the Streets: Carnivals and the Cuccagna
4  Joseph Imorde—Edible Prestige
5  Charissa Bremer-David—Of Cauliflower and Crayfish: Serving Vessels to Awaken the Palate
6  Anne Willan—Behind the Scenes

Contributors
Illustration Credits
Index

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Note (added 2 November 2016) — The DIA venue was not included in the original posting.

Save

I noted this exhibition last fall, but it’s worth following up now that the show is on view at the V&A (3 October 2015 — 10 January 2016). The press release is available as a PDF file here, with information on the catalogue included below. –CH

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From the V&A shop:

Rosemary Crill, The Fabric of India (London: V&A Publishing, 2015), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-1851778539, £30 / $60.

This is the first truly comprehensive book on Indian textiles, featuring stunning examples from all over the country. Lavishly illustrated, it begins with an in-depth exploration of the different materials, techniques, and dyeing processes used in the creation of these sumptuous fabrics before exploring the central importance of cloth to Indian life and culture from ancient times to the present day. Special features focus on objects of historical importance, including a Kashmir map shawl, Tipu Sultan’s tent, and a remarkable 18th-century temple hanging from South India.

While many are familiar with Mughal velvets, western-market chintzes, or rural embroideries, for example, this book will surprise, inspire, delight, and inform with an extraordinary range of material, much of it new. Along with presenting great historical masterpieces, the importance and variety of the basic fibers—silk, cotton, wool—from which Indian textiles are traditionally made is emphasized, and the remarkable techniques of weaving, printing, dyeing, and embroidery that have made them prized across the world are illustrated in specially taken photographs.

Press release (30 April 2015) from The Getty:

Woven Gold: Tapestries of Louis XIV
The Getty Center, Los Angeles, 15 December 2015 — 1 May 2016

Curated by Charissa Bremer-David

Autumn, after 1664, tapestry, wool, silk and gilt-metal wrapped thread, Gobelins Manufactory, cartoon attributed to Beaudrin Yvart (French, 1611–1690), after Charles Le Brun (French, 1619–1690), The Mobilier National, France. Photo by Lawrence Perquis.

It was during the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV (r. 1643– 1715), that the art of tapestry weaving in France blossomed. Three hundred years after his death, the Getty Museum will showcase 15 monumental tapestries—from the French royal collection during the reign of Louis XIV. Woven Gold: Tapestries of Louis XIV will be the first major museum exhibition of tapestries in the Western United States in four decades.

During Louis XIV’s time, colorful and glittering tapestries, handwoven after designs by the most renowned artists, were the ultimate expression of status, power, taste, and wealth. The exhibition will feature 15 larger-than-life tapestries ranging in date from about 1540 to 1715 and created in weaving workshops across northern Europe. In an exclusive loan from the French nation, most of the tapestries are from the collection of the Mobilier National, which preserves the former royal collection. Eleven have never before been exhibited in the Unites States. The Getty Museum is supporting the conservation of two of the tapestries.

At the Getty, preparatory drawings, related prints and a life-sized cartoon (oil) will accompany the immense hangings. The tapestries in the exhibition are after works of art by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, Italian, 1483–1520), Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640), Charles Le Brun (French, 1619–1690), and others. They come from the most notable workshops in Europe, including the Gobelins, which rose to preeminence under Louis XIV’s patronage. Several of the best-preserved and most famous examples of Gobelins weaving will be on view in the exhibition.

Woven Gold: Tapestries of Louis XIV is curated by Charissa Bremer-David, curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the Getty, and was organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum in association with the Mobilier National et les Manufactures Nationales des Gobelins, de Beauvais et de la Savonnerie.

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Charissa Bremer-David, with essays by Pascal-François Bertrand, Arnauld Brejon de Lavergnée, and Jean Vittet, Woven Gold: Tapestries of Louis XIV (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2015), 168 pages, 
ISBN: 978-1606064610, $50.

Meticulously woven by hand with wool, silk, and gilt-metal thread, the tapestry collection of the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, represents the highest achievements of the art form. Intended to enhance the king’s reputation by visualizing his manifest glory and to promote the kingdom’s nascent mercantile economy, the royal collection of tapestries included antique and contemporary sets that followed the designs of the greatest artists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, including Raphael, Giulio Romano, Rubens, Vouet, and Le Brun. Ranging in date from about 1540 to 1715 and coming from weaving workshops across northern Europe, these remarkable works portray scenes from the bible, history, and mythology. As treasured textiles, the works were traditionally displayed in the royal palaces when the court was in residence and in public on special occasions and feast days. They are still little known, even in France, as they are mostly reserved for the decoration of elite state residences and ministerial offices. This catalogue accompanies an exhibition of fourteen marvelous examples of the former royal collection that will be displayed exclusively at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from December 15, 2015, to May 1, 2016. Lavishly illustrated, the volume presents for the first time in English the latest scholarship of the foremost authorities working in the field.

Charissa Bremer-David is curator in the Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She is author of French Tapestries and Textiles in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Getty Publications, 1997) and has published extensively on French tapestries.

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Also on view at the Getty
As 2015 is the tercentenary of the death of Louis XIV, several exhibitions at the Getty Center will explore the Sun King’s tremendous influence on Western Art and his distinctive role as collector, heir, and patron of the art of tapestry and other arts.
• A Kingdom of Images: French Prints in the Age of Louis XIV, 1660–1715
16 June to 6 September 2015
• Louis XIV at the Getty
9 June 2015 to 31 July 2016
• Louis Style: French Frames, 1610–1792
15 September 2015 – 3 January 2016

Opening in November at the Musée des Beaux-Arts:

Voyages en Italie de Louis-François Cassas (1756–1827)
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tours, 21 November 2015 — 22 February 2016

Louis-François Cassas compte parmi les grands artistes voyageurs du XVIIIe siècle. L’exposition dévoile ici les dessins de l’artiste réalisés lors de son Grand Tour en Italie. Cette manifestation s’inscrit dans le thème transversal et séduisant du voyage et de l’Italie dans toute sa diversité archéologique, urbaine, insulaire… à la fin du Siècle des Lumières. La découverte récente de nombreux dessins inédits en Angleterre est venue confirmer l’opportunité de cette exposition : cinquante dessins prêtés par le National Trust et provenant de la collection du marquis de Bristol à Ickworth (Suffolk) seront montrés pour la première fois en France.

L’exposition s’articulera autour des deux grands voyages en Italie de L.-F. Cassas et de ses différents mécènes tous grands amateurs et collectionneurs, à l’origine de l’évolution de la carrière de l’artiste. Parmi les 116 œuvres exposées figurent des prêts de musées français et étrangers prestigieux : Paris : Bibliothèque Mazarine, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Fondation Custodia / New-York : Metropolitan Museum of Art / Londres : Victoria and Albert Museum, The National Trust : Ickworth (Suffolk), The Bristol Collection / Cologne : Wallraf-Richartz Museum / Vienne : Albertina Museum, et de collections privées.

Le premier voyage en Italie, 1778–83
Le Grand Tour pour le plaisir de dessiner
Grâce au mécénat du duc de Chabot, Cassas découvre l’Italie et peut obtenir une chambre d’externe à l’Académie de France à Rome. Seront évoquées les grandes étapes de cette pérégrination : Lyon, Genève, les Alpes, Bologne, Parme, Rome, Naples, Paestum… Invité à Venise au printemps 1782, puis à Trieste par le Baron Pittoni, Cassas travaille alors pour l’Empereur Joseph II jusqu’aux frontières de l’Empire ottoman. À l’automne 1782, Cassas part en Sicile travailler pour l’abbé de Saint-Non. Ses vues de Messine, de Catane, du Val di Noto… seront particulièrement remarquées.

Le second voyage en Italie, 1787–92
Les années romaines d’un artiste indépendant
Le nouveau mécène de Cassas, le comte de Choiseul- Gouffier (1752–1817), ambassadeur de France à Constantinople, permit à l’artiste de découvrir les provinces de l’Empire ottoman de 1784 à 1786. Désormais c’est dans son atelier à Rome, Piazza di Spagna, que Cassas accroche ses aquarelles de Palmyre, du Caire, de la Corne d’Or, de Chypre… qui suscitent l’admiration, notamment celle de Goethe, et des amateurs qui font le Grand Tour. Trois maquettes de monuments romains, provenant de la collection de Cassas, restaurées pour l’exposition : le Temple de la Fortune Virile, le Temple de Tivoli et l’Arc de Constantin, seront exceptionnellement présentées.

The catalogue will be available from Artbooks.com:

Sophie Join-Lambert, Louis-François Cassas (1756–1827): Ses Voyages en Italie et Ses Mécènes (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2015), 280 pages, ISBN: 978-8836631636, $65.

From the Musée National de la Renaissance:

Être et paraître, la vie aristocratique au XVIIIe siècle:
Trésors cachés du Musée national de la Renaissance
Château de La Roche Guyon, 11 April — 29 November 2015

Curated by Muriel Barbier

Sortis exceptionnellement des réserves du musée national de la Renaissance, des objets d’art du XVIIIe siècle retracent en dix tableaux les thèmes majeurs de la vie aristocratique à l’époque des Lumières. Au travers de quatre-vingt-cinq oeuvres, le quotidien de l’aristocratie du XVIIIe siècle revit dans les grands salons du château de La Roche Guyon ornés de leurs lambris d’époque et dépourvus de mobilier.

Une journée ordinaire dans une demeure seigneuriale au siècle des Lumières. L’exposition, articulée en dix vitrines, suit le déroulement d’une journée de la haute société des Lumières, en abordant les thèmes suivants : toilette et soins, parure et élégance, arts de la table, lecture et écriture, jeux et divertissements, priser et fumer, ouvrages de dames, prières et dévotions, armes d’apparât et chasse. Cette présentation, entend faire comprendre la fonction de ces objets, la préciosité de leur décor et leur utilisation. Elle propose une autre approche des arts décoratifs non fondée sur l’évolution des stymes et des techniques mais sur l’histoire des civilisations et des moeurs.

Muriel Barbier, Être et paraître: La vie aristocratique au XVIIIe siècle (Artlys, 2015), 142 pages, ISBN: 978-2854956108, 18€.

Bénédicte Bonnet Saint-Georges reviewed the exhibition for La Tribune de l’Art (21 August 2015).

Press release for the exhibition now on view at the Château de La Motte Tilly:

De Versailles à La Motte Tilly: L’abbé Terray, Ministre de Louis XV
Château de La Motte Tilly, 29 May — 20 September 2015

Curated by Gwenola Firmin and Vincent Bastien

Après Sacres Royaux, de Louis XIII à Charles X au palais du Tau à Reims et Le salon de George Sand à Nohant, en 2014, la troisième exposition du partenariat entre le Centre des monuments nationaux et le château de Versailles se tiendra au château de La Motte Tilly (Aube) du 29 mai au 20 septembre 2015. Cette nouvelle exposition conjointe est consacrée à l’abbé Joseph Marie Terray (1715–1778), ministre des finances de Louis XV, à l’occasion du tricentenaire de sa naissance.

L’abbé Terray et La Motte Tilly

Joseph Marie Terray bénéficie, à ses début, de l’héritage financier de son oncle, premier médecin de la princesse Palatine, belle-sœur de Louis XIV. Nommé abbé de Notre-Dame de Molesme, au diocèse de Langres, en octobre 1764, il devient, le 23 décembre 1769, contrôleur général des Finances de Louis XV. Après le renvoi du duc de Choiseul en 1770, il est l’un des hommes forts du ministère dit du Triumvirat. Incarnation de l’ascension sociale du XVIIIe siècle, talentueux réformateur, grand homme de l’histoire économique et politique du règne de Louis XV, l’abbé Terray, malgré l’appui constant de Madame de Pompadour puis de Madame Du Barry, est très impopulaire. Il mène en effet une politique financière, certes efficace et progressiste, mais aussi brutale et autoritaire. Le ministre occupe finalement la prestigieuse charge de directeur des Bâtiments du Roi en août 1773. Mais, un an plus tard, il démissionne avec l’avènement de Louis XVI et se retire à La Motte Tilly, tout en rêvant secrètement d’être rappelé au gouvernement.

Son domaine de La Motte Tilly, parfait exemple de l’architecture du XVIIIe siècle, est sa résidence de 1748 à son décès en 1778. La demeure et son parc, comprenant aujourd’hui près de 1080 hectares, témoignent d’un certain art de vivre au Siècle des Lumières. L’actuel château, élevé à partir de 1755, est l’œuvre de l’architecte parisien François-Nicolas Lancret (1717–1789), le neveu du célèbre peintre de scènes galantes, Nicolas Lancret. L’implication de l’abbé Terray dans les différents chantiers de sa demeure de plaisance s’amplifie à mesure que sa carrière politique prend de l’importance.

L’exposition

Présentée dans les anciens appartements du ministre, l’exposition De Versailles à La Motte Tilly. L’abbé Terray, ministre de Louis XV retrace l’ascension et la vie du maître des lieux, personnage historique parmi les plus influents de la fin du règne de Louis XV mais aussi parmi les plus controversés du XVIIIe siècle. Réunis pour la première fois, des documents d’archives, des objets d’art précieux, des dessins et des tableaux contribuent également à mettre en lumière le domaine de La Motte Tilly, chef-d’œuvre architectural trop longtemps ignoré. L’exposition est enfin l’occasion unique de présenter un somptueux portrait conservé dans les collections versaillaises : l’effigie officielle du ministre tout puissant peinte par Alexandre Roslin à la demande de Terray en 1773. Ce dernier y est figuré au sommet de sa gloire.

L’exposition est rendue possible grâce au prêt d’œuvres des collections du musée national de Versailles et de Trianon, ainsi qu’aux concours généreux du musée du Louvre, de l’abbaye de Chaalis, de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, de la Bibliothèque municipale de Versailles, des Archives nationales, des Archives départementales de l’Aube et de plusieurs collections particulières.

Ce parcours historique est conçu par Gwenola Firmin, conservateur, en charge des peintures du XVIIIe siècle au château de Versailles, assistée de Vincent Bastien, docteur en Histoire de l’art, chargé de mission.

Le partenariat entre le CMN et le château de Versailles

Le partenariat établie en 2013 entre le CMN et le château de Versailles instaure un dialogue entre des collections trop souvent méconnues et des hauts lieux du patrimoine national. Des expositions temporaires conjointes permettent aux deux institutions d’unir leurs ressources afin de donner au plus grand nombre la possibilité de découvrir ou de redécouvrir quelques pages de l’Histoire de France. En 2014, les expositions Sacres royaux, de Louis XIII à Charles X au palais du Tau à Reims et Le salon de George Sand au domaine de Nohant ont attiré au total près de 76 000 visiteurs.

Gwenola Firmin and Vincent Bastien, De Versailles à la Motte Tilly: L’abbé Terray, Ministre de Louis XV (éditions du Patrimoine / Centre des Monuments Nationaux, 2015), 48 pages, ISBN: 978-2757704714, 12€.

The full dossier de presse is available as a PDF file here»