Exhibition | Reynolds at Plymouth
Now on view in Plymouth:
The Influence of Italy
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 24 October 2015 — 27 August 2016
Taking as its focus our newly-acquired sketchbook, which was completed by Sir Joshua Reynolds between 1750 and 1752, this display investigates what attracted the young artist to Italy and the lasting influence his tour had on his life and art. Scroll through a digital version of our sketchbook and see what caught Reynolds’s eye as he sketched his way across Rome. Discover why Italy’s art, history and landscape has had such an enduring influence on centuries of artistic imagination. Featuring works by Wilson, Guardi and Northcote, plus supporting loans from the De Pass Collection at the Royal Cornwall Museum and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, join us for a journey to la bella Italia.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Now on view in Plymouth:
In the Frame: Plymouth’s Portraits Revealed
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 13 December 2014 — 27 August 2016
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Self-Portrait, ca. 1746 (Plymouth City Council)
Come and see an exhibition that delves more deeply into Plymouth’s portrait collection and presents characters that are new or rarely seen as well as some more familiar faces. ‘In the Frame’ features one of our most recent acquisitions—an early self-portrait by Plympton-born 18th-century artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds. This is set amongst other paintings of artists including self-portraits by James Northcote and Edward Opie.
You can come face to face with some of Plymouth’s maritime greats, too—from Hawkins and Raleigh to 18th-century admirals and George Gibbon, the Lieutenant Governor of Plymouth in the early 1700s, painted by Thomas Hudson. Important local faces and families also feature—from the Edgcumbes and the Eliots, to William Cookworthy (the founder of the Plymouth Porcelain factory) and the last town crier of Devonport.
Find out more about the research and the development that took place for this exhibition on our Museum blog.
Exhibition | The Power of Prints: The Legacy of Ivins and Mayor
Paul-César Helleu, Madame Helleu Looking at the Watteau Drawings in the Louvre, ca. 1896, drypoint, 38.8 × 51 cm (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, 59.599.19)
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Goya is the the important eighteenth-century offering here: Ivins was responsible for those acquisitions. Press release (21 January 2016) from The Met:
The Power of Prints: The Legacy of William M. Ivins and A. Hyatt Mayor
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 26 January 26 — 22 May 2016
Curated by Freyda Spira
The history of the Metropolitan Museum’s collection of works of art on paper—now one of the most important and most comprehensive in the world—began 100 years ago with the unlikely and astonishing story of its first two curators, neither of whom was trained as an art historian. Together, they challenged convention, engaged the public, and revolutionized the study of these works. Organized to commemorate the department’s centennial, the exhibition The Power of Prints: The Legacy of William M. Ivins and A. Hyatt Mayor sheds light on the fascinating careers of its founding curators and reveals how, from the very beginning, they artfully composed the print collection as a visual library: a corpus of works of art on paper—from the exceptional to the everyday. The story of this great American collection will be told through prints by Andrea Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer, Marcantonio Raimondi, Jacques Callot, Rembrandt van Rijn, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Honoré Daumier, James McNeill Whistler, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Mary Cassatt, Edward Penfield, and Edward Hopper, among others.
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, The Garroted Man (El agarrotado), ca. 1778–80, etching, 32.7 x 21.4 cm (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1920, 20.22)
In 1916, William Mills Ivins (1881–1961) abandoned a successful law career to accept the job of founding curator of the Met’s Department of Prints. Although he was hired specifically to acquire the works of well-known 19th-century artists and old masters, Ivins set out instead to amass examples of technical, social, and historical interest as well. Notably, he championed the works of Goya, whose challenging and sometimes gruesome imagery was not appreciated in America at that time. Ivins first encountered these works as a student in Paris; the brutal images of war affected him profoundly and, in time, changed the course of his life. Almost all of the Met’s collection of nearly 300 Goya prints—one of the largest anywhere—was acquired by Ivins.
Before joining the Museum in 1932, Alpheus Hyatt Mayor (1901–1980) had studied modern languages, literature, and poetry, and worked as an arts critic, teacher, and occasional actor. Like Ivins, he was also an avid bibliophile with wide-ranging interests, a voracity for knowledge, and passion for social history. Brought on to assist Ivins and, eventually, to continue his legacy, Mayor expanded on Ivins’s foundational work by adding a new focus on lithography and popular prints. Pushing the boundaries of what had traditionally been collected as printed matter, he acquired for the Museum some of the most renowned American collections of popular prints. To Mayor, these items had value, because of the information they contained about all aspects of culture. He also recognized their future potential for research in diverse fields, from anthropology to urban planning.
As a result of Ivins’s and Mayor’s prescient collecting, the department now houses innumerable unique masterpieces, lauded for their exceptional artistry, as well as popular prints such as posters and trade cards that were printed in large numbers and never intended to last. By employing a conversational and colloquial tone in texts they drafted to describe these works, Ivins and Mayor transformed the way information about art objects was written. Excerpts from the writings of Ivins and Mayor will be included on labels throughout the exhibition.
To a certain extent, the history of the department is also the history of a series of extraordinary gifts and purchases of works of art. The gift of some 3,500 prints by paper manufacturer Harris Brisbane Dick led to the hiring of Ivins, to oversee them. An early gift of 10 prints by the artist Mary Cassatt came from Ivins’s friend Paul J. Sachs, assistant director at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. (Sachs’s brother—also a friend of Ivins—gave an additional seven.) Engravings, woodcuts, and two woodblocks by Dürer entered the collection through gift and purchase from Junius Spencer Morgan, a noted collector of the artist’s works. Between 1949 and 1962, Mayor purchased more than 16,000 engravings, woodcuts, and mezzotints from Franz Joseph II, prince of Liechtenstein. The American sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh donated her entire collection of French and American posters of the 1890s. From Jefferson R. Burdick, the Museum received 300,000 examples of printed ephemera from the late 19th to the mid-20th century.
Just as Ivins and Mayor did, the exhibition will consider printed matter as the entrée to the information age, recognizing prints as functional objects that spread information to an ever-expanding audience and reflect a changing society. In the age of digital photography and the Internet, the power of prints, or the ability to disseminate images in identical form to a mass market, has special relevance to how we see, understand, and engage with works of art.
Arranged thematically and by technique, the exhibition has four parts. In the first section, the idea of taste is addressed in terms of Harris Brisbane Dick’s foundational gift of French, British, and American etchings and how it affected the collecting of etchings by the likes of Rembrandt and Goya. The second section considers engravings, amassed from the beginning with a focus on Renaissance artists such as Mantegna and Dürer. The third section shows the use of printed images in the spread of knowledge. Several rare early books, illustrated by woodcuts will be displayed. The books represent firsts of their kind on topics as diverse as costume, anatomy, and architecture. The final section features examples by Daumier, Toulouse-Lautrec, and other 19th-century artists whose works entered a truly mass market in the form of lithographs. Also in this section will be selected popular prints and ephemera from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Power of Prints: The Legacy of William M. Ivins and A. Hyatt Mayor is organized by Freyda Spira, Associate Curator in the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Drawings and Prints. Exhibition design is by Zoe Alexandra Florence, Exhibition Designer; graphics are by Ria Roberts, Graphic Designer; and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Lighting Design Managers, all of the Museum’s Design Department.
An illustrated checklist is available here»
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The catalogue is distributed by Yale UP:
Freyda Spira and Peter Parshall, The Power of Prints: The Legacy of William M. Ivins and A. Hyatt Mayor (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016), 192 pages, ISBN: 978-1588395856, $35 / £25.
Metropolitan Museum curators William M. Ivins and his protégé A. Hyatt Mayor not only assembled a vast collection of prints, from Renaissance masterworks to ephemeral works, but also expanded the appreciation of prints as aesthetic objects, socio-historical documents, and tools of communication. More radically, by discussing these prints in accessible language, they changed our notions of how art reaches the wider public. Drawing on previously unpublished material, including personal letters and departmental records, this is the first comprehensive exploration of the lives, careers, theories, and influence of Ivins and Mayor. Also included are 120 exceptional prints that represent the breadth and depth of their acquisitions, including works by Dürer, Rembrandt, Callot, Goya, Whistler, Cassatt, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Freyda Spira is associate curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Peter Parshall was formerly the Jane Neuberger Goodsell Professor of Art History and the Humanities at Reed College and curator and head of the Department of Old Master Prints at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Exhibition and Blog | Mended Ways: The Art of Inventive Repair
The exhibition closed last weekend, but anyone interested in the topic should have a look at Andrew Baseman’s blog Past Imperfect: The Art of Inventive Repair.
Mended Ways: The Art of Inventive Repair from the Collection of Andrew Baseman
The New York Ceramics and Glass Fair, 21–24 January 2016
Before the invention of Krazy Glue, broken household items were brought back to life with flair and ingenuity. Mended Ways: The Art of Inventive Repair takes you back to a time when necessity was truly the mother of invention, as seen in Andrew Baseman’s collection of over 500 examples of 17th- to mid 20th-century mended ceramics and glassware.
A variety of early repair techniques shown will include metal staple/rivets, perfected in China by itinerant ‘china menders’; tinkers’ replaced handles, lids, and spouts on mugs, teapots and jugs; intricate and detailed silversmiths’ repairs, which only the wealthy could afford.
Extraordinary pieces include a 17th-century Dutch delft ewer with a replaced jeweled metal spout and handle; an American blown and cut crystal candlestick from the early 1900s incongruously stuck into a block of wood; a c. 1850 English lustreware creamer with tin straps and handle; and a set of six delicately painted early 18th-century Chinese export plates held together with enough hand forged metal staples to keep Frankenstein’s monster intact.
Other fascinating repairs include a Chinese Yixing teapot, c. 1700, with a magnificently carved replacement handle and engraved silver mounts; an 1830s transfer-printed jug from England with woven wicker handle; and an 18th-century Chinese export teapot with a record number of repairs including a sterling silver spout, metal rivets supporting the handle, and a replaced hand-painted lid with chain attached to handle. To illustrate what some of the pieces looked like before they took a tumble, intact examples will be shown for a side-by-side comparison.
Andrew Baseman writes the blog, Past Imperfect: The Art of Inventive Repair, which chronicles Baseman’s world-renowned collection of antique ceramics with inventive repairs, also known as ‘make-do’s’. His collection was featured in a cover story for the Home & Garden section of The New York Times. He is an expert on the subject and has lectured in the US and abroad. His lifelong passion for collecting and selling antiques began at an early age and continues to inspire his design work today.
For over 20 years, Baseman worked as a designer, decorator and stylist on diverse film and television projects including The Nanny Diaries, Eat, Pray, Love, The Americans, Gotham and The Normal Heart, working with notable directors Ryan Murphy, Bill Condon, Jane Campion, and others. In 2003, he founded Andrew Baseman Design, Inc., an interior design firm specializing in upscale residential interiors, creating luxurious homes for clients in the visual arts, including film and theatrical producers, fashion designers, and others. He is the author of The Scarf (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1989), the classic illustrated art book chronicling the history of the printed scarf that reflects both his expertise and love of textiles.
Exhibition | Hubert Robert, 1733–1808
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From the National Gallery of Art:
Hubert Robert (1733–1808), un peintre visionnaire
Musée du Louvre, Paris, 7 March — 30 May 2016
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 6 June — 2 October 2016
Known fondly as ‘Robert des ruines’ because of his penchant for painting ancient ruins, Hubert Robert was regarded during his lifetime as one of France’s most successful and prominent artists. In the first monographic exhibition showcasing Robert’s full achievement as a draftsman and painter, some 50 paintings and 50 drawings will chart his development in Rome and subsequent high level of accomplishment after his return to Paris. The exhibition will also focus on Robert’s lasting contribution to French visual culture and the fundamental role he played in promoting the architectural capriccio (caprice or fantasy), an art form in which famous monuments of antiquity and modernity were imaginatively combined to create striking and novel city scenes and landscapes.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The English edition catalogue is published by Lund Humphries:
Margaret Morgan Grasselli with contributions from Yuriko Jackall, Guillaume Faroult and Catherine Voiriot, Hubert Robert (London: Lund Humphries, 2016), 288 pages, ISBN: 978-1848221918, £45.
Known fondly as ‘Robert des ruines’ because of his penchant for painting ancient ruins, Hubert Robert (1733–1808) was one of France’s most successful and prominent artists during his lifetime. This outstanding publication, which accompanies the first monographic exhibition of his work, illuminates Robert’s remarkable artistic achievements and his lasting contributions to French visual culture.
Robert’s skills were manifold—he enjoyed great success as a painter, draftsman, interior decorator and garden architect. During his time in Rome, he fostered close professional bonds with artists such as Piranesi, Panini and Fragonard, while in Paris he flourished under the patronage of several wealthy French supporters including the Marquis de Marigny, brother of the famed Madame de Pompadour. Robert’s work later addressed the demise of this glittering society through both ominous scenes of disaster and representations of vandalized royalist monuments. Upon his own release from imprisonment following the French Revolution, Robert completed a series of meditative variations on the Grande Galerie of the Musée du Louvre, of which he had been appointed curator in 1784.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The French edition catalogue is published by Somogy:
Guillaume Faroult, ed., Hubert Robert (1733–1808) : un peintre visionnaire (Paris: Somogy, 2016), 544 pages, ISBN: 978-2757210642, 49€.
Hubert Robert fut l’un des créateurs les plus séduisants du siècle des Lumières. Artisan de cet art de vivre poli, galant et souriant qui paraît l’une des quintessences de l’esprit français au XVIIIe siècle, l’artiste attire d’emblée la sympathie. Il parvint à s’introduire dans les cercles les plus brillants de son temps, édifiant une carrière exemplaire dans la France de l’Ancien Régime jusqu’au règne de Napoléon.
Formé à Rome vers le milieu du siècle, en pleine fièvre antiquaire, Robert s’impose dès son retour à Paris comme « peintre d’architecture ». Le philosophe Denis Diderot célèbre aussitôt la «poétique des ruines » du jeune artiste. La production de Robert fait preuve au cours de sa carrière d’une exceptionnelle dynamique d’amplification: les œuvres, les projets, les charges y atteignent une dimension considérable. L’artiste devient très recherché pour la production de vastes ensembles de décors peints. Il se lance enfin avec succès dans une forme d’« art total » en tant que créateur de jardins, dont le parc de Méréville (de 1786 à 1793) fut sans doute le chef-d’œuvre.
Frappé par le bouleversement historique de la Révolution française, il en consigne les premières manifestations en représentant, dès l’été 1789, La Bastille dans les premiers jours de sa démolition. En 1795, il réintègre sa fonction de conservateur du «Muséum national », c’est-à-dire du musée du Louvre qui vient d’ouvrir ses portes, et dont il avait préparé activement la création. Sans aucun doute, l’œuvre de Robert est parcourue par un sens de l’écoulement inexorable du temps et, par-delà, par une conscience de la marche de l’histoire, tour à tour triomphante ou déplorable, qui en constitue l’impressionnante grandeur.
Exhibition | Mavericks: Breaking the Mould of British Architecture
William Hodges and William Pars, The Pantheon, Oxford Street, London, 1770–72, by James Wyatt, oil on canvas (Leeds Museums and Art Galleries / Temple Newsam House)
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Press release (8 December 2015) from the RA:
Mavericks: Breaking the Mould of British Architecture
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 26 January – 20 April 2016
Curated by Owen Hopkins
Mavericks: Breaking the Mould of British Architecture is an installation that will chart the course of British architecture from the sixteenth century to the present day through the work of twelve maverick architects: Robert Smythson, Sir John Vanbrugh, James Wyatt PRA, Sir John Soane RA, Charles Robert Cockerell RA, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Charles Holden, H. S. Goodhart-Rendel, James Stirling RA, Cedric Price, FAT and Zaha Hadid RA.
Each of the twelve mavericks has charted his or her own course, often deliberately ignoring prevailing taste, fashion and ways of working. The installation comprises of images and photographs of these maverick architects’ work, situating their work within the broader context of architectural history, through an arresting colour-gradated design by Scott-Whitby Studio. Celebrating the original and the unorthodox, the installation will pose an intriguing alternative narrative to the history of British architecture.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Owen Hopkins, Mavericks: Breaking the Mould of British Architecture (London: Royal Academy Publications, 2016), 128 pages, ISBN: 978-1910350393, £13 / $28.
The history of architecture is a story of continual innovation, and at certain points within that story come architects whose visions completely defy convention. Mavericks focuses on 12 such figures from the history of British architecture, including Sir John Soane, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Cedric Price, and Zaha Hadid. From the stripped-back classicism of Soane’s Dulwich Picture Gallery to Hadid’s neofuturistic London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics, the architects’ work is bold, frequently controversial, and often radical. It is architecture that actively resists being pigeonholed into a particular style or period. What connects this naturally disparate group of free creative spirits is the way each has charted his or her own course, often deliberately evading conventions of taste, fashion, and ways of working. This book offers a fresh take on their creations, establishing new and sometimes surprising historical connections while proposing an intriguing alternative narrative to the history of British architecture.
Owen Hopkins is Architecture Programme Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and has written widely on architecture for The Burlington Magazine, The Architectural Review, Apollo, Dezeen, RA Magazine, C20 Magazine, The Oxonian Review, Architects’ Journal and Building Design. He is author of Reading Architecture: A Visual Lexicon (Laurence King, 2012), Architectural Styles: A Visual Guide (Laurence King, 2014) and From the Shadows: The Architecture and Afterlife of Nicholas Hawksmoor (Reaktion, 2015).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
E V E N T S
All events take place at the Geological Society, Piccadilly; £12 / reductions £6
Does Architecture Need Mavericks?
Thursday 4 February, 6.30–8pm
Owen Hopkins introduces the Mavericks book and installation and chairs a debate exploring the role of unorthodox approaches and original thinking in architecture.
Maverick Architects – A Thing of the Past?
Thursday 25 February, 6.30–8pm
Faced with the crushing weight of student debt and an increasingly risk-averse building industry, the panel explore if there is any future for mavericks in architecture.
After the Age of ‘Starchitects’
Monday, 7 March, 6.30–8pm
What might life be like after the signature-style, icon-obsessed—and male-dominated—age of the ‘starchitect’? The panel explores.
The Artist as Maverick Architect
Monday, 21 March, 6.30–8pm
Sean Griffiths, co-founder of FAT, one of the architects featured in Mavericks, chairs this discussion exploring the different perspectives artists can bring to the making of architecture.
Britain’s Greatest Maverick Building – The Debate
Monday, 18 April, 6.30–8pm
Do you have a favourite quirky or unusual building? Let us know on Twitter for a chance for it to be included in this debate looking for Britain’s greatest maverick building: @architecture_RA #Mavericks
New Book | Giambattista Bodoni: His Life and His World
On the occasion of the publication of Valerie Lester’s Giambattista Bodoni: His Life and His World, the first English biography of the great typographer, PRPH Rare Books and David R. Godine, Publisher invite you to an exhibit of selected Bodoni masterworks at our New York Gallery, a five-minute walk from The Grolier Club, Wednesday, January 27, 2016, 7.30–10.00pm. Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to news@prphbooks.com. PRPH Rare Books, 26 East 64th Street, 3rd Floor , New York, NY 10065.
A brief catalogue of nineteen items related to Bodoni is available as a PDF file here»
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From David R. Godine:
Valerie Lester, Giambattista Bodoni: His Life and His World (Boston: David R. Godine, 2015), 280 pages, ISBN: 978-1567925289, $40.
A lively, lavishly illustrated biography of the great printer Bodoni, vividly describing his work, life, and times while justifying his reputation as the ‘prince of typographers’.
This is the first English-language biography of the relentlessly ambitious and incomparably talented printer Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813). Born to a printing family in the small foothill town of Saluzzo, he left his comfortable life to travel to Rome in 1758 where he served as an apprentice of Cardinal Spinelli at the Propaganda Fide press. There, under the sponsorship of Ruggieri, his close friend, mentor, and protector, he learned all aspects of the printing craft. Even then, his real talent, indeed his genius, lay in type design and punchcutting, especially of the exotic foreign alphabets needed by the papal office to spread the faith.
His life changed when in 1768 at age 28 he was invited by the young Duke of Parma to abandon Rome for that very French city to establish and direct the ducal press. He remained in Parma, overseeing a vast variety of printing, some of it pedestrian, but much of it glorious. And all of it making use of the typefaces he personally designed and engraved.
This fine book goes beyond Bodoni’s capacity as a printer; it examines the life and times in which he lived, the turbulent and always fragile political climate, the fascinating cast of characters that enlivened the ducal court, the impressive list of visitors making the pilgrim- age to Parma, and the unique position Parma occupied, politically Italian but very much French in terms of taste and culture. Even the food gets its due (and in savory detail). The illustrations—of the city, of the press, of the types and matrices—are compelling enough, but most striking are the pages from the books he designed. And especially, pages from his typographic masterpiece, the Manuale Tipografico, painstakingly prepared by his wife Ghitta, posthumously published in two volumes, and displaying the myriad typefaces in multiple sizes that Bodoni had designed and engraved over a long and prolific career.
Intriguing, scholarly, visually arresting, and designed and printed to Bodoni’s standards, this title belongs on the shelf of any self-respecting bibliophile. It not only makes for compelling reading, it will be considered the biography of record of a great printer for years to come.
Valerie Browne Lester is an independent scholar, writer, and translator living in Boston. She is the author of Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens (2004), a biography of Hablot Knight Browne, Dickens’s principal illustrator who was also her great-great-grandfather. She translated Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes (The Magnificent Meaulnes, 2009), and has written poetry, plays, and articles.
Exhibition | China Observed
As noted at Art Daily:
China Observed: Historical Pictures by Chinese and Western Artists, 1750–1970
Hong Kong Maritime Museum, 7–14 October 2015
Mallett, New York, 21–31 January 2016
Chinese artist, late 18th century, one of a pair of paintings picturing Chinese Women Accompanied by Pipes and Pets, gouache on paper, 80 x 59 cm (London: The Martyn Gregory Gallery)
The world’s foremost expert in Chinese Export paintings, The Martyn Gregory Gallery of London, will exhibit 70 of these paintings (also known as China Coast or China Trade paintings), January 21–31, 2016, at Mallett, 929 Madison Avenue (at 74th Street). An exhibitor since 1990 at the annual Winter Antiques Show in New York, the gallery presents its first independent exhibition in the city with China Observed. These highly detailed works by Cantonese artists were bought by ships’ officers and merchants who came to trade at Canton (modern Guangzhou) in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Also on view will be paintings by Western artists who travelled to the East.
“New York has been one of the principal centers of the China Trade ever since America won its independence from Britain,” commented Martyn Gregory, “and the city still contains a wealth of China Trade pictures and keen collectors. We have always enjoyed coming to New York, and we look forward to meeting old friends and new enthusiasts in our new venue. We are bringing with us the finest collection of China Trade paintings to be found on the market at the present time, and perhaps for the foreseeable future.”
Among the most spectacular of the paintings by Chinese artists included in China Observed are detailed scenes of the ports visited by the Westerners: notably Canton, Hong Kong and Shanghai. One such example is The Hongs of Canton by an unknown Chinese artist, c. 1804. This oil on canvas (32 x 50 in.) is a large, impressive and finely detailed view of the hongs, or ‘Factories’, at Canton that commemorates the early years of direct trade between the United States and China. It also records a brief period when seven different nations (Great Britain, America, France, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain) were all actively trading at Canton, the only Chinese port at which Western trade was permitted.
Another large and unusually well-painted harbor painting is Hong Kong from the Harbour by an unknown Chinese artist, late 1850s (oil on canvas, 26 x 44 in.). Here, the island of Hong Kong is pictured before the erection of the signaling station on the Peak in 1861. Less than 20 years had elapsed since the British hoisted the Union Jack on the shore of Hong Kong Island, but in the intervening period, most of the waterfront between Western District and East Point had been developed. Several well-known structures are included in the landscape, including the tower of St. John’s Cathedral, which can be seen above the smaller paddlesteamer, with Government House uphill to its right. In the harbor, a great variety of vessels can be seen, including a coastal junk, Tanka boats operated by blue-robed women, covered hulks (superannuated sailing ships converted for use as naval base), small sidewheelers and three-masted sailing ships flying the flags of Britain, France and the United States. A curiosity of the painting is the presence, towards the right of the harbor, of a junk-rigged vessel with additional jib and topsails in the Western fashion.
A Panoramic View of the Bund at Shanghai, with a Regatta in Progress, an oil on canvas (16¾ x 55¾ in.) by an unknown Chinese artist, is apparently the earliest detailed view of the Shanghai Bund. The picture, which is known in several versions, would have been executed no earlier than July 1849, when the British consulate was first established on this site (far right) and not later than 1851, by which time Jardine, Matheson had replaced the Chinese-roofed building seen here (to the left of the British consulate) by a larger structure with a Western-style roof.
Also to be seen in China Observed will be remarkable Chinese export portraits of Western visitors to China and painted ‘in the Western manner’. Portrait of William Read of Philadelphia by the Cantonese artist known as Spoilum (fl. c.1774–c. 1805), an oil on canvas (24 x 20 in.) is an outstanding example of this artist’s distinctive work. The sitter, William Read (1767–1846), made several voyages to China. His father, George Read, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Trampling Down Loose Tea in Tea Chests at Canton, a gouache by a late 18th-century unknown Chinese artist (12½ x 10 in.; 31.7 x 25.4 cm.) is another highlight of China Observed. This painting is one of a set of eight scenes illustrating the production of tea from the earliest stages—picking tea in the mountains—to the late stage seen here, in which dark-suited Westerners sample the tea as animated Chinese figures press down the tea within the chests in which it will be exported to the West.
An unusual and early pair of suave Chinese women holding long tobacco pipes—one shown with a dog and the other with a green-eyed cat—are also included in the exhibition. A Pair of Paintings of Chinese Women accompanied by Pipes and Pets by a late eighteenth-century Chinese artist (gouache on paper, each 31½ x 23¼ in.; 80 x 59 cm) depicts in each scene a woman beside a latticework shutter, as if at a window, with flowering shrubs and birds beyond. Each woman wears a fur-lined robe and flower-bedecked headdress and holds up a long tobacco pipe. One woman is accompanied by a small dog, the other by a green-eyed cat; both are placed within painted trompe-l’oeil frames of differing design. These unusual pictures are precursors perhaps of the more standardized ‘beauties’, painted in oils, which were exported in the mid-nineteenth century.
China Observed will be on view from 10:00 to 6:00 daily. During the exhibition, inquiries can be directed via Mallett at 212.249.8783.
The catalogue is available as a PDF file for download here»
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Martyn Gregory, the proprietor for whom the gallery is named, has been an art dealer for more than 50 years. In 1977 the gallery held its first exhibition relating to the China Trade (Catalogue 18) following the discovery of an album containing over one hundred works relating to China at the time of the Second Opium War. It was from this beginning that the gallery developed its interest in the ever-intriguing subject of the China Trade and in the many artistic connections between China and the West. In addition to Mr. Gregory, Dr. Patrick Conner is a director of the gallery. He is a historian and lecturer and former Keeper of Fine Art at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton; he is also the author of the definite work on the legendary artist of the China Coast, George Chinnery and more recently a book on the ‘Hongs of Canton’, a study of the pictorial icons of the China Trade and the merchants who traded there.
The Martyn Gregory Gallery sells works that are often both historically significant and highly decorative. At least once a year, the gallery produces illustrated and scholarly catalogues on this area of specialty. For over 40 years it has been located at 34 Bury Street, St James’s in the West End of London.
Exhibition | Trading China: Paintings of the Porcelain Production Process
From the Hong Kong Maritime Museum:
Trading China: Paintings of the Porcelain Production Process in the Qing Dynasty
Hong Kong Maritime Museum, 23 October 2015 — 1 May 2016
This special exhibition showcases a series of 34 paintings recently acquired by the Museum that document the process of making and trading porcelain from the famous Jingdezhen kilns, from mining the clay to selling the porcelain to foreign merchants through local dealers. Painted for the Western market, these illustrations vividly capture the work of the many specialised labourers as well as the way in which the trade and transport of the finished porcelain was arranged.
From the 16th century, Western demand for Chinese porcelain, exported through Guangzhou, grew. The technique of overglaze enamel painting, which originated in the imperial workshops, was used at Jingdezhen from the early 18th century for the production of imperial, domestic and export wares, reinforcing its role as China’s largest porcelain production centre. This style was very popular and led to innovations in ceramic production in Europe.
The Hong Kong Maritime Museum is grateful to the late Susan Chen Hardy for her generous donation of this collection of paintings. Susan was a long-time supporter of the Museum and a passionate connoisseur and collector of Chinese art. She and her husband Anthony Hardy have made significant contributions to the Museum and we are very pleased to welcome this exceptional series of paintings into our permanent collection.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The bi-lingual catalogue is available here
Trading China: Paintings of the Porcelain Production Process in the Qing Dynasty (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Maritime Museum, 2015), 88 pages, ISBN: 978-9881823380, HK$100.
This catalogue features a series of 34 paintings recently acquired by the Museum. The paintings document the process of making and trading porcelain from the famous Jingdezhen kilns in the 18th century. Introductory articles and appendices on surveys of Qing paintings on the porcelain production process in other collections are also included.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
A set of twelve Chinese pictures depicting the porcelain production process (from about 1803 and formerly belonging to Lord Grenville, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) was shown at the Indianapolis Museum of Art as part of The Luxury of Tea and Coffee: An Exhibition of Chinese Export Porcelain from a Private Collection (April 2011 – March 2012). That set of gouaches has since been sold by Thomas Coulborn & Sons.
Exhibition | Body Image in French Art and Visual Culture
From Harvard Art Museums:
Body Image in French Art and Visual Culture, 18th and 19th Centuries
Louis-Marin Bonnet, after François Boucher, Young Woman in Bed / Figure de femme sur un lit, 1767, crayon manner etching printed in black and white on blue paper, 43.5 x 29.9 cm. Signed: L. Bonnet sculp. (Cambridge: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, M14332)
The goal of this installation is to consider the role of different artists and mediums (drawing, sculpture, print) in producing the modern understanding of the body. Spanning the period from rococo to post-impressionism, the installation addresses the issues of artistic instruction, the formation of gender and sexual identity and ethnic/racial stereotypes, the representation of history and modern life, the political and social critique, and the subjective vision. The 20 works on view include drawings by Degas and Seurat; prints by Gauguin, Manet, and Toulouse-Lautrec; and a bronze sculpture by Rodin.
This installation complements a course taught by Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, the William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts. The University Teaching Gallery serves faculty and students affiliated with Harvard’s Department of History of Art and Architecture. Semester-long installations are mounted in conjunction with undergraduate and graduate courses, supporting instruction in the critical analysis of art.
Display | A Room for Damascus
This posting is about nine months late, but the display is still on view at the V&A:
A Room from Damascus
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 17 April 2015 — 15 April 2016
In the 18th century, the main reception rooms in Syrian upper-class houses began to be highly decorated with colourful painted wooden panelling. These rooms were the focus of hospitality, but the objects displayed there also announced a family’s wealth and status. When cities began to modernise in the late 19th century, many of these decorative interiors were removed for sale. The V&A was the earliest western collection to acquire one. This display will present some of the panelling and a selection of the objects that once dressed this room.
Mariam Rosser-Owen, the curator responsible for the Arab World collections at the V&A, provides a blog posting, available here, on the installation of the display.
Her earlier posting details the history of the room as it came to the V&A.
Enfilade
leave a comment