Display | Two Busts by Rysbrack
From the DIA press release (19 January 2017). . .
Two Busts of John Barnard by John Michael Rysbrack
Detroit Institute of Arts, January 2017 — Summer 2018
John Michael Rysbrack, Portrait of John Barnard, 1744, marble (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976.330).
The Detroit Institute of Arts welcomes two new ‘guests of honor’: a terracotta model and a marble bust of a young boy, John Barnard, by John Michael Rysbrack. The model is on loan from a private collector and the bust is on loan from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Shown together for the first time, these immaculately preserved portraits provide a rare glimpse of Rysbrack’s creative process. The sculptures, both of which the artist signed and dated, showcase both Rysbrack’s mastery of modeling terracotta and his exceptional skill as a marble carver. They will be on view through summer 2018.
Born and trained in Antwerp, Rysbrack moved to London in 1720 and quickly became one of the leading sculptors working in 18th-century England. Along with his fellow expatriate sculptor Louis François Roubiliac, whose arresting bust of the architect Isaac Ware stands as a major highlight of the DIA’s British portrait collection, Rysbrack was instrumental in elevating the popularity of the sculpted portrait bust above that of more conventional painted portraits in England.
While Rysbrack was highly sought after for his psychologically dynamic portraits, only a handful of his surviving works represent children. On the back of the marble bust, Rysbrack inscribed the name of his young sitter, John Barnard, the son of a British clergyman. The boy is fashionably outfitted in a Hussar’s costume, the uniform of a Hungarian cavalryman. Deriving from England’s sympathy for Hungary and Vienna during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48), the fad for the Hussar’s uniform appeared often throughout the 1740s in portraits of children and adults alike.
The livelier expression on the boy’s face in the hand-modeled terracotta contrasts with his graver yet youthful appearance in the marble, suggesting that the portrait was intended as a posthumous tribute to a child who died at a young age. Viewing the Metropolitan Museum’s marble bust alongside its corresponding terracotta model presents a unique opportunity to appreciate Rysbrack’s ability to transform keen observation of youthful vitality into an enduring memorial portrait. The two works are on display in the third floor British portrait gallery.
Display | The First Inauguration
Balustrade Section from Federal Hall, New York, 1788–89, painted wrought iron, 95 × 178 × 4 cm (New York Historical Society, 1884.3). More information is available here»
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This installation is part of The Presidency Project at the New-York Historical Society:
The First Inauguration: George Washington’s 1789 Ceremony at Federal Hall
New-York Historical Society, 9 January — 26 February 2017
On April 30, 1789, George Washington was sworn in as president of the United States on the balcony of Federal Hall in lower Manhattan, uttering for the first time the words that every succeeding president would recite: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” To mark the 2017 inauguration and as part of the The Presidency Project, the New-York Historical Society presents artifacts and documents linked to the nation’s first presidential inauguration. At its center, the installation showcases an original section of the wrought-iron railing from Federal Hall, a municipal building that was transformed by French architect Pierre-Charles L’Enfant into a suitable headquarters for the national government. L’Enfant adorned the facade with classical and patriotic motifs, including the railing’s thirteen arrows—one for each state in the republic.
This special installation also features an armchair used by George Washington in the Senate chamber of Federal Hall just after his swearing in. The storied armchair, designed in the latest neoclassical fashion, was later used for the inaugurations of Ulysses S. Grant and James A. Garfield. A printed broadside of Washington’s inaugural address is also on view.
Exhibition | Legacy: The Artist’s Album and Richard Cooper, Jr
From UCL Art Museum:
Legacy: The Artist’s Album and Richard Cooper Jnr
UCL Art Museum, London, 10 January — 9 June 2017
Richard Cooper Jr, Italian Landscape with Bridge, pen and brown ink with brown wash (London: UCL Art Museum 3751).
Legacy at UCL Art Museum features for the first time various artist’s albums by Richard Cooper, Jr (1740–1822). Cooper was a versatile and experimental artist, highly regarded by his contemporaries for his contributions to printmaking, draftsmanship, and art education. A true child of the Scottish enlightenment, Cooper worked in France, Spain, and Italy, where he was closely associated with the leading lights of his generation, including Jacob More, Gavin Hamilton, and Joseph Wright of Derby. Upon his return to London around 1777, he was celebrated for his capriccios or ‘invented views’ of the Roman Campagna, which he reproduced using the latest printmaking technologies. The contents of Cooper’s marbled-paper covered albums—carefully assembled with original prints and copy drawings—reveal the breadth of his involvement with the new techniques of lithography and soft-ground etching. They introduce Cooper as an innovative printmaker and highlight technological developments in printmaking that took place in the late eighteenth century.
In addition, the exhibition provides an opportunity to consider artists’ albums more broadly—how and why they are compiled and used and the role they can play in establishing a legacy. Also on display are more contemporary examples of the artist’s albums from our Slade Collections, including an album of discarded sketches by Augustus John, which was collected and assembled by fellow student Cuthbert Hamilton, as well as Stanley Spencer’s bound postcard collection. Also a feature of Legacy will be a changing display of contemporary innovations in printmaking by Phyllida Barlow, Bartolomeu dos Santos, Philip Sutton, and others.
P R O G R A M M I N G
Who Was Richard Cooper, Jr?
17 January 2017, 1:00–2:00
Richard Cooper, Jr was well regarded by his peers as a draughtsman, printmaker, drawing master, and antiques dealer; yet no thorough study of his life and work exists. Art dealer Tom Edwards tells us more about the artist and his influence.
Pop-up Exhibition: Printing Innovation at UCL
1 February 2017, 1:00–5:00
UCL Art Museum’s volunteers put together a pop-up exhibition of highlights from the collection with a focus on printing innovation at the Slade School of Art.
Innovation in Printmaking
15 February 2017, 1:00–2:00
Come and learn about innovation in printmaking at UCL Art Museum directly from the artists.
Liz Rideal on Rome and the Campagna
28 February 2017, 1:00–2:00
Artist and Slade lecturer Liz Rideal talks about her Leverhume research project to create images, curate period photographs, and organise these into an interactive digital map of Rome and the Campagna in relation to the Legacy exhibition.
Exhibition | The Pursuit of Immortality: Portrait Medals
Opening in May at The Frick:
The Pursuit of Immortality: Masterpieces from the Scher Collection of Portrait Medals
The Frick Collection, New York, 9 May — 10 September 2017
Curated by Aimee Ng and Stephen Scher
The Frick Collection recently announced the largest acquisition in its history—a promised gift of approximately 450 portrait medals from the incomparable collection of Stephen K. and Janie Woo Scher. Representing the development of the art of the portrait medal from its inception in fifteenth-century Italy to the nineteenth century, the Scher collection is arguably the world’s most comprehensive and significant collection of portrait medals. Comments Director Ian Wardropper, “Henry Clay Frick had an abiding interest in portraiture as expressed in the paintings, sculpture, enamels, and works on paper he acquired. The Scher medals will coalesce beautifully with these holdings, being understood in our galleries within the broader contexts of European art and culture. At the same time, the intimate scale of the institution will offer a superb platform for the medals to be appreciated as an independent art form, one long overdue for fresh attention and public appreciation.”
To celebrate the promised gift, The Frick Collection will mount an exhibition this spring entitled The Pursuit of Immortality: Masterpieces from the Scher Collection of Portrait Medals. The exhibition will explore the flourishing of the medallic arts in major European centers of artistic production and will feature superlative examples by masters of the art such as Pisanello (Italy), Dupré (France), and Reinhart (Germany). Taking and fresh approach to the study of medals, which have often been viewed in the past as specialist objects closer to the field of numismatics, this exhibition will examine medals within the larger context of art, honoring them as a triumph of sculptural production on a small scale. Visitors to the show will encounter a number of renowned sculptors who were also masters of the medal.
The Pursuit of Immortality: Masterpieces from the Scher Collection of Portrait Medals is organized by Aimee Ng, Associate Curator at the Frick, and Stephen K. Scher, an esteemed art historian as well as a collector. Accompanying the exhibition is a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue including an essay by Aimee Ng. (In the spring of 2018, a catalogue of the entire Scher Collection will be published, featuring essays by leading medals scholars and illustrated entries about each of the almost one thousand medals in the collection.)
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Aimee Ng, The Pursuit of Immortality: Masterpieces from the Scher Collection of Portrait Medals (London: Giles, 2017), 64 pages, ISBN: 978 19112 82068, £15 / $20.
Accompanying the exhibition is a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue including an essay by Aimee Ng. In the spring of 2018, a catalogue of the entire Scher Collection will be published, featuring essays by leading medals scholars and illustrated entries about each of the almost one thousand medals in the collection.
Aimee Ng is associate curator at The Frick Collection, New York, and a specialist in Italian Renaissance art. She has held curatorial and academic positions at the Morgan Library & Museum, where she was postdoctoral fellow at the Morgan’s Drawing Institute in 2014, and at Columbia University, where she earned her Ph.D. She was guest curator of The Poetry of Parmigianino’s ‘Schiava Turca’ (2014) and organizing curator of Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action (2015–16).
Exhibition | Alexandre Lenoir’s Museum of French Monuments
I’m nearly a year late with this posting, but the catalogue is still available. –CH
From the Louvre:
Un Musée révolutionnaire: Le musée des Monuments français d’Alexandre Lenoir
A Revolutionary Museum: Alexandre Lenoir’s Museum of French Monuments
Musée du Louvre, Paris, 7 April — 4 July 2016
Curated by Geneviève Bresc-Bautier and Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot
Dating from 1795, the Museum of French Monuments was France’s second national museum, coming in the wake of the Louvre, founded in 1793. It played a major part in the birth of the notion of heritage and the emergence of medieval history. However, it was closed in 1816 and its contents are currently to be found in institutions in France—the Louvre’s Department of Sculptures, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the basilica of Saint-Denis, the Musée de Cluny, Notre Dame, various churches in the Paris diocese—and abroad: mainly in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, but also in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The exhibition recounts the pioneering achievement of Alexandre Lenoir as museum curator, exhibition designer, and fervent heritage protector. It also explores the establishment and history of the Museum of French Monuments, whose exhibition style had a powerful influence on the sensibility and the arts of the period.
Organized by Geneviève Bresc-Bautier (Musée du Louvre), and Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot (Musée de Cluny-Musée National du Moyen Âge).
From Hazan:
Geneviève Bresc-Bautier and Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot, eds. Un Musée révolutionnaire: Le musée des Monuments français d’Alexandre Lenoir (Paris: Hazan, 2016), 380 pages, ISBN: 978 27541 09376, €45.
Alexandre Lenoir (1761–1839), fervent défenseur des arts face au vandalisme révolutionnaire, fut le créateur et l’administrateur du musée des Monuments français de 1791 à sa fermeture en 1816 et à la dispersion de ses collections.L’exposition qui se tiendra dans le hall Napoléon du musée du Louvre du 7 avril au 4 juillet 2016 s’attache dans un premier temps à présenter l’histoire et l’influence de cette institution et de son fondateur sur l’historiographie et la conservation du patrimoine français. Dans un second temps, l’exposition dévoile au public plusieurs ensembles de sculptures tels qu’ils étaient exposés au musée des Monuments français, notamment les statues-colonnes de Gaillon représentant Jeanne d’Arc et Louis XII ou encore le tombeau de Valentine Balbiani et du cardinal René de Birague. Plus qu’un catalogue d’exposition, la publication accompagnant cet événement constitue un véritable ouvrage de référence sur le musée des Monuments français. Dirigé par les commissaires d’exposition Geneviève Bresc-Bautier et Béatrice de Chancel, il rassemble vingt-huit textes d’historiens de l’art accompagnés de plus de deux cent cinquante illustrations, notamment les nombreuses vues de salles à l’aquarelle de Jean-Lubin Vauzelle qui font revivre un instant ce musée aujourd’hui disparu.
Exhibition | Classicisms
Tommaso Gherardini, Classical Relief (detail), 1765, oil on canvas (Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, Gift of the Collection of Edward A. and Inge Maser, 2008.23).
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From the Smart Museum of Art:
Classicisms
Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 16 February — 11 June 2017
Curated by Larry Norman and Anne Leonard
Classicism, as an aesthetic ideal, is often associated with a conventional set of rules founded on supposedly timeless notions such as order, reason, and decorum. As a result, it can be understood as rigid, outdated, or stodgy. But classicism is actually far from a stable concept—throughout history, it has given rise to more debate than consensus, and at times has been put to use for subversive ends.
Organized by the Smart Museum of Art and informed by an interdisciplinary planning process involving faculty members from across the University of Chicago, Classicisms explodes the idea of classicism as an unchanging ideal. The exhibition features 70 objects spanning diverse genres, eras, and media—paintings, ancient and modern sculpture, cast plaster replicas, and works on paper. Together with a scholarly catalogue, the exhibition traces classicism’s meanings across the centuries from varying artistic, cultural, and ideological perspectives to reveal a multifaceted concept with a complicated history.
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Distributed by The University of Chicago Press:
Larry F. Norman and Anne Leonard, ed., Classicisms (Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, 2017), 184 pages, ISBN: 978 0935 573572, $30. With essays by Richard T. Neer, Susanna Caviglia, Andrei Pop, Frederick A. de Armas, Benjamin Morgan, Jennifer Wild, Rebecca Zorach, and Glenn W. Most; and other contributions from Rainbow Porthé, Ji Gao, Esther Van Dyke, Caitlin Hoff, Rebecca Crisafulli, and James Nemiroff.
This volume explodes the idea of classicism as an unchanging ideal. Through essays and other contributions from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, it traces the shifting parameters of classicism from antiquity to the twentieth century, documenting an exhibition of seventy objects in various media from the collection of the Smart Museum of Art and other American and international institutions. With its impressive historical and conceptual reach—from ancient literature to contemporary race relations and beyond—this colorfully illustrated book is a dynamic exploration of classicism as a fluctuating stylistic and ideological category.
Exhibition | Comforts, Cures, and Distractions
The farmhouse in which Bronson Alcott and family lived, now Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Massachusetts (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, May 2009).
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Press release from Fruitlands Museum (via Art Daily). . .
Comforts, Cures, and Distractions: Winter at Fruitlands Museum
Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Massachusetts, 29 November 2016 — 26 March 2017
Curated by Shana Dumont Garr and Rebecca Migdal
The Trustees of Reservations [a non-profit land conservation and historic preservation organization dedicated to preserving natural and historical places in Massachusetts] announced that Fruitlands Museum, its newest property, is presenting Comforts, Cures, and Distractions: Winter at Fruitlands Museum, running through March 26, 2017. The exhibition brings wintry New England into vivid focus with an assortment of art and artifacts from the museum’s diverse Transcendentalist, Shaker, Native American, and landscape painting collection.
“As daylight hours shorten and temperatures plummet, snow transforms the landscape, blanketing it with hushed beauty,” says Fruitlands Curator Shana Dumont Garr, who joined The Trustees in September. “During this season of winter wonder it becomes difficult to imagine how people made it through the cold weather in past centuries, before central heating and other modern conveniences. The objects assembled in Comforts, Cures, and Distractions will connect visitors to moments spent during winters past, and historical attempts to foster good health and good cheer, offering glimpses into wintertime daily life in 18th- and 19th-century New England when life was often so much more challenging day to day.”
The array of items also tells a unique story about Fruitlands’ collection, with Shaker scarves and mittens, a Woodlands Native American water warmer, or mokuk, and a 19th-century painting of ice skaters that captures the dramatic transformation of the landscape. There are skates, sleds, and snowshoes dating from the era when 11-year-old Louisa May Alcott described playing in the snow when she and her family lived in the Fruitlands Farmhouse in 1834, as well as a pair of pink and white mittens that are believed to have been used by the Alcott girls.
“Seeing items drawn from Fruitlands Museum’s varied collections provides an opportunity to see how different communities solve the same enduring problems of how to stay warm, fed, and entertained during the tough winter months,” adds Rebecca Migdal, who co-curated the exhibition with Dumont. Contemporary objects, such as dried herbs that follow Shaker healing traditions, a shovel, hat, and sled will help round out stories that follow themes of either survival or celebration and connect winters past with winters present.
Comforts, Cures, and Distractions is co-curated by Fruitlands Curator Shana Dumont Garr and Rebecca Migdal.
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Fruitlands Museum, founded in 1914 by Clara Endicott Sears, takes its name from an experimental utopian community led by Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane, which took place on the site in 1843. The campus includes
• The Fruitlands Farmhouse, the site of the experiment in communal living led by Alcott and Lane in 1843
• The Shaker Museum, the first Shaker museum in the country and home to the largest archive of Harvard Shaker documents in the world, housed in an historic building moved here from the Harvard Shaker community
• The Native American Museum, which houses a significant collection of artifacts that honor the spiritual presence and cultural history of the first Americans including New England Native culture and a survey of culture in the Plains, Southwest, and Northwest
• The Art Museum, including a collection of over 100 Hudson River School landscape paintings and over 230 nineteenth-century vernacular portraits, the second largest collection in the country along with a variety of rotating exhibits throughout the year
• The Wayside Visitor Center, exhibiting information on Fruitlands’ landscape and environment and providing classroom space for education programs and classes
Exhibition | Images and Revolts in Book and Prints
Now on view at the Bibliothèque Mazarine:
Images and Revolts in Book and Prints, 14th–Mid-18th Century
Images & Révoltes dans le livre et l’estampe, 14e–milieu du 18e siècle
Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, 14 December 2016 — 17 March 2017
Curated by Tiphaine Gaumy
Since the late Middle Ages, revolts and uprisings have marked European history. For a long time, historians believed that due to the extent of illiteracy, opponents had very few means of self-expression. However, the increase and widespread appearance of contesting images during periods of insurgency provides evidence of a visual and popular culture existing long before the French Revolution. Significant examples can be observed during the Bohemian Hussite movement in the 15th century or during the Peasants War in the Holy Roman Empire (1525).
An iconography of revolts emerged and spread, especially on ephemeral and scarcely preserved materials, but also in manuscripts, and very soon on new media. Opponents expressed their discontent through pamphlets and prints. In response, authorities tried to contain the dissemination of seditious images and to display, through other images, their own legitimacy and authority. This visual production raises many questions. How did rebels influence their creation? How did technical innovations (printing) or spiritual ones (reformation, iconoclasm…) determine their spread, form and content? Can historians trust them?
The exhibition features a broad variety of images, from rebellions of Flemish cities in the 14th century, to peasants revolts and religious troubles of the 15th and 16th centuries, uprisings and revolutions in the mid-17th century (in France, Portugal, Naples, the British Isles), and Jansenist protests in the 18th century. They form an unknown and astonishing visual legacy and a key testimony to understanding the political culture of Europe.
An exhibition organised by the Bibliothèque Mazarine, in collaboration with the ANR project Culture des révoltes et révolutions.
Stéphane Haffemayer, Alain Hugon, Yann Sordet, and Christophe Vellet, eds., Images & Révoltes dans le livre et l’estampe, XIVe–milieu du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Bibliothèque Mazarine & Editions des Cendres, 2016), 315 pages, ISBN: 979 1090853 096, 38€.
Call for Papers | Jacques-François Blondel
From the appel à communications:
Jacques-François Blondel et l’enseignement de l’architecture
La dernière leçon de l’architecture « à la française »
Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, Paris, 14 December 2017
Proposals due by 31 March 2017
Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, Blondel démontrant des machines dans l’académie d’architecture, 1770, Recueil de poésies de Sedaine, 1770 (Chantilly, musée Condé).
La Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine et la Ville de Metz se sont associées pour organiser une journée d’étude sur l’architecte Jacques-François Blondel (1708/9–1774). L’objectif de cette journée est d’interroger le rôle de cette gure majeure du siècle des Lumières dans l’enseignement de l’architecture. Cette rencontre annonce l’exposition monographique Blondel, architecte des Lumières, qui sera présentée à Metz en 2018, et l’exposition-dossier qui lui sera consacrée à la Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine la même année.
Parmi les architectes ayant publié des traités ou des « cours » sur l’exercice de leur art, Jacques-Francois Blondel se distingue par la qualité de ses ouvrages. Auteur majeur de la théorie architecturale, ce collaborateur de l’Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert a su, au cœur des Lumières, redonner une actualité à l’architecture classique, en s’opposant à l’art rocaille qui domine alors. Pour J.-F. Blondel, l’architecture possède une dimension encyclopédique — elle mobilise à la fois les savoirs techniques et les di érents arts — mais aussi sociale. Les écrits de J.-F. Blondel sont par ailleurs indissociables de son action pédagogique : avec la fondation de son École des Arts (1740), qui se propose de centraliser la diversité des compétences, il opère une véritable révolution pédagogique. Cette révolution, le professeur la mène jusque dans les salles de l’Académie royale d’architecture, où il est agréé académicien en 1755, puis nommé professeur o ciel en 1762. Au cours de sa longue carrière, il a l’occasion de former plusieurs générations d’architectes français et étranger, ainsi que d’in uencer des artisans, des amateurs, des commanditaires, des hommes de lettres… En ce qui concerne la pratique, J.-F. Blondel est surtout connu pour avoir aménagé le secteur de la cathédrale de Metz. On ne saurait cependant ignorer ses projets, rééls ou pédagogiques, tels l’aménagement du centre de Strasbourg, ou ses propositions d’architecture religieuse inspirées par les structures du gothique, mais respectant le répertoire classique des formes.
Les propositions devront s’intégrer dans les thèmatiques suivantes :
1. Blondel et les institutions : de son école privée à l’école de l’Académie
Par la volonté du marquis de Marigny, directeur général des bâtiments du roi, J.-F. Blondel, après avoir fondé l’école privée d’architecture (1740), est appelé à poursuivre son enseignement dans les salles du Louvre (1762), secondé par son ancien élève, Julien-David Le Roy. Ce premier axe entend explorer la manière dont le système royal des beaux-arts fut mis en place et le rôle que J.-F. Blondel et d’autres personnages-clés, furent amenés à y jouer. Cette thématique voudrait également interroger les résultats de cette politique.
2. Enseigner l’architecture aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles : de l’atelier à l’école de l’Académie, quelle fortune pour Jacques-François Blondel ?
Avant que J.-F. Blondel ne fonde l’École des Arts en 1740, chaque élève se formait à son futur métier en atelier, en agence, auprès de di érents professionnels (architecte, dessinateur, charpentier…). J.-F. Blondel révolutionne l’enseignement de l’architecture : il rassemble les cours dispensés par plusieurs professeurs dans de mêmes locaux. En 1747, lors de la réorganisation de son école, c’est encore J.-F. Blondel qui est sollicité pour enseigner l’architecture aux élèves de l’École des ponts et chaussées. Au-delà de cette méthode d’enseignement, comment les professeurs qui succèdent à J.-F. Blondel cherchent-ils à l’imiter ou à se démarquer de lui ? Quels liens ou ruptures peut-on établir avec l’enseignement dispensé au XIXe siècle, que ce soit à Paris ou ailleurs ?
La langue du colloque est de préférence le français. L’anglais est cependant accepté. Les propositions et les communications sont acceptées dans ces deux langues. Les propositions de communication sont à envoyer sous forme d’un résumé (entre 1500 et 2000 signes) accompa- gnées d’un titre et d’une notice biographique à l’adresse suivante : blondel@citechaillot.fr. Date limite d’envoi des propositions : 31 mars 2017 Les réponses seront communiquées début mai. La durée de chaque communication est de 20 mn. Les communications feront l’objet d’une captation video ; elles seront mises en ligne sur le site internet de la Ville de Metz et celui de la Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine.
Comité scientifique
Présidence:
• Corinne Bélier, directrice du musée des Monuments français, Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine
• Aurélien Davrius, maître-assistant à l’École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Paris-Malaquais
• Joseph Abram, professeur honoraire à l’École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Nancy
• Pierre Caye, directeur de recherche au CNRS
• Lorenzo Diez, directeur de l’École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Nancy
• Guillaume Fonkenell, conservateur du patrimoine, musée national de la Renaissance, Écouen
• Jean-Marc Hofman, attaché de conservation, Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine
• Olga Medvedkova, directrice de recherche au CNRS
• Stéphanie Quantin, conservateur du patrimoine, Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine
• Hélène Rousteau-Chambon, professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, Université de Nantes
Exhibition | House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth
Mario Testino, Stella Tennant (in Junya Watanabe) with Her Grandmother the Duchess of Devonshire (in Oscar de la Renta), from British Vogue (December 2006). © Mario Testino.
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Press release (via Art Daily):
House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth
Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, 25 March — 22 October 2017
Curated by Hamish Bowles
In 2017 Chatsworth will present its most ambitious exhibition to date, exploring the history of fashion and adornment: House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth. Hamish Bowles, International Editor-at-Large at American Vogue, will curate this landmark show with creative direction and design by Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda, the duo behind some of the most memorable fashion exhibitions of recent years. House Style will give unprecedented insight into the depth of the Devonshire Collection and the lives of renowned style icons from Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire to Stella Tennant.
The exhibition will bring to life the captivating individuals from the Cavendish family, including Bess of Hardwick, one of the most powerful women of the 16th century; the 18th-century ‘Empress of Fashion’ Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire; and Adele Astaire, the sister and dance partner of Fred Astaire. Deborah Devonshire and Nancy Mitford (two of the Mitford sisters), model Stella Tennant, and John F. Kennedy’s sister ‘Kick’ Kennedy will also be central to the show. Telling the rich history of both international style and the Devonshire Collection, the exhibition will demonstrate the power of fashion to illuminate these extraordinary characters.
House Style will be woven throughout one of Britain’s finest stately homes, including the largest and grandest room of the Baroque house, the Painted Hall, the Chapel, and the lavishly decorated State Music Room. Layering art history, fashion, jewellery, archival material, design, and textiles, the exhibition will be organised by theme, including Coronation Dress, The Devonshire House Ball, Bess of Hardwick and the Tudor influence, The Georgiana Effect, Ducal Style, Country Living, The Circle of Life, and Entertaining at Chatsworth.
Highlights of the exhibition will include exceptional couture designed by Jean Phillipe Worth and Christian Dior, together with influential contemporary garments from designers such as Gucci, Helmut Lang, Margiela, Vivienne Westwood, Erdem, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, and Vetements. The show will also feature personal family collections, including items belonging to the current Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, such as a Givenchy bolero worn on the Duchess’s wedding day. These pieces will be displayed alongside livery, uniforms, coronation robes, and fancy-dress costumes, demonstrating the varying breadth of fashion and adornment from the collection throughout the generations.
Important artworks will also be on display, including rare costume designs from the 1660s by Inigo Jones, Surveyor to the King’s Works and one of the most notable architects of 17th-century England. Contemporary artist T. J. Wilcox will be showing his intimate filmed portrait of Adele Astaire, which contains the only extant film of the star, found at Chatsworth in 2015.
Hamish Bowles commented: “To be let loose in the wardrobe rooms, the gold vaults, the muniment room, and the closets, cupboards, and attics of Chatsworth, in search of sartorial treasures has been a dream come true for me. Chatsworth is a real treasure house and the characters of generations of Cavendish family members who have peopled its rooms and gardens and landscapes is revealed as vividly through their choice of clothing and adornments, as through the canvases and lenses of the great artists and photographers who have memorialised them through the centuries. In House Style, we hope to bring these compelling and fascinating people and the very different worlds they inhabited to life, through the clothes and the jewels that they wore.”
Alessandro Michele, Creative Director at Gucci, commented: “Chatsworth is unlike anywhere else in the world—a place full of charm, history, and rituals. It is a piece of England, of Europe, and the contemporary world, all at the same time. You can see history everywhere, yet everything is alive.
This exhibition proves how much historical objects are an incredible source of inspiration for creating the present. Thus far the house has been speaking, now House Style gives a voice to the wardrobes of its inhabitants and guests.”
Patrick Kinmonth commented: “The patina of Chatsworth House itself is one of the greatest treasures of the collections, and looking at the surfaces and materials of clothes worn over hundreds of years in these very rooms proves to be a novel way to rediscover both the house and the wonderful things in it. Clothes and personal objects (especially jewels), in turn bring ghosts and visions of remarkable characters to the surface of the place, and we hope to conjure the presence of these remarkable men and women who have animated, loved and created this unique ensemble of great art, furniture, and personal style in its many layers.”
Hamish Bowles, ed., House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth (New York: Rizzoli, 2017), 192 pages, ISBN: 978 0847 858965, $45. With a foreword by the Duke of Devonshire, an introduction by the Countess of Burlington, and essays and texts by Hamish Bowles, Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, Charlotte Mosley, Sarah Mower, Diana Scarisbrick, and Lady Sophia Topley.
Enfilade 
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