Enfilade

As noted at INHA:

L’Animal, ou la Nature Morte à ses Limites
Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris, 15–16 May 2014

Journées d’étude organisées par l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art en partenariat avec le musée de la Chasse et de la Nature

Au sein du genre pictural si délicat à définir en soi qu’est la nature morte, « l’animal » constitue un objet paradoxal qui semble fragiliser sa définition même, et, au-delà, celle des genres et de leurs hiérarchies. En effet, si la catégorie de « l’animal » peut être considérée comme un lieu commun permettant aux hommes de se distinguer entre toutes les espèces et de s’accorder une prééminence parmi les êtres vivants, il revient à la nature morte de contribuer à son élaboration tout en questionnant sa validité, celle du système classificatoire dans lequel il s’inscrit et de l’idéologie qui les fondent tout deux. Sous la triple forme de l’être vivant, du cadavre et de la viande, les figures animales perturbent l’ordonnancement des objets inanimés qui caractérise la nature morte. Vivant, l’animal détonne parmi l’amoncellement de matière inerte et rivalise avec la figure humaine dans sa capacité à raconter et émouvoir. Mort, il force la prise en compte du sens le plus littéral de la terminologie française, ouvrant le genre à la représentation triviale de la mort, en deçà des méditations du memento mori, notamment lorsqu’il s’associe à la chasse et à la dévoration qu’elle présage. Entier, la multiplicité de ses formes – loup, cerf, cygne, faisan, lapin, mouton, serpent, poisson, homard, huître… – questionne le principe même de l’unité du règne animal. Ouvert, démembré et présenté en morceaux sur une quelconque table, il se métamorphose en viande et s’invite dans la culture alimentaire. Cette journée d’études examinera les perturbations spatiales, temporelles et critiques qu’introduit la présence animale dans la nature morte, opérant à ses limites et les troublant.

Comité d’Organisation
Raphaël Abrille, conservateur-adjoint, musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Claude d’Anthenaise, directeur du musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Frédérique Desbuissons, conseillère scientifique, INHA
Catherine Girard, doctorante à Harvard University, boursière Kress à l’INHA
Marie-Christine Prestat, conservateur-adjoint, musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Emmanuel Ussel, chargé d’études et de recherches, INHA

Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Hôtel de Mongelas
62, rue des Archives 75003 Paris
Métro Hôtel de Ville ou Rambuteau
Bus 29 ou 75

J E U D I ,  1 5  M A I  2 0 1 4

10.00  Accueil des participants
10.15  Introduction par Frédérique Desbuissons, conseillère scientifique, INHA
10.30  Ouverture par Claude d’Anthenaise, directeur du musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Enjeux de la figuration de la mort animale dans l’art contemporain

Variété et multiplicité
Modératrice : Anne Lafont, rédactrice en chef de Perspective. La revue de l’INHA
11.30  Étienne Jollet, professeur d’Histoire de l’art moderne, université Paris I Panthéon- Sorbonne, Aux limites de l’humanité : absence de l’homme, présences de l’animal dans les natures mortes des Temps modernes

12.30  Pause

Corps et morceaux
Modératrice : Catherine Girard, INHA
14.30  Raphaël Abrille, conservateur-adjoint, musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Trophées de chasse peints en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles
15.30  Valérie Boudier, maître de conférences en Histoire de l’art moderne, université Lille III, et Anne-Elène Delavigne, ethnologue, chercheuse associée, UMR 7206 CNRS-MNHN Éco-anthropologie et ethnobiologie, Le motif de la tête animale comme trophée : perceptions spéculaire de la mort, rapport aux animaux

V E N D R E D I ,  1 6  M A I  2 0 1 4

Surfaces et intériorités
Modératrice : Daniela Gallo, professeure d’histoire de l’art moderne, université Pierre Mendès- France Grenoble 2
9.00  Tom Balfe, Visiting Lecturer, Courtauld Institute of Art, Londres et University of Warwick, Fake Fur: The Animal Body Between Pleasure and Violence
10.00  Sarah Cohen, professeur d’histoire de l’art, University at Albany, State University of New York, Ecocriticism as a critical strategy applied to animal still lives: Chardin
11.00  Pause
11.30  Catherine Girard, doctorante en histoire de l’art, Harvard University, boursière Kress, INHA, Refuge animal. Le devenir d’Anne Vallayer-Coster dans la nature morte

12.30  Pause

Portraits d’animaux
Modératrice : Frédérique Desbuissons
14.00  Emmanuelle Héran, conservateur en chef du patrimoine, chargée de mission au musée du Louvre, Derniers portraits d’animaux
15.00  Izabel Gass, doctorante en histoire de l’art, Yale University, Le Chat mort : Théodore Géricault’s subversion of the French Still Life Tradition
16.00  Pause
16.30  Johanne Lamoureux, professeur d’histoire de l’art contemporain, Université de Montréal, Le regard de la viande. Magritte entre les genres
17.30  Conclusion par Catherine Girard

As noted by Hélène Bremer, from the conference website:

Exploring Maria Sibylla Merian
Artis Library, University of Amsterdam, 26–28 May 2014

Banana (Musa × paradisiaca) with moth and larva of the bullseye moth (Automeris liberia); plate 12, M.S. Merian, 1719, Over de voortteeling en wonderbaerlyke veranderingen der Surinaemsche insecten (University of Amsterdam)

Artis Library (Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam) will host a three-day symposium titled Exploring Maria Sibylla Merian on May 26–28, 2014. The program will open on the evening of May 26 with a reception and presentation and continue the following day with panels of invited scholars who will discuss their research on Merian’s life and her work in both art and science. On the third day the discussion will focus on the challenges and future of research on Merian. The themes of the symposium will be Merian’s biography, her work in the context of early modern entomologists and artists, the biology/ecology in Merian’s work, and her influence on both art and science. This symposium also aims to be the starting point for the preliminary work on an international conference in 2017, the 300th anniversary of the death of Merian.

If you are interested in attending the symposium (the cost will be 50 Euros), please contact Florence Pieters at the email address below. Space is very limited and so we also ask that you let us know if you must cancel for any reason.

F.F.J.M.Pieters@uva.nl

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2 6  M A Y  2 0 1 4

Opening reception and presentation of parts of the Maria Sibylla Merian documentary film in progress. Filmmakers Jo Francis and John Fuegi will discuss their work in researching the film.

2 7 – 2 8  M A Y  20 1 4

Speakers will present 20-minute papers and time will be allotted for discussion. The order is not finalized, but capsule descriptions of the topics are below.

Presenting Merian, Kurt Wettengl
The talk will reflect on the Merian exhibition in Nürnberg 1967 and the exhibition in Frankfurt in 1997, touching on questions about the background of the exhibitions and the different intentions of exhibitions. This presentation will also reflect on the necessity of new investigations into Merian’s life and work.

Studying Insects before Merian: Johannes Goedaert en Johannes Swammerdam, Eric Jorink
Two Dutchmen, Johannes Goedaert (1617-1668) and Johannes Swammerdam (1637–1680) brought insects, considered as the ‘less esteemed of God’s creatures’, to the center of scientific and artistic attention. Basing themselves on philosophical and religious arguments, both argued that insects were among nature’s most intricate and ingenious creatures, showing the Creator’s magnificence par excellence, and their books were largely responsible for arousing interest in collecting and studying insects.

From Lay Expert to Fabulist: Merian’s scientific reputation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Brian Ogilvie
Maria Sibylla Merian’s engraved works on insects were widely circulated in the eighteenth century and were used and cited favorably by leading naturalists, but in the 19th century, her mistakes were often cited as grounds for rejecting her authority entirely. This paper will examine how this shift in naturalists’ assessment of Merian is related to changes in European society and in the organization and practice of entomology.

Merian’s holistic view of the tiny, Katharina Schmidt-Loske
Merian developed a unique style of drawing insects and their development stages and is famous for depicting the caterpillars’ food plants. Her perspective, details of the insects’ structure, and documentation of parasitic cycles characterize her work. This presentation will compare Merian’s still life studies, her ‘Studienbuch’, caterpillar book and entomological watercolours with those of Johannes Goedaert, Wenceslaus Hollar, Herman and his son Anton Henstenburgh, and Johannes Bronckhorst.

The Ecology of the Raupen books, Kay Etheridge
Merian’s Raupen (caterpillar) books contain a wealth of insightful observations on interactions among the species portrayed – the very foundation of the study of ecology. This presentation will focus on her study of factors central to ecological science, including her descriptions of environmental effects on insect development and abundance, and her observations on insect food choice and feeding behavior.

Challenges in transcribing Merian’s correspondence, Florence F.J.M. Pieters
This presentation is linked to that of Brigitte Wirth, who discovered a major transcription error in a letter written by M.S. Merian in 1711. Brigitte’s correction throws new light on the coloring procedures in Merian’s atelier. Furthermore, the letter helps to clarify price differences between several types of hand-colored copies of her books.

Maria Sibylla Merian, Baltasar Scheid and Richard Bradley: Some remarks on their letters and on the struggle with incorrect transcriptions and translations, Brigitte Wirth
In several letters the Amsterdam trader Baltasar Scheid (circa 1660–1724 ) wrote to J.G. Volkamer about Merian’s Metamorphosis, describing its development in a few words from the early beginning to the end. With the details given in these letters it is possible to specify the time of production of this book. The English botanist Richard Bradley, who visited Merian in 1714, mentioned original drawings and hand-colored books he saw in her house in his correspondence with James Petiver. The presentation will also discuss how comparison of transcriptions and translations of Merian’s letters revealed differences in meaning that should be corrected.

The printing history of Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, Leslie Overstreet
In 1705 Merian published her classic work Surinam work in two languages and with plates in four modes: uncolored on paper, hand-colored on paper, and hand-colored counter-proofs on either paper or vellum. Through the 18th century, five further ‘editions’ were produced, again in several languages both uncolored and colored. This presentation will demonstrate how surviving copies provide evidence of significant divergence of later editions from the original coloring, raising questions about the scientific reliability of those versions.

Contemporary clients for Merian’s colored copies, Truusje Goedings
Merian advertised and sold both colored and uncolored copies of her heavily illustrated books. Hand-colored books were highly profitable and must have been a major source of income for Merian. This paper will examine some of her contemporary clients for these rather expensive materials, their interests, and what they bought.

Portfolio Wiesbaden, Joos van de Plas
This contemporary artist will address her research in which she investigated the alleged link between specimens in the Wiesbaden Gerning Collection and Merian’s work. Van de Plas visually compared the dried insects in the Gerning Collection with the life-size depictions in Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium; she verified her findings using computer comparisons and by additional comparisons with specimens in other 17th- and 18th-century collections. Van de Plas also will relate how her decade-long investigation profoundly influenced her own art.

Speaker information is available here»

From The Seminar on Collecting and Display:

The Collector and His Circle
Institute of Historical Research and The Wallace Collection, London, 1–2 July 2014

This two-day workshop presents new research in the area of collecting and art markets in the early modern era (1700–1900). Speakers examine the mutual interests of collectors and art patrons; the client relationships between dealers and collectors; the roles of advisers, museum curators and critics; and the importance of art publications.

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T U E S D A Y ,  1  J U L Y  2 0 1 4
Institute of Historical Research

10.00  Registration and coffee

10.25  Welcome from Adriana Turpin, IESA/University of Warwick

10.30  The Early 18th Century

• Charles Avery, Historian of Sculpture and Independent Fine Art Consultant, ‘The sculptor Soldani and the marketing of Baldinucci’s collection of paintings’
• Christophe Guillouet, PhD candidate, Université Paris IV Sorbonne, ‘Genre painting in the circles of Parisian collectors’
• Franny Brock, PhD candidate, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, ‘‘‘Chez Monsieur Huquier’’: the role of Gabriel Huquier’s collection in interactions among artists, dealers, and collectors’

12.00  The Role of the Print Market

• Donato Esposito, independent scholar, Birmingham, ‘Charles Rogers (1711–1784) and his circle’
• Lucy Peltz, Curator, 18th Century Collections, National Portrait Gallery, London,  ‘‘‘Brother Chalcographimanians’’: extra-illustration, the Sutherland Clarendon and the print market c. 1790–1840’

13.00  Lunch

14.15  The Collector and His Advisors in the Early 19th Century

• Sarah Bakkali, PhD candidate, Université Paris X Nanterre, ‘John Trumbull’s “speculative” adventure: circles of collecting between Paris and London during the French Revolution’
• Rufus Bird, Deputy Surveyor of The Queen’s Works of Art, The Royal Collections Trust, ‘The Prince and the pâtissier: François Benois’ acquisitions in Paris for the Prince Regent’
• Susanna Avery-Quash, Curator (History of Collecting), National Gallery, London, ‘John Julius Angerstein: an 18th-century London financier and his circle of art advisers’
• Rebecca Lyons, Christie’s Education, London, and PhD candidate, University of Cambridge: ‘Connoisseurship and commerce: the relationship between the Prince Regent and the 3rd Marquess of Hertford’

16.15  Coffee

16.45  Late 19th-Century Collecting

• Dora Thornton, Curator of the Waddesdon Bequest and Curator of Renaissance Europe, The British Museum, ‘Baron Ferdinand Rothschild and the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum: a new look’
• Elena Greer, National Gallery, London, ‘Sir Frederic Burton and his Trustees: the politics of collecting for the nation in the late nineteenth century’.

18.00  Reception

W E D N E S D A Y ,  2  J U L Y  2 0 1 4
The Wallace Collection

9.30  Registration and coffee

9.55  Welcome from Christoph Vogtherr, Director, The Wallace Collection

10.00  Jeremy Warren, Collections and Academic Director, The Wallace Collection, ‘Patrons and collectors: new acquisitions for the history of collecting at the Wallace Collection’

10.30  Curators, Antiquarians and Archaeologists

• Judy Rudoe, Curator of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Collections, The British Museum, ‘The role of a remarkable curator: letters from Justus Brinckmann to Charles Hercules Read’
• Elizabeth Norton, Collaborative Doctoral Award Student, The University of Southampton and The British Museum, ‘Polished axes: viewing networks behind the construction of prehistory at the British Museum’
• Francesca de Tomasi, PhD candidate, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, ‘The archeologia mondana and its protagonists’
• Ulf  R. Hansson, Research Fellow, Department of Classics, The University of Texas at Austin, ‘Adolf Furtwängler and the culture of professional and amateur collecting in Munich around the turn of the century 1900’

12.30  Lunch and opportunity to see a display of new acquisitions for the history of collecting at the Wallace Collection

14.00  Artists and Collectors

•  Annalea Tunesi, PhD candidate, University of Leeds, ‘Stefano Bardini and Riccardo Nobili’
• Patricia de Montfort, Lecturer in History of Art, University of Glasgow, ‘Collecting women’s works: Louise Jopling, the Rothschilds and their circle’
• Annie Pfiefer, PhD candidate, Department of Comparative Literature, Yale University, “‘The American Invasion”: Henry James and the collecting of Europe’

15.30  Coffee

16.00  Keynote address: Frank Herrmann, independent scholar and author of The English as Collectors, ‘Lady Charlotte Schreiber: a truly remarkable woman’

16.30  Round table and concluding remarks

Left: Sir Godfrey Kneller, Queen Caroline of Ansbach, when Princess of Wales (detail), 1716; center: Jean-Baptiste van Loo, Augusta, Princess of Wales (detail), 1742; right: Thomas Gainsborough, Queen Charlotte (detail), ca. 1781; all: Royal Collection/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014.

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From the symposium flyer:

Enlightened Princesses: Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte & the Shaping of the Modern World
Hampton Court Palace, London, 7–9 July 2014

This three-day international symposium, taking place at Hampton Court Palace and associated sites, brings together eminent academicians and museum scholars to examine the roles played by Queen Caroline of Ansbach; Augusta, Princess of Wales; and Queen Charlotte in the promotion of the arts and sciences in eighteenth-century Britain. The themes that will be addressed are pertinent to exhibitions scheduled to open in 2017 at the YCBA and in London. The princesses’ individual and collective interests in art, botany and gardens, natural philosophy and medicine, and the education of their children will be explored in relation to a dramatically changing social, political, and technological milieu, as will their roles in the encouragement of the British Enlightenment. The symposium is timed to take advantage of the period when various London institutions will be commemorating the anniversary of the Hanoverian Succession and aims to contribute in a major way to the general public discourse around that event.

The program includes two full days of lectures, themed panels, and special tours and events, followed by a day devoted to tours of two sites important in the lives of these royal women: Kew Palace and its gardens, and Kensington Palace. The fee for attending the conference is £100. Reductions are available for a limited number of students on application to the conference organizer. To register, visit the HRP website. Questions may be addressed to the conference organizer at ycba.research@yale.edu.

Co-organized by the Yale Center for British Art, Historic Royal Palaces, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London

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From the provisional schedule:

M O N D A Y ,  7  J U L Y  2 0 1 4

9:00  Arrival and coffee

9:30  Introduction
Amy Meyers, Yale Center for British Art
John Barnes, Historic Royal Palaces

9:45  Joanna Marschner, Historic Royal Palaces, Three German Princesses: Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte, and Cultural Politics at the English Court in the Eighteenth Century

10:30  Break

10:45  Session 1: The Princesses and Their World
Chair: Amanda Vickery, Queen Mary, University of London
• Andrew Thompson, University of Cambridge, The Hanoverians: Crafting a New Dynasty
• Stephen Taylor, Durham University, Court Politics and Religion
• Berta Joncus, Goldsmiths, University of London, The Court, Music and Theatre
• Rosemary Harden, Fashion Museum, Bath, Dressing the Hanoverian Court

13:00 Lunch

14:00  Session 2: The Princesses’ Gardens and Architectural Projects
Chair: Michael Snodin, Strawberry Hill Trust
• Mark Laird, Harvard University, The Princesses’ Collecting and Display of Exotic Flora and Fauna
• Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, landscape historian, Royal Gardens: The Role of the Princesses
• Wolf Burchard, Royal Collection Trust, The Palaces of the Hanoverian Consorts
• Lee Prosser, Historic Royal Palaces, Kew and its Built Heritage

16:00  Tea

16:30  Board buses for London/Queen’s Gallery

18:00 Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, Tour of the Queen’s Gallery exhibition The First Georgians; Art and Monarchy 1714–1760

T U E S D A Y ,  8  J U L Y  2 0 1 4

9:00  Arrival and coffee

9:30  Clarissa Campbell Orr, Anglia Ruskin University, The Hanoverian Court and Europe

10:15  Break

10:30  Session 3: The Princesses’ Art and Other Collections
Chair: Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures
• Cassandra Albinson, Yale Center for British Art, Creating the Royal Image: Royal Princesses and Portraiture
• Cynthia Roman, Lewis Walpole Library, The Princesses in Print: Character and Caricature
Malcolm Baker, University of California, Riverside, Royal Sculpture Commissions
• John Goldfinch, British Library and Emma Jay, The National Archives, The Princesses and their Books
• Jane Roberts, formerly Librarian, Windsor Castle, Royal Collection Trust, The Princesses as Artists

13:00 Lunch

14:00  Session 4: Natural Philosophy and Medicine
Chair: Lucy Worsley, Historic Royal Palaces
• Kim Sloan, British Museum, The Role of the Court in the English Enlightenment
• Patricia Fara, Clare College, Cambridge, Royal Women and Natural Philosophy
• Craig Ashley Hanson, Calvin College, Royal Patronage and Medical Practices
• 4th Speaker TBD

16:00 Tea

17:00 Historic Royal Palaces Curators, Tour of the Queen’s Apartments, Hampton Court Palace

18:00 Drinks, reception, and concert with music from the Hanoverian Court

W E D N E S D A Y ,  9  J U L Y  2 0 1 4

9:00  Meet at speakers’ hotel for tours

10:00  Kensington Palace, Historic Royal Palaces Curators, Tour of King’s Apartments

12:00  Kew, Historic Royal Palaces Curators, Tour of Kew Palace and the Royal Kitchens

14:00  Close of symposium

From the Henry Moore Institute:

The Sculpture of the Écorché
Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, 7 June 2014

Thomas Mewburn Crook ‘Stage 9a: Anatomical Studies of the Human Figure from the Flat’ 1893 Pencil, ink and watercolour on paper Leeds Museums & Galleries (Henry Moore Institute Archive)

This one-day conference takes the écorché as its subject, reconsidering the many ways that models of the flayed figure have been understood from the sixteenth century to the present day. Across seven papers, the conference addresses the écorché variously as a teaching object for the education of sculptors, as a scientific model crucial to the understanding of anatomy, as a sculptural process and as a sculptural object in its own right.

The écorché has frequently operated across disciplinary boundaries and registers of respectability. Makers of wax écorchés in the eighteenth century, such as the Florentine Clemente Susini (1754–1814), were highly acclaimed during their lifetimes, with their work sought by prestigious collectors. By the nineteenth century, however, wax had come to be seen as a merely preparatory, or even a disreputable, medium for sculpture with its capacity for forensic detail and mimetic reproduction of bone, muscle and skin operating against the prevailing neoclassical tendency towards ideal form. As a result of this change in taste, the écorché in plaster of Paris became the primary teaching object for anatomical studies in European academies and schools of art into the twentieth century.

The conference will be chaired by Professor Fay Brauer (University of East London/University of New South Wales College of Fine Arts), Dr Nina Kane (University of Huddersfield) and Dr Rebecca Wade (Henry Moore Institute). Advanced booking is required for this event. Book here.

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S A T U R D A Y ,  7  J U N E  2 0 1 4

10.30  Registration

11.00  Introduction

11.10  Panel 1: Cigoli and Ceroplastics: Wax Écorché in Seventeenth-Century Italy
• Roberta Ballestriero (Open University), Under the Wax Skin: Representation of the Écorché in the Art of
Ceroplastics
• Lisa Bourla (University of Pennsylvania), Cigoli’s Écorché, Giambologna’s Studio and the ‘Poe Paradox’

12.20  Lunch

1.30  Panel 2: Dissection as Sculptural Practice: Criminality, Pathology, and the Academy
• Meredith Gamer (Yale University), ‘A necessary inhumanity’: William Hunter’s Criminal Écorchés
• Naomi Slipp (Boston University), Thomas Eakins and the Écorché: Understanding the Human Body in Three
Dimensions
• Natasha Ruiz-Gómez (University of Essex), In Sickness and in Health: Doctor Paul Richer’s Écorché at the École
des Beaux-Arts

3.30  Tea

4.00  Panel 3: Écorché, Modernism, and the Sculptural Canon
• Elena Dumitrescu (National University of Arts, Bucharest), The Écorché by Brancusi and Gerota: An Artwork Created at the School of Fine Arts of Bucharest
• Stefan Grohé (University of Cologne), An Anatomy of Sculpture: The ‘Ecorche, dit de Michel-Ange’ and its Transformations in Modern Art

5.20  Closing remarks

All three afternoons look interesting; I include only Amy Torbert’s talk here only because most of the sessions address the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. -CH

Smithsonian American Art Museum’s 2014 Fellows Lectures
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.,  7–9 May 2014

The Fellowship Program at the Smithsonian American Art Museum cordially invites you to attend three afternoons of lectures in American art delivered by Smithsonian art history research fellows. The talks will be held in the museum’s McEvoy Auditorium, located at 8th and G Streets NW, Washington, D.C. This event is open to the public and no reservations are required. For further information, please contact Amelia Goerlitz at (202) 633-8353 or email AmericanArtFellowships@si.edu.

Thursday, 8 May, 2:00
Amy Torbert, Predoctoral Fellow (National Portrait Gallery), University of Delaware
“Robert Sayer’s Empire: The Geographies of Prints, 1770–1800”

A full list of speakers is available here»

While I’m not sure how much eighteenth-century content to expect from the papers, the issues of periodization and the implications of how we connect (or disconnect) historical periods strike me as crucial eighteenth-century problems with present-day stakes for exploring a global eighteenth century. -CH

From Harvard’s Mahindra Humanities Center:

The Disciplined Past: Critical Reflections on the Study of the Middle East
Mahindra Humanities Center, Harvard University, 4–5 April 2014

Registration due by 3 April 2014

Organized by Mirjam Brusius

The symposium aims to reassess the study and the representation of the Middle East in scholarship and museums today. Studying the Middle East in the current Western academic and museological discourse entails encountering a history of dichotomies and contradictions. A manifest example, both physically and metaphorically, is provided by a visit to some art museums in the Western world: while, for example, art from ancient Mesopotamia—which occupied the same space as much of modern day Iraq, Syria and Iran—is often presented in direct proximity to objects deeply embedded in the Western canon, such as Classical Greek sculpture, objects from the very same region that derive from after the coming of Islam are often separated from their more ancient geographical counterparts, for instance in Islamic Art departments.

The epistemological consequence has been denounced before: this type of taxonomy creates a narrative of the Middle East that suggests a period of decline from the seventh century A.D. onwards, while prevailing European narratives link their historical present to mythical beginnings in the Middle East via the notions of a classical Graeco-Roman Antiquity. These canonical ideas have been shaped in Western European readings and injected into notions of progress and decline, into the organization of historical time, and scholarly disciplines themselves. They do so with restricted notions of key concepts in history of science, such as ‘origin’ and ‘discovery’, which only account for a single and teleological narrative rather than for dynamic flows of exchange between spaces and a plurality of accounts. What counts as canonical in Western traditions and what is subject to alienation is thus a temporal rather than geographical dichotomy.

The recent restructuring of some museum spaces reflects discomfort with this status quo, though not always in favour of a more even and unifying approach. The ‘ethnologization’ of Islam still pushes the Middle East to the margins, while the ‘religionization’ of the Middle East often does the same in academic contexts. Often they also run the risk of presenting an alternative orientalist trope: that of the ‘eternal, unchanging East’. Even though critical voices have critiqued these legacies of formerly colonial structures in recent decades, the ancient Near East and the modern Middle East remain neatly separated from another. Archaeology as a mediating discipline connecting the present with the past is both a perpetrator and victim of this discourse but its role in this discourse has not yet been fully explored in spite (or because) of its political power.

Finally, the naming of university departments throughout the world tells a story of its own: How religious does the Middle East have to be in order to be studied as the “science of Islam” (Islamwissenschaft)? How universal to be simply “oriental”? How ancient does the Near East have to be in order to be “Near”? How ancient Western Asia in order to be “Western”? How modern the Middle East, in order to be in the “Middle”? How much in the middle does the East have to be in order to be “modern”? The symposium seeks to bring historians of the modern Middle East, scholars of the ancient Near East, Egypt and Western Asia, archaeologists, anthropologists, historians of science and of archaeology, as well as historians of Islamic and Western art in dialogue with one another to assess the current states of affair.

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F R I D A Y ,  4  A P R I L  2 0 1 4

2.00  Introduction, Mirjam Brusius (Harvard University)

2.30  Heritage and Museums
• Alexander Nagel (Smithonian Institution): The Order of Things According to Washington DC: Reading Middle Eastern Materials in the Smithsonian Institution
• Ian Straughn (Brown University): On Heritage Crusades and other Cultural Rescue Missions in the Middle East
• Melania Savino (KHI Florenz): Ancient Near Eastern Antiquities in the Italian Museums: Travels, Collections, Displays

4.30  In discussion: Section participants with Irene Winter (commentator, Harvard University) and Eleanor Robson (University College London)

S A T U R D A Y ,  5  A P R I L  2 0 1 4

9.00  Ruptures and Turning Points
• Avinoam Shalem (Columbia University): Troubling Monochronic Time: Revisiting the Myth of the ‘Origin’ of Islamic art
• Katharine Park (Harvard University): Teaching and Writing across Regional Boundaries: A History of Arabic and Latin Science

10.00  Coffee break

10.30  In discussion: Section participants with Roy Mottahedeh and Chad Kia (Harvard University)

12.00  Lunch break

1.00  Empire and Knowledge
• Erin Hyde Nolan (Boston University): Ottomans Abroad: The Translation and Circulation of Nineteenth-Century Portrait Photography from Istanbul to Europe and the United States
• Daniela Helbig (University of Sydney): Whose Wonderland? Aviation and Aerial Archaeology in Syria and Lebanon under the French Mandate

2.00  In discussion: Section participants with Marwa Elshakry (commentator, Columbia University) and Adam Mestyan (Harvard University).

Reminder that this webinar event starts tomorrow (Friday) at 11:15am (Eastern Daylight Time) . . .

In Circulation: John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West in England, France, and America
The Paul Mellon Centre, London, 28 March 2014

This symposium and webinar explores aspects of the work and careers of the American-born artists Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley, focusing in particular on the ways in which they engaged with the exhibition and print cultures of their day, particularly in Britain, but also in France and America. The program relates to the international loan exhibition American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World, which was on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), from October 6, 2013 through January 20, 2014.

The Yale Center for British Art is live streaming this daylong conference, which is also available for free on the MFAH website, shortly before the program begins. Join the conversation on Twitter using the handle @PaulMellonCentr. Hosted in London by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the symposium is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.

More information, including the schedule (according to GMT), is available here»

From The East India Company at Home project:

Objects, Families, Homes: British Material Cultures in Global Contexts
University College London, 11–12 July 2014

Since 2011, The East India Company at Home project has focused on country houses—and the families and objects that inhabited them—to explore how British material culture developed in a global context during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The project’s goals have been twofold. First, we have sought to illuminate the broad-ranging ways in which the activities of the English East India Company shaped elite material cultures in Britain—and by doing so, shaped British identities in the Georgian and Victorian periods, and beyond. Second, we have sought to develop new ways of connecting diverse communities of historical researchers (archivists, curators, family historians, freelance historians, local historians, stately home volunteers and university-based historians) and in so doing to weave otherwise dispersed studies into a transnational material narrative. At the same time, by disseminating research findings through our website we have made them available on an open-access basis. The conference plans to encourage a range of speakers to present on these themes and discuss their wider significance.

Confirmed keynote speakers include Deborah Cohen, Professor of Modern British and European History at Northwestern University and author of Household Gods: The British and their Possessions (2006) and Family Secrets (2013), in dialogue with Marietta Crichton-Stuart, a descendant of the Marquess of Bute, who has researched how Margaret Bruce designed and furnished Falkland House in Fife in the 1830s and 1840s.

Members of the public are warmly welcomed to attend this event. Registration is accessible (until 30 June 2014) via the UCL online store.

The conference will take place in the Roberts Building on the Bloomsbury Campus of  University College London. A map giving directions to the Roberts Building can be found here. The building stands opposite Waterstones, Gower Street. The Roberts Building is a 5- to 10-minute walk from various underground stations including, Goodge Street, Euston, Euston Square, Russell Square and Tottenham Court Road.

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From the conference programme:

F R I D A Y ,  1 1  J U L Y  2 0 1 4

9.30  Registration

10.00  Welcome Remarks from Margot Finn, Principal Investigator, The East India Company at Home, 1757–1857

10.30  Session 1

Strand A: China and the ‘Chinese’ Style in British Houses
• Alexandra Loske (University of Sussex), ‘Chinese Landscapes in yellow etched in gold and highly varnished’: The influence of exportware and print culture on colour and ornament in the Royal Pavilion, Brighton
• Emile de Bruijn (National Trust) and Helen Clifford (UCL/University of Warwick), Past, Present and Future: The Chinese Wallpaper Project
• Clare Taylor (The Open University), Trading wallpaper: India paper and prints in the eighteenth-century home

Strand B: Buildings and Networks, Chair: Ellen Filor (UCL)
• Joanna Frew (University of Essex), ‘Inform me how I may become a useful member of the community at large’: Looking beyond the family
• Rosie Dias (University of Warwick), The British Country House in Colonial India
• Sylvia Shorto (American University, Beirut), Robert Smith’s ‘Truly Fair Palaces’ in India and in Europe

12.00  Lunch

13.00 Session 2

Strand A: Wales, Chair: Kate Smith (UCL)
• Diane James (University of Warwick), Welsh gardens
• Lowri Ann Rees (Bangor University), The nabob returned: the infiltration of East India Company men into Welsh landed society, c.1760–1840
• Joanna de Groot (University of York), Movement and materiality: traces of the transnational career of Harford Jones Brydges (1764–1847)

Strand B: Gender and Collecting, Chair: Kate Hill (University of Lincoln)
• Holly Shaffer (Yale), Publishing Indian Art between Suffolk and the Deccan
• Rosemary Raza (Independent scholar), Bringing India home: Early nineteenth-century British women and the understanding of India
• Catherine Eagleton (British Library), Collecting Asia at 32 Soho Square: Sarah Sophia Banks and her coins, tokens and medals

14.30  Coffee and tea

15.00  Session 3

Strand A: London Houses, Chair: Spike Sweeting (University of Warwick)
• David Veevers (University of Kent), The matriarchy of 45 Berkeley Square: gender, identity and imperial expansion in the late eighteenth century
• Harriet Richardson and Peter Guillery (Survey of London, UCL), At home in Cavendish Square and Harley Street: East India Company impact on eighteenth-century Marylebone
• George McGilvary ( Independent scholar), The Sulivans of India House

Strand B: Portraying India, Chair: Natasha Eaton (UCL)
• Viccy Coltman (University of Edinburgh), Portraiture and Empire: George Chinnery’s Gilbert Elliot, 1st Earl of Minto, 1812–13
• Jennifer van Schoor (Birkbeck), The Indian folds at Harewood House
• Bharti Parmar (Independent scholar and artist), Widow’s Weeds: Reflections on Black

16.30  Coffee and tea

17.00  Keynote Lecture
Deborah Cohen, Professor of Modern British and European History at Northwestern University and author of
Household Gods: The British and their Possessions (2006) and Family Secrets (2013) will be speaking in dialogue with Marietta Crichton-Stuart, a descendant of the Marquess of Bute, who has researched how Margaret Bruce designed and furnished Falkland House in Fife in the 1830s and 1840s.

18.30  Drinks reception

S A T U R D A Y ,  1 2  J U L Y  2 0 1 4

9.30  Session 1

Strand A: Loss and Looting, Chair: Meike Fellinger (University of Warwick)
• Lindsay Allen (KCL), Curious gifts of ancient substance
• Nigel Erskine (Australian National Maritime Museum), Passages to India: exploring Pacific pathways to Asia during Australia’s colonial period
• Rosie Llewellyn Jones (BACSA), Lost, stolen or strayed?: India artefacts in Britain
• Shaleen Wadhwana (India Photo Archive Foundation), Of Awadh, Oudh and Lucknow

Strand B: And so we go to Daylesford, Chair: Kevin Rogers
• Zirwat Chowdhury (Reed College), ‘Meanwhile’ at Daylesford…
• Elizabeth Lenckos (University of Chicago Graham School), ‘The House is fitted up with a degree of Taste & Magnificence seldom to be met with’: Daylesford, and the ‘nabobina’ Hastings’ ivory furniture collection
• Gillian Forrester (Yale Center for British Art), ‘Such a proof of Love and Duty’: Warren Hastings and the memorialization of India at Daylesford

11.00  Coffee and tea

11.30 Session 2

Strand A: Displaying Identity, Chair: Jane Hamlett (Royal Holloway, University of London)
• Deborah Sugg Ryan (Falmouth University), The elephant on the mantelpiece: the interwar suburban home and the detritus of empire
•  Britta Schilling (University of Cambridge), Grand designs: British homes in East Africa, 1850–1960
• Sarah Longair (British Museum), ‘The scene was brilliant and striking’: display and imperial identity in early colonial Zanzibar

Strand B: Daily Lives and Longings, Chair: Lucy Dow (UCL)
• Jean Sutton (Independent scholar), Distance, longing and return in the imperial family
•  Laura Humphreys (Queen Mark, University of London), World service: the foreign dimensions of domestic service in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century London
• Kate Smith (UCL), Imperial families: Women writing home in Georgian Britain

13.00  Lunch

14.00  Is the East India Company at home?
Presentations from Margot Finn, Helen Clifford, Kate Smith and Ellen Filor; followed by general discussion with panel and audience

16.00  Conference ends

Von Poussin bis Monet. Die Farben Frankreichs
Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, 1 April 2014

Mit Dr. Susanne Blöcker, Remagen; Dr. Eva Hausdorf, Bremen; Prof. Dr. Christian Michel, Lausanne; Prof. Dr. Beate Söntgen, Lüneburg; Dr. Christoph Vogtherr, London; Prof. Dr. Michael F. Zimmermann, Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

Rund 200 Jahre liegen zwischen dem Werk von Poussin und Monet. In dieser Zeit befreite sich die französische Malerei radikal von künstlerischen Regeln und Traditionen. Die gesellschaftlichen Umbrüche des 18. Jahrhunderts leiteten die Moderne ein. Die Veränderungen der französischen Gesellschaft vor und nach dem Epochenjahr 1789 wurden auch zum Motor der Revolutionierung der künstlerischen Mittel. Die Ausstellung Von Poussin bis Monet. Die Farben Frankreichs widmet sich der künstlerischen Befreiung der französischen Malerei von den Vorgaben des Akademismus und der Entwicklung zur Freilichtmalerei des Impressionismus. Die Ausstellung zeigt Werke aus der Sammlung der National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. Sie werden durch Gemälde aus der Sammlung Rau (UNICEF) in Remagen ergänzt. Tickets € 10,– (inkl. Kaffee und Empfang), ermäßigt für Bucerius Kunst Club Mitglieder € 8,– Freitickets für Studierende in begrenzter Anzahl (nur im Voraus an der Kasse im Bucerius Kunst Forum).

P R O G R A M M

10.00  Begrüßung, Ortrud Westheider, Bucerius Kunst Forum

10.15  “The collection of French painting in the National Gallery of Ireland,” Adrian LeHarivel, National Gallery of Ireland

11.00  “Vom Gelehrten zum Genie. Das Bild des Malers von Poussin bis Monet,” Eva Hausdorf, Kunsthalle Bremen

11.45  “Les combats de l’Académie royale de Peinture et de Sculpture pour un retour à la nature / Der Kampf der Königlichen Akademie für ein retour à la nature,” Christian Michel, Université de Lausanne

12.30  Mittagspause

14.00  “Die Fête galante im 18. Jahrhundert. Ein Raum für Innovation außerhalb der akademischen Gattungsdefinitionen,” Christoph Vogtherr, The Wallace Collection, London

14.45  “Revolution der Gefühle. Bürgerliche Ideale der Aufklärungszeit,” Susanne Blöcker, Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen

15.30  Kaffeepause

16.00  “Übertragungen. Emotion und Kommunikation bei Jean Siméon Chardin,” Beate Söntgen, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg

16.45  “Winkel der Schöpfung. Naturalismus, Impressionismus und der intime Blicke in die Weite,” Michael F. Zimmermann, Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

17.30  Empfang