Exhibition | Christophe-Paul de Robien and the Age of Libertinism
Phallus of blown glass.
From the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes:
Cabinet de Curiosités: Le Temps des Libertinages
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, 13 June 2014 — 4 January 2015
Vincennes Porcelain Manufactory, Le Flûteur
(The Flute Lesson), ca. 1752–53
(Paris: Musée National de la Céramique de Sèvres)
Christophe-Paul de Robien (1698–1756) possédait dans son cabinet douze objets érotiques dont certains qualifiés d’obscènes dans les inventaires. Il s’agit là de peu de chose pour en faire un érotomane, mais c’est plus que ce que possédait Caylus ou Calvet à la même époque.
Cette exposition accompagnant la réouverture du cabinet de curiosités tentera de remettre dans son contexte les objets érotiques de Robien à partir d’autres objets qui lui sont contemporains : des raretés venues de Guimet, du Louvre et des Arts décoratifs délimiteront les contours d’un érotisme longtemps occulté parmi les collections d’amateurs que la seconde moitié du XVIIIème polarisera entre bon gout et vulgarité.
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Sandra Dufils provides a summary here»
Jean-Baptiste Gandon provides a summary here»
Information on Christophe-Paul de Robien’s collection generally is available here»
And finally, the museum’s website provides this impressively extensive bibliography on eroticism, sexuality, and libertinism
(as a PDF File).
Exhibition | Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture
Artist unknown, Elihu Yale, the 2nd Duke of Devonshire, Lord James Cavendish, Mr. Tunstal, and an Enslaved Servant, ca. 1708, oil on canvas (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, Gift of the 11th Duke of Devonshire)
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Press release from the YCBA:
Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2 October 2014 — 14 December 2014
Curated by Esther Chadwick, Meredith Gamer, and Cyra Levenson
This October, the Yale Center for British Art will shed new
light on representations of slavery in Britain through more than sixty paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative objects. Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain will examine the ways in which portraiture reflected the perceptions, attitudes, and contradictions of slavery at the time.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington, 1782 (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art)
The rise of the British Empire during the eighteenth century, fueled by enslaved labor on plantations in the Caribbean and the mainland of North America, contributed to a period of economic and cultural growth. It also brought unprecedented numbers of Africans and people of African descent, both enslaved and free, to Britain. Figures of Empire explores the impact of these developments on the most popular artistic genre of the time: the portrait.
In eighteenth-century Britain, portraits were a principal means of self- representation. Sitters conveyed information about themselves in a variety of ways—through clothing, setting, props, and, often, in relation to subordinate figures, such as servants or slaves. In many cases, these figures were modeled after life; however, in the eighteenth century, they were rarely regarded as subjects in their own right. By contrast, this exhibition challenges us to consider all of the figures depicted within a given portrait as individuals with histories and as ‘figures of empire’—as people whose lives were shaped by British imperialism and the institution of transatlantic slavery. Figures of Empire asks us to think again about what exactly a portrait is and how the answer to this question might change over time.
Studio of Francis Harwood, Bust of a Man, ca. 1758, black limestone on yellow marble socle (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)
The exhibition opens with a selection of early eighteenth-century portraits, maps, and sculptures that trace Britain’s expanding commercial empire and engagement with the institution of transatlantic slavery. Anchoring this display is an important and rarely exhibited group portrait that includes Elihu Yale, the founding benefactor of Yale University, along with an enslaved servant. The next section focuses on the role and representation of slavery in a number of mid-century portraits and conversation pieces, including William Hogarth’s Portrait of a Family (ca. 1735) and Francis Harwood’s remarkable sculpted Bust of a Man (1758). The exhibition continues with an exploration of imagery produced within the context of abolitionism later in the century, examining the particular impact of the antislavery movement on the practice of Britain’s leading portraitist, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Finally, the exhibition concludes by highlighting a number of cases in which portraiture became a means for some of African birth and descent who crossed the Atlantic aboard slave ships to forge new identities as both black and British.
The exhibition presents the portraits and their historical context through a wide range of media and art forms. Selected primarily from the Center’s holdings, the display also will be enriched by loans from other Yale collections, and from the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Figures of Empire takes its place in a new body of scholarship and critical engagement with the legacy of slavery, including the recent high-profile films Twelve Years a Slave (2013) and Belle (2014). It also expands upon conversations begun by prior scholarly publications and exhibitions at the Center, most significantly Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds (2007). While Art and Emancipation focused on slavery in British colonial Jamaica, this exhibition will turn its sights to Britain.
The exhibition includes a series of interviews with academic and curatorial scholars, as well as artists, to help place the works of art in a contemporary context. The interviews will be presented as part of an interactive presentation, accessible in the exhibition and on the Center’s website. In addition, a series of related programs, including lectures, exhibitions, a conference, and a film screening, is taking place across Yale University. Highlights include a pendant exhibition entitled Prospects of Empire: Slavery and Ecology in Atlantic Britain at the Lewis Walpole Library, and a major international conference planned in partnership with The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, entitled Visualizing Slavery and British Culture in the Eighteenth Century.
Figures of Empire has been organized by the Center and curated by Esther Chadwick and Meredith Gamer, PhD candidates in the history of art at Yale University, and Cyra Levenson, Associate Curator of Education at the Yale Center for British Art.
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Figures of Empire: Opening Panel Discussion
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 8 October 2014, 5:30
A conversation with Tim Barringer, Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University; Kobena Mercer, Professor, History of Art and African American Studies, Yale University; and Titus Kaphar, artist.
Exhibition | Prospects of Empire: Slavery and Ecology
H. Cock, after prints included in Captain John Gabriel Stedman, Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted
Negroes of Surinam, from the year 1772 to 1777, elucidating the history of that country and describing its productions
(London, 1796). Left: after William Blake, The Skinning of the Aboma Snake, shot by Capt. Stedman. Right: after Benedetti,
Indian Female of the Arrowauka Nation. Though originally appearing in separate volumes of Stedman, the two images
were here printed together.
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From The Lewis Walpole Library:
Prospects of Empire: Slavery and Ecology in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain
The Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, 20 October 2014 — 27 March 2015
Curated by Hazel Carby and Heather Vermeulen
Prospects of Empire: Slavery and Ecology in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain will explore the notion of empire’s ‘prospects’—its gaze upon bodies and landscapes, its speculations and desires, its endeavors to capitalize upon seized land and labor, as well as its failures to manage enslaved persons and unruly colonial ecologies. It will read latent anxieties in the management of bodies and borders, both in the colonies and in the metropole, and will examine the forces that empire mustered in efforts to quell and contain various threats to its regimes of power and knowledge. In addition to the focus on eighteenth-century material, the exhibition will feature a selection of four lithographs from Joscelyn Gardner’s series Creole Portraits III: Bringing down the Flowers (2009–11), a recent joint acquisition by the Yale Center for British Art and the Yale University Art Gallery. Gardner’s work mines the eighteenth-century Jamaica archive of white English immigrant and overseer Thomas Thistlewood, whose plantation ledger book will be on loan from the Beinecke.
A pendant exhibition, Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture, will be on display at the Yale Center for British Art from 2 October until 14 December 2014.
Exhibition | William Blake: Apprentice and Master
William Blake, Nebuchadnezzar, ca. 1795–1805, colour print,
ink, and watercolour on paper, 54.3 x 72.5 cm (London: Tate)
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From the Ashmolean:
William Blake: Apprentice and Master
Ashmolean, Oxford, 4 December 2014 — 1 March 2015
Curated by Michael Phillips and Colin Harrison
This major exhibition focuses on the extraordinary life and work of William Blake (1757–1827), printmaker, painter and revolutionary poet of the prophetic books. It examines his formation as an artist, apprenticeship as an engraver, and his maturity during the 1790s when he was at the height of his powers as both an artist and revolutionary poet. We also explore his influence on the young artist-printmakers who gathered around him in the last years of his life, including Samuel Palmer, George Richmond and Edward Calvert.
One of the most popular English artists, William Blake is still one of the least understood. His radical politics were reflected in his extraordinary technical innovations, especially in the field of printmaking and the illuminated book. This exhibition brings together more than 90 of Blake’s most celebrated works and offers new insights into his remarkable originality and influence.
At a young age William Blake showed artistic promise and, at the age of 15, was apprenticed to James Basire, the official engraver to the Society of Antiquaries. Under Basire’s tutelage, Blake was sent out to study London’s gothic churches and, most particularly, the monuments and decorations in Westminster Abbey—an experience which was to prove formative for his later style and imagery. The first section of the exhibition looks at Blake’s early work, exemplifying his already unorthodox approach.
After studying at the Antique School of the Royal Academy, Blake opened a print shop with his former apprentice colleague, James Parker, and from this point he began to associate with the leading writers and intellectuals of radical politics such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine, who gathered at the house of publisher, Joseph Johnson. Blake was soon producing prints of startling originality, which anticipate by nearly a century the monotypes made by artists such as Edgar Degas from the 1880s onwards. The exhibition examines Blake’s technical innovations in the creation of his illuminated books, which brought a new sophistication to colour printing. Among the works on display are several of the most extraordinary illuminated books, including The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and a complete set of the plates from Europe: A Prophecy, together with some of the finest separate plates, among them Nebuchadnezzar and Newton.
Apprentice and Master will also look at Blake’s later career when, encouraged by his friendship with the young artist, John Linnell, he developed an interest in the great artist-printmakers of the Renaissance such as Albrecht Dürer and Lucas van Leyden. It was Linnell who commissioned the last of Blake’s great series of watercolours, the illustrations to the Book of Job and to Dante. It was these works, and above all the small woodcut illustrations to Virgil’s Pastorals, which inspired the young artists Samuel Palmer, George Richmond, and Edward Calvert, known as the Ancients. During the last three years of his life, they visited Blake and his wife in their two-room flat off the Strand. This exhibition juxtaposes many of the works the Ancients would have seen on these visits, with their own early works. Among the most notable are Palmer’s greatest creations, the six sepia drawings of 1825; and Calvert’s exquisite woodcuts of the late 1820s.
William Blake: Apprentice and Master has been curated by Dr Michael Phillips (Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York) and Mr Colin Harrison (Senior Curator of European Art, Ashmolean Museum).
Michael Phillips is currently writing a biography of William Blake in Lambeth during the anti-Jacobin Terror in Britain, entitled Blake and the Terror. His edition in facsimile of Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was published by the Bodleian Library and the University of Chicago Press in 2011. He was guest curator of the William Blake Exhibition that opened in Paris at the Petit Palais from 1 April to 28 June 2009 and editor of the catalogue. He was also guest curator of the major Blake exhibition at Tate Britain and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2000–2001, and is currently guest curator of the Blake exhibition opening in December 2014 in the new galleries of the Ashmolean Museum of the University of Oxford, William Blake: Apprentice & Master, where Blake’s printmaking studio at No. 13 Hercules Buildings, Lambeth, will be recreated.
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Michael Phillips, William Blake: Apprentice and Master (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2015), 200 pages, ISBN: 978-1854442888, £21 / $40.
Exhibition | Robert Le Vrac Tournières: Portaitriste au XVIIIe siècle
From the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen:
Robert Le Vrac Tournières: Portaitriste au XVIIIe siècle
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen, 14 June — 21 September 2014
L’exposition d’été du musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen dépend étroitement du chiffre 3 : 3 artistes (deux portraitistes et un paysagiste), 3 siècles (les XVIIIe, XIXe et XXe), 3 époques, 3 temps de l’histoire de l’art mais aussi de l’histoire du musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen.
Robert Le Vrac Tournières (1667–1752) et Marie-Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) furent de ramarquables portraitistes, chacun dans leur genre : Tournières fut un des grands maîtres du portrait au temps de Louis XV et Capet porta le genre de la miniature (précieux portraits peints sur ivoire) à un point éblouissant. Joan Mitchell (1925–1992), quant à elle, demeure l’un des grands peintres abstraits de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle.
La muséographie des trois salles est spécialement conçue pour chaque artistes : elle met en valeur les compositions de Tournières, suggére l’atmosphère d’un cabinet d’amateur pour les miniatures de Capet et joue des vastes espaces lumineux pour les paysages de Mitchell. Il se trouve aussi que chacun de ces artistes tient une place importante dans l’histoire du musée pour des raisons très différentes. Tournières, car des oeuvres insignes de ce maître sont récemment entrées dans les collections. Capet, car ce qui est probablement son chef-d’oeuvre est conservé au musée après y avoir été volé puis restitué. Joan Mitchell est un temps fort des collections contemporaines de Caen. Ces trois peintres sont le point de départ de trois expositions au cours desquelles sont évoqués leur histoire, leur oeuvre, leur art. Une façon de réconcilier le hasard et la raison.
Robert Le Vrac Tournières, né et mort à Caen (1667–1752), a eu une longue et brillante carrière presque exclusivement parisienne. Pendant près d’un demi-siècle, c’est une clientèle aristocratique et bourgeoise qui fréquente son atelier où il propose un art hérité de Rigaud, sans exclure une production de petits tableaux dans le goût nordique, tout comme des allégories décoratives. Jalon important de l’histoire du portrait français. Tournières n’a jamais fait l’objet d’exposition monographique. Il appartient au musée de Caen, qui possède un ensemble significatif de ses oeuvres, d’organiser une manifestation qui restitue l’étendue de son art, en regroupant des oeuvres provenant essentiellement des grandes collections publiques.
Eddie Tassel and Patrick Ramade, Robert Le Vrac Tournières: Les facettes d’un portraitiste (Cologne: Snoeck Verlagsgesellschaft, 2014), 96 pages, ISBN: 978-9461611840, 18€.
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As reported by Didier Rykner for La Tribune de l’Art (July 2014), the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen purchased at Christie’s (New York, 30 January 2014) Robert Le Vrac Tournières’s 1704 Self-portrait with Pierre de la Roche, which had previously been in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting sold for $37,500.
Exhibition | Marie-Gabrielle Capet: Une Virtuose de la Miniature
From the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen:
Marie-Gabrielle Capet: Une Virtuose de la Miniature
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen, 14 June — 21 September 2014
L’exposition d’été du musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen dépend étroitement du chiffre 3 : 3 artistes (deux portraitistes et un paysagiste), 3 siècles (les XVIIIe, XIXe et XXe), 3 époques, 3 temps de l’histoire de l’art mais aussi de l’histoire du musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen.
Robert Le Vrac Tournières (1667–1752) et Marie-Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) furent de ramarquables portraitistes, chacun dans leur genre : Tournières fut un des grands maîtres du portrait au temps de Louis XV et Capet porta le genre de la miniature (précieux portraits peints sur ivoire) à un point éblouissant. Joan Mitchell (1925–1992), quant à elle, demeure l’un des grands peintres abstraits de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle.
La muséographie des trois salles est spécialement conçue pour chaque artistes : elle met en valeur les compositions de Tournières, suggére l’atmosphère d’un cabinet d’amateur pour les miniatures de Capet et joue des vastes espaces lumineux pour les paysages de Mitchell. Il se trouve aussi que chacun de ces artistes tient une place importante dans l’histoire du musée pour des raisons très différentes. Tournières, car des oeuvres insignes de ce maître sont récemment entrées dans les collections. Capet, car ce qui est probablement son chef-d’oeuvre est conservé au musée après y avoir été volé puis restitué. Joan Mitchell est un temps fort des collections contemporaines de Caen. Ces trois peintres sont le point de départ de trois expositions au cours desquelles sont évoqués leur histoire, leur oeuvre, leur art. Une façon de réconcilier le hasard et la raison.
Marie-Gabrielle Capet: Une Virtuose de la Miniature
L’an dernier, le musée a pu retrouver, presque par miracle, une miniature volée en 1925 : le Portrait de Jean-Antoine Houdon sculptant le buste de Voltaire, chef-d’oeuvre de la grande miniaturiste Marie-Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818). Avec comme prétexte cet heureux évènement, l’exposition se propose de rassembler le meilleur de la production de l’artiste ; des miniatures, mais aussi des tableaux issus de collections publiques et privées, françaises et étrangères, qui permettront d’illustrer un style qui fascina son époque, exactitude illusionniste de la touche et rendu vibrant de la lumière. L’ensemble permet d’évoquer l’influence capitale de ses maîtres, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard et son époux François-André Vincent.
Marie-Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818): Une Virtuose de la Miniature (Cologne: Snoeck Verlagsgesellschaft, 2014), 2014) 104 pages, ISBN: 978-9461611659, 18€.
Exhibitions | The Glorious Georges
George I, followed by the future George II and Queen Caroline.
Photo by Miles Willis from a shoot at Hampton Court,
© Miles Willis 2014
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Press release (20 February 2014) from Historic Royal Palaces:
The Glorious Georges
Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace, 17 April — 30 November 2014
Throughout 2014, Historic Royal Palaces will bring the Georgian court and its intriguing cast of royal characters to life, in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Hanoverian accession to the British throne. These three unlikely monarchs, George I, his son George II, and great-grandson George III, presided over a remarkable era of British history which transformed society and saw the emergence of much that remains ‘quintessentially British’ today. At the very heart of this flourishing nation, within the walls of magnificent royal palaces, sat the Court. Elegant, yet decadent and riven with intrigue and scandal, it captured the imagination of the 18th-century British public and the printing press, making celebrities of the Georgian monarchs and their courtiers.
Visitors to Hampton Court, Kensington and Kew Palaces will be able to step back 300 years, and experience the sights, sounds and even smells of the Georgian age, to celebrate these often overlooked Kings and Queens, and the fascinating era in which they lived. The 18th century court has also inspired an exciting programme of events. Visitors of all ages can explore the music, the fashions and the food and even the fireworks of the Georgian court throughout 2014.
At Hampton Court Palace, meet King George I, who arrived in London in 1714 with a limited grasp on the English language, and a complicated family history. Join his court as tensions brew between the King and his son, the Prince of Wales, forcing courtiers to choose sides. A stunning re-presentation of the Queen’s State Apartments will explore who the Hanoverians were, how they came to rule Britain and how their extraordinary bitter family rows played out in public.
The story continues at Kensington Palace, where the glittering court of George II and Queen Caroline burst onto the scene in 1727. Their arrival heralded a new era of culture, music and fashion at the British court. The stories of court will brought to life against the backdrop of William Kent’s beautifully restored King’s State Apartments. In 2014, visitors to these fabulous spaces can explore a feast for the senses, featuring Georgian music, court gossip, and lavish fashion, the displays at Kensington will explore the intellectual pursuits of Queen Caroline and her circle. Visitors will be able to meet the Queen in person, in a morning ‘levee’, as she is dressed by her rival, the King’s mistress, Henrietta Howard.
Finally, at Kew Palace, the little known younger years of King George III (later infamous for his bouts of ‘madness’) will be uncovered in a dazzling new display for 2014. A series of fascinating objects will illuminate his education at Kew Palace and highlight many of the interests and influences which shaped a young King who went on to be the first Hanoverian monarch to truly glorify in his Britishness.
Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator, Historic Royal Palaces, said: “These Georgian kings, with all their extraordinary family rivalries, and complex, intriguing courts, have become something of a footnote in British history, often over-shadowed by more glamourous predecessors, and by the tumultuous period of history in which they lived. The Glorious Georges season at Historic Royal Palaces in 2014 is about putting them back on the map. Immersed in the world of the Georgian court, within the walls of their Palaces, visitors will discover that the Hanoverian dynasty presided over a dramatic century in style, preserving the monarchy, and eventually transforming themselves into a very British royal family.”
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Note from the Editor
In the midst of HRP’s robust marketing, descriptions of the installations and actual objects on display are sometimes overshadowed. Based on my visit earlier this month in connection with the Enlightened Princesses conference, I’m glad to recommend a visit for the summer festivities (I’m also glad to report that the conference was immensely stimulating thanks to terrific talks and, as a bonus, fabulous music from Arcangelo).
Each time I’m at Hampton Court, the palace makes a little more sense even as I’m confused by new things. My basic framework of juxtaposing the grand Tudor country-house-turned-palace with the never-quite-finished building campaign of William and Mary is now complicated by a fuller appreciation of the Georgian layer. It’s particularly interesting to see the future George II and Caroline sharing the Queen’s Apartments during the reign of George I (who, of course, didn’t need the quarters for his own queen whom he divorced and imprisoned back in Hanover). Access to the servants’ and courtiers’ staircase came as a small, deeply satisfying revelation for me. And included in the dining room is an installation of folded linen by Catalonian artist Joan Sallas, who last year produced an installation for Waddesdon Manor, detailed in the video below. For the Hampton Court work, think less heraldry and more animals to be eaten (rabbit, shellfish, fowl, &c.) strewn across the table. Absolutely stunning.
-Craig Hanson
Exhibition | A Royal Collecting Passion: Wilhelm I of Württemberg
From the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart:
A Royal Collecting Passion: Wilhelm I of Württemberg
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 18 July — 26 October 2014
Gottlieb Schick, Apollo among the Shepherds, 1806–08, (Staatsgalerie Stuttgart)
As a regent, Wilhelm Friedrich Karl von Württemberg (1781–1864) gave the young kingdom of Württemberg a historical identity; his multifarious initiatives as a collector and patron, however, have all but sunk into oblivion. The holdings of the Staatsgalerie, which opened in 1843, were expanded by artworks in royal ownership as well as by personal gifts. Wilhelm I moreover initiated the acquisition of the Barbini-Breganze collection, which today forms the core of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart’s holdings in the area of Italian Baroque painting. The royal gifts, still present in our museum’s collection in their near entirety, are now to be presented to the public for the first time in many decades. Numerous furnishings from Wilhelm I’s private residences as well as masterpieces from his private painting collection—disbanded after 1918—will be on view. On the basis of the records at the Staatsarchiv Baden-Württemberg, which have been preserved almost in full, light will also be shed on the history of the royal purchases. The exhibition is being realized in cooperation with the Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Baden-Württemberg.
More information (in German) is available here»
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The catalogue, published by Nicolai Verlag, is available from ArtBooks.com:
Königliche Sammellust: Wilhelm I. von Württemberg als Sammler und Förderer der Künste (Berlin: Nicolai, 2014), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-3894798727, 35€ / $68.
Exhibitions | The Hanoverians on Britain’s Throne, 1714–1837
Exhibitions observing the Hanoverian tercentennial just keep coming (and forgive the use of an image used to mark materials appropriate for kids twelve and older; it’s simply the best high-resolution version I could find of a logo that appears in various guises throughout the marketing of the exhibitions). Comparing the exhibitions in Britain with those in Germany would seem interesting; for anyone interested in George II’s illegitimate son, Reichsgraf Johann Ludwig von Wallmoden-Gimborn, I think you’ll do much better in Hanover. –CH
From the exhibition website:
Als die Royals aus Hannover kamen
Hanover, 17 May — 5 October 2014
For 123 years, the Electorate of Hanover and the Kingdom of Great Britain were linked by a single monarch. This important historical period is the theme of the Lower Saxony State Exhibition 2014. From 17th May to 5th October 2014 five exhibitions in palaces and museums in Hanover and Celle will be dedicated to the numerous facets and interactions that characterised the personal union. We invite you to discover the time when the royals came from Hanover.
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The Hanoverians on Britain’s Throne, 1714–1837
Lower Saxony State Museum Hanover, 17 May — 5 October 2014
State Crown of George I, 1715 (Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2014)
The major central exhibition in the Lower Saxony State Museum Hanover provides an overview of the whole period of the personal union. Based on the biographies of George I, George II, George III, George IV, and William IV, the life and works of the five rulers, as well as important historical events from this time, such as the Seven Years’ War, the battle for independence of the American colonies, and the Napoleonic Age, are explored. Visitors also learn what effect the connection between the two unequal empires had on the fields of art, culture, science and society.
The pomp and ceremony of the court in London is addressed, as is the founding of the University of Göttingen, the significance of George Friedrich Handel and the influence of English fashion in Hanover. Topics such as travel, horses, tea or language and portraits of important characters from this time, including Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Jonathan Swift and Jane Austen, paint a multi-faceted picture of the time when the royals came from Hanover. Visitors can view some 450 outstanding exhibits from German, British and international museums, including the State Crown of George I and numerous other precious items on loan from the Royal Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. They are attractively displayed and supplemented by audio and multimedia exhibits.
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The Hanoverians on Britain’s Throne, 1714–1837
Museum Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover, 17 May — 5 October 2014
To be staged in the wings of the rebuilt Herrenhausen Palace that house the museum, the exhibition recounts the story of the new Electorate of Hanover on the eve of the personal union and during its early years. The show not only reveals the essential elements of representative court life around the turn of the 18th century but also brings together a fascinating selection of fine exhibits ranging from Baroque pomp to the simple everyday court life of the Guelphs of Hanover.
In the west wing of the former Guelph summer residence, the visitor encounters the unique collection of Reichsgraf Johann Ludwig von Wallmoden-Gimborn (1736–1811). As the illegitimate son of George II, he was born and grew up in England, brought his passion for art from the island to Hanover, and established an important collection of antiques and paintings here. Dispersed by auction in 1818, now over 200 years later, some highlights of the large number of treasures from international museums are on show in Hanover for the first time again.
State Carriage of Prince of Wales Georg IV, built in 1782
and since 1814 state carriage no. 1 for the kings in Hannoverc
(Loan SKH Prinz Ernst August von Hannover)
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One Coach and Two Kingdoms: Hanover and Great Britain, 1814–1837
Historisches Museum Hannover, 17 May — 5 October 2014
The Royal State Coach is the centrepiece of this exhibition. This impressive coach was built in 1782 for the Opening of Parliament ceremony in London. In 1814, following victory over the Napoleonic troops and the elevation of Hanover to a Kingdom, the coach was brought over to the mainland. The coach was used in 1821 on the occasion of King George IV’s long awaited trip to Hanover. The exhibition tells the story of the Royal State Coach, which serves as a unique illustration of the personal connection between Great Britain and Hanover. In addition, the exhibition portrays the young Kingdom of Hanover against the background of British world power: the Guelph rulers and their local representatives, the political debates about the Constitution and land reforms, the extensive traditional economy, as well as Hanover as a royal seat, which was given a grandiose new face by Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves, master builder to the court.
John Hamilton Mortimer, A Caricature Group, ca. 1766
(New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection)
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Royal Theatre: British Caricatures from the Time of the Personal Union and the Present Day
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst, Hannover, 17 May — 5 October 2014
In the thematic exhibition in the Wallmoden Palace, the era of the Personal Union is scrutinized in detail: with some 250 high quality exhibits, the exhibition presents a lively picture of the English monarchy and society at the time of the Personal Union, while also making the connection between the single sheet caricatures of 300 years ago and caricatures in the press today. Then, just as they do now, caricatures criticised parliamentary policies, commentated with glee on court scandals and intrigues, and entertained the public with society gossip. Even the Kings of the House of Hanover had to put up with the mockery of the caricaturists, just as Queen Elizabeth II has to today. Items on loan from international, predominantly British, museums and collections as well as from contemporary cartoonists supplement the already impressive collection of the museum Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst.
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Ready for the Island: The House of Brunswick-Lüneburg on the Path to London
Residenzmuseum in Celle Castle, 17 May — 5 October 2014
Attributed to Jacques Vaillant, Sophie Dorothea with Her Children Georg August (the future George II) and Sophie Dorothea, ca. 1690 (Residenzmuseum im Celler Schloss / Bomann-Museum Celle)
How does one get ‘Ready for the Island’? Glorious wars and magnificent festivals present the power and glory of the Guelphs to the world. Even today, the works of art from this period are greeted with wonder. However, behind the gleaming facade, family intrigues and tragedies were played out. Daughters toppled their fathers from the throne; sons were imprisoned by their own father. In the historic setting of the original locations in the Residenzmuseum in the Celle Palace we take a look not only at the attractive outward image, but also at the reality behind the facade. It quickly becomes clear that the Guelphs systematically engineered their rise to power through marriage, wars and festivals. Unique exhibits from home and abroad bring this exciting history back to life once more.
Additional images are available here»
Exhibition | Masks, Masquerades, and Mascarons
Claude Gillot , The Two Coaches, 1712–16
(Paris: Musée du Louvre)
From the Louvre:
Masques, Mascarades, Mascarons
Musée du Louvre, Paris, 19 June — 22 September 2014
Organized by Françoise Viatte, Dominique Cordellier, and Violaine Jeammet
The exhibition presents approximately one hundred artworks showing the paradoxical function of the mask, an emblem of illusion that consists of “disguising and producing a double.” Masked men have existed in the West since ancient times. The mask hides the face in favor of its double, concealing one to reveal the other, in an act that gives shape to mystery. It belongs to the sacred and the profane, truth and vanity, reality and fiction. It horrifies and seduces, imitates and misleads.
Drawings, sculptures, paintings, and engravings demonstrate its religious role in Greek theater, its playful and rather diabolical force of expression in feasts, balls, and Italian comedies, its funereal presence on the deathbed, and its lasting and protective force on the tombstone. The duplicity of the mask in the world of allegory will also be explored, along with its presence in decoration through the mascaron which appears to be simply an avatar of Medusa’s head cut off by Perseus and placed on Athena’s shield to retain its astonishing power.
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The catalogue is published by Officina Libraria:
Françoise Viatte, Dominique Cordellier, and Violaine Jeammet, Masques, Mascarades, Mascarons (Milan: Officina Libraria, 2014), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-8897737377, 32€.
L’exposition évoque, à travers une centaine d’oeuvres, la fonction paradoxale du masque, emblème de l’illusion, qui consiste à « dérober et produire un double ».Dessins, sculptures, peintures, gravures montreront son rôle religieux dans le théâtre grec, sa force expressive, ludique et quelque peu diabolique dans la fête, le bal ou la comédie italienne, son empreinte funèbre au lit de mort et sa force pérenne et protectrice au tombeau. Seront aussi abordées la duplicité du masque dans le monde de l’allégorie, sa présence dans l’ornement sous la forme du mascaron qui ne semble rien d’autre qu’un avatar de la tête de la Gorgone coupée par Persée et placée sur les armes d’Athéna pour y conserver son pouvoir sidérant.
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