Enfilade

Edme Bouchardon, Design for a Token: Marine, 1744,
ca. 1743, red chalk (Minneapolis Institute of Arts)

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Press release (7 May 2014) from the MIA:

Marks of Genius: 100 Extraordinary Drawings from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 13 July — 21 September 2014
Grand Rapids Art Museum, 26 October 2014 — 18 January 2015
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, TBA
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, TBA

Curated by Rachel McGarry

Louis Lafitte, Young Woman in Classical Dress, Study for the Month of Thermidor, ca. 1804–05, black chalk, partially incised (Minneapolis Institute of Arts).

This summer, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) showcases an exemplary selection of its rarely seen, superb drawings collection in Marks of Genius: 100 Extraordinary Drawings from the Minneapolis institute of Arts. This special exhibition marks the first time this selection of drawings, which spans over 500 years, will be seen together by the public. Featured artist include celebrated masters such as Ludovico Carracci, Guercino, Thomas Gainsborough, Eugène Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, René Magritte, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Marks of Genius opens at the MIA and will then travel to the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan, the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, and the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. A fully illustrated catalogue.

“Due to their sensitivity to light, drawings are exhibited for only short periods of time and are otherwise kept in dark storage,” says exhibition curator Rachel McGarry. While works from the museum’s large paper collection—over 40,000 prints and drawings—can be seen by appointment in the Herschel V. Jones Print Study, Marks of Genius is a rare opportunity for the public to see the cream of this collection.

Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié, Standing Male Nude, 1760s–80s, red chalk (Minneapolis Institute of Arts)

Marks of Genius is exhibited at an apropos time. The MIA’s ‘treasury’ of drawings, which includes over 2,600 works, has increased by 20 percent since 2009. Several of these recent additions will be on view for the first time in this show. The exhibition brings to life the immediacy of drawings and explores its multiple roles as a means of study, observation, problem solving, a record of the artist’s imagination, and a medium for creating finished works of art.

The thematic display highlights these different aspects of drawing:

• Spark of Creation features ‘first draft’ sketches and inventions. This portion of the exhibition, showcasing the immediacy of the artistic process, features works such as Giuseppe Bazzani’s Pan and Syrinx, c. 1760, and George Romney’s Study for ‘The Lapland Witch,’ completed c. 1775–77.
• From Life is a section which features various observational studies drawn from nature throughout history. Notable works include Käthe Kollwitz’s c. 1903 Two Studies of a Woman’s Head and Pierre-Joseph Redouté’s Amaryllis lutea. c. 1800-06.

Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Amaryllis lutea, ca. 1800–06, watercolor and graphite on vellum (Minneapolis Institute of Arts)

• Portrait Drawings presents works such as Lovis Corinth’s Self-Portrait completed in 1908 and Egon Schiele’s Standing Girl, c. 1910.
• Figural Abstraction a section which documents artists’ studies of human forms and expression. Works featured in this section include Guercino’s Hercules, (1641–42) and Ernst Kircher’s Seated Woman in the Studio, completed in 1909.
• Storytelling presents drawings with a narrative theme, such as Arthur Rackham’s Little Red Riding Hood, 1909, and Ludovico Carracci’s Judith Beheading Holoferenes, c. 1581–85.
• Other themes include Sense of Place with Emil Nolde’s Heavy Seas at Sunset, c. 1930–35, and Appropriation with Roy Lichtenstein’s 1962 Bratatat!

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From the MIA@Artbook:

Rachel McGarry and Thomas Rassieur, Master Drawings from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2014), 300 pages, ISBN: 978-0989371841, $60.

This lavishly illustrated book presents one hundred significant drawings from the 15th to the 21st century, including new discoveries and works by both celebrated masters and others who deserve to be better known. Among the artists represented are Annibale and Ludovico Carracci, Guido Reni, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Antoine Watteau, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Pierre-Paul Prud hon, Thomas Gainsborough, George Romney, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Lovis Corinth, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz, Otto Mueller, Emil Nolde, Egon Schiele, Edward Hopper, John Marin, Grant Wood, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Edward Ruscha.

Catalogue entries for each drawing include complete documentation, provenance, and bibliography. The text provides important new scholarship and attributions; examines a variety of themes, such as connoisseurship, patronage, materials and techniques, watermarks, and collectors’ stamps; and discusses how a work fits into the artist’s oeuvre or represents larger developments in artistic movements or trends in artistic production

Press release (21 October 2014) from The Met:

Treasures from India: Jewels from the Al-Thani Collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 28 October 2014 — 25 January 2015

Curated by Navina Haidar

Flask, 1650–1700, North India, Rock crystal, inlaid with gold wire, rubies, and emeralds, with gold collar, stopper, and foot, 9.2 x 5.5 cm (The Al-Thani Collection).

Some 60 jeweled objects from the private collection formed by Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Thani will be presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the exhibition Treasures from India: Jewels from the Al-Thani Collection, opening October 28.  The presentation will provide a glimpse into the evolving styles of the jeweled arts in India from the Mughal period until the early 20th century, with emphasis on later exchanges with the West. The exhibition will be shown within the Metropolitan Museum’s Islamic art galleries, adjacent to the Museum’s own collection of Mughal-period art.

“It is with great delight that we present to the public this selection of works representing several centuries of tradition and craftsmanship in the jeweled arts—from India’s Mughal workshops to the ateliers of Paris,” Thomas P. Campbell , Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum, said when announcing the exhibition.

Sheikh Hamad stated: “The jeweled arts of India have fascinated me from an early age and I have been fortunate to be able to assemble a meaningful collection that spans from the Mughal period to the present day. I am delighted that The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be exhibiting highlights from the collection, making the subject known to a wider audience.”

Box (dibbi), 1740–80, North India; Jade, inlaid with gold wire, rubies, emeralds, and crystal, 4.2 x 10.8 x 10.2 cm (The Al-Thani Collection)

The display will include historical works from the Mughal period in the 17th century and from various courts and centers of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Hyderabad; a group of late 19th- and 20th-century jewels made for India’s Maharajas by Cartier and other Western firms; and contemporary commissions inspired by traditional Indian forms. On view will be several antique gems that were incorporated into modern settings by Maison Cartier, jewelry designer Paul Iribe, and others. Contextual information will be provided through historical photographs and portraits of Indian royalty wearing works similar to those on view.

India has been a vibrant center for the jeweled arts for many centuries, with its own mines yielding gold, diamonds, and many other precious and semiprecious stones. India’s Mughal rulers and their successors appreciated ceremonial and functional objects made of luxury materials. Among the Mughal works will be an elegant jade dagger originally owned by two emperors—the hilt was made for Jahangir and it was re-bladed for his son Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal. In the 19th century, the dagger was in the collection Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the Morse code. The hilt features a miniature sculpture—a European-style head.

Historically, the gem form favored throughout India has been the cabochon. In the traditional kundan technique, a gem is set within a bed of gold, and often backed in foil to enhance its color.  Another highlight of the exhibition will be a gem-set tiger head finial originally from the throne of Tipu Sultan (1750–1799), which incorporated numerous cabochon diamonds, rubies, and emeralds in a kundan setting.

Huqqa Mouthpiece, 1750–1800, North India, Jade, inlaid with gold, rubies, and emeralds; 7.1 x 1.9 cm (The Al-Thani Collection)

Also on view will be several examples of North Indian sarpesh and jigha (turban ornaments) from 1875–1900, brought together in a display that traces their evolution from traditional plume-inspired forms and techniques toward more Western shapes and construction.  Silver foil backing was used; however, the diamonds were set using a Western-style claw or coronet, rather than the kundan setting. And a work designed by the artist Paul Iribe and made by goldsmith Robert Linzeler in 1910 in Paris recalls the kind of aigrette (decorative pin) that would have ornamented the turban of a Maharaja or Nizam. At the center is a large emerald, carved in India between 1850 and 1900.

The exhibition is organized by Navina Haidar, Curator, Islamic Art Department. Exhibition design is by Michael Batista, Exhibition Design Manager; graphics are by Sophia Geronimus, Graphic Design Manager; and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Graphic Design Managers, all of the Museum’s Design Department. The exhibition is made possible by Cartier.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue published by the Metropolitan Museum and distributed by Yale University Press. Written by Navina Haidar, with a foreword by Sheila Canby, the Patti Cadby Birch Curator in Charge of the Department of Islamic Art, and contributions from Courtney Stewart, Senior Research Assistant, it draws on a study of the collection called Beyond Extravagance, edited by Amin Jaffer, that was printed by Assouline Publishing in 2013.

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From Yale UP:

Navina Najat Haidar and Courtney Ann Stewart, Treasures from India: Jewels from the Al-Thani Collection (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014), 144 pages, ISBN: 978-0300208870, $40.

India’s rich tradition of jeweled arts has produced extravagant and opulent creations that range from ornaments for every part of the body to ceremonial court objects such as boxes, daggers, and thrones.  Starting with the Mughal rulers of India (1526–1858) and continuing to the present day, this artistic practice is characterized by an abundance of costly materials such as gold, ivory, jade, and precious stones of astounding size and quality, which artists have used to create unique and valuable works.

Treasures from India presents 60 iconic works from the world-renowned Al-Thani collection, accompanied by a text that introduces readers to their significance within the history of Indian jeweled arts. Included are some of the earliest pieces created for the imperial Mughals in the 16th century, others made for Maharajahs of the 18th through 20th centuries, and later Indian-inspired works created by Cartier in the 20th century. These examples represent the range and scope of the finest expression of the jeweled arts in India, and stand among the highest expressions of Indian culture and artistry.

Navina Najat Haidar is curator and administrator, and Courtney Ann Stewart is senior research assistant, both in the Department of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

From INHA:

Ornements, XVe-XVIIIe Siècles: Chefs-d’oeuvre de la Collection Jacques Doucet
Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Galerie Colbert, Paris, 2 October — 31 December 2014

La Bibliothèque de l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art, héritière de la Bibliothèque d’art et d’archéologie créée par le couturier Jacques Doucet (1853–1929) à partir de 1908, est aujourd’hui riche de plus de 25 000 estampes d’ornement, réunies en près de 700 volumes. Son fonds  d’estampes couvre la production, tant française qu’italienne ou allemande, du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle. Sources importantes pour les historiens des arts décoratifs, de l’architecture, de l’estampe, ces œuvres ont fait l’objet d’un catalogage informatisé et d’une numérisation, dans le cadre du programme « Histoire de l’ornement » de l’INHA. L’exposition, organisée dans la salle Roberto Longhi de la Galerie Colbert, correspond à l’achèvement de ce programme et à la parution d’un livre consacré à la collection d’estampes d’ornement de l’INHA, publié en coédition par Mare et Martin et l’INHA.

À travers la présentation d’une cinquantaine d’estampes, où se déploie une multiplicité de motifs (rinceaux, frises, fleurs, volutes, grotesques, trophées, cuirs…), l’exposition permet d’éclairer les fonctions de l’estampe d’ornement, mais aussi le contexte de sa production et de sa diffusion, et enfin, son statut d’objet d’étude et de collection. Sont particulièrement mis en valeur les points forts de la collection Doucet, telles les estampes allemandes des XVIe–XVIIe siècles (Martin Schongauer, Virgil Solis, Albrecht Dürer), les gravures d’orfèvres « cosses de pois » du premier XVIIe siècle (Jean Toutin), mais aussi les estampes françaises du XVIIIe siècle représentant rocailles et chinoiseries (Pillement, Huquier), ainsi que leurs copies européennes. Des objets d’art permettent de resituer la place de l’estampe au sein du processus de création. Enfin, reliures remarquables, états rares, épreuves coloriées, illustrent l’histoire des praticiens, amateurs  ou collectionneurs de ces estampes, tel Edmond Foulc, dont la collection fut acquise par Jacques Doucet en 1914.

Commissariat
Michaël Decrossas, Lucie Fléjou

Remerciement
Jérémie Cerman, Rose-Marie Chapalain, Sophie Derrot, Elli Doulkaridou, Ludovic Jouvet, Léonie Marquaille, Étienne Tornier, Céline Ventura-Teixeira, qui par leur travail de catalogage des recueils d’ornement des collections Jacques Doucet de la Bibliothèque de l’INHA permettent aujourd’hui cette exposition. Ainsi que la Cité de la céramique, Sèvres & Limoges, musée national de Sèvres et Les Arts Décoratifs pour leurs prêts.

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From INHA:

Michaël Decrossas and Lucie Fléjou, eds, Ornements, XVe–XIXe Siècles: Chefs-d’œuvre de la Bibliothèque de l’INHA, Collections Jacques Doucet (Paris: INHA-Mare & Martin, 2014), 384 pages, ISBN: 979-1092054378, 37€.

Marquant l’aboutissement d’un programme de recherche porté par l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art depuis 2010, cet ouvrage réunit vingt-six essais abordant quelques-unes des questions les plus intéressantes posées par l’ornement entre le XVIe et le XIXe siècle, et sa place dans l’histoire de l’art, qu’il s’agisse des estampes d’ornement ou des styles d’ornement (rococo, rocaille, « à l’antique »), ou encore d’artistes comme Jean Lemoyne, Gabriel Huquier, Charles Percier et Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine. Un chapitre de l’ouvrage est consacré à Jacques Doucet, le grand couturier collectionneur qui est à l’origine de la Bibliothèque de l’INHA, laquelle conserve un fonds exceptionnel d’environ 25 000 estampes d’ornement.

Avec la collaboration de Jean-François Bédard (Syracuse University, New York), Michèle Bimbenet-Privat (musée du Louvre), Jean-Gérald Castex (Cité de la céramique – Sèvres & Limoges), Jérémie Cerman (université Paris-Sorbonne), Catherine Chédeau (université de Franche-Comté),  Michaël Decrossas (INHA), Marzia Faietti (Galleria degli Uffizi), Lucie Fléjou (INHA), Rossella Froissart (université de Provence), Jean-Philippe Garric (université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Marianne Grivel (université Paris-Sorbonne), Caroline Heering (université catholique de Louvain), Rémi Labrusse (université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense), Corinne Le Bitouzé (Bibliothèque nationale de France),  Guy-Michel Leproux (École pratique des hautes études), Estelle Leutrat (université de Rennes 2), Marie-Pauline Martin (université de Provence), Véronique Meyer (université de Poitiers), Christian Michel (université de Lausanne), Odile Nouvel-Kammerer (musée des Arts décoratifs), Anne Perrin-Khelissa (université de Toulouse II – Le Mirail), Antoine Picon (Harvard University), Sébastien Quéquet (musée des Arts décoratifs), Kristel Smentek (MIT, Massachusetts), Carsten-Peter Warncke (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)

George Stubbs, A Saddled Bay Hunter, detail, oil on panel, 22 x 28 inches (The Berger Collection at the Denver Art Museum)

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From the PMA:

Treasures of British Art, 1400–2000: The Berger Collection
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, 2 October 2014 — 4 January 2015
Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, Tennessee, 25 January — 19 April 2015
Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, Utah, 14 August 2015 — 5 January 2016
Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio, 10 June — 1 October 2017
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska 2 June — 9 September 2018

This fall, the Portland Museum of Art (PMA) will showcase a rich survey of British art spanning six centuries in the exhibition Treasures of British Art 1400–2000: The Berger Collection. Organized by the Denver Art Museum, the exhibition will feature 50 masterworks of British art by luminaries including Hans Holbein the Younger, Sir Anthony van Dyck, Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Thomas Lawrence, John Constable, Angelica Kauffman, and George Stubbs. The Berger Collection is one of the most impressive collections of British art in America, and this exhibition provides audiences the rare opportunity to see such a significant body of paintings in this region. The PMA is the first venue in this traveling show, which will be on view in Portland October 2, 2014 through January 4, 2015.

With its diverse array of subjects and styles spanning six centuries of artistic practice, Treasures of British Art traces key developments in British art and culture through a chronological presentation of works. The earliest picture, a gilded altarpiece with a Crucifixion scene from circa 1395, is also an extremely rare surviving example of late Medieval religious painting—the type of object that was systematically destroyed in England when King Henry VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church. Portraiture has long been an important genre in British art, and this tradition is well-represented in the exhibition from the linear, decorative style of 16th-century portraits of Tudor royals and nobility, to the loosely brushed naturalism ushered in by Sir Anthony van Dyck and found in 17th- and 18th-century portraiture, to the expressionistic 21st-century image of the artist David Hockney by Adam Birtwistle. Marine paintings and landscapes of faraway places—including a monumental naval battle painting by Adriaen van Diest and a luminous harbor scene by John Constable—reflect not only shifting aesthetic approaches to the natural world, but also the importance of maritime life and overseas exchange in the history of the British Isles. History paintings, equestrian subjects, and other important genres of the British school in styles ranging from the traditional to modern round out the expansive breadth of the exhibition.

Benjamin West, Queen Charlotte, oil on canvas, 50 x 40 inches (The Berger Collection at the Denver Art Museum)

The Berger Collection is a major private collection largely of British art with a small but significant group of works by artists of other schools, including the French artist François Boucher and the American Winslow Homer. The late William M. B. Berger and his wife Bernadette Johnson Berger began amassing this collection in the mid-1990s out of their dual passion for British culture and for art’s potential to educate. Now owned by the Berger Collection Educational Trust and placed on long-term loan at the Denver Art Museum, the collection continues to expand through new acquisitions. The British paintings, drawings, and art objects number approximately 200 works and span more than six centuries—from the 14th to the 21st century. The very best paintings from this extraordinary collection have been selected for the traveling exhibition to fulfill the Berger family’s mission of sharing these masterpieces with a wide public audience.

The catalogue is available from ArtBooks.com:

Kathleen Stuart, Treasures of British Art, 1400–2000: The Berger Collection (Denver: Denver Art Museum, 2014), 120 pages, ISBN: 9780914738923, $50.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue authored by Kathleen Stuart, Curator of the Berger Collection, with full-color plates and detailed entries on each of the works in the exhibition.

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Note (added 18 December 2014) — The original posting failed to include the Memphis and Provo venues.

Note (added 3 June 2018) — Earlier versions of the posting failed to include the Cincinnati and Omaha venues.

Gold tiger’s head ornament from Tipu Sultan’s throne, 1785–93; made from gold sheet over a wooden core with finely chased and punched decoration, set with rock crystal eyes, rock crystal teeth, and a hinged gold tongue, the mouth open as if roaring. Presented to William IV by the East India Company in 1831 (Royal Collection, inventory 67212)

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Press release (8 August 2014) from The Royal Collection:

Gold
The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London, 7 November 2014 — 22 February 2015

The beauty and symbolism of gold, from the Early Bronze Age to the 20th century, is celebrated in an exhibition opening at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace in November. Through 50 items drawn from across the entire breadth of the Royal Collection, Gold explores the distinctive qualities that make this rare and precious metal an enduring expression of the highest status, both earthly and divine.

Over millennia and across diverse cultures, gold has been used to represent and reflect royal wealth and power. Among the most striking examples in the exhibition are the Rillaton gold cup, from a Bronze Age burial around 1700–1500 BC, a gold crown from Ecuador that pre-dates the Inca invasion, and a tiger’s head in gold and rock crystal from the throne of Tipu Sultan (1785–93), ruler of Mysore in India.

Many of the sacred and ceremonial items associated with the coronations of British monarchs incorporate gold. The exhibition includes a design from 1760 by Sir William Chambers and Giovanni Battista Cipriani for the Gold State Coach, the most expensive coach ever made, which has been used at every coronation since that of George IV. John Whittaker’s illustrated account of the Ceremonial of the Coronation of King George IV in the Abbey of St. Peter’s Westminster, 1823, is printed entirely in gold. Only six copies of the book were ever produced, and the project bankrupted the author. The painting Queen Victoria Receiving the Sacrament at her Coronation, 28 June 1838 by Charles Robert Leslie shows the Queen dressed in the shimmering Dalmatic Robe standing in a pool of golden sunlight.

Highly malleable and versatile, gold has been used to decorate every possible surface, from paper and silk to wood and silver. The exhibition shows gold incorporated into lacquer on a pair of 18th-century Japanese bowls and applied over carved gesso on a table by James Moore, who created furniture for Queen Anne and George I. A cigarette case by Carl Fabergé, presented to King Edward VII by the Dowager Tsarina of Russia in 1903, is made from three colours of gold that have been produced by mixing gold with other metals for a spectacular decorative effect.

The Padshahnama (Chronicle of the King of the World), 1656–57, is the finest Islamic manuscript in the Royal Collection. Written on paper flecked with gold, it forms an official record of the first ten years of the reign of Shah-Jahan, fifth Mughal emperor and builder of the Taj Mahal. Every year an amount equal to the Emperor’s weight in gold, silver and other precious items was distributed as alms, to prevent him suffering any corporeal or spiritual catastrophes. In a page from the manuscript in the exhibition, Shah-Jahan sits cross-legged in the pan of a set of golden scales.

Among other highlights of the exhibition are an early 16th-century Book of Hours illustrated with gilded miniatures by Jean Pichore, Simon van de Passe’s engraved gold portrait medallion of Elizabeth I, and two landscapes by the 17th-century artist Pier Francesco Cittadini which are drawn in pen and ink on paper covered in gold leaf. William Nicholson’s still life Gold Jug, 1937, is from the artist’s small series of works looking at the play of light on metallic surfaces.

Sir William Chambers, Pen and ink and watercolour design for the King’s State Coach, 1760; made for George III, bought from Colnaghi by the Prince Regent (later George IV), 12 June 1811 (Royal Collection, Inventory 917942)

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From the Royal Collection Trust and distributed by The University of Chicago Press:

Kathryn Jones, Lauren Porter, and Jennifer Scott, Gold (London: Royal Collection Trust, 2014), 120 pages, ISBN 978-1909741102, £25 / $40.

Gold is the most coveted of metals, its rarity and radiant natural beauty making imbuing it with rich meaning throughout human history. For artists, gold has long been associated with the divine. For monarchs, it has been a means of symbolizing status and wealth. With Gold, Kathryn Jones, Lauren Porter, and Jennifer Scott have written a lively and highly informative cultural history of gold in the Royal Collection, one that explores its many manifestations throughout history and its use in promoting messages of power and wealth.

Drawing on the Royal Collection’s unparalleled collection of paintings, miniatures, jewelry, gold boxes, and drawings in and on gold, the book takes readers through the possibilities of this noble metal. Organized thematically, chapters include ‘Divinity’, which covers gold in devotional art; ‘Power’, which explores the role of gold as a symbol of status and wealth; and ‘Art’, which presents the craftsmanship and indestructible quality of gold objects. From Fabergé’s astonishing gold-mounted boxes to the nearly-four-thousand-year-old Rillaton Gold Cup and drawings in gold paint by Edward Burne-Jones, this lavish book—in its own gold binding—presents this most precious substance throughout history in one hundred full-color illustrations.

François Boucher, Pan and Syrinx, 1759
(London: National Gallery)

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Press packet from BOZAR:

Sensation and Sensuality: Rubens and His Legacy
BOZAR (Centre for Fine Arts), Brussels, 25 September 2014 — 4 January 2015
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 24 January — 10 April 2015

Peter Paul Rubens was one of the most innovative painters in the history of art. His impact on subsequent generations has been immense. For the first time, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and BOZAR in Brussels have joined forces to look at Rubens as a role model. The exhibition Sensation and Sensuality: Rubens and his Legacy brings together some 160 works, including some iconic paintings by Rubens himself and, more particularly, works by his artistic heirs.

It is a paradox that Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) is both inimitable and has served, for four centuries now, as the great model for painters such as Rembrandt, Murillo, Watteau, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Delacroix, Cézanne, Renoir, Kokoschka, and many others, often far beyond the frontiers of Europe. Even in the work of Picasso, we encounter his visual language. The international exhibition Sensation and Sensuality: Rubens and His Legacy looks at this phenomenon and brings works by these celebrated artists to the world-renowned Flemish master’s homeland.

Sensational and Sensual

Thomas Gainsborough, after Rubens, The Descent from the Cross, 1766–69 (Sudbury: Gainsborough’s House)

Many Rubens works are sensational: loud, forceful, and sometimes violent, created in the service of Catholic propaganda and of absolutist rulers. With his almost cinematographic depiction of aggression, fighting, and barbaric scenes, Rubens could be called the Quentin Tarantino of his time. But he is also a sensual painter in his informal family portraits, landscapes and pastoral scenes, peasant dances and gardens of love, in which he was a precursor of Rococo, Romanticism, and Impressionism. Rubens was so many-sided that he appealed to artists of every nationality. Their interest was often selective. Spaniards preferred his religious works. The English were inspired by his portraits and landscapes. French painters were attracted, above all, by the eroticism and poetry in his work. German and Austrian artists admired his vitality and vigour. A great many talented artists were captivated by his use of composition, colour, and technique and developed flourishing careers by following his example. After meeting Rubens, Velázquez began to paint in a different way;
following his counsel, he used a lighter undercoat.

160 Works of Art, 6 Themes

The Sensation and Sensuality exhibition presents more than 160 works of art and takes the visitor through six fascinating themes that explore different aspects of life and of the painter’s art: violence, power, lust, compassion, elegance, and poetry. Each of these chapters demonstrates the links between masterpieces by Rubens and the work of artists who came after him. The Tiger Hunt from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes hangs alongside the Delacroix Lion Hunt from Stockholm and the voluptuous Pan and Syrinx from the Gemäldegalerie in Kassel alongside Boucher’s work of the same name from the National Gallery in London; the portrait of Marchese Maria Grimaldi and Her Dwarf from Kingston Lacy is juxtaposed with A Genoese Noblewoman and Her Son from Washington, by Rubens’s famous pupil van Dyck; and Manet’s Rubens pastiche Fishing from the Metropolitan Museum in New York can be seen alongside The Bacchanalia on Andros by Rubens, from the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.

The 20 paintings, 6 oil sketches, 8 drawings, and 10 prints by Rubens himself are presented in a dialogue with works by his artistic heirs, including Böcklin, Carpeaux, Constable, Corinth, Coypel, Daumier, Delacroix, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Géricault, Jordaens, Klimt, Kokoschka, Le Brun, Makart, Murillo, Picasso, Rembrandt, Renoir, Reynolds, Sandrart, Turner, Watteau, and others.

Prestigious Loans

Exceptionally, one of the jewels of the Prado collection in Madrid, Rubens’s Garden of Love, will travel to Brussels, where it will be brought together with preparatory sketches from the Amsterdam Museum and two drawings that Rubens made of his painting for a superb print (Metropolitan Museum, New York). Bringing these pieces together allows us to see how this famous composition took shape, from idea to reproduction. As well as those already mentioned, major foreign lending institutions contributing include Tate Britain (London), the Neue Pinakothek (Munich), the Nasjonalgalleriet (Oslo), Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and a number of private collections.

International Cooperation

Sensation and Sensuality is an exhibition organised by the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and BOZAR (Centre for Fine Arts), Brussels. After the show at the Centre for Fine Arts Brussels the exhibition will travel to the Royal Academy of Arts in London (24.01 – 10.04.2015)

Multidisciplinary Programme

This autumn, BOZAR pays homage to Rubens and shows how the Antwerp master has also inspired artists in other artistic disciplines.

BOZAR MUSIC is presenting a concert series, The Musicall Humors of Rubens, with music of the painter’s time; the highlight will be the concert on 6 December 2014, The Ear of Rubens, performed by the Huelgas Ensemble. Besides, BOZAR MUSIC and Ricercar (Outhere) present a CD with examples of the major musical genres that Rubens would have heard during his travels in Europe.

BOZAR LITERATURE has invited six writers—David Bosch, Annemarie Estor, Lydia Flem, Peter Holvoet-Hanssen, Pjeroo Roobjee, and Jean-Philippe Toussaint—to draw inspiration from a work by Rubens: you can read the results in the visitor’s guide or listen to them on a videoguide.

BOZAR CINEMA, moreover, is screening the art film that Henri Storck made about Rubens in 1948. There will also be two multimedia installations on show during the BOZAR NIGHT and the BEAF: Ingrid Van Wantoch Rekowski will present her video installation Rubens-Metamorfoses during the BOZAR NIGHT (10 November 2014); during the BEAF (25–27 September 2014), the video artist Quayola will show his installation Strata #4, a—literally—penetrating look at the great altarpieces of Rubens and van Dyck via high-resolution images.

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From

Tim Barringer, Arturo Galansino, Gerlinde Gruber, and Nico van Hout, David Howarth, and Alexis Merle du Bourg, Rubens and His Legacy (London: Royal Academy Publications, 2014), 352 pages, ISBN: 978-1907533778, $75.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) is undoubtedly the most influen­tial of all Flemish painters. Himself indebted to Titian, Rubens became a role model to Van Dyck, Rembrandt, and Velázquez, and influenced artists well beyond his time, including figures such as Cézanne, Picasso, Bacon, and Freud. This sumptuous new volume explores Rubens’s legacy thematically, through a series of sections devoted to violence, power, lust, compassion, elegance, and poetry. Each section will link artists across the centuries in their references to Rubens, from Van Dyck and Watteau to Manet, Daumier, Renoir, and Van Gogh, as well as Gainsborough, Constable, and Turner.

Tim Barringer is Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art at Yale University. Arturo Galansino is curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Gerlinde Gruber is curator for Flemish Baroque paintings at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Nico van Hout is a member of the collections research team at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp. David Howarth is professor of history of art at the University of Edinburgh. Alexis Merle du Bourg is an art historian and a Rubens specialist.

Press release (15 September 2014) from PEM:

In Plain Sight: Discovering the Furniture of Nathaniel Gould
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, 15 November 2014 — 29 March 2015

Chest of Drawers, 1758–66, attributed to Nathaniel Gould. Marblehead Historical Society and Museum. Photographed in the Jeremiah Lee Mansion (ca. 1766–68), 170 Washington Street, Marblehead. © 2014 Peabody Essex Museum. Photo by Dennis Helmar Photography.

At the dawn of the American Revolution in a city bustling with trade, politics and commerce, a craftsman of unusual ability was working tirelessly to create fine furniture for his wealthy patrons. Nathaniel Gould (1734–1781) established one of the region’s most sought-after workshops, producing thousands of technically sophisticated and aesthetically refined works for clients at home and for export. With an astute business sense, Gould thrived in one of the most tumultuous political and economic eras in American history. Despite all of this, until recently, Gould’s life and legacy was largely unknown. Masterworks sat in anonymity in the halls of major museum collections, unsigned by their maker and identified only vaguely by their geographic origin. In 2006, everything changed.

In the vaults of the Massachusetts Historical Society, among the records of Gould’s estate lawyer, researchers discovered documents that cast fresh light on—and forever enhance our understanding of—American furniture history. Three of Gould’s bound ledgers kept between 1758 and 1783 document in detail the production of almost 3,000 pieces of furniture in his Salem workshop. Painstaking analysis has revealed the identity, preferences, and transactions of more than 500 of Gould’s patrons as well as the names of his journeymen and probable apprentices. This veritable data dump of information has led museums, antique collectors, and the general public to examine their collections with fresh eyes and piqued interest. Works whose significance was obfuscated by the passage of time and lack of provenance are now being reconsidered and reappraised.

Attributed to the shop of Nathaniel Gould, Side Chair, 1770. Mahogany, maple, birch, and pine, 39 x 21 x 21 inches (NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Gift of Mrs. Paul Moore, 39.88.2)

In Plain Sight: Discovering the Furniture of Nathaniel Gould—on view at PEM from November 15, 2014, through March 1, 2015—is the first exhibition to definitively unpack this discovery and describe the signature characteristics of Gould’s work. In Plain Sight also invites exploration into the life, times and social mores of early America through the lens of one of the country’s earliest and most successful woodworkers. Stately desks, bombé chests, and scalloped-top tea tables made of the finest imported mahogany are presented alongside paintings, archival materials, decorative arts, and an interactive workbench and desk provide insight into the makers and consumers of 18th-century American design and culture. The exhibition is accompanied by an exquisite publication of photographs and detailed essays from PEM curators and principal researchers Kemble Widmer, Joyce King, and Betsy Widmer.

“Possessing extraordinary woodworking skills and a refined sense of design, Gould created works that rank among the finest produced in 18th-century New England,” says Dean Lahikainen, PEM’s Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of American Decorative Art. “This jewel-like exhibition celebrates the best of Gould’s furniture in a format that invites contextual exploration and rewards close looking.”

Gould’s work is distinguished by its careful attention to graining, distinctive carved ball-and-claw feet, extended knee returns, and superbly carved pinwheels and scallop seashells. Clients could choose from a range of design forms, including desks and chests of drawers, tables, chairs, beds, and miscellaneous pieces, such as cradles, coffins, and fire screens. Gould built his career on his ability to translate London’s latest designs—sometimes gleaned from British pattern books, including Thomas Chippendale’s The Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers Director—into a more conservative style that pleased the tastes of the region’s wealthy elite.

The Gould ledgers reveal a high percentage of domestic furniture produced to fill wedding orders, mostly from members of the merchant class. Within a highly competitive social environment, newlywed couples aspired (as they do today) to own status symbols that communicated the family’s wealth and social position.

At the time, Salem was the hub of coastal trade and, as the ever-wise businessman, Gould saw opportunity. His ledgers reveal 616 pieces of furniture that were sold in the Caribbean and of this inventory, 62 percent were desks, half of which were made of cedar—an aromatic wood prized for its ability to deter insects in the semitropical regions. Gould’s participation in the export business also allowed him to become Salem’s principal importer of cedar and mahogany logs and allowed him to reserve the best pieces for his own magnificent workshop.

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From Giles:

Kemble Widmer and Joyce King with essays by Dean Lahikainen, Glenn Adamson, Daniel Finamore, and Elisabeth Garrett Widmer, In Plain Sight: Discovering the Furniture of Nathaniel Gould (London: Giles, 2014), 284 pages, ISBN: 978-1907804335, £45 / $70.

In Plain Sight: Discovering the Furniture of Nathaniel Gould is the stunning result of happy accident and indefatigable, dedicated research. In the field of early American furniture made in Massachusetts, Nathaniel Gould has loomed as something of a mystery—believed to have been prolific, handsomely skilled, and exceptionally enterprising, yet considered elusive because of a scarcity of known works, lack of documentation, and difficulties of attribution. Accident—the unexpected discovery of Gould’s day books and account book in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society—and analysis—painstaking and inductive—have produced an invaluable, multifaceted case study.

This book establishes Gould unquestionably as Salem’s leading cabinetmaker before and during the period of the American Revolution. He made substantial and often expensive furniture, including case pieces of bombé form embellished with carving. The number of works that can be attributed to Gould remains small, but the foundation for increasingly assured connoisseurship lies within these pages and Gould’s archival records. The scale of his workshop, his impressively large, diverse clientele, and his successes in Salem’s furniture export trade attest to his achievements as an entrepreneur.

This book illuminates not only a particular individual, but the Salem/Boston/New England spheres in which Gould operated during a tumultuous time in American history. The scrupulously recorded notations in his ledgers are precious clues to emerging concepts of style and taste, cultural mores, business practices, socio-economic circumstances, and familial histories with local, regional, and national relevance. In Plain Sight presents a choice array of forms confidently assigned to Gould’s shop and makes accessible the ledgers themselves, meticulously analyzed and interpreted to facilitate present and ongoing scholarship regarding Nathaniel Gould, Salem, early New England furniture, and colonial America.

Kemble Widmer has applied his training and career as an industrial engineer to his examination of early furniture in Boston and Essex County, Massachusetts. Over twenty-five years, by rigorously documenting and comparing like forms, he has determined places of origin and even individual craftsmen. His research on Nathaniel Gould has disclosed an unparalleled amount of information about cabinetmaking, customers, and colonial life. Joyce King, an eleventh generation inhabitant of Salem, Massachusetts, is an expert in genealogical research. She has collaborated closely with her co-author on numerous issues of provenance that have enabled attributions of furniture to Nathaniel Gould. Glenn Adamson, formerly Head of Research, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is The Nanette L. Laitman Director of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York. He is the founding co-editor of The Journal of Modern Craft and the author of Inventing Modern Craft. Daniel Finamore is The Russell W. Knight Curator of Maritime Art and History at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. Dean Lahikainen is The Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of American Decorative Art at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. His publications include Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style and In the American Spirit: Folk Art from the Collections of the Peabody Essex Museum. Elisabeth Garrett Widmer, formerly director of Sotheby’s American Arts course and a Senior Vice President at Christie’s, New York, and director of Classes in Connoisseurship, is an authority on American eighteenth- and nineteenth-century decorative arts and social history. Her publications include At Home: The American Family, 1750–1870.

André-Charles Boulle, Louis XIV’s commode; made of resinous wood, ebony veneer, tortoiseshell and bronze inlay, gilt bronze, griotte marble; Paris, 1708, H. 88 x 131 x 65 cm (Versailles, National Museum of the Palaces of Versailles and Trianon; Inv. VMB 14279.1) 

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From the Château de Versailles:

Eighteenth Century, Birth of Design, Furniture Masterpieces, 1650–1789
18e, aux sources du design, chefs-d’œuvre du mobilier 1650 à 1790
Château de Versailles, 28 October 2014 — 22 February 2015

From 28 October 2014 to 22 February 2015, the Palace of Versailles is hosting the exhibition 18th Century, Birth of Design, Furniture Masterpieces from 1650 to 1790 in the Africa and Crimea Rooms. The exhibition offers a glimpse of the ingenuity of a bygone era viewed from a present-day perspective and showcases the innovative and avant-garde nature of the shapes, techniques, decorations, and materials used in 18th-century furniture. The exhibition includes around 100 major works from collections at the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre Museum, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Palace of Fontainbleau, and the Getty Museum, alongside works from private collections which will be on show to the public for the first time. Cabinets, desks, writing tables, commodes, and console tables, but also sofas, armchairs, folding chairs, and seating chairs will testify to the revolution that the 18th century brought about in the history of furniture, a reflection of the evolving tastes of a society enamoured by modernity and wanting to live in comfort and luxury.

Jacques Gondoin and François II Foliot, Chair from the Pavillon du Rocher at the Petit Trianon; carved, gilded beech; 1781, 89 x 56 x 56 cm (Versailles, National Museum of the Palaces of Versailles and Trianon, Inv. V 5358)

Concept of Design

In 1712, Shaftesbury introduced the term and concept of design to art theory. It contains the dual meaning of ‘plan’ and ‘intention’ and unifies the processes of conceiving and shaping a work. For the first time, furniture was planned with forethought, created with specific intention and shaped for both functionality and comfort. 18th-century furniture was produced according to design sources, both in its overall conception and its quest for harmony between form and function.

The Transformation of Furniture

The quest for the ideal shape and form hit its peak in the 18th century, when the shape of furniture began to change. Inventiveness and creativity abounded and new outlines began to take shape, from console tables to commodes to secretary and armoire desks. Rigid outlines began to soften, then morphed into rounded curves, subsequently giving way to curved legs—sometimes four, six or even eight of them. Furniture became multi-purpose and featured mechanisms that allowed it to transform into something else.

Boldness of Materials and Colours

The same quest characterised the use of materials: furniture was covered with exotic woods, lacquers, varnishes, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, bronze, brass, lead, porcelain, straw, steel and stone marquetry. Cloth, bulrush and copper began to be used in chairs. Long before the garish colours afforded by plastic in the 20th and 21st centuries, the 18th century saw the birth of furniture in red, daffodil yellow, turquoise blue, apple green, partially gilded or silvered, etc. At the same time, other colour palettes were limited to the black and gold of lacquer and bronze, and patterns were reduced to natural ones made out of quality materials such as mahogany.

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The catalogue is available in both French and English:

18th Century, Birth of Design, Furniture Masterpieces, 1650–1790 (Dijon: Éditions Faton, 2014), 280 pages, ISBN 978-2878441949 (English) / 978-2878441901 (French), 42€.

The sole purpose of this book, published to tie in with the magnificent exhibition at the Palace of Versailles, is to lay bare the incredible inventiveness of the century of Enlightenment, a century in which, for the first time, furniture became an art. Architects, artists and dealers as well as ordinary craftsmen set about organising furniture and elaborating it as never before.

The eighteenth century was to turn three everyday acts—sitting, sitting at table, storing things—into an art. Furniture changed its skin and shape. For the first time, it explored new materials, sought out new forms. It broke free of architecture, but went on playing with some of its styles. It became movable and occasional, and the notion of comfort came into being. Furniture found its identity in everyday actions to which it was closely linked. The connection between the individual and furniture became obvious. From its disposition to its ingenuity, and through the matchless quality of its incomparable workmanship, furniture in the eighteenth century came to be an integral part of daily life and fashion, quick to respond to changing moods and styles. Having thus secured both a new status and recognition, it became for ever a distinct element in the intellectual process of creation.

Daniel Alcoufe, conservateur général honoraire
Gérard Mabille, conservateur général honoraire
Yves Carlier, conservateur en chef au Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon
Patrik Hourcade, photographe et designer
Patrick Lemasson, conservateur en chef au Musée du Petit Palais

Caspar Wolf, Panorama of the Grindelwald Valley with the Wetterhorn, Mettenberg, and Eiger, ca. 1774 (Aarau: Aargauer Kunsthaus, photo by Jörg Müller)

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From the Kunstumuseum Basel:

Caspar Wolf and the Aesthetic Conquest of Nature
Kunstmuseum Basel, 19 October 2014 — 1 February 2015

Curated by Bodo Brinkmann and Katharina Georgi

The Alps as magnificent spectacle of nature—a surprisingly recent opinion. It was only during the course of the 18th century that people began regarding jagged mountain ranges as ‘sublime’ and aesthetically pleasing. The Swiss landscape painter Caspar Wolf (1735–1783) was one of the first to conquer this largely undeveloped Alpine landscape on his extensive treks and made it available as subject matter for artistic treatment. In his galvanizing compositions, massive boulders, thundering mountain torrents, and bizarre glacier formations impede the viewer’s path. The human being, standing in awe, is reduced to a tiny figure before expansive panoramas. Wolf stands well apart from the idyllic Baroque landscapes with his radical formations and as one of the most significant precursors to European romanticism. But the same time, his work breathed the spirit of enlightenment. The exhibition includes 126 works by Caspar Wolf and his contemporaries as well as a selection of recent photographs taken at these respective locations in the Alps. In conjunction with this exhibition, the Kupferstichkabinett at the Kunstmuseum Basel will present highlights from its wealth of drawings and prints by Caspar Wolf.

Caspar Wolf, The Staubbachfall in Winter, ca. 1775
(Bern: Kunstmuseum)

A fluke of history can be credited for Caspar Wolf ascent from impoverished childhood in Muri as carpenter’s son and moderately successful painter to artist of standing in European art history: the most important pioneer of Alpine painting and one of the most significant precursors to European Romanticism.

The fluke in question is Caspar Wolf’s encounter with the influential Bernese publisher Abraham Wagner (1734–1782). Wagner, one year his senior, had an ambitious project: to issue an encyclopedic publication of the Swiss Alpine landscape complete with illustrations of the highest artistic standard; and more to the point, these illustrations would be worked immediately from nature. The landscape that Wagner had in mind as motif was the rarely travelled and difficult to reach high Alpine region. The idea was to offer viewers a new conception of the Alpine landscape in images of previously unparalleled precision and magnificence. To author the written sections of this publication, Wagner engaged the Bernese priest and eminent natural philosopher Jacob Samuel Wyttenbach. Wolf was to accompany the two men on their extensive treks through the Alpine mountains. His task was to document and depict in paintings these unique encounters with nature.

What resulted was a comprehensive picture cycle of the Swiss Alps. Working in his studio from the nature studies completed on location, Wolf created some 200 paintings of imposing quality that bring together spontaneous observations and highly artistic formulations. Wolf invents astute painterly formulations to depict mountain ranges and glaciers, waterfalls and caves, bridges and raging torrents, lakes and high plateaus, sometimes rendering these in expansive panorama views, sometimes in close, claustrophobic compositions. His paintings include many prominent natural monuments, some no longer existent due to the environmental destruction of recent centuries: hence, the famous ‘séracs’ (pinnacles of glacier ice) of the Lower Grindelwald Glacier, evident in two exceptionally powerful paintings by Wolf, have long since melted, for instance.

Wolf’s paintings can neither be grouped with the vedute, a type painting popular at the time, nor can they be described as explicitly documentary images. Instead, they speak to a more fundamental subject matter: they consider the relationship between the mountain as rational concept and the mountain as sensual perception.

But what was the origin for the remarkable aesthetic assurance with which the artist entered the virginal territory of Alpine painting? Wolf’s intense engagement with French painting while in Paris in 1770/71 proved to be of central importance. This is vividly demonstrated in the exhibition with works by François Boucher, Claude-Joseph Vernet, Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg the Younger, and Hubert Robert. Surprisingly, Wolf profits greatly from his engagement with contemporary marine paintings and their depictions of dramatic storms at sea and shipwrecks.

The exhibition includes 126 works by Caspar Wolf and his contemporaries as well as a selection of recent photographs taken at these respective locations in the Alps. In conjunction with this exhibition, the Kupferstichkabinett at the Kunstmuseum Basel will present highlights from its wealth of drawings and prints by Caspar Wolf.

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The catalogue is available in German and English:

Caspar Wolf und die ästhetische Eroberung der Natur (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2014), 224 pages, ISBN: 978-3775738323 (German) / ISBN: 978-3775738330 (English), €58.

The notion of the Alps as a magnificent natural spec­tacle is surprisingly recent. It was not until the eigh­teenth century that its craggy mountain ridges began to be seen as ‘sublime’ and beautiful. The Swiss landscape painter Caspar Wolf (1735–1783) was one of the first to discover the then largely unexplored world of the Alps as a subject of art through his ex­tended forays into the mountains. Trained in south­ern Germany and Paris, Wolf was commissioned to produce a comprehensive series on the Swiss Alps, which he completed between 1773 and 1779. Working in his studio, the artist created some 180 imposing paintings from nature studies done outdoors. The publication demonstrates how he conveyed what he had seen according to his aesthetic criteria. In his dra­matic compositions, paths are blocked by immense boulders, roaring streams of water, and glaciers, or the
view opens up to reveal giant panoramas, which are
observed by tiny, awestruck human figures.