Exhibition | Encounters
Cornelis Ploos van Amstel after Samuel van Hoogstraten, Boy with a Hat in a Front Door, detail, 1763, etching, roulette in brown and red (Berlin: Kupferstichkabinett, Christoph Müller Stiftung / Kilian Beutel).
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From the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin:
Encounters: ‘I Am All That!’ | Christoph Müller’s Gift, Part 2
Begegnungen: Das alles bin ich! | Die Schenkung Christoph Müller II
Kupferstichkabinett at the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, 26 August — 30 November 2025
The exhibition I Am All That! presents the generous gift of some 200 works that art collector Christoph Müller has made to the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings). The works on paper—drawings, prints, and watercolours—not only show a broad panorama of visual themes spanning five centuries, but also reflect the influences on the collector and his interests. One aspect of the collection at a time will be featured in four successive presentations. Opening on the 26 August 2025, the presentation focusses on people, interpersonal relationships, and encounters.
Anton Graff, Portrait of Provost Johann Joachim Spalding, ca. 1800, pastel (Berlin: Kupferstichkabinett, Christoph Müller Stiftung).
Portraits and plant studies, harbours and history paintings, landscapes and genre scenes: this exhibition shows the entire spectrum of an extraordinary collection. A fascinating cross-section of European art history unfolds within works from early modern history to the present. The exhibited works on paper originate from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and France—telling of people and nature, history and everyday life, beliefs, feelings, and the power to create. Representations of figures and nudes are on view, as well as seascapes, nature studies, animals, forests, and quite a lot more.
A selection of Müller’s generous gift will be presented to the public from 20 May 2025 to 14 June 2026 in four changing displays in the ‘Kabinett in der Galerie’ space at the Gemäldegalerie (Old Masters Paintings). The first presentation, A World of Words and Images (on view from 20 May to 24 August 2025), referenced Müller’s endeavours as a publisher and critic, as well as his passion for art and collecting.
The second presentation, Encounters, focuses on depictions of people and interpersonal relationships. Some of the featured artworks show moments of togetherness, such as social events, mutual exchange, or shared glances. The images depict romantic liaisons, domestic scenes, and social interactions, and reflect the personality of a tireless collector who nurtured numerous friendships and loved parties. These are juxtaposed with portraits, figurative representations, and detailed studies that centre the individual. Whether pictured in silent contemplation or facing the viewer, these subjects are a testament to the reality that human existence is constantly oscillating between proximity and seclusion, between moments of shared experience and periods of solitude..
Future Presentations
On Travelling and Being at Home
2 December 2025 — 8 March 2026
Leaf by Leaf: A Life with Art
10 March — 14 June 2026
Christoph Müller (1938–2024) was a German publisher, theatre and art critic, art collector, and patron, who made many generous gifts to public museums during his lifetime. As the editor-in-chief and co-publisher of the Schwäbisches Tagblatt, he shaped the German media landscape from 1969 to 2004. Müller’s passion for art is reflected in an impressive collection of works from various epochs and regions. He collected across the board, led by individual and personal preferences, as well as sound connoisseurship. His penchant was for 16th- and 17th-century Dutch art. In 2007, he gave the Kupferstichkabinett a significant collection of 370 Dutch and Flemish drawings and prints from the 16th to 18th centuries. With the current gift all collection areas of the Kupferstichkabinett’s holdings are being appreciably enhanced and enriched. Christoph Müller died in Berlin in 2024, at the age of 86. The exhibition should be understood as recognition of his impact in supporting the arts, as a sign of gratitude and an invitation to share his joy in art—a thought that continually motivated him.
Exhibition | Chardin and the Marcille Family
Opening soon at the Musée des Beaux-Arts Orléans:
The Marcille Chardin Family: A Passion from Orléans
Les Chardin des Marcille: Une passion orléanaise
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans, 9 September 2025 — 11 January 2026
Rarely has a painting aroused so much passion as Le Panier de fraises des bois (1761) by Jean Siméon Chardin, the quintessential work of French painting, put up for sale in 2022 and acquired for a record price by the Musée du Louvre after having remained in the prestigious collection of the Orléans-born Eudoxe Marcille (1814–1890) since the mid-19th century.
His name alone evokes that of Chardin. His father, François Marcille (1790–1856), from a family of seed brokers in the Beauce region, had taken a visionary interest, as early as 1822, in all those artists from the time of Louis XV that nobody looked at anymore, to the point of assembling the largest collection of his time, with 4,500 works including dozens of Bouchers, Fragonards, Greuze, Prud’hon and Géricault… and, above all others, thirty Chardin. This consuming passion was passed on with his collection to his two sons, Eudoxe and Camille. Camille, who became curator of the Chartres museum, and Eudoxe, director of the Musée d’Orléans from 1870 to 1890, continued to promote Chardin’s work, even buying back after their father’s death, beyond the works he had designated for each, what could continue to be assembled from this ideal nucleus. Quite naturally, the Goncourt brothers, great biographers of 18th-century artists, drew on this reference collection, in which Chardin’s entire career is represented, to write the first biography of the painter of silent still lifes and pantries in 1863.
Chardin was at home in Orléans and, in a way, always had been. His friendship with Aignan Thomas Desfriches (1715–1800), the entrepreneur who had made Orléans an artistic capital in the 18th century, could be seen in the checkered scarf Chardin wears in his self-portrait, which came from Desfriches’ home. Desfriches himself owned numerous paintings by Chardin. He was followed by Casimir de Cypierre (1783–1844), son of the Intendant d’Orléans under Louis XVI, whose name a quay bears, who owned at least three. François Marcille and his son Eudoxe continued to nurture this Orléans passion. Around the exceptional loan of Panier de fraises des bois, five other Chardin paintings from the legendary Marcille collection are brought together for the first time since the 1979 retrospective. They are accompanied by the Self-portrait with bezicles (spectacles), an eventful acquisition which, in 1991, brought this artist, so dear to the heart of Orléans, into the pastel cabinet, but whose memory alone inhabited the collections. Chardin, more than ever, is at home in the Musée d’Orléans, which this family of discreet enthusiasts has helped to elevate, through François’ research and Eudoxe’s twenty years at the service of its collections, into a place of rediscovery and sharing.
With the exceptional participation of the Musée du Louvre. The exhibition benefits from exceptional loans from the Musée du Louvre, the Musée Jacquemart-André, the Musée de Picardie, private collectors, and the Marcille family descendants.
Exhibition | Flora Yukhnovich’s Four Seasons
Flora Yukhnovich in Her London Studio, 2024
(Photo by Kasia Bobula © Flora Yukhnovich)
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Opening this week at The Frick; see the preview by Ted Loos for The New York Times (28 August 2025) . . .
Flora Yukhnovich’s Four Seasons
The Frick Collection, New York, 3 September 2025 — 9 March 2026
Taking inspiration from the French Rococo, Italian Baroque, and Abstract Expressionist movements, Flora Yukhnovich (b. England, 1990) creates works that are at once modern and timeless by translating historic compositions into contemporary abstractions. Using the Frick’s Four Seasons by François Boucher as a point of departure, Yukhnovich’s site-specific mural will cover the walls of the museum’s Cabinet. This project is accompanied by the publication of a new volume in the Frick’s acclaimed Diptych series, which highlights a single masterpiece from the permanent collection by pairing complementary essays by a curator and a contemporary artist, musician, or other cultural luminary. This volume will feature a text by Yukhnovich and an essay by Xavier F. Salomon, the Frick’s Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, on the significance of Boucher’s beloved series.
Flora Yukhnovich’s Four Seasons is made possible by Hauser & Wirth and Victoria Miro.
Xavier Salomon and Flora Yukhnovich, Boucher’s Four Seasons (London: D. Giles, 2026), 80 pages, ISBN: 978-1913875732, $30.
Exhibition | Un/Bound: Free Black Virginians, 1619–1865
Now on view at the VMHC:
Un/Bound: Free Black Virginians, 1619–1865
Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Richmond, 14 June 2025 — 4 July 2027
Bringing together artifacts and rich stories from across the Commonwealth, Un/Bound: Free Black Virginians, 1619–1865 tells the stories of free Black Virginians from the arrival of the first captive Africans in 1619 to the abolition of slavery in 1865. It is one of the first museum exhibitions to cover the subject in depth.
Through powerful artifacts, first-person accounts, and more than 200 years of stories, visitors will discover how Virginia’s people of color achieved their freedom, established communities, and persevered within a legal system that recognized them as free but not equal. Featured alongside artifacts spanning hundreds of years will be newly commissioned portraits by award-winning photographer Ruddy Roye, who TIME named ‘Instagram Photographer of the Year’, of some of the descendants of free Black Virginians who shared their stories and objects to help create the exhibition.
Building upon research about centuries of free Black Virginians and regional exhibitions focused on local communities, Un/Bound endeavors to encapsulate the broader, statewide story in depth and at a yet-to-be-seen scale through a collection of artifacts and rich histories told by descendants and experts. This exhibition was created by the VMHC in collaboration with subject matter experts and five institutions of higher education—Norfolk State University, Virginia State University, William & Mary, Longwood University and Richard Bland College—bringing together resources and knowledge to tell a compelling story of Virginia. The exhibition is on display alongside VMHC’s multiyear commemorative exhibitions and displays related to America’s 250th anniversary.
The accompanying book is published by D. Giles:
Cassandra Newby-Alexander, Melvin Patrick Ely, Sabrina Watson, Evanda Watts-Martinez, and Stephen Rockenbach, Un/Bound: Free Black Virginians, 1619–1865 (London: D. Giles, 2025), 176 pages, ISBN: 978-1913875619, $30.
On the eve of the Civil War, around 60,000 Black men, women and children lived free in the state of Virginia, often alongside enslaved neighbours. This volume is a history documenting the richness and variety of their lives. Although many stayed in Virginia, living, working and thriving despite serious threats to their lives, some moved north or, further still, across the Atlantic to Liberia. In studying the lives of free Black Virginians prior to emancipation, this volume explores an under-told and inspirational story of Virginia’s past. By delving into collections across the Commonwealth, whether the records of the state or testimonies left by free Black people themselves, this new volume fills a critical gap in our understanding of Virginia’s Black history.
c o n t e n t s
Foreword — James W. Dyke, Jr., Tim Sullivan, and Alvin J. Schexnider
Acknowledgments — Jamie O. Bosket
Introduction — Elizabeth M. Klaczynski
1 Black Freedom in Slaveholding Virginia — Melvin Patrick Ely
2 The Christian Faith and Legacies of Liberation in Virginia’s Free Black Society — Evanda S. Watts-Martinez
3 Free Black People in Rural Virginia: Forms of Resistance — Sabrina G. Watson
4 Joseph Jenkins Roberts, Free Black Émigrés, and the Liberian Experiment — Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander
5 Education, Politics, and the Legacy of Free Black Virginians after Emancipation — Stephen Rockenbach
Afterword — Jamie O. Bosket
Contributors
Endnotes
Index
Exhibition | Slavery and Freedom in Northampton, 1654–1783
Now on view at Historic Northampton (as noted on Philippe Halbert’s Instagram account) . . .
Slavery and Freedom in Northampton, 1654–1783
Historic Northampton, Northampton, Massachusetts, 3 July 2025 — 11 December 2026
Silhouette of Hannah, her baby, and Mingo. In 1692, the court decided that the ownership of Hannah’s baby would be shared by her enslaver Timothy Baker and Mingo’s enslaver Samuel Parsons. A copy of the 1692 court document was transcribed on page 182 of the Judd Manuscript in the collection of Forbes Library, Northampton, MA.
For at least 129 years, slavery was part of the fabric of everyday life in Northampton. At least 50 enslaved individuals lived here from the town’s English settlement in 1654 until 1783 when slavery was abolished in Massachusetts. The exhibit Slavery and Freedom in Northampton, 1654–1783 features life-sized silhouettes of men, women, and children who were enslaved. On each silhouette are details about individual lives based upon information gleaned from historic documents. Their histories reveal aspects of enslavement and examples of freedom, and resistance to oppression.
The exhibit tells what we currently know about the lives of these enslaved individuals and how some gained freedom, started families, and purchased property. It also describes the ways in which Northampton enslavers exerted power and control over their lives. Included is a printmaking series, Glimmers of Past People, by artist Merisa Skinner reflecting on the local legacy of the transatlantic slave trade.
Composite image of the bill of sale of Venus to Jonathan Edwards from the collection of Yale University with a graphic silhouette of Venus by Design Division, Inc.
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Venus was born in West Africa and separated from her family. This bill of sale indicates that she was sold in Newport, Rhode Island by a ship captain and slave trader to Northampton’s minister Jonathan Edwards. Leah was also enslaved by Jonathan Edwards. Some historians think that Edwards renamed Venus to Leah when she was baptized. It is also possible that Venus died and Leah was a different person who replaced her.
Exhibit design by Michael Hanke of Design Division, Inc. with Historic Northampton and a team of scholars and archivists based upon research by the Northampton Slavery Research Project. Artwork for the background murals was created by artist Nancy Haver.
Exhibition | Fault Lines: Art, Imperialism, and the Atlantic World
Installation view of Fault Lines: Art, Imperialism, and the Atlantic World at the Carnegie Museum of Art, 2025 (Photo by Zachary Riggleman). Paintings include from left to right: Nicolas de Largillière, Portrait of a Woman and an Enslaved Servant, 1696 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 03.37.2); Simon Vouet, The Toilet of Venus, ca. 1640 (Carnegie Museum of Art); and Peter Lely, Portrait of Louise Renee de Penencoet de Kerouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, ca. 1670–1680 (Carnegie Museum of Art).
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Now on view at the Carnegie Museum of Art:
Fault Lines: Art, Imperialism, and the Atlantic World
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 12 July 2025 — 25 January 2026
Organized by Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire
In the wake of Europe’s imperial expansion, which included the colonization of North and South America and the Caribbean in the 16th and 17th centuries, extensive military and economic activity transformed the regions that border the Atlantic Ocean. A new world—the Atlantic World—emerged, in which wars, competitive trade, and the enslavement of millions of Africans created new societies in Africa, Europe, and the Americas.
As ideas, knowledge, and beliefs moved together with people and materials across the ocean, shaping new mindsets and understandings of the world, European elite culture singled out certain objects as art, to be appreciated primarily for their beauty and emotional power. In that process, which also led to the creation of the first art museums, a rift opened between our understanding of these works of art and the political forces and transoceanic networks that made their creation possible. Acknowledging the fault lines of art history, this exhibition explores what can be imagined when works in the collection are brought in conversation with those made by artists who lived at the fluid boundaries of the Atlantic world’s entangled empires.
The exhibition is organized by Marie-Stéphanie Delamaire, curator of European and American art.
The 20-page gallery guide can be downloaded here»
Exhibition | Jean-Baptiste Greuze: Enlightening Childhood
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Young Shepherd Holding a Flower, detail, 1760–61, oil on oval canvas, 72.5 × 59.5 cm
(Paris: Petit Palais, PDUT1192)
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Greuze was born on this day (August 21) 300 years ago; the exhibition opens next month at the Petit Palais:
Jean-Baptiste Greuze: L’enfance en lumière
Petit Palais, Paris, 16 September 2025 — 25 January 2026
Curated by Annick Lemoine, Yuriko Jackall, and Mickaël Szanto
A little-known and misunderstood artist today, Greuze was nonetheless acclaimed by the public, adulated by critics, and sought after by the greatest collectors.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805) is undoubtedly one of the most important and daring figures of 18th-century France. To mark the 300th anniversary of his birth, the Petit Palais is paying tribute to this painter of portraits and genre scenes, who knew more than anyone else how to translate the human soul. This exhibition invites visitors to rediscover Greuze’s work through the prism of a central theme in his painting: childhood. Echoing the preoccupations of the philosophers Diderot, Rousseau, and Condorcet, the artist invites us to reflect on the place of the child within the family, the responsibility of parents in the child’s development, and the importance of education in shaping the child’s personality. With empathy, the artist questions the place of children in 18th-century society, their future, and their emancipation. He mirrors the major issues of his time. He also examines the transition to adulthood and the birth of love. Using the codes of his time, he tackles the theme of consent, which is strikingly topical today. Bringing together around a hundred paintings, drawings, and prints from all over the world, this exhibition is an opportunity to rediscover the singular work of this major artist of the Age of Enlightenment.
Curators
• Annick Lemoine, General Curator of Heritage, Director of the Petit Palais
• Yuriko Jackall, Director of the Department of European Art & Allan and Elizabeth Shelden Curator of European Paintings, Detroit Institute of Arts
• Mickaël Szanto, Senior Lecturer, Sorbonne University
Annick Lemoine, Yuriko Jackall, and Mickaël Szanto, Jean-Baptiste Greuze: l’enfance en lumière (Paris Musées, 2025), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-2759606177, €49.
Exhibition | Greuze, une palette d’émotions
Greuze, une palette d’émotions: Dessins du Louvre et oeuvres de Tournus
Hôtel-Dieu, Musée de Tournus, 24 May — 21 September 2025
Curated by Xavier Salmon
To mark the 300th anniversary of the artist’s birth in 1725, the famous Burgundy town where he was born has joined forces with the Musée du Louvre to pay him a well-deserved tribute. Chosen from the rich collection of the Cabinet des Dessins, thirty of the master’s works reflect both his creative process and his desire to turn some of his most accomplished drawings into works in their own right, destined for a clientele of connoisseurs and collectors. All the master’s favorite themes are illustrated here: genre scenes, moralistic subjects, expressive heads, and portraits. They underline the extent to which Denis Diderot was right when he described Jean-Baptiste Greuze as a “delicate and sensitive soul” who had imposed himself on his century.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze: Les dessins du Louvre (Dijon: Éditions Faton, 2025), 80 pages, ISBN: 978-2878443981, €18.
Exhibition | Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum
From the press release (14 August) for the exhibition:
To the Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum
The Frick Collection, New York, 2 October 2025 — 5 January 2026
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 15 March — 28 June 2026
Organized by Xavier Salomon, with Jacques Charles-Gaffiot and Benoît Constensoux
Unparalleled masterpieces of European decorative arts to be shown at the Frick and the Kimbell.
Beginning this fall, The Frick Collection will present a stunning exhibition of more than forty objects on loan from the Terra Sancta Museum. Ranging from liturgical objects in gem-encrusted gold and silver to richly decorated vestments in velvet, damask, and other fine materials, the works were created for the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and were largely unknown until their rediscovery by scholars in the 1980s. They represent the pinnacle of European craftsmanship in these fields during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and many have no parallel anywhere in the world. To the Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum offers visitors the opportunity to view these objects for the first time in North America.
The exhibition features a selection from the Treasure of the Custody of the Holy Land, established in 1309 by the Franciscan order to oversee Christian holy sites in Jerusalem and the Middle East. One of the major sites that the Custody oversees (alongside other Christian denominations) is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher—the holiest place in Christianity, believed to be the site of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Over the centuries, European Catholic monarchs and Holy Roman Emperors sent sumptuous gifts to the Franciscans in Jerusalem, often in the form of liturgical objects and vestments. The golden age of this gift-giving occurred from the early 1600s to the late 1700s, the range represented in the exhibition. The Franciscans have safeguarded the works ever since, using them in Mass and other religious ceremonies to the present day.
Ahead of the opening of the Custody’s new Terra Sancta Museum at Jerusalem’s St. Savior Monastery, objects from its incredible collection have been traveling to institutions in Europe and now North America. A 2013 exhibition showcased loans from the Holy Sepulcher at the Palace of Versailles, and more recent presentations have been held at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon; the Gaiás Centre Museum, Santiago de Compostela; and the Museo Marino Marini, Florence. After the Frick debuts its unique U.S. exhibition in New York, To the Holy Sepulcher will travel to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (March 15 through June 28, 2026).
The exhibition is organized by Xavier F. Salomon, the Frick’s Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, along with Jacques Charles-Gaffiot and Benoît Constensoux, members of the Terra Sancta Museum’s Scientific Committee. The presentation continues the Frick’s strong tradition of shows centered on European gold- and silversmithing of this period. Past highlights include Gold, Jasper, and Carnelian: Johann Christian Neuber at the Saxon Court (2012); Pierre Gouthière: Virtuoso Gilder at the French Court (2016–17); Luigi Valadier: Splendor in Eighteenth-Century Rome (2018–19); and The Gregory Gift (2023). The award-winning Valadier exhibition was curated by art historian Alvar González-Palacios, who in the 1980s rediscovered and published the Custody of the Holy Land’s artistic holdings for the first time, laying the groundwork for this unprecedented project.
Commented Salomon, “This exhibition represents a completely unique opportunity for visitors, building on the Frick’s successful past presentations highlighting masters of European decorative arts. Displayed for the first time in the United States, the exquisite objects in this show are rare survivals, as similar objects were often severely damaged, melted down, or otherwise lost—nothing like them survives in the countries in which they were created. We are deeply grateful for this collaboration with the Custody of the Holy Land as we look ahead to the opening of the Terra Sancta Museum, which will offer a more permanent public display of these treasures.”
For his work on the exhibition, occurring over a period of years, Salomon has been awarded the Cross of Merit (Crucem Ex Merito) by the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. The ceremony for this prestigious honor will take place this fall. To the Holy Sepulcher will be Salomon’s final exhibition at the Frick Collection, after a tenure of more than a decade at the helm of the museum’s Curatorial Department. Following the show’s opening, in November, Salomon will take up the role of Director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.
Objects Organized by Country of Origin
The show marks the first presentation in all three rooms of the Frick’s new Ronald S. Lauder Exhibition Galleries, which opened earlier this summer. Visitors will first encounter an introduction to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, including an eighteenth-century scale model of the church, exquisite vestments, a gilded reliquary, and a monumental silver relief depicting the Resurrection. The exhibition’s display will then be organized geographically by the countries in which the objects on view were created and subsequently sent to Jerusalem.
Antonio de Laurentiis, Throne of Eucharistic Exposition, 1754, gold, gilt copper, almandine garnets, amethysts, rock crystal, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, carnelians, peridots, smoky quartzes, glass and doublets, 68 inches tall (Jerusalem: Terra Sancta Museum).
Objects from the Kingdom of France mainly comprise prestigious gifts for use in worship, commissioned and sent by Kings Louis XIII, Louis XIV, and Louis XV. Some of these are completely unique survivals, similar metallic objects having been melted down by later monarchs or during the French Revolution.
The Holy Roman Empire is represented by donations from Emperor Charles VI and his daughter, Empress Maria Theresa. These include complete sets of vestments and gold and silver objects such as a large sanctuary lamp, as well as a ewer and basin and an engraved gilt-silver dish that have secular forms but served liturgical functions.
The Kingdom of Spain was by far the leading donor to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Gifts on view from Spain trace its monarchs’ enduring devotion to holy sites, including Philip II (represented by a beautiful chalice) and Philip IV and his son Charles II (who gave a massive Throne of Eucharistic Exposition along with candlesticks and vases featuring the royal arms of Spain).
Highlights of the section devoted to the Kingdom of Portugal were given by John V, known as ‘the Magnanimous’ for his luxurious commissions. These include vestments and a gold sanctuary lamp, which have no surviving parallels in Portugal today.
Finally, gifts from modern-day Italy are divided into sections for the Kingdom of Naples and the Republics of Venice and Genoa. Venice is represented by vestments and a pair of monumental silver torchères, which stand at more than eight feet tall, while Genoa gave a beautiful cope featuring intricate embroidered floral designs and a spectacular scene of St. George attacking the dragon. The Neapolitan gifts are among the finest examples in the show and were all given by King Charles III, later king of Spain. These include an exquisite crucifix in gold, lapis lazuli, and gemstones; a highly adorned Throne of Eucharistic Exposition topped with a crown; and the magnificent crozier that graces the exhibition catalogue’s cover.
Rich Dialogues with the Frick’s Permanent Collection
The objects in the exhibition also offer illuminating connections to works from the Frick’s permanent collection. Chief among them is Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert. The saint’s spiritual vision and stigmatization depicted in the panel are believed to have taken place in 1224, just five years after Francis visited North Africa, which may have included a trip to holy sites in Jerusalem. By the 1250s, his followers had established a base there, which led to the creation of the Custody of the Holy Land. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to view Bellini’s celebrated painting in its traditional location in the museum’s Living Hall.
A large Throne of Eucharistic Exposition and a set of candlesticks in the exhibition were given by Philip IV of Spain, a few years after Diego Velázquez painted the Frick’s captivating portrait of the king, on view in the museum’s West Gallery. Louis XIII, who donated several silver objects and a set of fleur-de-lys vestments, and Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, who gave a gold sanctuary lamp, are both depicted in portrait medals in the Frick’s new Medals Room. Maria Theresa and her father, Charles VI, were also intimately connected to Vienna’s Du Paquier manufactory; many pieces of goldwork in the exhibition feature patterns used in Du Paquier porcelain, examples of which are shown in a new passage on the museum’s second floor.
Finally, a number of objects in the show were gifts of Louis XIV of France and his successor, Louis XV, including a set of vestments with the latter’s coat of arms. Both monarchs are the subjects of sculptures in the museum’s galleries. Louis XV’s official mistresses also have notable connections to the Frick: Madame de Pompadour commissioned François Boucher’s series The Four Seasons, in the museum’s West Vestibule, while Madame du Barry commissioned Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Progress of Love, which adorns the Fragonard Room.
Programming and Catalogue
The exhibition will be complemented by a number of engaging public programs. In mid-October, Xavier Salomon will present a ticketed lecture in the museum’s new Schwarzman Auditorium on the background and significance of the show and its objects. Musical programming will focus on liturgical pieces, bringing to life the devotional contexts for which the exhibition’s objects were intended. Finally, art-making programs, both free and ticketed, will explore metalworking techniques involved in the creation of several works in the show.
To the Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated exhibition catalogue. In addition to entries for each work on display, essays highlight the rediscovery of the Treasure of the Custody of the Holy Land, the history of the Franciscans in the Holy Land and the sites they oversee, the creation and donation of the objects in the Treasure, the use of such objects in the Catholic liturgy, and an overview of the new Terra Sancta Museum.
Xavier F. Salomon with Marie-Armelle Beaulieu, Jacques Charles-Gaffiot, Benoît Constensoux, Alvar González-Palacios, Maria Pia Pettinau Vescina, Béatrix Saule, and Danièle Véron-Denise, To the Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum (New York: The Frick Collection in association with D Giles Limited, 2025), 384 pages, ISBN: 978-1913875756, $90.
New Book | Splendour in Venice: From Canaletto to Guardi
The exhibition was noted here at Enfilade in May 2024. The catalogue will soon be available from ACC Art Books and Simon & Schuster:
Luísa Sampaio, with Alberto Craievich, Mar Borobia, and Vera Mariz, Splendour in Venice: From Canaletto to Guardi (Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2025), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-9899119208, £45.
In October 2024 The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, in collaboration with the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, presented the exhibition Splendor in Venice: From Canaletto to Guardi, devoted to 18th-century Venetian painting. Artists such as Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, Bernardo Bellotto, and Giambattista Tiepolo—creators of some of the most brilliant compositions of their time and undeniable highlights in the collections of both Iberian museums—were among the artists showcased in the exhibition.
This accompanying publication is divided into two parts: the first featuring three essays and the second comprising individual catalogue entries. Mar Borobia, Chief Curator of Old Master Painting at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, opens the first part with an essay on the history of the collection of 18th-century Venetian painting belonging to the Madrid museum. Next, Vera Mariz, curator at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, reflects on Gulbenkian’s admiration for the work of Francesco Guardi, which led him to purchase 19 paintings by the Italian master for his collection. Finally, Alberto Craievich, director of Ca’ Rezzonico, Museo del Settecento Veneziano, explores the artistic context of the city of Venice during the 18th century. The second part consists of 34 catalogue entries written by Luísa Sampaio, the curator of the exhibition.
Luísa Sampaio is in charge of collections management at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. As a curator, she takes care of the departments of Painting, Sculpture, and the works of René Lalique. She has curated various international exhibitions devoted to artists including Turner, Fantin-Latour, Carpeaux, and Rodin. She recently curated the exhibition René Lalique and the Age of Glass (2020). She is the author of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum’s painting catalogue (2009).
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