Conference | Ephemerality and Materiality in France

From the conference programme:
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? Ephemerality and Materiality in France in the Long 18th Century: Arts, Theatre, and Spectacle
Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, 27–28 June 2023
Organized by Elisa Cazzato
The Greek etymology of ephemeral, ephḗmeros, denotates something that only lasts for one day. In many ways, the ephemeral has become a key subject for our 21st-century lives, via temporary architecture and installations, digital art, but also new forms of media and social communication. However, with the invention of photography and videorecording in the late 19th century, and with new digital technologies in contemporary times, the ephemeral has also found new ways to become enduring, sustainable, and collectable in new archival forms. Yet ephemeral art and ways of being that existed before are more difficult to trace.
The study of 18th-century artistic and performance culture has naturally focused mostly on material objects that have survived in physical or representational forms, like paintings, decorative arts, written texts, and musical scores. But what happens to those forms of art whose material nature is short-lived, fleeting, or perishable? Does the absence of a surviving object preclude the possibility of its examination?
This conference investigates the topic of ephemerality in French culture in the long 18th-century, embracing both artistic, theatrical, and performance practices created through fragile and temporal media like theatre settings, sketches, fireworks, or spectacles that were performed but never replicated or transcribed, as well as trends in modes of dress, walking, and ways of being. In order to exist, however, ephemerality needs materiality, since any creative process intersects with the material requirements that both artworks and performances need: materials, location, scripts, costumes, instruments. How do ephemerality and materiality connect within the cultural context of 18th-century France?
This conference seeks to foster a debate not only about the aesthetic significance of ephemerality but also about the political and cultural meanings of the ephemeral. It questions whether, and how, short-lived forms of art had a role in communicating ideas of power. The conversation also embraces the politics of absence: What is the long-term effect of ephemerality? How can we create a history of the ephemeral? How do we deal with the relative paucity of sources? And how might our failure to deal with ephemerality exclude certain groups or cultures.
With the support of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles
Zoom link:
https://unive.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAsduyhqDIsHNGv0kOSqXNP7nqM3wZAf7t4
Organization
Elisa Cazzato, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow, Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Information
elisa.cazzato@unive.it
Scientific Committee
Renaud Bret-Vitoz (Sorbonne Université)
Elisa Cazzato (Università Ca’ Foscari)
Emanuele De Luca (Université Côte d’Azur)
Meredith Martin (NYU)
Barbara Nestola (CMBV)
Gerardo Tocchini (Università Ca’ Foscari)
T U E S D A Y , 2 7 J U N E 2 0 2 3
10.00 Welcome
10.15 Greetings and Conference Introduction
• Elisa Cazzato (Università Ca’ Foscari), Nicoletta Bortoluzzi (Università Ca’ Foscari – research advisor), and Barbara Nestola (CMBV)
10.30 Session 1 | Ephemerality in French Theater
Chair: Paola Perazzolo (Università degli Studi di Verona)
• Renaud Bret-Vitoz (Sorbonne Université), L’expérience éphémère d’Ériphyle (Voltaire, 1732) à la scène: matériaux tangibles d’une dramaturgie avant reprises et réécritures
• Pierre Frantz (Sorbonne Université), L’éphémère et la circonstance, réflexion sur le théâtre de la Révolution française
• Ilaria Lepore (Università degli Studi La Sapienza), L’art du comédien au tournant des Lumières. Souci d’éphémère et sensibilité mémorielle
12.00 Session 2 | Architectures and Urban Settings
Chair and discussant: Emanuele De Luca (Univeristé Côte D’Azur)
• Alessandra Mignatti (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano), Tra utopia e ricerca del consenso: gli apparati effimeri di epoca napoleonica a Milano
• Annamaria Testaverde (Università degli Studi di Bergamo), Una via triumphalis per «Florence la belle ville»: dall’apparato effimero al progetto stabile, 1608–1810
13.00 Lunch Break
15.00 Session 3 | Ephemerality in Dance
Chair and discussant: Stefania Onesti (Università degli Studi di Padova/Università Aldo Moro Bari)
• Olivia Sabee, (Swarthmore College), Noverre on 18th-Century Dance Theory and Ephemerality
• Cornelis Vanistendal (Independent Scholar), Ephemerality on the Fringe: Power Quadrilles in Brussels on the Eve of Waterloo
16.00 Session 4 | Researching Ephemerality in Arts and Costumes
Chair: Carlotta Sorba (Università degli Studi di Padova)
• Daniella Berman (New York University), “…even in the midst of the terrible movements and variables of the Revolution”: Jacques-Louis David’s Joseph Bara and the Unrealized Fête of the 10th of Thermidor
• Brontë Hebdon (New York University), ‘The Right to Dress Plainly’: Embroidery and the Ephemeral in Napoleonic Court Costumes
• Petra Dotlačilová (Stockholm University / CMBV), Witnesses of the Past: Studying Costumes as Material Evidence of the Ephemeral Performance
W E D N E S D A Y , 2 8 J U N E 2 0 2 3
9.30 Session 5 | Reconstructing Feasts, Settings, and Special Effects
Chair: Barbara Nestola (CMBV)
• Christine Jeanneret (University of Copenhagen), Ephemeral Spaces, Ephemeral Costumes, and Ephemeral Arts: The Bal des Ifs at Versailles in 1745
• Gerardo Tocchini (Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia), Lorsqu’une scénographie devient ‘la’ preuve: « Orfeo ed Euridice » de Ch. W. Gluck, opéra maçonnique
• Emanuele De Luca (Univeristé Côte d’Azur), Poudres, feux, couleurs: les artifices des Ruggieri à Paris au XVIII siècle
11.00 Session 6 | The Specter of Race
Chair and discussant: Michele Matteini (New York University)
• Noémie Etienne (University of Vienna) and Meredith Martin (New York University), The Comte d’Artois and the Spectacle of Otherness in Pre-Revolutionary Paris
12.00 Keynote Lecture
• Mark Ledbury (University of Sydney), “Et le lendemain matin… Afterlives of the Ephemeral”
Symposium | Unpacking the V&A Wedgwood Collection
Unpacking the V&A Wedgwood Collection
Barlaston (Stoke-on-Trent) and London, 7–8 July 2023

Isaac Cook, curator of the first Wedgwood Museum at the Etruria factory, sorting trays of Josiah Wedgwood’s trials © Fiskars.
Join leading ceramic artists, scholars, and emerging voices for a two-day symposium exploring fresh avenues of research into Wedgwood. We look forward to conversations that expand our understanding of Wedgwood and push scholarship in new directions. This dual-site landmark conference honours Gaye Blake-Roberts MBE, former curator of the V&A Wedgwood Collection, and her contribution to ceramic research. It will take place at the V&A Wedgwood Collection in Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent (Friday) and at the V&A South Kensington, London (Saturday). A small number of bursaries for early career professionals will be available (generously funded through the Paul Mellon Centre); please send a 300-word application to wedgwood@vam.ac.uk by 5 June, outlining how attending the conference will benefit your professional development.
Book Day 1 here»
Book Day 2 here»
Please scroll down to ‘related events’ to book afternoon options and the evening dinner.
F R I D A Y , 7 J U L Y 2 0 2 3
Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent, 10.00–17.00
• Kate Turner (Acting Chief Curator, V&A Wedgwood Collection) — Welcome
• Robin Emmerson (former Head of Decorative Art Department, National Museums Liverpool) — Gaye Blake-Roberts MBE: The Story So Far
Panel 1 | Beyond Josiah Wedgwood: Re-examining the Narrative
Chair: Oliver Cox (Head of Academic Partnerships VARI, NAL and Archives)
• Iris Moon (Assistant Curator European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art) — Phantom Urn: Wedgwood’s Disability
• Nicola Scott (Curator of Decorative Art, National Museums Liverpool) — Joseph Mayer (1803–1886): Portrait of a Victorian Wedgwood Collector
• Rebecca Klarner (Assistant Curator, V&A Wedgwood Collection, PhD Researcher University of Leeds) — Who Made It? Questions of Authorship, Authorising, and Authority in Wedgwood’s 20th-Century Design and Marketing
Bookable Afternoon Options for Day 1
2.00 Randeep Atwal and Lucy Lead — Extraordinary Wedgwood Women: Celebrating the Lives of Mary Euphrasia Wedgwood and Lucie Wedgwood
2.30 Alice Walton — Impressions from a Contemporary Ceramic Maker
2.00 Kate Turner — Wedgwood’s Anti-Slavery Medallion: A Re-display at the V&A Wedgwood Collection
2.00 Isabel Clanfield — Highlights of the Museum Store: A Guided Handling Session
A Wedgwood factory tour and have-a-go pot throwing sessions are also available to book.
Panel 2 | Impressions of the Past and Contemporary Ceramic Making
Chair: Catrin Jones (Chief Curator, V&A Wedgwood Collection)
• Matt Smith (Artist and Curator) — Remaking the Museum
Clare Twomey (Artist and Researcher) — Wedgwood: Identity and Practice
• Adam Hemming (Vice President of Marketing, Fiskars) — Making Wedgwood Today
Evening at Lunar restaurant, to be booked separately
With dinner speakers Tristram Hunt (Director, Victoria and Albert Museum) and Aileen Dawson (Former Curator, 1660–1800, Britain, Europe and Prehistory, British Museum)
S A T U R D A Y , 8 J U L Y 2 0 2 3
South Kensington, 10.00–17.30
• Antonia Boström (Director of Collections, V&A South Kensington) — Welcome
Panel 3 | Narratives of Creativity, Technology, Economics, and Labour
Chair: Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth (Lecturer in History of Art, 1650–1900, University of Edinburgh)
• Paul Greenhalgh (Director, Zaha Hadid Foundation) — Mimesis, Method, and Money: Wedgwood and His Forebears
• Claire Blakey (Curator of Modern Decorative Arts, National Museums Scotland) — Wedgwood and the Industrial Museum of Scotland
• Samantha Lukic-Scott (PhD Researcher, University of York) — Wedgwood and Pictorial Translation
• Paul Scott (Artist and Researcher) — Wedgwood’s American Transferware Patterns: New American Scenery, Archives, and Insights
Bookable Afternoon Options for Day 2
1.45 Angus Patterson — Cut Steel Dress Accessories with Jasperware Plaques: A Collaboration between Josiah Wedgwood and Matthew Boulton
2.05 Simon Spier and Florence Tyler — Wedgwood at the V&A South Kensington
Panel 4 | Global Wedgwood
Chair: Patricia Ferguson (Independent Researcher)
• Kate Smith (Associate Professor in 18th-Century History, University of Birmingham) — Clay, Labour, and Heat: Making Ceramics in a Global World
• Brigid von Preussen (Junior Research Fellow in History of Art, University of Oxford) — Model Colonies: Australian Clay, British Moulds, and the New Etruria
• Raffaella Ausenda (Professor, Freelance Historian of Italian Ceramics, Milan) — Italian Creamware ‘ad uso d’Inghilterra’ in Northern Italy and Beyond
• Rachel Gotlieb (Curator of Ceramics, Crocker Art Museum) — Viola Frey (1933–2004): Disrupting Josiah Wedgwood’s Portland Vase in Northern California
Conference | The Power of Flowers, 1500–1750
From ArtH.net and the conference website:
The Power of Flowers, 1500–1750
Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, 14–15 June 2023
Organized by Jaya Remond and Catherine Powell-Warren
Flowers and fruits have been mobilized as expressions of power and counter-power since long before the poet Allen Ginsberg coined the slogan ‘Flower Power’ in 1965 to encourage nonviolent protest, and Hippies in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury area weaved flowers in their hair. In the newly founded Dutch Republic, the house of Orange-Nassau relied on the orange not only as a short-hand for its name, but also a signifier of the trading empire it developed. Sultan Süleiman the Magnificent was known for his taste in gardens and incorporated flowers in his official insignia (Tughra), a complex work of calligraphy conveying the power and legitimacy of his rule. During the early modern (re)discovery of nature, flowers and their fruits (local and foreign) offered unique promises for profit while their pictorial representations promoted their commercial potential and could also stand as artistic objects. This interdisciplinary conference aims to investigate how flowers and the fruits they produce represented power in a myriad of ways in the early modern world. The speakers will address the function of flowers—including the flowering process, culminating in fruit—as tools of political, religious, or commercial power, as instruments of global and local knowledge transfer and appropriation, as well as their role in art-making, science, and the construction of gender from around 1500 to 1750.
The conference will take place in person at the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent; presentations will not be live-streamed or recorded. Conference registration is required. The registration fee of 20 euros (10 euros for students) includes two lunches and a reception following the keynote address. The conference is organized by Prof. dr. Jaya Remond, Assistant Professor of Early Modern Art History at Ghent University, and Dr. Catherine Powell-Warren, FWO Postdoctoral Researcher in Art History at Ghent University. For any practical questions, please contact Lien Vandenberghe (lien.vandenberghe@ugent.be) or Lisa Schepens (l.schepens@ugent.be).
W E D N E S D A Y , 1 4 J U N E 2 0 2 3
9.00 Registration and Coffee
9.30 Welcome Remarks
9.45 Far Removed from the Hortus Conclusus: Women Harnessing Flowers and Power, Part I
• Zara Kesterton (Cambridge) — Flower Girls: Pastoralism, Fashioning, and Gender Politics in 18th-Century France
• Lucia Querejazu Escobari (Zurich) — A Rose from Lima and Kantutas for Pomata: Saint Rose of Lima, Our Lady of Pomata, and the Construction of the Symbolical Garden of the Colonial Andes
11.00 Coffee Break
11.15 Far Removed from the Hortus Conclusus: Women Harnessing Flowers and Power, Part II
• Henrietta Ward (Cambridge) — Exchanging Seeds: Agnes Block and Her Flower Drawings
• Bożena Popiołek and Anna Penkała-Jastrębska (Krakow) — The Private Garden as a Symbol of Innovation and Power at the Noble Women’s Courts in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the First Half of the 18th Century
12.30 Lunch Break
14.00 Philosophy and Medicine: The Intrinsic Power of Flowers & Fruits, Real and Imagined, Part I
• Fabrizio Baldassarri (Venice) — The Silence of the Lambs: Sensitive and Vegetative Powers in Plantanimals
• Océane Magnier (Tours) — Violet Powder: The Perfume of the Flower and the Scent of the Iris
15.15 Coffee Break
15.30 Re-Centering the Garden: The Garden as a Backdrop for Memory, Art, and Networking
• Arjan van Dixhoorn (Utrecht) — Re-Centering the Garden in Philosophical Life: Hondius’s Dapes inemptae of 1618/1621
• Tine L. Meganck (Brussels) — Bruegel’s Spring Garden as Mastery of Nature
• Klara Alen (Antwerp) — From Rubens’s Garden to The Swan Inn: Tulips and Trust in Early Modern Antwerp
17.30 Keynote Address
• Claudia Swan (St Louis) — Handling Flowers in Early Modern Europe: A Florilegium of Gestures
18.45 Reception
T H U R S D A Y , 1 5 J U N E 2 0 2 3
9.30 Trading, Exchanging, and Controlling Plants and Flowers, Part I
• Philippe Depairon (Kyoto) — New Flowers in Old Yamato
• Elena Falletti (Castellanza) — How Botanical Gardens Helped to Shape International Law
10.45 Coffee Break
11.00 Trading, Exchanging, and Controlling Plants and Flowers, Part II
• James M. Córdova (Boulder) — Art in Bloom: The Polysemy of Flowers in Colonial Mexican Visual Culture
• Daniel Margócsy (Cambridge) — The Flowers of St Thomas: Colonial Botany and the Hortus malabaricus, c. 1680
12.15 Lunch Break
13.30 Philosophy and Medicine: The Intrinsic Power of Flowers & Fruits, Real and Imagined, Part II
• Anna Svensson (Uppsala) — Arvid Månsson’s Örta-Book: Translating Medicinal Plant Knowledge in 17th-Century Sweden
• Dominic Olariu (Marburg) — Herbal Books at Court as a Gesture of Medical Erudition and Medical Providence
14.45 Coffee Break
15.00 Paper Plants and the Epistemic Power of Flower Imagery, Part I
• Clio Rom (Springdale, Arkansas) — On Being Planted and Portrayed: Horticulture and Floral Imagery in Seicento Rome through the works of Anna Maria Vaiani
• Lara de Mérode (Brussels) — Hortus floreus Archiducis Leopoldi or the Power of Flowers at the Service of the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (1614–1662)
16.15 Paper Plants and the Epistemic Power of Flower Imagery, Part II
• Sheila Barker (Philadelphia) — Giovanni Battista Ferrari’s “Flora, overo Cultura dei fiori” (1638)
• Katherine M. Reinhart (Broome County, New York) — Painting Plants, Engraving Gloire
17.30 Concluding Remarks
Symposium | Dutch and Flemish Drawings, 1500–1800

Rembrandt van Rijn, Landscape with Canal and Boats, ca. 1652–55, pen in brown ink with brown wash on paper, framing lines in brown ink, 10 × 20 cm (The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Ackland Art Museum, Peck Collection, 2017.1.67). From The Peck Collection: “In 2017 the Ackland Art Museum . . . received its largest gift to date. Donated by UNC alumnus Dr. Sheldon Peck and his late wife Leena, the gift included 134 largely seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch and Flemish drawings as well as a generous endowment to support a new curator of European and American art before 1950, future acquisitions, exhibitions, educational materials, and public programming related to the collection.”
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From ArtHist.net:
Making, Collecting, and Understanding Dutch and Flemish Drawings, 1500–1800
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1–2 June 2023
The Peck Drawings Symposium celebrates Old Master drawings on the occasion of the exhibition The Art of Drawing: Master Drawings from the Age of Rembrandt in the Peck Collection at the Ackland Art Museum, on view in Amsterdam at the Rembrandt House Museum (18 March – 11 June 2023).
Research in early modern Dutch and Flemish drawings touches on a wide variety of issues, including the study of materials and techniques; issues of attribution and oeuvre cataloguing; and expanding our understanding of the provenance, collecting, and display of works on paper. This symposium offers scholars a chance to come together to present and discuss recent research in this specialized field, which now evolves to encompass new methodologies and concerns.
Registration is available here»
T H U R S D A Y , 1 J U N E 2 0 2 3
9.00 Registration, with Coffee and Tea
9.30 Welcome Remarks
9.45 Session 1
• The Case of Pieter Vlerick: A Netherlandish Draughtsman’s ‘Many Beautiful Views of the City on the Tiber’ — Stijn Alsteens (Christie’s)
• (Re)Introducing Jan Snellinck (1544/49–1638) as a Draughtsman — Maud van Suylen (Rijksmuseum)
• Drawings Made to be Engraved: Paul Vredeman de Vries and Claes Jansz. Visscher — Peter Fuhring (Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection, Paris)
• A Helmet Design by Johannes Lutma the Elder? — Reiner Baarsen (Rijksmuseum)
11.05 Coffee and Tea
11:35 Session 2
• The Portable Studio: Navigating the Early Netherlandish Sketchbook — Daantje Meuwissen (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam)
• Deconstructing the Antique: The Ornamental Language in the Sketchbook of the Cornelis Anthonisz. Workshop — Oliver Kik (Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels (KIK-IRPA)
• Playground and Repository: Maarten van Heemskerck’s Roman Sketchbook — Tatjana Bartsch (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome)
• Fresh Eyes on Old Sketchbooks: Revisiting the Content and Function of 17th-Century Dutch Sketchbooks — Yvonne Bleyerveld (RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague/Leiden University)
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Session 3
• Making the Invisible Visible: New Digital Technologies in the Study of Drawings — Thomas Ketelsen and Carsten Wintermann (Klassik Stiftung Weimar)
• Local Landscapes on Paper from Afar: The Connoisseurial Relevance of Washi in the Drawn Oeuvres of Dutch Artists — Sanne Steen (Erasmus University, Rotterdam)
• Hunting Moldmates of 17th-Century Dutch Drawings — C. Richard Johnson, Jr. (Utrecht University)
• Rembrandt’s Drawings: The Cut — Birgit Reissland (RCE – Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Amsterdam)
15.20 Coffee and Tea
15.50 Session 4
• Aert Schouman’s Animal Drawings in Teylers Museum — Marleen Ram (Teylers Museum, Haarlem)
• Beyond Academies: The Inaugural Drawing Session at Felix Meritis in 1789 — Charles Kang (Rijksmuseum)
• Life on Paper: New Insights into the Drawing Practice of Christina Chalon (1749–1808) — Austėja Mackelaitė (Rijksmuseum)
17.30 Exclusive visit to the Rembrandt House Museum to view the Peck Collection exhibition
F R I D A Y , 2 J U N E 2 0 2 3
8.00 Exclusive visit to the Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum
9.00 Coffee and Tea
9.45 Session 5
• The Less Well-known Side of Andries Both as a Draughtsman — Jane Shoaf Turner (Master Drawings; formerly Rijksmuseum)
• ‘Alle de posturen, die de soldaten in ‘t hanteren van hare wapenen behoren te gebruycken’: Jacques de Gheyn’s Drawings for The Exercise of Arms For Calivers, Muskettes, and Pikes — Susanne Bartels (University of Geneva)
• The Drawing Oeuvre of Pieter Quast (c.1605–1647): An Assessment — Jochai Rosen (University of Haifa)
• A Sea of Drawings: The Van de Veldes at the Queen’s House, Greenwich — Allison Goudie, Emmanuelle Largeteau and Imogen Tedbury (Royal Museums, Greenwich)
11.05 Coffee and Tea
11.35 Session 6
• Wallerant Vaillant (1623–1667): A Dutch Artist in the Vienna Collection of Prince Dmitry M. Golitsyn — Catherine Phillips (Independent Scholar)
• The Bookseller and Publisher Isaac Tirion and His Collection of Drawings — Everhard Korthals Altes (Delft Technical University)
• Johann Friedrich von Uffenbach (1687–1769) as Collector of Drawings — Anne-Katrin Sors (Göttingen University)
• Rediscovering Pieter de Hooch: 18th-Century Dutch Reproductive Drawings and the Auction Market — Junko Aono (Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo)
13.00 Lunch
14.10 Session 7
• On the 17th-Century Reception of Pieter Saenredam’s Drawing Practice — Lorne Darnell (Courtauld Institute)
• Material Sympathies: Paper as Water in 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Drawings — Sarah W. Mallory (Harvard University)
• Still a Hot Case: Reconsidering the ‘Du-Gardijn’ Inscriptions — Annemarie Stefes (Independent Scholar)
• Copious Copies: On the Trail of a Drawing Practice and Its Aesthetic and Material Implications — Christien Melzer (Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin)
15.30 Coffee and Tea
16.00 Final Session
• TBA
17.00 Drinks and Appetizers
Conference | The Dutch Museum of Freemasonry
From ArtHist.net:
‘A Heritage Collection, Unparalleled in the World’: An Introduction to the Dutch Museum of Freemasonry
The Hague, 25 May 2023
Registration due by 22 May 2023

The Vrijmetselarij Museum / Dutch Museum of Freemasonry. Designed by the architects A.P. Smits and J. Fels., the building was constructed in 1908 for the furniture manufacturer Harmen Pander. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, September 2010).
Freemasonry is one of the oldest social networks in the world. It has been active in the Netherlands since 1721 and is distinguished by a remarkable ritual tradition. For over three centuries the initiation society produced an impressive cultural heritage. Through strict collection policy, this earned a museum status in the middle of the 19th century under the rule of Grand Master Prince Frederick (1797–1881) and subsequently grew into a heritage collection of (inter)national importance. The Vrijmetselarij Museum or Dutch Museum of Freemasonry is located in The Hague.
The museum consists of three interlinked collections: historical archives, scientific library (including the famous Bibliotheca Klossiana, acquired by Prince Frederick), and historical objects. The collection not only reflects the development of freemasonry, its tolerant ideas, and ritual tradition. It also documents 300 years of the social, political, and cultural history of the Netherlands and its international contacts, as well as the lives and works of 70,000 members. From the history of Western expansion to the emancipation of women, from art history to gender studies, the collection is a gold mine for researchers from all disciplines within the humanities.
The Dutch Museum of Freemasonry is internationally renowned amongst academic researchers, although it is less well known to the wider Dutch public. Ample reason therefore exists to put this best kept ‘secret’ in The Hague in the spotlight with an international conference. Experts from different countries and disciplines will discuss the founding of the collection and its relevance as heritage of international calibre, with lectures in English. A special guest speaker from America (via Zoom) is Dr. Margaret Jacob, author of The Radical Enlightenment and Living the Enlightenment. She consulted the Dutch lodge archives for her groundbreaking research. This conference provides a unique introduction to a collection that has been preserved in The Hague for more than 150 years, and which should continue to be cherished in the future.
The event will be held at the Carlton Ambassador Hotel in The Hague, which is conveniently located near the Dutch Museum of Freemasonry, and another significant venue: the lodge rooms designed by Karel de Bazel in 1916. These rooms, which were created by the renowned architect, Freemason, and Theosopher, are now a protected monument and part of the Beeld & Geluid Den Haag building complex. Guided tours of the museum and the lodge rooms will be organized for participants.
The conference is open to students, researchers, and heritage professionals, as well as to lodge members and anyone with a love of history or cultural heritage. Advance registration is required, and availability is limited. Participation fee: €75 regular rate / €50 OVN donors / €35 students (please enclose a copy of your student ID). The fee covers coffee, tea, and drinks at the closing reception, along with a copy of the conference publication and tours. To register, please email info@stichtingovn.nl. After sending your email, you will receive a registration form and additional information. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, and will be confirmed only upon receipt of payment.
Preliminary conference program, 9.30–18.00
• Opening by Vera Carasso, Director Dutch Museums Association
• The Dutch Museum of Freemasonry and the Study of Humanities (via Zoom) — Margaret C. Jacob, Professor Emerita, Department of History, UCLA
• From 18th-Century Club Archive to National Heritage: The Dutch Museum of Freemasonry — Andréa Kroon, Kroon & Wagtberg Hansen / Guest Curator Vrijmetselarij Museum, Den Haag
• The Kloss Library: A Goldmine for Researchers — Jan Snoek, Professor of Ritual and Religious Studies, University of Heidelberg
• Archive, Library, Objects: The Unique Hybrid Nature of Masonic Collections — Martin Cherry, Librarian of the Museum of Freemasonry, London
• Western Esotericism and the Dutch Museum of Freemasonry (via Zoom) — Henrik Bogdan, Professor of Religious Studies, Department of Literature, History of Ideas, and Religion, University of Göteborg
• Egyptology and Freemasonry: An Example of Interdisciplinary Research Opportunities — Eugène Warmenbol, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Art, and Archaeology, Université libre de Bruxelles
• Freemasonry and the Study of Religion: Opportunities for Collaboration — Ab de Jong, Scientific Director of the Leiden Centre for Religious Sciences
• From Private to Public Collections: The Future of Masonic Museums — Andrew Prescott, Digital Humanities Department, Glasgow University
Conference | Historical Fragments

From Eventbrite:
Historical Fragments: Making, Breaking, and Remaking, 1500–1800
Online and In-person, University of Edinburgh, 19 May 2023
Taking ‘fragmentation’ as the conceptual starting point for the day, The Material and Visual Culture in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Research Cluster will host a one-day hybrid conference that considers the materiality and shifting conditions of global objects and collections (focusing on the time period 1500–1800) as they are broken, fragmented, remade, or assembled. Seeking to investigate the ‘brokenness’ of such material culture objects and collections, the conference will de-centre conservation and restoration which often dominate discourse on the subject. The Research Cluster aims to provide a space to foster interdisciplinary discussion on the material approaches to fragmented objects through material culture.
Online registration is available here»
P R O G R A M M E
9.00 Arrival
9.15 Welcome
9.30 Keynote
Chair: Carol Richardson (University of Edinburgh)
• Catriona Murray (University of Edinburgh) — Smashing Statues: Breaking and Remaking the Monumental Bodies of King Charles I
10.30 Break
10.45 Morning Session: Early Career Researcher and PhD Papers
Chair: Seren Nolan (University of Edinburgh)
• Simon Spier (Victoria & Albert Museum) — Tinker, Burner, Riveter, Turner: The ‘China Mender’ in 18th-Century Britain
• Agata Piotrowska (University of St Andrews) — Assembled, Catalogued, Displayed in Their Brokenness: Shakespeare’s Chair, Stones from the Tomb of Romeo and Juliet, and Other Objects Telling the Story of Duchess Izabela Czartoryska’s Collection
• Hanne Schonkeren (Vrije Universiteit Brussel/ Research Foundation of Flanders) — Sustained Splendor: (Re)assembling Early Modern Luxury Objects
• Esther Rollinson (University of Manchester) — ‘Trim’d with gold but very old’: Exploring the Importance of Preservation and Remaking for the English Catholic Community, ca. 1660–1800
• Yi Shan (University of Texas, Austin) — Meaningful Losses: Exploring the Knowable Past by Collecting Premodern China
12.15 Lunch
1.00 Afternoon Session: Historical Fragments Roundtable
Chair: Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth (University of Edinburgh)
• Alejandro Nodarse (Harvard University) — Goya’s Remedy (‘Remidio’): On Print as Fragment
• Serena Dyer (De Montfort University) — A Fashionable 1760s Gown
• Lauren Working (University of York) — Sea Change: Regenerative Shipwrecks
• Sarah Laurenson (National Museums Scotland) — Quartz Crystals and the Cairngorms, 1750–1820
2.30 Break
3.00 Walk to St Cecilia’s Hall
The walk is 15–20 minutes; please email materialcultureresearcheca@ed.ac.uk if you require transport.
3:30 St Cecilia’s Hall, in-person attendees only
Presentation by Jenny Nex (Musical Instruments Collections Curator, St Cecilia’s Hall) — The Fragmentation, Remaking, and Consumption of Musical Instruments, as Seen through Examples in the Collection at the University of Edinburgh
Tour of collections and object handling session
5.00 Close
Study Day | Huguenot Craftspeople and the Visual Arts in Britain
From The Fitzwilliam:
Huguenot Craftspeople and the Visual Arts in Britain
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Monday, 15 May 2023

Paul de Lamerie, Silver Two-handled Cup and Cover, made in London, 1739–40 (Lent by Clare College, Cambridge).
In celebration of the display Refugee Silver: Huguenots in Britain, join us in person for a study day exploring the contributions of Huguenot craftspeople to the visual arts in Britain. Curators and experts will provide new perspectives on silver, ivories, prints, and portrait miniatures. Refreshments and lunch will be provided, included in the ticket price.
P R O G R A M M E
10.00 Tea and coffee
10.45 Welcome from Neal Spencer (Deputy Director for Collections & Research)
11.00 Session 1
• Women Huguenot Silversmiths and The Goldsmiths’ Company Collection — Frances Parton (Deputy Curator, The Goldsmiths’ Company)
• A New Look at Huguenot Silver — Miriam Hanid (Artist Silversmith)
12.00 Break
12.15 Session 2
• Making One’s Mark: Silver, Sugar, and Tea in 18th-Century Britain and Beyond — Chiedza Mhondoro (Assistant Curator, British Art, Tate)
• Cross-fertilisation: International Huguenot Connections between Goldsmiths and Watchmakers — Tessa Murdoch (Independent Scholar and Trustee of the Huguenot Museum)
13.15 Lunch and a chance to see the display Refugee Silver: Huguenots in Britain
14:15 Session 3
• Huguenot Printmakers in a Closet-Catholic’s Collection? The Prints of Lord Fitzwilliam (1745–1816) — Elenor Ling (Senior Curator, Prints & Drawings, The Fitzwilliam Museum)
• Huguenot Miniaturists: Isaac and Peter Oliver’s Influence on the Development of British Portrait Miniature Painting, 1580–1650, pre-recorded — Sophie Rhodes (PhD candidate, Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge)
• Carving Caricatures in Ivory: Huguenot or Not? — Victoria Avery (Keeper, European Sculpture & Decorative Arts, The Fitzwilliam Museum)
Symposium | Georgian Group, Wren 300

Sir Godfrey Kneller, Portrait of Sir Christopher Wren, 1711, oil on canvas, 49 × 40 inches
(London: NPG).
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From The Georgian Group:
Wren 300: Georgian Group Symposium
Trinity College, Oxford, 15 April 2023
The Georgian Group’s 2023 Symposium, led by Geoffrey Tyack of Oxford University, will form a central focus of the Wren 300 Festival. Wren’s late work from 1690 to 1723, his subsequent reputation, and design legacy will be considered by leading scholars. Public tickets (£70) include a buffet lunch and drinks reception. A limited number of student tickets (£35) are available here. Please read the Terms and Conditions before booking. If tickets have sold out for this event, please email members@georgiangroup.org.uk to be added to the waiting list.
P R O G R A M M E
10.15 Registration
10.45 Session 1
• Geoffrey Tyack — Introduction / Wren’s Work in Oxford
• Rory Coonan — Wren before Architecture
• Jennifer Mitchell — Tom Tower
• Mark Kirby — The Furnishing of Wren’s Churches
12.45 Lunch
1.45 Session 2
• Anya Lucas — Greenwich
• Elizabeth Dean and Matthew Walker — Wren and Hawksmoor
• Will Aslet — Wren and Gibbs
4.00 Session 3
• Charles Hind — Wren’s Sale Catalogues
• David McKinstry — Wren’s 19th-Century Reputation
• Geoffrey Tyack — Destruction and Rebuilding: Wren’s Churches after 1945
5.45 Drinks Reception, The Garden Room, Trinity
Conference | Arts and Culture in the Capuchin Order
From ArtHist.net:
De habitudine Ordinis ad artem: Arts, Religion, and Culture in the Capuchin Order between the 16th and 18th Centuries
In-person and online, University of Teramo, 12–14 April 2023
The international conference De habitudine. Ordinis ad artem. Arts, Religion, and Culture in the Capuchin Order between the 16th and 18th Centuries aims to deepen the relationship between the arts, culture, religion, and the Capuchin Order on an international level, with a particular focus on the historical context and the religious dimension as an essential prerequisite for understanding artists, the production of art objects, commissions, and relations with the secular world on a global scale.
The conference is divided into six sessions:
• The role of the Order in the context of the post-Tridentine Church
• Artistic practice between norms, prohibitions, and customs
• The cultural objects of the Capuchin world: use and circulation
• Capuchin patronage
• Capuchin painters and marangoni
• Images, knowledge, and preaching between devotion and catechesis
The conference will be held in-person and online in Italian. For both modalities, registration is required here. Links to access the conference in webinar mode will be sent by email in the days following registration.
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9.00 Saluti Istituzionali
• Dino Mastrocola (Magnifico Rettore)
• Christian Corsi (Direttore Dip. Scienze della Comunicazione)
• fr. Roberto Genuin (Ministro Generale dei Frati Minori Cappuccini)
• fr. Carlo Maria Chistolini (Vicario provinciale della Prov. Serafica Immacolata Concezione OFM Cap.)
• fr. Daniel Kowalewski (Presidente Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini)
• Massimo Carlo Giannini (Università degli Studi di Teramo, Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
• Raffaella Morselli (Università degli Studi di Teramo)
9.30 Prolusione
• Mons. Felice Accrocca (Arcivescovo di Benevento, docente di Storia Francescana)
10.00 I Sessione | Il ruolo dell’Ordine nel contesto della Chiesa post-tridentina
Presiede: Grado Giovanni Merlo (Università degli Studi di Milano)
• Paolo Cozzo (Università degli Studi di Torino) — Fra corte e missioni: i cappuccini nella politica religiosa degli Stati sabaudi (sec. XVI–XVII)
• Massimo Carlo Giannini (Università degli Studi di Teramo, Universidad Complutense de Madrid) — ‘Las obligaciones de Religiosos y buenos Vassallos’: l’ordine dei cappuccini e la Monarchia spagnola (1671–1698)
• Giovanni Pizzorusso (Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara) — La controversa attività missionaria del cappuccino francese Pacifique de Provins dalla Persia al Nuovo Mondo (prima metà XVII secolo)
• Maria Teresa Fattori (Humboldt, Universität zu Berlin) — Cronologia e casi di frati cappuccini contrari alla schiavitù (XVII–XVIII secolo)
• Giuseppe Patisso (Università del Salento) — ‘I cappuccini di Richelieu’: Missioni ed evangelizzazione nella Nuova Francia durante la prima metà del XVII secolo
• Carlo Pelliccia (Università degli Studi Internazionali di Roma) — L’esperienza religiosa e missionaria di Onofrio Villiani (1715–1789) tra la Compagnia di Gesù e l’Ordine dei Frati Minori Cappuccini
13.15 Pausa pranzo
15.00 II Sessione | La pratica artistica tra norme, divieti e consuetudini
Presiede: Raffaella Morselli (Università degli Studi di Teramo)
• Yuri Primarosa (Roma, Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica) — Per un’estetica cappuccina nella Roma del primo Seicento. Caravaggio e Orazio Gentileschi
• Alessandro Zuccari (Sapienza Università di Roma) — Sviluppi dell’arte cappuccina tra Roma e Bologna
• Claudio Sagliocco (Sapienza Università di Roma) — Originale e copia nella pittura cappuccina
• Arianna Petraccia (Liceo Scientifico ‘D’Ascanio’, Montesilvano, PE) — I dipinti di Baccio Ciarpi per i cappuccini: Affinità elettive tra un pittore ed un Ordine religioso
• Attilio Maria Spanò (Liceo Classico ‘Campanella’, Reggio Calabria) — Controriforma e pauperismo francescano: L’esperienza architettonica e insediativa dei frati minori cappuccini
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9.30 III Sessione | Gli oggetti culturali del mondo cappuccino: uso e circolazione
Presiede: Luca Siracusano (Università degli Studi di Teramo)
• Roberto Rusconi (Università di Roma Tre) — Le parole e le pagine: I Cappuccini e i libri ovvero i libri dei Cappuccini
• Mario Tosti (Università degli Studi di Perugia) — Gli Atlanti cappuccini e l’immagine dell’Ordine nell’età della Controriforma
• Giovanna Granata (Università degli Studi di Cagliari) — Il patrimonio librario antico dei Cappuccini: Il caso della Sardegna
• Andrea Pezzini (Universität Bern) — Il culto di S. Ignazio da Santhià (1686–1770): Oggetti di devozione come cultura materiale
• Jason Di Resta (Wesleyan University) — Os ex ossibus meis et caro de carne mea: Giving Shape to Collective Identity in the Crypts of the Capuchin Order
12.45 Pausa pranzo
15.00 IV Sessione | La committenza cappuccina
Presiede: Anna Orlando (Advisor Cultura Comune di Genova)
• Donatella Biagi Maino (Università di Bologna) — L’arte per i cappuccini in Emilia-Romagna
• Laura Facchin (Università degli Studi dell’Insubria) — Arti figurative nelle chiese cappuccine dalla capitale ai territori della Provincia Pedemontana
• Vincenzo Sorrentino (Fondazione 1563 per l’Arte e la Cultura) — Alessandro, Giovanni e Cherubino Alberti nella chiesa dei Cappuccini di Frascati
• Ondřej Slanina (Universität Bern) — Unique Large Pearl Monstrance from the Capuchin Loreto in Hradčany, Prague
• Pietro Costantini (Università degli Studi di Teramo) — Insediamenti e patrimonio culturale: Donazioni e committenze per i frati cappuccini in Abruzzo (sec. XVI–XVIII)
F R I D A Y , 1 4 A P R I L 2 0 2 3
9.30 V SESSIONE | Pittori, marangoni e fabbricieri cappuccini
Presiede: Giorgio Fossaluzza (Università degli Studi di Verona)
• Isabella Di Liddo (Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro) — Le botteghe dei cappuccini in Puglia tra Sei e Settecento: Prime tracce per uno studio
• Anna Orlando (Advisor Cultura Comune di Genova) — Bernardo Strozzi sperimentatore: Un pittore cappuccino dal convento genovese alla fuga a Venezia
• Miriam Kreischer (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität) — The impact and importance of Paolo Piazza on the European art landscape of the 17th and 18th centuries: Paolo Piazza in Bavaria
• Luca Calenne (Archivio storico diocesano ‘Innocenzo III’, Segni, RM) — Un risarcimento per Fra’ Antonio Borgognone
• Daniele Giglio (Archivio storico Prov. Serafica Immacolata Concezione OFM Cap. – sez. di Assisi) — Fabbriche, arti e mestieri dei cappuccini umbri nel Settecento
12.45 Pausa pranzo
15.00 VI Sessione | Le immagini, i saperi e la predicazione tra devozione e catechesi
Presiede: Cecilia Paolini (Università degli Studi di Teramo)
• Francesco Nocco (Archivio storico Prov. dei Cappuccini di Puglia, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro) — Predicatori della Terra di Bari e della Terra d’Otranto nell’Archivio storico della Provincia dei Cappuccini di Puglia (sec. XVI–XVIII)
• Tereza Horáková (Masaryk University) — Possibilities and ‘offer’ of devotional practice in Capuchin monasteries in the Czech lands during the 18th century
• Javier González Torres (Fundación Victoria) Sergio Ramírez González (Universidad de Málaga) — La promoción cultual de un santoral eucarístico propio: Concreción conceptual y praxis artística en los conventos capuchinos andaluces
• Daniela Caracciolo (Università del Salento) — ‘Le cose spirituali non si possono dipingere’: La questione delle immagini sacre negli scritti di Bernardino Ochino
• Martina Leone (Università degli Studi di Teramo) — Iconografia cappuccina da Roma alla Serenissima: Francesco Ruschi tra innovazione e tradizione
Mount Vernon Symposium | Decorative Arts in the French Atlantic World

French porcelain tea and coffee service made for George and Martha Washington, and gifted by the Comte de Custine de Sarreck, ca. 1782.
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From Mount Vernon:
‘Very elegant & much admired’: Decorative Arts in the French Atlantic World
George Washington Presidential Library, Mount Vernon, Virginia, 2–4 June 2023
After the American Revolution, George Washington resolved that he would no longer “send to England (from whence I formerly had all my goods) for anything I can get upon tolerable terms elsewhere.” He instead turned to the United States’ greatest ally, France, where he found the furniture, ceramics, textiles, and decorative objects to be “very elegant” and “much admired.”

The symposium will take place at the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, in Virginia. The library opened in 2013.
The 2023 Mount Vernon Symposium will examine George and Martha Washington’s adoption of the French taste, as a catalyst to further explore the complex interchange of culture, decorative styles, and objects in the French-Atlantic World. Join leading curators and historians as they examine the diffusion of French style, from the Ancien Régime through the French Revolution to the French Empire, and from Paris to London, Philadelphia, Port-au-Prince, and New Orleans, to 20th-century Los Angeles. In-person participation cost is $400 ($375 for members and donors), which includes all lectures, meals, and tours. Virtual participation (in real-time or through recordings available until 4 July 2023) is $40.
F R I D A Y , 2 J U N E 2 0 2 3
1:00 Registration
1:30 Welcome and Introductions
1:45 The Garde-Meuble de la Couronne: From its Creation to Revolutionary Sales — Stéphane Castelluccio
The Garde-Meuble de la Couronne was the administration in charge of furnishing the apartments of the members of the royal family in the residences of the French sovereign. King Henry IV created it in 1604 as part of his policy to reorganize the kingdom after the Wars of Religion. This talk will present the management, exercised by only three different families during a century and a half, as well as the functioning of this administration which took an increasing importance throughout the 18th century. It will explain the changes in its organization during the Revolution, and end with the reasons, principles and organization of the revolutionary sales of the Crown’s furniture, decided by the new Republic from 1793.
2:45 ‘A little French ease adopted would be an improvement”: Lessons in Sociability and Decorative Arts from 1780s Paris — Amy Hudson Henderson
After the American Revolution, an increasing number of American diplomats, businessmen, students, artists, and tourists found themselves in Paris mixing amongst themselves in the upper echelons of French society. It was a heady time, ripe with opportunities for forging new relationships and identities. Here, in 1784, a young Nabby Adams observed that Americans would do well to adopt “a little French ease” as an antidote to the stiffness and reserve that seemed to mar their social circles back home. What did she mean? This paper answers that question by exploring extant correspondence and household furnishings. By focusing on the acquisitions and behaviors of the prominent Americans who spent time in Paris during the 1780s, we deepen our understanding of the role of French decorative arts in both sociability and diplomacy and discover why these objects appealed to George and Martha Washington.
3:45 Break
4:00 Adam T. Erby – TBA
5:00 Henry Auguste: A Goldsmith in Revolutionary Paris — Iris Moon
This talk explores the unlikely career trajectory of the Parisian goldsmith Henry Auguste (1759–1816) during the French Revolution, drawing on new research published in Luxury after the Terror. Crafty, wily, and untrustworthy, but obviously talented with a hammer and chisel, Auguste started off as an apprentice to his well-known goldsmith father, who worked for Louis XVI. Beyond the French court, Auguste acquired a number of prestigious clients, including the British connoisseur William Beckford, for whom he fashioned an ewer made out of pure gold. Just as the volatile politics of the French Revolution sought to overturn the values of the Ancien Régime in favor of new ones, Auguste sought to refashion himself as more than a goldsmith during a moment of tremendous opportunity—and great risk.
6:30 Reception
7:15 Dinner
S A T U R D A Y , 3 J U N E 2 0 2 3
7:30 Breakfast
8:45 Welcome and Introductions
9:00 Emerging Scholars’ Panel
10:00 Break
10:15 Revolutionary Things — Ashli C. White
During the late 18th century, a wide range of objects associated with the American, French, and Haitian revolutions crisscrossed the ocean. Furniture and ceramics; clothing and accessories; maps, prints, and public amusements—all circulated among diverse actors who wrestled with the political implications of these items. In this presentation we will examine the unique ways that transatlantic revolutionary things shaped how people understood contested concepts like equality, freedom, and solidarity. And, we will explore how these objects became a means through which individuals—enslaved and free, women and men, poor and elite—promoted, and sometimes tried to thwart, the realization of these ideals on the ground.
11:15 À la française: Designing French North America, 1700–1820 — Philippe Halbert
At its height, New France extended from eastern Canada, across the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi River to Louisiana. Although its population remained small, French North America was no less dynamic in terms of artistic originality or creative output. Even after New France’s fall in 1763, areas of French settlement held fast to creole syntheses of Gallic aesthetics and vernacular tradition. This presentation will introduce a cross-section of objects and buildings whose stories reveal the vibrant legacies of French cultural identity as it took root in North America before 1800.
12:15 Lunch
1:45 An American in Paris: Walt Disney and France — Wolf Burchard
Walt Disney was about to turn 17 when he first set foot in France in December 1918. The buildings, the art and the atmosphere had a lasting impact on the animated world he would go on to create. Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts, an exhibition shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Wallace Collection in London and the Huntington Art Gallery in Pasadena, brought together the seemingly disparate worlds of 20th-century hand-drawn animation and 18th-century decorative arts, which upon closer inspection reveal remarkable similarities. Wolf Burchard will relate how the exhibition explored Disney’s fascination with European art and the impact it had on the studio’s output, especially the three French fairytales retold in hand-drawn animation: Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Beauty and the Beast (1991).
2:45 Break
3:15 A Passion for Porcelain: Sèvres in the Wallace Collection — Helen Jacobsen
Ever since the early days of its development in the mid-18th century, the porcelain produced at the Sèvres Manufactory outside Paris has been a magnet for collectors, attracted by its vibrant colours, rich gilding, and innovative designs. The Sèvres collection at the Wallace Collection was put together in the 19th century, but its collectors were no less beguiled by its flamboyant luxury and exquisite craftsmanship. This lecture will follow the evolution of some of the most celebrated pieces ever produced at the manufactory and will explore the passions that gave shape to what is now one of the finest collections of Sèvres porcelain in the world, a testament to its enduring fascination.
4:15 James Monroe’s Use of French Furnishings in the White House and the Restoration of the Bellangé Suite — Melissa Naulin
Following its burning during the War of 1812, the President’s House required almost all new furnishings before it could reopen for President James Monroe’s use in 1817. Relying on his extensive knowledge of fashionable home goods gained through his two European diplomatic appointments, Monroe worked to secure a large number of these new furnishings from Paris. My talk will focus on these government-purchased French goods, many of which remain amongst the most-treasured objects in the White House collection. I will also detail the recent effort to restore the furniture suite made by Pierre Antoine Bellangé and purchased for Monroe’s “large oval room” (today’s Blue Room) to its original splendor.
5:45 Reception
7:00 Dinner
S U N D A Y , 4 J U N E 2 0 2 3
9:00 Breakfast
9:30 From West to East: Huguenot Craft Communities in London’s Soho and Spitalfields — Tessa Murdoch
Drawing on research undertaken for her recent publication, Tessa will speak about the formation of Huguenot artisan communities in Soho and Spitalfields. Leading personalities, include engraver Simon Gribelin, resident in West London who married into the Spitalfields based Mettayer family. The complex history of the Courtauld family, established in West London, gravitates from silversmithing in Soho and the City to textile production in Spitalfields and beyond. Craft communities centered on conformist and non-conformist French speaking churches and were gradually assimilated into Anglican churches. Huguenot refugees developed mutual support systems, friendly societies, the French Hospital which still flourishes as almshouses and the Westminster French Protestant Charity School. These Huguenot charities document the contribution of Huguenot craftsmen and women to British culture.
10:15 Forging a New Vernacular: The Transformation and Triumph of a French Ébéniste in Federal New York — Peter M. Kenny
Charles-Honoré Lannuier (1779–1819) arrived in New York in the spring of 1803 a thoroughly-trained Parisian ébéniste who, according to his inaugural newspaper advertisement, had “worked at his trade with the most celebrated Cabinet Makers of Europe.” Well-versed in the elegant forms of the late Louis XVI period, which still held sway during the earliest period of his training in Paris, Lannuier’s design vocabulary at the time of his arrival also included the harder edged yet brilliant neoclassical style of post-Revolutionary France known as Directoire (1795–99), and the Consulat (1799–1804), a heavier more monumental style featuring the more archaeologically correct forms of le goût antique. This was Lannuier’s Parisian stylistic legacy. How he transformed this legacy, ultimately becoming one of the two principal leaders of the New York school of cabinetmaking alongside his greatest rival, Duncan Phyfe, is an inspiring and uniquely American story.
11:00 Break
11:15 Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte and the Material Creation of an Imperial Legacy — Alexandra Deutsch
Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte (1785–1879) is often remembered for her short, but remarkable marriage in 1803 to Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte. Although their mésalliance resulted in divorce, their union set her and future generations of American Bonapartes on a path that allied them with France and an imperial legacy. Drawing from thousands of documents and a collection of more than 600 objects associated with the Bonapartes, this lecture charts the history of Elizabeth’s long life during which she meticulously created and documented a material world tethered to France. From her fashion to her silver, jewels, and furniture, Elizabeth’s self-presentation proclaimed her French connection. Her obsessive documentation of her possessions reveals a fascinating and complex narrative that spans multiple generations and reaches far beyond Baltimore.



















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