Williamsburg Garden Symposium | Influence of Great English Gardens
From the conference website (scholarships are available, with an application deadline of 7 February). . . .
78th Annual Garden Symposium: Celebrating the Influence of Great English Gardens
Online and in-person, Colonial Williamsburg, 10–13 April 2025
When John Custis IV created his celebrated Williamsburg Garden, it was an English garden. Join us for the 2025 Garden Symposium celebrating the influence of great English gardens with keynote lectures by British garden historian and designer Todd Longstaffe-Gowan and Troy Scott Smith, head gardener at Sissinghurst, one of England’s most romantic and iconic landscapes. Todd Longstaffe-Gowan also joins in conversation with Will Rieley (historic landscape architect on such projects as Monticello, Poplar Forest, Carter’s Grove), Colonial Williamsburg’s executive director of archaeology Jack Gary, and the Margaret Beck Pritchard Curator of Maps & Prints Katie McKinney, to discuss the influence of imported prints on Virginia’s early gardens.
Marta McDowell (acclaimed garden author and avid gardener) explores “New Ideas from English Gardens and English Authors & Their Gardens,” and Brent Heath (naturalist, author, photographer, and award-winning horticulturalist) gives insight into “Bulbs as Companion Plants for Spring Flowering Bulbs.” From the Colonial Williamsburg Department of Landscape and Horticulture, senior manager Jon Lak expands upon colonial ecosystems and what we can learn from them, while horticulturalist Andrew Holland forays into how the Age of Exploration expanded science, gardening, and landscape design in England. Historic Trades master gardener Eve Otmar speaks to a fusion of three cultures that formed a new world.
In-person and virtual attendees have access to all lectures in the Hennage Auditorium, and in-person attendees can also choose from a variety of limited-capacity walking tours and workshops for a small additional fee.
Symposium | The Art of the Dolls’ House
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The Uppark dolls’ house from 1732, currently installed at the Huguenot Museum in Rochester. The Neo-Palladian house was a gift to ten-year-old Sarah Lethieullier from her father, who acquired it fully equipped from the Covent Garden auctioneer Christopher Cock. More information is available from Tessa Murdoch’s December 2023 Apollo article.
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Registration for the symposium is available at Eventbrite:
The Art of the Dolls’ House: The 49th Annual Furniture History Society Symposium
Online and in-person, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 22 March 2025
Led by Tessa Murdoch
An international roster of speakers will celebrate the earliest surviving European dolls’ houses preserved in The Netherlands and Nuremberg. That tradition developed in Britain where two beautifully furnished ‘baby’ houses treasured by Huguenot heiresses are today curated by the National Trust. The dolls’ house belonging to Petronella de la Court in Utrecht complemented her contemporary art collection. 300 years later, model maker Ben Taggart will speak about making models of historic houses. Architect-designed Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House has just celebrated its centenary whilst the installation of dolls’ houses at the Young V&A by Rachel Whiteread and the curatorial team have contributed to its celebratory position as the 2024 Art Fund Museum of the Year. The symposium will revisit these miniature homes and explore their legacy and creative inspiration as educational tools opening the eyes of successive generations through fascination with miniature worlds.
There will be an opportunity for delegates to visit the exhibition of Sarah Lethieullier’s 1730s dolls’ house at the Huguenot Museum, Rochester, Kent on Friday, 21 March 2025.
p r o g r a m m e
10.00 Registration
10.30 Welcome by Christopher Rowell (FHS Chairman)
10.35 Session 1 | The European Dolls’ House
Moderated by Christopher Rowell
• Revisiting the ‘Nuremberg Houses’: 17th-Century Miniature Households as Imperfect Windows into the Past — Heike Zech, (Deputy Director, Germanisches Museum, Nuremberg)
• At Home in the 17th Century: The Rijksmuseum Dolls’ Houses — Sara van Dijk (Curator of Textiles, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
• Petronella de La Court’s Dolls’ House in Utrecht (1670–1690): Registration, Research, and Re-Installation — Natalie Dubois (Curator of Applied Art and Design, Centraal Museum, Utrecht)
• Kinnaird Castle: A Miniature Mystery — Ben Taggart (model maker of historic properties)
12.45 Lunch — Study Sessions: Demonstration of miniature furniture making by Terence Facey and looking at silver toys with Kirstin Kennedy (curator, V&A Metalwork)
2.00 Session 2 | National Trust Dolls’ Houses
Moderated by Megan Wheeler (Assistant Curator, Furniture, National Trust)
• ‘Deceptively Spacious’: The Dolls’ House and Framing Significance and Story at Nostell — Simon McCormack (Property Curator, Nostell Priory, National Trust)
• The Lethieullier Family Dolls’ House at the Huguenot Museum — Tessa Murdoch
2.55 Break for tea
3.20 Session 3 | Displaying Dolls’ Houses
Moderated by Tessa Murdoch
• Fitted up with Perfect Fidelity’: Lutyens and Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House — Kathryn Jones (Senior Curator of Decorative Arts, Royal Collection Trust)
• Dolls’ Houses from the V&A — William Newton (Curator, Young V&A)
4.25 Closing remarks
Journée d’études | Les reflets de Pierrot
Though the first day at the Louvre is by invitation only, the second day at the DFK is open to the public:
Les reflets de Pierrot, de Watteau à Deburau et Prévert et jusqu’à aujourd’hui
Musée du Louvre and Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte, Paris, 21–22 January 2025
À l’occasion de l’exposition « Revoir Watteau. Pierrot dit le Gilles. Un comédien sans réplique » au musée du Louvre (du 16 octobre 2024 au 3 février 2025), dirigée par Guillaume Faroult et liée notamment à la restauration récente de la célèbre peinture attribuée à Antoine Watteau, Pierrot dit autrefois le Gilles, ces journées d’études sont organisées en collaboration par le département des Peintures du musée du Louvre et le Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art Paris, avec le soutien de l’Université de St. Andrews. Elles ont pour but d’analyser la riche histoire et les nombreuses représentations et réceptions de la figure de Pierrot dans les arts et la culture visuelle des XVIIIe au XXIe siècles. Chercheur·ses, universitaires, conservateur·rices et spécialistes de différentes disciplines ainsi que périodes sont réuni·es pour discuter de l’importance de Pierrot à partir du célèbre et énigmatique tableau du Louvre ainsi qu’en cernant le personnage visuel-théâtral-fictif dont la vogue fut considérable notamment à partir du XIXe siècle.
Pierrot était un personnage issu du répertoire de la Comédie-Italienne qui s’était fait une place sur la scène du théâtre forain, lorsqu’il retint l’attention d’Antoine Watteau au début du XVIIIe siècle. Une figure modeste, voire timide, mais récurrente dans les fêtes galantes du peintre, Pierrot est soudain représenté d’une manière monumentale sur le grand tableau du Louvre, créé probablement par Watteau dans des circonstances et pour des raisons qui restent obscures. Bien qu’aucune source de l’époque ne fasse mention de ce tableau ambitieux et singulier, il est néanmoins incontestable qu’il a participé à la fixation de la représentation de Pierrot au XVIIIe siècle dans son blanc costume et sa pose caractéristique.
L’histoire du tableau, apparu au début du XIXe siècle dans la collection de Dominique Vivant Denon, est liée à la renaissance de Pierrot en tant que personnage vedette des spectacles parisiens, récurrent tant dans d’innombrables œuvres d’art (peintures, gravures, photographies, etc.) que dans l’imaginaire littéraire ainsi que sur la scène théâtrale. Depuis le théâtre de pantomime du Paris romantique, où le personnage était incarné par le célèbre mime Jean-Gaspard Deburau, il est devenu une figure clé des spectacles « fin de siècle ». Cette mythologie vivante a reçu un hommage ultime dans le chef-d’œuvre du cinéma de l’Occupation, Les Enfants du Paradis (Marcel Carné/Jacques Prévert), sorti après la Libération de Paris. Naïf ridicule, mélancolique tuberculeux, objet de railleries ou rusé farceur — tout au long de cette histoire, l’identité de Pierrot réside autant dans sa singularité que dans sa multiplicité, et elle continue à nourrir l’imagination artistique et populaire jusqu’à l’époque contemporaine.
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Musée du Louvre — Session en comité restreint (sur invitation)
9.15 Accueil
10.00 Visite de l’exposition Revoir Watteau. Pierrot dit le Gilles Un comédien sans réplique
14.00 Accueil par Sébastien Allard (musée du Louvre)
14.20 Session 1
Modération Marie-Catherine Sahut (musée du Louvre)
• Pierrot : figure de l’intériorité ? — Aaron Wile (National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)
• À l’ombre de Pierrot, Crispin selon Watteau et ses contemporains — Guillaume Faroult (musée du Louvre)
• Pierrot et Oudry : une histoire d’identité — Hélène Meyer (musée du Louvre)
16.20 Session 2
Modération Jörg Ebeling (DFK Paris)
• « La joie du theâtre » : Pierrot dans l’œuvre de Nicolas Lancret — Axel Moulinier (Paris)
• Watteau on the Wall: The Figure of Gilles in Mural Decorations — Lars Zieke (Université d’Iéna)
• De la toile à la scène : variations pierrotiques du XIXe siècle à nos jours — Ariane Martinez (Université de Lille)
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Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art (DFK Paris) — Session ouverte au public (dans la limite des places disponibles)
9.30 Accueil et introduction par Peter Geimer et Elisabeth Fritz (DFK Paris)
10.00 Session 3
Modération Guillaume Faroult (musée du Louvre)
• Pierrot entre deux temps : survivance, disposition, vulnérabilité, de Watteau à Édouard Manet — Marika Takanishi Knowles (University of St Andrews)
• Un petit marchand de tableaux, nommé Meunier. Commerce, brocante et œuvres d’art de la fin de l’Ancien régime au début du XIXe siècle — Oriane Lavit (musée du Louvre)
11.10 Pause café
11.30 Session 4
Modération Markus A. Castor (DFK Paris)
• Deburau Pierrot : initiateur de regards sur le Pierrot, dit Gilles de Watteau — Edward Nye (Université d’Oxford)
• Writing Watteau, Repainting Pierrot in 19th-Century Paris — Judy Sund (CUNY Emerita, New York)
12.40 Pause déjeuner
14.00 Session 5
Modération Yuriko Jackall (Detroit Institute of the Arts)
• Incarner la mélancolie : autour du Pierrot noir (1907) de Karel Myslbek — Petra Kolárová (Galerie Nationale de Prague)
• James Ensor. Pierrot au théâtre des masques — Xavier Tricot (historien d’art et commissaire des expositions à la Maison James Ensor, Ostende)
• « Le pitre sans défense ». Un écrivain regarde le Gilles (Hildesheimer/Watteau) — Peter Geimer (DFK Paris)
15.40 Pause café
16.00 Session 6
Modération Marika Takanishi Knowles (University of St Andrews)
• À la recherche du Pierrot des Enfants du paradis (1945) de Carné et Prévert — Carole Aurouet (Université Gustave-Eiffel, Champs-sur-Marne)
• Pierrot vivant. Quelques réinterprétations du motif dans l’art contemporain — Sophie Eloy (musée de l’Orangerie) et François Michaud (Fondation Louis Vuitton)
• Pierrot « to go » ? Réflexions sur une figure revenante entre introspection et projection — Elisabeth Fritz (DFK Paris)
Conference | Hand-Colouring of Natural History Illustrations, 1600–1850
From ArtHist.net:
The Hand-Colouring of Natural History Illustrations in Europe, 1600–1850
Online and in-person, University of Konstanz, 26–27 February 2025
Organized by Joyce Dixon and Giulia Simonini
This hybrid workshop will explore from different perspectives how and for what purposes printed illustrations of natural history books were hand-coloured. A special focus of the workshop will be the activities and practices of hand-colourers known also as ‘colourists’, ‘afzetters’ (in Dutch) and ‘Illuministen’ (in German), which remain until today understudied. To register, please email lea.stengel@tu-berlin.de.
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9.00 Registration
9.30 Introduction / Round table
10.15 Coffee break
10.30 Panel 1 | Colourists
• Stefanie Jovanovic-Kruspel, Leah Karas, Mario Dominik Riedl (Naturhistorisches Museum Vienna) — The Role of Child Labour in Natural History Illustration
• Joyce Dixon (Independent) — ‘A School of Females’: Hand-Colourers in the Edinburgh Studio of William Home Lizars
• Luc Menapace (Bibliothèque Nationale de France) — The Hand-Colouring of Natural History Illustrations in Paris in the First Half of the 19th Century
12.45 Lunch
13.30 Panel 2 | Capturing Changeable Colours
• Cynthia Kok (Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Rijksmuseum) —Investigating Iridescence: Mother-of-Pearl in Early Modern Natural Illustrations
• Christine Kleiter (Deutsches Studienzentrum Venice) — How to Represent Iridescent Feathers in Hand-Coloured Prints? Colouring Practices in Pierre Belon’s L’Histoire de la nature des oyseaux (1555)
• Paul Martin (University of Bristol) — Accuracy and Consistency in Colouring of Antiquarian Ichthyology Engravings
15.30 Coffee break
15.45 Panel 3 | Colours in Botanical Illustrations
• Jessie Wei-Hsuan Chen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) — Which Color Comes First? Hand-Colouring Gradations on Plants in the 16th and 17th Centuries
• Magdalena Grenda-Kurmanow (Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw) —Ultimate Documentation: Between a Plant Illustration and a Botanical Specimen
• Eszter Csillag (HKBU Jao Tsung I Academy of Sinology) — Michael Boym’s Hand-Coloured Images in Flora sinensis (Vienna, 1656)
19.30 Dinner
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9.00 Keynote Address
• Alexandra Loske (Curator of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton) — Botanical Illustrator, Flower Painter, and Colour Theorist: Mary Gartside’s Path from the Figurative to the Abstract in Her Early 19th-Century Illustrated Books
10.00 Coffee break
10.15 Panel 4 | Working Processes
• Katarzyna Pekacka-Falkowska (Poznan University of Medical Sciences) — The Colours of Nature in Early 18th-Century Danzig/Gdańsk: Johann Philipp Breyne, Jacob Theodor Klein, and the Hand-Coloured Illustrations
• Cam Sharp Jones (British Library) — Colouring Seba’s Thesaurus
• Giulia Simonini (Technische Universität Berlin) — The Master Plates for August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof’s Insecten-Belustigung: A Family Enterprise
12.15 Lunch
13.00 Closing remarks and discussion
Exhibition | Keeping Time: Clocks by Boulle
Attributed to André-Charles Boulle, movement by Claude Martinot, Mantel clock with Father Time (detail), ca. 1726
(London: The Wallace Collection)
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From the press release for the exhibition (and note the study day on January 31) . . .
Keeping Time: Clocks by Boulle
The Wallace Collection, London, 27 November 2024 — 2 March 2025
Curated by Alexander Collins
For the first time, the Wallace Collection has brought together its clocks by André-Charles Boulle (1642–1732), one of history’s greatest designers and cabinetmakers, in a display that explores the art and science of timekeeping. Five exceptional timepieces tell the story of how Boulle took advantage of scientific discoveries to create unique clock designs, whose influence spread throughout the world and across the centuries.
Attributed to André-Charles Boulle, movement by Claude Martinot, Mantel clock with Father Time, ca. 1726 (The Wallace Collection).
As the most famous cabinetmaker working for the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV (1638–1715), Boulle would eventually give his name to the specific style that signified the glittering spectacle of the Baroque—elaborate veneer designs incorporating turtleshell, brass, and other materials. Alongside his work as a royal furniture maker, Boulle also turned his attention to the clock, the accuracy of which had recently been revolutionised through the invention of the pendulum by Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) in 1656. As these sweeping weights called for larger clock cases, Boulle saw the opportunity to create bold and sumptuous designs.
Due to his position at court, Boulle was exempted from strict guild regulations, allowing him to work with great creative freedom. This artistic liberty was incredibly important, as the clocks not only had to demonstrate the wealth of their owners through the most luxurious materials available, but also had to show how intellectual they were. Therefore, Boulle infused his designs with narratives that chimed with scientific knowledge. Time and the natural laws of the universe are personified, for example Father Time as a bearded old man, and the Continents as figures from across the world. As well as creating innovative iconography, Boulle also reflected on the history of timekeeping by incorporating motifs such as gothic hourglasses in his clock cases.
The clocks are also products of collaboration involving the multi-disciplinary efforts of artists and craftspeople from all over 18th-century Paris. Each clock has a mechanism by a different leading clockmaker from Boulle’s time: Pierre Gaudron (died 1745), Jean Jolly (active about 1698), Claude Martinot (active about 1718), Louis Mynuël (1675–1742) and Jacques-Augustin Thuret (1669–1739). Some of these were Boulle’s neighbours in the workshops of the Louvre, as well as François Girardon (1628–1715), the king’s official sculptor, who supplied mounts of Father Time for Boulle’s clocks.
The clocks on display show the wide range of objects that Boulle turned his hand to. A monumental wardrobe from 1715 that encloses a clock, crowned with cherubs; two mantel clocks, one from around 1715 featuring Venus and Cupid, and another, from a decade later, with the figure of Father Time; as well as two extraordinary pedestal clocks.
The display opens ahead of an international conference on Boulle, to be held at the Wallace Collection in early 2025. One of the first major research events on the cabinetmaker in recent years, it will bring together specialists and conservators to consider the work of this fascinating artist, all within the same building where some of his greatest artistic achievements can be found.
Many of Boulle’s contemporaries also drew on the concept of time in their work. This will be explored in a complementary display in the museum’s Billiard Room, which is uniting two magnificent artworks: The Dance to the Music of Time (about 1634–36) by Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), in which the Four Seasons dance to the song of Father Time, the composition of their rhythmic bodies echoing the workings of a clock movement; and The Borghese Dancers (1597–1656), where five female figures masquerade as the Hours, attendants to the goddesses of the Dawn and Moon.
Xavier Bray, Director of The Wallace Collection, says: “I am absolutely thrilled to be bringing great works of art by Boulle together for the first time. These clocks were at the cutting edge of 18th-century technology, combining exquisite artistry and mechanical expertise into a unique and innovative blend. Through Boulle’s clocks and the display, we hope visitors will be able to transport themselves into the world of Louis XIV, where luxury touched every element of the court, including something as essential and practical as timekeeping.”
Alexander Collins, Curatorial Assistant at the Wallace Collection and curator of the display, says: “Our research on these objects has revealed many unknown facets of their history, including bringing to life the multitude of artists and craftspeople who came together to make Boulle’s vision into a reality. The passage of time as a metaphor for life and death has been an important theme for artists since humanity discovered their creativity, and Boulle’s designs are important, and resonate with us today, because of this deep symbolism.”
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Boulle Study Day
Online and in-person, Friday, 31 January 2025
Delve into the world of baroque France and learn more about Boulle’s furniture with leading specialists, including curators and conservators from the Palace of Versailles, the Château de Chantilly, and C2RMF. You’ll explore the evolution of Boulle’s iconic designs, his materials and techniques, and his enduring legacy. This in-person event at the Wallace Collection will also be broadcast live on Zoom. Ticketholders will receive a link to a recording of the event, which will be available for two weeks. Full programme to follow: 10.00–17.00 GMT, with a drinks reception until 19.00.
Registration is available here»
Conference | Travel Narratives and the Artistic Heritage of Dalmatia
From ArtHist.net:
Travel Narratives and the Fashioning of a Dalmatian Artistic Heritage, ca. 1675–1941
The Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre, Split, 12–14 December 2024
Conceived and organised as part of the Croatian Science Foundation (HRZZ) project TraveloguesDalmatia of the Institute of Art History, led by Dr Ana Šverko.
This conference brings together historians and theorists of art, architecture, urbanism, literature, anthropology, and ethnology, and other experts engaged in travel narratives. It aims to explore travel as an autonomous multidisciplinary and multimedia practice, as well as to investigate how perceptions of Dalmatia in the European imagination have been shaped through various travel narratives. These narratives span diverse genres, recording media, authorial backgrounds, and travel motivations.
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9.30 Introductions
• Vesna Bulić Baketić (Split City Museum)
• Ivana Vladović (Tourist Board of Split-Dalmatia County)
• Ana Šverko (Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre Split)
Conference Opening
• Renata Schellenberg: Living the Journey Twice: Travel Writing as Genre
10.30 Session 1 | Changing Perceptions of Dalmatia in Travel Narratives, 17th to the 20th Century
Moderators: Joško Belamarić and Sanja Žaja Vrbica
• Jesse Howell — Disorientation, Friction, and Anxiety in Dalmatian Travel Narratives
• Ulrike Tischler-Hofer — ‘Dalmatia Is His Majesty’s Passive Province… and Will Remain So for at Least Another 20 Years’ (1803): Mutual Perception and Rejection in Times of Transition, 1797–1815
• Mateo Bratanić — Early 20th-Century British Travel Writers in Dalmatia: The Change of Perspective
11.30 Coffee Break
12.00 Session 2 | The Evolution of Travelogues in the 18th and 19th Centuries, Part 1
Moderators: Ana Šverko and Irena Kraševac
• John Pinto — Advent’rous in the Sacred Search of Ancient Arts
• Frances Sands — Travels of the Mind: Travel Literature at Sir John Soane’s Museum
• Nataša Urošević — Dalmatian Journeys: Discovering Dalmatia on the Route of the Lloyd’s Steamers
13.30 Lunch Break
17.30 Presentation of the TraveloguesDalmatia Project
18.30 Journal Promotion — Život umjetnosti (Life of Art), Volume 113, No. 2 (2023)
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9.00 Walking Tour: Diocletian’s Palace
10.45 Introduction
11.00 Session 3 | The Evolution of Travelogues in the 18th and 19th Centuries, Part 2
Moderators: Mateo Bratanić and Mirko Sardelić
• Renata Schellenberg — Travel Reading and Travel Writing: Johann Georg Kohl’s Journey through Dalmatia (1851)
• Irena Kraševac — Arthur Rössler and Bruno Reiffenstein Discover Dalmatia on Their 1905 Journey
• Maciej Czerwiński — Competing Travel Narratives on Dalmatia: Giuseppe Modrich and Izidor Kršnjavi
12.20 Coffee Break
12.40 Session 4 | Travel Drawings: Shaping the Genre’s Definition, Part 1
Moderators: Frances Sands and Marko Špikić
• Ana Šverko — Before Spalatro: Clérisseau and Adam’s 1757 Journey from Rome to Split
• Svein Mønnesland — European Landscape Painters Discover a ‘Norwegian Fjord’, the Gulf of Kotor, 1810–1875
• Joško Belamarić — Sir John Gardner Wilkinson’s Gaze on Diocletian’s Palace
13.40 Coffee Break
14.00 Session 5 | Travel Drawings: Shaping the Genre’s Definition, Part 2
Moderators: Joško Belamarić and Ana Šverko
• Sanja Žaja Vrbica — Viennese Women Painters in the South of the Monarchy
• Elke Katharina Wittich — ‘Blue Sea and Black Mountains’: Visual Topoi in Travelogues and Guidebooks from the Mid-19th Century to the End of the First World War
• Nataša Ivanović — Genius Loci of Dalmatia in Zoran Mušič’s Oeuvre
15.30 Lunch Break
16.30 Visit to the Gallery of Fine Arts
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9.45 Introduction
10.00 Session 6 | Discovering Dalmatia: Identity through the Travel Narrative Lens, Part 1
Moderators: Mateo Bratanić and Elke Katharina Wittich
• Marko Špikić — Jacob Spon’s Language of Discovery of the Eastern Adriatic’s Cultural Heritage
• Frane Prpa — Maximilian de Traux and His Description of the Interior Regions of Dalmatia
• Antonia Tomić — Drniš: The Meeting Place of East and West
11.00 Coffee Break
11.20 Session 7 | Discovering Dalmatia: Identity through the Travel Narrative Lens, Part 2
Moderators: Marko Špikić and Ana Šverko
• Franciska Ćurković-Major and Boris Dundović — Professional Trip of the Society of Hungarian Engineers and Architects to Dalmatia in 1895: A Travel Account by Gyula Sándy
• Brigitta Mader — Through the Eyes of a Prehistorian: Josef Szombathy’s Photo Journeys through Dalmatia, 1898–1912
• Mirko Sardelić — Alice Lee Moqué’s Delightful Dalmatia
12.20 Discussion and Closing Remarks
13.00 Closing Reception
15.00 Visit to the Meštrović Gallery
Scientific Committee
Basile Baudez (Princeton University, Department of Art and Archaeology)
Joško Belamarić (Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre Split)
Mateo Bratanić (University of Zadar, Department of History)
Iain Gordon Brown (Honorary Fellow, National Library of Scotland)
Hrvoje Gržina (Croatian State Archives)
Katrina O’Loughlin (Brunel University London)
Cvijeta Pavlović (University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Comparative Literature)
Frances Sands (Sir John Soane’s Museum)
Marko Špikić (University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Art History)
Ana Šverko (Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre Split)
Elke Katharina Wittich (Leibniz Universität Hannover)
Organising Committee
Joško Belamarić (Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre Split)
Tomislav Bosnić (Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre Split)
Mateo Bratanić (University of Zadar, Department of History)
Ana Ćurić (Institute of Art History)
Matko Matija Marušić (Institute of Art History)
Katrina O’Loughlin (Brunel University London)
Cvijeta Pavlović (University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences)
Ana Šverko (Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre Split)
Study Day | The Face in Public Sculpture
From ArtHist.net:
L’intime face au public: Le visage dans la sculpture publique des XVIIIe et XIXe siècle en France et dans la sphère germanique
INHA Paris, 25–26 November 2024
Cette journée d’étude dédiée à la sculpture souhaite s’intéresser à un élément en particulier : le visage. Partie essentielle de la figure sculptée, le visage a ce double rôle de permettre l’identification et l’expression. Cette double responsabilité est davantage mise en évidence au cours des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, avec l’essor des portraits et de l’intérêt porté à l’intériorité, et plus largement à l’intime. Cette manifestation souhaite mettre en parallèle cette notion d’intimité avec celle du public, qui lui est souvent opposée. La sculpture étant l’art par excellence de l’espace public, l’objectif est de confronter le visage qui relève de l’intime, avec les impératifs liés à la sculpture publique. Ce sujet est d’autant plus pertinent que les statues présentes dans l’espace public ont été sujettes à un décorum en constante évolution tout au long du XIXe siècle.
Le type statuaire de prédilection était et reste le portrait, en buste ou bien en pied. Honneur pour une personne, outil de propagande, image officielle, le visage sculptural compte de nombreuses fonctions qui se dessinent au XVIIIe siècle et se précisent au XIXe siècle, avec le déplacement d’une fonction religieuse et royale de la sculpture à une fonction civique. Oscillant entre idéalisation et ressemblance, la figuration du visage dans le médium sculptural est un concept questionnable dans les XVIIIe et XIXe siècles franco-allemands. Outre les similitudes dans leurs ascendants artistiques et textuels, ces deux étendues géographiques nous permettront d’interroger les circulations artistiques qui ont eu lieu, et surtout d’analyser comment les évolutions politiques, qui ont touchées tant la France que la sphère germanique, ont conduit à une affirmation nationale qui s’incarne dans la sculpture publique. Cette journée d’étude vise ainsi à questionner la représentation du visage dans la statuaire publique franco-germanique du XVIIIe et XIXe siècle, à analyser ses théories, ses pratiques, ses techniques, ses possibles typologies et la perception qu’en a le spectateur.
l u n d i , 2 5 n o v e m b r e
14.00 Accueil des participants
14.30 Introduction générale — Justine Cardoletti, Sarah Touboul-Oppenheimer, Émilie Ginestet
14.45 Conférence d’ouverture / Opening Lecture
• Animated Features: Making Public Faces Private — Malcolm Baker (Distinguished professor of the History of Art, University of California, Riverside)
15.30 Session 1 | Visage du vivant, visage du mort / The Face of the Living, the Face of the Dead
Chair: Guilhem Scherf (Conservateur général du patrimoine au département des Sculptures, musée du Louvre)
• La statuaire publique franco-germanique : Objet de transmission de l’intime et Sujet altruiste ou quand le visage inerte devient une table de conversion des affects qui Comptent pour les siècles et les siècles — Bruno Bouchard (Professeur, Université du Québec à Rimouski)
• Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux : un instantané en pierre — Francis Mickus (Doctorant en Histoire, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
• Le visage du mort : portrait intime, portrait public — Eric Sergent (Maître de conférences en histoire de l’art et du patrimoine, Université de Haute-Alsace)
• L’intime et l’obscène. Moulages anthropologiques et masques mortuaires au XIXe siècle — Martial Guédron (Professeur d’Histoire de l’art moderne, Université de Strasbourg)
m a r d i , 2 6 n o v e m b e r
9.00 Accueil des participants / Greeting participants
9.30 Session 2 | Le visage d’un statut : l’illustre et le populaire / The Face of a Status: The Illustrious and the Popular
Présidence : Émilie Ginestet (Doctorante en Histoire de l’art moderne, Université Toulouse –Jean Jaurès), Sarah Touboul-Oppenheimer (Doctorante en Histoire de l’art, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
• Intimes fragments : la fonte du Louis XV de Bouchardon, gestation et reliques d’un monument parisien —Ulysse Jardat (Conservateur du patrimoine, responsable du département Décors, mobilier et arts décoratifs, Musée Carnavalet-Histoire de Paris)
• Goethe par David d’Angers. Production collective d’une persona — Gregor Wedekind (Professeur d’Histoire de l’art moderne et contemporain, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)
• Christian Daniel Rauch à Halle : début, puissance d’action et vulnérabilité du monument — Wiebke Windorf (Professeur d’Histoire de l’art moderne, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg)
• Visages du quotidien : la sculpture de genre dans les monuments publics au XIXe siècle — Michaël Vottero (Docteur en histoire de l’art habilité à diriger des recherches et Conservateur en chef du patrimoine, conservateur des monuments historiques, DRAC Bourgogne-Franche-Comté)
14.00 Session 3 | Expression du visage, expression du monument / Facial Expression, Expression of the Monument
Présidence : Émilie Roffidal (chargée de recherche HDR CNRS Framespa-UMR 5136)
• From the Fontaine de Grenelle to the Laiterie at Rambouillet: The Theme of the Distracted Head in Mid-to-Late 18th-Century French Sculpture — Tomas Macsotay (Professeur d’Histoire de l’art moderne, Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
• De face ou de profil ? L’orientation de la tête dans les monuments publics aux rois de France à l’époque moderne — Étienne Jollet (Professeur d’Histoire de l’art moderne, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
• Élever une figure chartraine au XIXe siècle — Maéva Bouderlique (Doctorante en Histoire de l’art contemporain, Nantes Université)
• Le Gavarni de Denys Puech : le monument comme image-récit biographique — Marie-Lise Poirier (Doctorante en Histoire de l’art, Université du Québec à Montréal)
16.30 Session 4 | Du privé au public : enjeux du Beau et de l’identification dans le buste / From Private to Public: Issues of the Beautiful and Identification in Busts
Présidence : Justine Cardoletti (Doctorante en Histoire de l’art moderne, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
• La figure antique et la notion du Beau au XVIIIe siècle : évolution et transformation du goût dans l’espace nobiliaire — Hector Chapron (Doctorant en Histoire de l’art moderne, Sorbonne Université)
• Gaetano Merchi (1747–1823). Itinéraires européens du portrait sculpté entre pratique publique et privée — Gaia Mazzacane (Doctorante en Histoire de l’art, École Normale Supérieure de Pise)
17.15 Conclusion des journées — Justine Cardoletti, Émilie Ginestet, Sarah Touboul-Oppenheimer
17.30 Cocktail de clôture
Conference | The Secularization of Religious Assets
From ArtHist.net and the Centre André-Chastel:
The Secularization of Religious Assets in Enlightenment Europe: Urban Development, Architecture, and Art Works
La sécularisation des établissements religieux dans l’Europe des lumières: Ville, architecture et œuvres d’art
Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, Paris, 27 November 2024
Organized by Ronan Bouttier, Gernot Mayer, and Raluca Muresan
The suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773 marks the last step of the Order’s progressive dissolution initiated fifteen years earlier, in Europe and in its colonies. This act of suppression was the culmination of a broader secularisation movement concerning religious congregations across Europe, from the 1760s to the French Revolution. In most cases, the State intended to take over the management of properties belonging to religious congregations described as useless for the common interest. Whether driven by reformatory or by economic interests, all acts of suppression and secularisation had the same consequences: a large number of movable assets and real property, estates and art works were either reallocated to other religious congregations or put on sale, when not confiscated altogether.
p r o g r a m m e
9.00 Welcome of participants
9.15 Welcoming address
9.30 Introduction by the organizers
10.00 Confiscation Procedures
Chair: Raluca Muresan (Sorbonne Université, Paris)
• Paola Benussi (Archivio di Stato, Venise), La sécularisation des patrimoines ecclésiastiques dans les régions « d‘outre-mer » de la République de Venise
• Raffaele Marronne (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pise), ‘Volle entrare per tutte le sagrestie’: The Dispersion of the Artistic Heritage of the Lay Confraternities of Siena following the Leopoldine Suppressions (1785)
• Etienne Couriol (LARHRA, Université Lyon 3), Ce que dit la presse périodique lyonnaise et bordelaise de la vente des biens des Jésuites
11.30 Pause
12.00 Sécularisation et développement urbain / Secularization and Urban Development
Chair: Ronan Bouttier (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
• Richard Biegel (Université Charles, Prague), Les transformations des édifices sacrés de Prague au siècle des Lumières et leurs conséquences urbaines
• Pierre Coffy (Univ. Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/Univ. Statale di Milano), Préparer le terrain pour l’essor de la «ville moderne»: Suppression et réemploi des biens religieux dans le Milan des Habsbourg d’Autriche
13.00 Lunch break
14.30 Sécularisations, remplois et dispersions / Secularization, Reuse, and Dispersal
Chair: Gernot Mayer (Université de Vienne)
• Alberto Garin (Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala), Le couvent des Jésuites de la Antigua Guatemala
• Katia Martignago (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Naples), The Venetian Jesuits’ Convent after 1773
• Sylvia Stegbauer (Belvedere Research Center, Vienne), Architectural Properties of the Marian Congregations in Transition
• Márta Velladics (Université Eötvös Loránd, Budapest), Success or Failure? The Utilisation of the Abolished Monasteries in Hungary between 1782 and 1802
17.00 Final Discussion
• Emilie d‘Orgeix (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris)
• Jean-Philippe Garric (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
• Olga Medvedkova (CNRS, Centre André Chastel, Paris)
18.00 Thanks from the organizers
Organizers
• Ronan Bouttier, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
• Gernot Mayer, Universität Wien, Vienne
• Raluca Muresan, Sorbonne Université, Paris
Scientific Committee
• Jean-Philippe Garric, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
• Richard Kurdiovsky, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienne
• Olga Medvedkova, CNRS, Centre André Chastel, Paris
• Émilie d’Orgeix, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
Image: Extinction de la Société des Jésuites, detail, 1773, engraving, 58 × 39 cm (Wien Museum, Inv. 21288).
Symposium | Portraiture in a Trans-Asian Context
From ArtHist.net:
Making the Subject of Portraiture in a Trans-Asian Context, ca. 1000–Present Day
SOAS University of London, 5–7 December 2024
Registration due by 22 November 2024
Portraits have commonly been understood as naturalistic likenesses of human beings, centred on the face. The work of scholars such as Jean Borgatti, Richard Brilliant (1990), and Joanna Woodall (1997) opened the field in conceptualising portraiture as a truly multi-local genre, foregrounding the relational and performative processes of portraiture. This conference addresses the performative function of portraiture in constructing subjectivities in Asian contexts, in order to reveal important cultural, social, religious, and philosophical ideas key to understanding particular societies and cultures within Asia and its diasporas.
The symposium focuses on the portraiture of Asia with two specific purposes in mind. First, to decentre studies of Asian portraiture from Eurocentric conceptions of subjecthood and thus to expand the field of portraiture studies; second, to foreground the connections, transfers and tensions articulated by portraiture within trans-Asian contexts. The focus on Asia should not be read as exclusionary, but rather as the intent to initiate a dialogue with existing research on the portraiture of other regions such as Africa and Europe. Thirty-five years after Borgatti, Brilliant and Woodall’s contributions to the field of portraiture studies, the symposium Making the Subject of Portraiture in a Trans-Asian Context ca. 1000-Present Day proposes to take stock of a changing field by contributing the scholarship of art, cultural and literary history in the trans-Asian context.
Registration links are at the event page (participants will need to register individually for each day). Please direct inquiries to Conan Cheong (656531@soas.ac.uk) and Mariana Zegianini (mz15@soas.ac.uk) of the Department of the History of Art and Archaeology, at SOAS University of London.
t h u r s d a y , 5 d e c e m b e r
17.15 Doors open at Wolfson Lecture Theatre, Senate House
17.30 Welcome by Charlotte Horlyck (Head of the School of Arts, SOAS University of London)
17.45 Let’s Change the Subject: Joanna Woodall (The Courtauld Institute of Art)
18.00 Panel 1 | Portraiture and Technology
Chair: Ashley Thompson (SOAS University of London
• Margaret Hillenbrand (University of Oxford) — Read Your Mind: Facial Recognition Technology and Contemporary Chinese Portraiture
• Xinrui Zhang (The Courtauld Institute of Art) — Maskbook: Selfhood and Portraits of Chinese Artists and Environmental Activists
• Wiebke Leister (Royal College of Art and Ashley Thorpe, Royal Holloway) — A Hannya Manifesto: Performative Photographic Portraiture as Contemporary Demon Meta-Noh Play to Construct Feminist Frameworks for Interpretation
19.30 Evening Drinks
f r i d a y , 6 d e c e m b e r
13.15 Doors open at S312, Paul Webley Wing, Senate House
13.30 Panel 2 | Portraying Femininity
Chair: Henning von Mirbach (The Courtauld Institute of Art)
• Wen-chien Cheng, Royal Ontario Museum (Online) — Genre Crossing: The Fluidity of Female Portraits in Late Imperial China
• Doreen Mueller (Leiden University) — Becoming Ōtagaki Rengetsu: Misrepresenting a Buddhist Nun
• Amanda (Xiao) Ju (University College London) — From the Personal to the General: Xing Danwen’s Photographic Diaries
• Bahar Gürsel (Middle East Technical University, Online) — Studio Portraits of Female Domestic Workers in Late 19th- and Early 20th-Century Java and Singapore
15.15 Coffee Break
15.45 Panel 3 | The Diasporic / Displaced Subject
Chair: Marcus Gilroy-Ware (SOAS University of London)
• Nicole-Ann Lobo (Princeton University) — Self-Portraits of Francis Newton Souza in Bombay & London, 1949–61
• Jung Joon Lee (Rhode Island School of Design) — Surface Reading: Oksun Kim’s Berlin Portraits and the Aesthetics of Inscrutability
• Yingbai Fu (SOAS University of London) — Dressing Like a Princess: The Old-fashioned Horse-hoof Cuffs in the Portrait of Der Ling (c. 1885–1944) for American Eyes
• Haely Chang (Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College) — A Portrait of Public Self: Reading Na Hyesŏk’s Self-Portrait through Vernacular Photo Albums
17.30 Coffee Break
18.00 Panel 4 | Altered Masculinities
Chair: Richard Hylton (SOAS University of London)
• Giorgio Strafella (Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic) — The Experimental and Intellectual Roots of Shen Jingdong’s Hero and Hundred Family Names Portraits
• Amanda Wangwright (University of South Carolina, Online) — Seeing the Truth in Uncut Jade: Modernist Naturism, Traditional Ideals, and Timeless Truths in Portrait of Xu Langxi
• Michele Matteini (New York University, Online) — The Underbelly of Qing Portraiture: Flaccid Skin, Defective Bodies, and Old Age in the Qianlong Era
s a t u r d a y , 7 d e c e m b e r
9.15 Doors open at DLT Lecture Theatre, Ground Floor, Main Building
9.30 Panel 5 | Image-Text Relationships
Chair: Malcolm McNeill (SOAS University of London)
• Yiyang Gao (University of Oxford, Online) — Intertextual Subjectivity at the Qing Court: Portraiture in Wanguo laicho tu and Tributary Dramas Revisited
• Mengxuan Sui (Tsinghua University Art Museum, Online) — The Portraiture of Female Literati: A Study on Qu Bingyun (1767–1810) and Her Peers
• Nicholas L. Chan (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Online) — A 1979 Calendar: Portraits of Figures from the Dream of the Red Chamber
11.00 Panel 6 | The Performing Subject
Chair: Natasha Morris (SOAS University of London)
• Junyao He (The Courtauld Institute of Art) — Emperor or Bodhisattva? The Qianlong Emperor as Bodhisattva Manjushri in the collection of the Potala Palace, Lhasa, Revisited
• Conan Cheong (SOAS University of London) — Memorialising Monastic Subjectivity: Photographs and Wax Figures of Buddhist Monks in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR
• Ziyi Shao (SOAS University of London) — The Origins and Image Translation of the Three Horizontal Paintings of Tsongkhapa’s Life Stories in Fanhualou
12.30 Lunch Break
13.30 Panel 7 | Testing the Boundaries
Chair: Stephen Whiteman (The Courtauld Institute of Art)
• Leslie V. Wallace (Coastal Carolina University) — White General and Other Portraits of Gyrfalcons at the Court of the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1795–1796)
• Natasha Morris (SOAS University of London) — ‘Opening the Face of Isfahan’: Portraiture in 17th-Century Persian Painting
• Chang Tan (Penn State University) — Living Matter: Portraiture in Zhuang Hui’s “Nature Photography”
15.00 Closing Remarks (Conan Cheong and Mariana Zegianini)
Symposium | Apprentices and Networks of Learning, 1650–1950
William Hogarth, Industry and Idleness, Plate I: The Fellow ‘Prentices at Their Looms, October 1747, etching and engraving
(Houston: Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation)
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
This Saturday at the MFAH:
Skillful Hands: Apprentices and Networks of Learning, 1650–1950
Online and in-person, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, 9 November 2024
Established in 2014, the biennial Rienzi symposium focuses on topics inspired by the decorative arts, with papers presented by emerging scholars.
The 2024 symposium, Skillful Hands: Apprentices and Networks of Learning 1650–1950, explores the networks of learning available—and unavailable—to diverse groups of people, examining how access to training and materials through apprenticeships shaped craft traditions. Selected participants present their research on Saturday, 9 November 2024, on the MFAH main campus in Lynn Wyatt Theater, located in the Kinder Building. Entrance is included with Museum admission. The event is live streamed and can be accessed here.
Before the late 19th century, apprenticeships regulated by European craft guilds were the primary means of training in craft trades. These apprenticeships offered a valuable alternative to traditional education but often excluded women, immigrants, Indigenous and enslaved peoples, and children from low-income families. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, informal apprenticeships emerged to adapt to new innovations and technologies. Outside traditional European models, skills were acquired through forced migration, local environments, and informal training in various colonial regions. These diverse experiences contributed to a network of skilled craftspeople, both anonymous and renowned.
p r o g r a m
11.15 Welcome — Christine Gervais (the Fredricka Crain Director, Rienzi)
11.20 Keynote
Making Time: Competition and Collaboration in Early Modern European Artisanal Networks — Lauren R. Cannady (Assistant Professor of Humanities, University of Houston–Clear Lake)
12:05 Session 1
• Tactile Nomenclature: Transgenerational Transmission of Silk Weaving Knowledge in Early Modern Iran —
Nader Sayadi (Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Rochester)
• Es Artisanes Du Roi: The Public Prohibition and Private Protection of Women’s Artisanal Knowledge in the Paris of Louis XIV, 1661–1715 — Jordan Hallmark (PhD student, Harvard University)
1.00 Lunch break
1.40 Session 2
• The Racial Afterlife of Revolutionary Goldsmithing and Absent Apprenticeships from Haiti to Bordeaux — Benet Ge (Williams College)
• ‘Perfect’ Imitations: Learning in The Spanish Colonial Philippines — Lalaine Little (Director, Pauly Friedman Art Gallery, Misericordia University)
2.35 Break
2.50 Session 3
• Haitian Cabinetmaking Community in New Orleans: The Apprentices of Jean Rouseau and Dutreuil Barjon — Lydia Blackmore (Decorative Arts Curator, Historic New Orleans Collection)
• Passing on Knowledge: Learning the Upholsterer’s Trade in the 19th Century — Justine Lécuyer (Sorbonne Université, Paris)
Enfilade 
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