Exhibition | Illusion: Dream–Identity–Reality
Now on view at the Hamburger Kunsthalle:
Illusion: Dream – Identity – Reality
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 6 December 2024 — 6 April 2025
Curated by Sandra Pisot and Johanna Hornauer
Henry Fuseli, Die Vision des Dichters (The Poet’s Vision), 1806–07, oil on canvas, 61 × 41.5 cm (Winterthur: Stiftung für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte). The composition served as the frontispiece for William Cowper’s book, Poems (London: J. Johnson , 1808), volume 1.
With a large-scale exhibition spanning several epochs, the Hamburger Kunsthalle looks at the diverse facets of the theme of illusion in art from the Old Masters to the present day. Trompe-l’œil has been widely used in art since antiquity, flourishing in particular in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. And this technique continues to fascinate artists today, when the spread of fake news is almost normal, when people are confronted daily with manipulated images on the internet and virtual reality seems to be expanding our cosmos into infinity. We now live in the certainty that we can no longer trust our eyes, that images are deceptive and are used to depict what is desired rather than what is. But the exhibition shows how illusion means far more than merely deceiving the eye. It is manifested in the (illusionistic) self-love of Narcissus as well as in spatial illusions in architecture, in the play of concealing and revealing via the pictorial motifs of the curtain and the mask, in the meaning of the open or closed window onto the world, and in images of visions and dreams. Based on some 150 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculptures, installations and video works, the show traces the many different forms taken by hyperrealism, reality, fiction, dream, transformation and deception. Among the exhibits are major works from the Hamburger Kunsthalle as well as loans from national and international collections.
Marcel Duchamp remarked succinctly in 1964: “Art is a deception.” And in 1976 Sigmar Polke wondered about the limits of human perception: “Can you always believe your eyes?” Against the backdrop of fake news and artificial intelligence, the exhibition also takes a look at illusion in twenty-first-century society, urging us to sharpen our senses and reflect on what is innately human: our viewing habits, expectations, conventions and vulnerability to visual seduction.
Artists featured in the exhibition
Helene Appel, Hans Arp, Thomas Baldischwyler, Max Beckmann, Paris Bordone, Carl Gustav Carus, Marc Chagall, Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, Adriaen Coorte, Lovis Corinth, Edgar Degas, Robert Delaunay, Johann Friedrich Dieterich, Gerrit Dou, Wilhelm Schubert von Ehrenberg, Lars Eidinger, Elmgreen & Dragset, James Ensor, Max Ernst, M. C. Escher, Juan Fernández, Charles de la Fosse, Caspar David Friedrich, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Xaver Fuhr, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Cornelis Gijsbrechts, Nan Goldin, Francisco de Goya, Andreas Greiner, Joachim Grommek, Duane Hanson, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Johann Georg Hinz, David Hockney, Samuel van Hoogstraten, Roni Horn, Gerard Houckgeest, Horst Janssen, Alexander Kanoldt, Howard Kanovitz, Anish Kapoor, Oskar Kokoschka, Jens Lausen, François Lemoyne, Lorenzo Lippi, Simon Luttichuys, Alfred Madsen, René Magritte, Tony Matelli, Stefan Marx, Adolph Menzel, Frans van Mieris d. Ä., Piet Mondrian, Ron Mueck, NEAL, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Joachim Ringelnatz, Jan van Rossum, Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, Godfried Schalcken, Markus Schinwald, Oskar Schlemmer, Georg Schrimpf, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Antonie van Steenwinckel, Theodoor van Thulden, Nikos Valsamakis, Victor Vasarely, Wolf Vostell, Friedrich Wasmann, John William Waterhouse, Jacob de Wit, Francisco de Zurbarán.
From Hatje Cantz:
Sandra Pisot and Johanna Hornauer, eds., Illusion: Traum – Identität – Wirklichkeit (Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2024), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-3775758451, €54. With contributions by Juliane Au, Markus Bertsch, Clara Blomeyer, Laura Förster, Johanna Hornauer, David Klemm, Brigitte Kölle, Kerstin Küster, Sandra Pisot, Jan Steinke, Andreas Stolzenburg, Ifee Tack.
Turner 250
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J.M.W. Turner, The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, 1822–24, about 10 × 14 feet framed
(Greenwich: National Maritime Museum, BHC0565)
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Press release (21 January 2025) from Tate:
This morning, cultural institutions across Britain announced Turner 250, a year-long festival of special exhibitions and events. Taking place throughout 2025, the programme celebrates 250 years since the birth of renowned painter JMW Turner. Whether visiting museums and galleries or tuning in on TV and online, everyone will have the chance to enjoy Turner’s greatest works, learn about his incredible life and career, and discover the many ways he continues to inspire creativity today.
Born on 23 April 1775, Joseph Mallord William Turner is widely considered to be the greatest and most influential British artist of all time. From humble beginnings, he travelled the length and breadth of the country to capture its dramatic scenery, redefining landscape painting in the process. Today he remains a touchstone of British cultural life—the face on the £20 note—and the painter behind some of the most iconic images of the natural world ever created.
J.M.W. Turner, Self-Portrait, ca.1799, oil on canvas, 74 × 58 cm (London: Tate, Turner Bequest 1856, N00458).
This announcement includes over 30 projects taking place this year, organised by venues large and small as well as by national organisations such as Tate, the BBC, and Art UK. Turner exhibitions will be held in London, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Norwich, Bath, and Sussex, highlighting key themes in his life and work and exploring his connections to other renowned historic figures like Jane Austen and John Constable. Turner’s legacy in modern and contemporary art will be celebrated with displays, commissions, and events in London and Margate, while the Turner Prize will be staged in Bradford as a highlight of the UK City of Culture programme. Books, films, and digital content will be released through the year, including a complete catalogue of Turner’s 37,500 sketches and watercolours on Tate’s website, a major new BBC documentary bringing the man and his art to life, and a screening of Mike Leigh’s award-winning film Mr. Turner at BFI Southbank. Talks and workshops will showcase new scholarship and ideas inspired by Turner, including an international conference at Tate Britain, a summit exploring art’s connection to the natural world at Turner Contemporary, and the Turner Society’s annual Kurt Pantzer memorial lecture. A keen international traveller, Turner will also have his 250th anniversary commemorated far beyond the UK, with celebratory shows being staged in Connecticut, Cincinnati, and Shanghai, as well as a special exhibition closer to home in Dublin.
Turner’s birthday on 23 April 2025 will be a particular highlight: the artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize will be announced that morning ahead of their show in Bradford in the autumn, an exhibition of Turner’s rarely-seen images of wildlife will open at Turner’s House in Twickenham, and a newly refreshed room will open in Tate Britain’s Clore Gallery, home to a permanent free display of 100 works by the artist.
Arts Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “Turner was one of this country’s greatest artists. An innovator who created some of our best known canvasses, he reshaped British art. A talent of Turner’s stature requires a year of celebration, from the prize in his name to the back of the £20 note, his immense legacy continues to permeate through the arts and public life in Britain. The 250th anniversary of his birth will be an opportunity for the public to immerse themselves in our outstanding artistic heritage. I encourage everyone to take the time to find an event from the upcoming year to enjoy some of Britain’s finest artists from the past and present.”
Maria Balshaw, Director of Tate, said: “Turner is a standout figure in the story of British creativity. It is Tate’s privilege to care for the world’s biggest collection of his art and showcase it to the widest possible public. Over the course of this year, I’m delighted that we will be showing over 150 of his stunning works at Tate Britain as well as lending over 100 more to venues right across this country and beyond.”
Suzy Klein, Head of BBC Arts & Classical Music TV, said: “We’re thrilled to be working with Tate to celebrate Britain’s most celebrated artist and be granted unprecedented access to Turner’s vast collection of rarely seen sketches. I can’t wait to share this treasure trove with audiences, not only illuminating the workings of Turner’s unique creative mind but also offering an unprecedented view into the extraordinary era of change during his lifetime.”
Exhibition | J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality
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J.M.W. Turner, Mer de Glace, in the Valley of Chamonix, 1803, watercolor, graphite, gum, scraping out and stopping out on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper mounted on thick, smooth wove paper (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, B1977.14.4650)
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Opening next month at the YCBA, which itself reopens after a two-year conservation project:
J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 29 March — 27 July 2025
Dordrechts Museum, Spring 2026
The year 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), possibly the most widely admired and influential British artist of all time.
Though Turner was trained within the English topographical tradition, his practice was deeply rooted in a wider European heritage of landscape painting. Turner pushed this inheritance to its limits in pursuit of his own expressive ends, astounding contemporaries with his bold and highly original compositions. His unique approach paved the way for a new form of landscape art, one that combined virtuoso brushwork with brilliant color, dazzling light effects, and an almost abstract sensibility. As a result, Turner came to be recognized as the most radical and innovative painter of his time and has continued to be so ever since.
This exhibition, the first show focused on Turner to be held at the Yale Center for British Art in more than thirty years, will showcase the museum’s rich holdings of the artist’s work. Unequaled in North America, this collection includes some of Turner’s most acclaimed oil paintings, notably his masterpiece Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed (1818) and his celebrated later painting Staffa, Fingal’s Cave (1831–32). Alongside these major works, the exhibition will also feature outstanding watercolors and prints from the YCBA’s collection, including the artist’s only complete sketchbook outside of the British Isles.
Turner’s works are akin to painted poems, filled with incident, anecdote, and symbolism. Conveying both the beauty and cruelty of nature and human life, they shed fascinating light on the artist’s world and reveal an aesthetic—and moral—complexity that is at once discomforting and strangely modern.
The exhibition is generously supported by the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation.
From Yale UP:
Ian Warrell, with contributions by Gillian Forrester, Turner (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025), 144 pages, ISBN: 978-0300279719, $40.
This book, the inaugural installment in the Yale Center for British Art’s Collection Series, explores the museum’s astonishing Turner holdings—the largest outside the United Kingdom—in a manner that will engage the general reader and expert alike. Six sections of plates provide a comprehensive overview of the artist’s career, place the works within their historical and cultural context, and include new discoveries regarding the identification of locations, landscapes, and dates. Gillian Forrester’s supplementary essay offers a novel account of Turner’s innovative printmaking practice, illuminating his fraught collaborations with other printmakers. Complementing an exhibition at the YCBA and a satellite exhibition at the Dordrechts Museum (The Netherlands), both planned for the 250th year of Turner’s birth, this publication celebrates the artist’s unparalleled vision as exemplified in the YCBA’s world-class collection of his work.
Ian Warrell is an independent curator specializing in British art of the nineteenth century. Gillian Forrester is an independent curator specializing in British art from the eighteenth century to the present and former senior curator of prints and drawings at the Yale Center for British Art.
Exhibition | A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250
There’s no shortage of stimulating events marking this year’s 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, and readers will know this terrain much better than I. But for anyone tring to keep up, the following sites offer a useful starting place. –CH
• Ben Jureidini, “Is 2025 the Year of Jane Austen? From Society Balls to Blockbuster TV Shows, the 250th Anniversary of ‘Britain’s Greatest Author’ Is Set to Break Records,” The Tatler (6 January 2025). Miss Austen and The Other Bennet Sister on the BBC, a Dolly Alderton adaptation of Pride and Prejudice heading for Netflix, and a tourism boom for real-life regency balls, there’s something truly Austentatious about 2025. Link»
• “Worldwide Guide to Jane Austen 250th Events,” from the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, which focuses on the life and works of Jane Austen, as well as the Regency period in which she lived. Link»
• The Jane Austen Society, founded in 1940 by Dorothy Darnell with the purpose of raising funds to preserve the Cottage in the village of Chawton, Hampshire, where Jane Austen lived with her mother and sister Cassandra from 1809 to 1817. Link»
• The Jane Austen Society of North America, a non-profit organization staffed by volunteers and dedicated to the enjoyment and appreciation of Jane Austen and her writing. Link»
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Opening at The Morgan in June:
A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250
The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, 6 June — 14 September 2025
Organized by Dale Stinchcomb and Juliette Wells
Morning Dresses from Gallery of Fashion (London: N. Heideloff, 1798), figs. 198, 199 (New York: The Morgan Library & Museum; PML 5680).
A Lively Mind immerses viewers in the inspiring story of Jane Austen’s authorship and her gradual rise to international fame. Iconic artifacts from Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, England join manuscripts, books, and artworks from the Morgan, as well as from a dozen institutional and private collections, to present compelling new perspectives on Austen’s literary achievement, her personal style, and her global legacy.
Beginning as a teenager, Austen cultivated her imaginative powers and her ambition to publish. Encouraged by her family, especially her father and her sister Cassandra, she persevered through years of uncertainty. Her creativity found expression in a range of artistic pursuits, from music-making to a delight in fashion. The story of how Americans first encountered and responded to Austen’s novels, unbeknownst to her, emerges from four surviving copies of an unauthorized edition of Emma published during her lifetime. Following Austen’s death, family members preserved their memories of her, while carefully guarding what was publicly revealed. Austen’s audience continued to grow as those who loved her novels helped new generations of readers to appreciate them. In addition to celebrating Austen, A Lively Mind commemorates the landmark gift of Austen manuscripts to the Morgan in 1975 by Alberta H. Burke and draws extensively on the extraordinary collection she bequeathed to Goucher College in Baltimore.
A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250 is organized by Dale Stinchcomb, Drue Heinz Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts, and Juliette Wells, Professor of Literary Studies at Goucher College. It is made possible by generous support from the Drue Heinz Exhibitions and Programs Fund, Cynthia H. Polsky, Martha J. Fleischman, the Caroline Morgan Macomber Fund, the Lucy Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, and Alyce Williams Toonk.
Exhibition | Better on Paper
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John Pike, Fan: Land of Matrimony and Land of Celibacy, London, late 18th century, paper and wood
(Wellesley College Special Collections)
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From the press release for the exhibition:
Better on Paper: Recent Acquisitions of Prints, Drawings, Photographs, and Books
Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, 7 February — 1 June 2025
Curated by Amanda Gilvin and Ruth Rogers
Better on Paper is a new exhibition that spotlights and celebrates some of the thousands of newly acquired and previously unseen works of art on paper, including prints, drawings, photographs, books, and other objects, acquired by the Davis Museum and the Wellesley College Library Special Collections over the last decade. The exhibition emphasizes contemporary art, while also showcasing many new acquisitions of art from past centuries. More than 100 recent gifts and purchases will be on view in Better on Paper, along with two other new exhibitions at the Davis Museum all highlighting new acquisitions.
“Better on Paper presents a stunning array of visionary works of art from Wellesley’s collections in this collaboration between the College Library’s Special Collections and the Davis,” said Amanda Gilvin, the exhibition’s co-curator and Interim Co-Director, Sonja Novak Koerner ’51 Senior Curator of Collections, and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs.
The exhibition calls attention to Wellesley’s decades-long leadership in the field of the study of photography, Gilvin said. She notes works that will be on view and are now part of the Davis collection include Nigerian artist Taiye Idahor’s Ekundayo; prominent African American photographer in the 1970s and 1980s Ming Smith’s Self Portrait, Harlem, NY; work by locally-based multimedia artist Jo Sandman; Chitra Ganesh’s Architects of the Future, City Inside Her; and Magdelena van de Passe after Crispijn de Passe the Elder’s Spring. Special Collections will present 18th-century publisher John Pike’s satirical fan The Land of Matrimony [and] Land of Celibacy and Swiss graphic designer Romano Hänni’s artist book It is Bitter to Leave Your Home: A True Story Depicted in Typographic Images.
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Motonori Taki, Kōkei Saikyūhō [Emergency Remedies for the Benefit of People], Kyōto: Izumoji Bunjirō; Edo: Hanabusa Daisuke han, ca. 1790
(Wellesley College Special Collections)
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The Davis and the Wellesley College Library Special Collections have joined together to mount Better on Paper to pay homage to these new acquisitions that represent Wellesley’s commitment to inclusive excellence. Often collaborating with Wellesley faculty, staff, and students, curators have acquired the objects in the exhibition to support and expand the Wellesley College curriculum. The prints, drawings, photographs, books, and other objects in Better on Paper originate from around the globe, spanning diverse makers and approaches, and dating to many periods.
“It is a tremendous opportunity for the College Library’s Special Collections to be off the shelves and on view to a wider audience,” said Ruth R. Rogers, Curator of Special Collections and Visiting Lecturer, Art Department. “Better on Paper allows us to share a selection from the range of international, rare books, contemporary artists’ books, and other evidence of material communication that are the basis of teaching and research on campus.
Building these collections supports today’s Wellesley Method: object-based and human-centered learning across disciplines. “We invite you to study, learn, and teach in this exhibition—and to find out more about the many other works on paper in the Davis Museum and Special Collections,” Gilvin said.
Better on Paper was co-curated by Amanda Gilvin and Ruth Rogers with contributions from Nicole Berlin, Associate Curator of Collections, Alicia Bruce, Friends of Art Curatorial Project Manager and Researcher, Yuhua Ding, Kemper Assistant Curator of Collections and Academic Affairs, L. Goins ‘26, 2024 Summer Curatorial Intern, James Oles, Adjunct Curator of Latin American Art and Senior Lecturer, Art Department, Mariana S. Oller, Associate Curator of Special Collections, and Semente, Curator of Education and Public Programs. The exhibition is presented with generous support from the Anonymous ’70 Endowed Museum Program Fund, Marjorie Schechter Bronfman ’38 and Gerald Bronfman Endowment for Works on Paper, and Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis.
Exhibition | Nevers in the World
From the press release for the exhibition:
Nevers in the World
Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, 7 February — 1 June 2025
Curated by Nicole Berlin, with Alicia Bruce and Yuhua Ding
Gadrooned Dish, ca. 1700, Faience, made in Nevers (Davis Museum, Wellesley College, 2023.3.24).
Nevers in the World is an intimate exhibition of 11 newly-acquired seventeenth- to nineteenth-century French ceramics that were recently donated to the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. The French faience vessels are highly stylized glazed ceramics, created using a tin-glaze technique that originated in the Middle East, likely around Iraq, as a response to the vibrant white porcelain of China. Over time, this technique spread to Egypt, Spain, Italy, and eventually France, where it evolved into a distinctive art form.
The exhibition spotlights these beautifully glazed vessels, used mostly for dining tables, and illustrate a cross-cultural migration from their early origins in Iraq to the early iterations of Italian pieces and expanded color palettes and shapes by the French.
“When the generous gift of French faience arrived and our Curatorial team first saw it in storage, we were immediately excited by the many ways we could integrate it into both the permanent collection and a temporary exhibition,” said Nicole Berlin, Associate Curator of Collections at the Davis Museum and the Nevers show curator. “The vibrant colors, whimsical shapes, and the centuries-old ceramic glazing technique open up a wealth of creative possibilities for showcasing this remarkable collection.”
Spirit Cask, 1779, Faience, made in Nevers (Davis Museum, Wellesley College, 2023.3.26).
Nevers in the World is a selection of artworks from the generous bequest of the late Wellesley Trustee Emeritus Sidney R. Knafel, who spent decades assembling a world renowned collection of French ceramics. These objects demonstrate how artistic innovation can flourish through cross-cultural exchange. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a group of artisans in Nevers, France created extraordinary ceramic vessels using the faience technique. Invented nearly a millennium earlier, faience describes a glaze for ceramics that includes tin. In eighth-century Iraq, craftspeople discovered that adding tin to ceramic glaze produced an opaque, white surface suitable for colorful decoration. As the method spread across Asia and Europe, Italians called it maiolica. In France, it became known as faience, after the Italian city of Faenza.
In 1565, French aristocrat Henriette of Cleves married Italian politician Louis of Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers. The couple brought artisans from Italian maiolica centers to Nevers, where they introduced a style of storytelling through images in addition to tin-glaze. By 1600, European demand for Chinese porcelain spurred workshops in Nevers to attempt imitations in faience. Nevers artisans quickly developed a distinctive style that reached its zenith in popularity under King of France Louis XIV (1638–1715), when it featured in his elaborate dinner parties at Versailles. Today, these objects continue to tell stories about the people who made and used them.
Nevers in the World was curated by Nicole Berlin, Associate Curator of Collections with Alicia Bruce, Friends of Art Curatorial Project Manager and Researcher, and Yuhua Ding, Kemper Curator of Collections and Academic Affairs. This exhibition is supported by the Sandra Cohen Bakalar ‘55 Fund, the Judith Blough Wentz ’57 Museum Programs Fund, and Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis.
Decorative Arts Trust Announces 2025 Failey Grants
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Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire is an outdoor history museum that preserves a neighborhood’s evolution of over 350 years, with most of the historic houses on their original sites. The Penhallow House—built in 1750 and moved to its present location in 1862—is Strawberry Banke’s only remaining ‘saltbox’. It was recently given a new foundation with a wet-proof basement to counteract rising sea and groundwater levels. In the 20th century, Penhallow House contained three apartments and the daily lives of an extended African-American family. Strawbery Banke intends to interpret the 20th-century Black experience in Penhallow House: the story of Kenneth ‘Bunny’ Richardson, a 20th-century story of Black Portsmouth and Civil Rights.
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From the December press release, with additional information available here:
Formal dress (robe à la Française), 1765–70, French or Dutch, brocaded silk with knotted silk fringe and linen lining (Historic Deerfield, HD F.355).
The Decorative Arts Trust is pleased to announce the seven 2025 Dean F. Failey Grant recipients: the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, AL, for the Silver & Ceremony from Southern Asia, 1850–1910 exhibition; Historic Deerfield in Deerfield, MA, for the Body by Design: Fashionable Silhouettes exhibition; Honolulu Museum of Art in Honolulu, HI, for quilt conservation; the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, PA, for flag conservation; Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, NH, for Penhallow House wallpaper; Telfair Museums in Savannah, GA, for The Moss Mystique: Southern Women and Newcomb Pottery exhibition; and Wyck in Philadelphia, PA, for a Chinese desk conservation.
The Failey Grant program provides support for noteworthy exhibition and object-based conservation projects through the Dean F. Failey Fund, named in honor of the Trust’s late Governor. Failey Grant applications are due October 31 annually.
Exhibition | Art of Commerce: Trade Catalogs in Watson Library
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Voss und compagnie, Muster zu Zimmer-Verzierungen und Ameublements, 1794–95, 2 volumes with color illustrations, 27 × 43 cm
(New York: The Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
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Not exactly an 18th-century exhibition, but fun to see the narrative start there. From The Met (where the following text includes links).
Art of Commerce: Trade Catalogs in Watson Library
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 6 January — 4 March 2025
Art of Commerce: Trade Catalogs in Watson Library features a selection of the library’s extensive holdings of sale catalogs. Watson Library has almost two thousand trade catalogs published in many countries from the eighteenth century to the present. Objects featured include furniture, jewelry, tiles, ironwork, glasswork, lighting, stoves, tableware, textiles, decorative paper, artist’s materials, fashion, typography, automobiles, and musical instruments. Numerous catalogs illustrate works of art or related objects now in The Met collection.
The library has strong holdings of Art Deco trade catalogs including Modern furniture design = Le dessin moderne des meubles—a colorful furniture portfolio by Czech architect Karel Vepřek—and Van Clef Arpels présentent, an elegantly illustrated accessories publication designed by Draeger Frères, the most innovative graphic designers and printers of the period. Both catalogs are on display in the exhibition.
Detail of a page of brushes from Pinselfabrik Ernst Findeisen GmbH. Erstklassige Pinsel-Fabrikate Für Kunst-Handwerk u. Industrie: Ernst Findeisen, Ravensburg (Ravensburg: Ernst Findeisen, early 20th century), illustrated book, 1 volume, 21 × 31 cm (New York: The Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
Trade or sale catalogs—also called commercial or manufacturer’s catalogs—are printed publications advertising products of a particular trade or industry. Sale catalogs were often used in shops or showrooms to promote a company’s products. Examples include the massive Reed and Barton catalog Artistic workers in silver & gold plate from 1885 that illustrates the entire inventory of the company. Since their invention, automobiles have been creatively promoted through catalogs. Automobile catalogs in the library’s collection range from vivid brochures to oversized car showroom copies with moveable diagrams and transparencies to intrigue and persuade the customer, including 1953 Chevrolet and 1961 Buick.
Sale catalogs are valuable sources for determining the date and authenticity of objects and are often highly expressive of their historical moment. They frequently represent the most innovative and creative examples of printing and graphic design, used by manufacturers and publishers to best illustrate their products. Watson’s trade catalogs include striking illustrations reproduced in lithography, chromolithography, embossing, and pochoir. Many of the catalogs in the exhibition have striking designs and demonstrate graphic innovation that can be as compelling as the objects they promote.
Among the more unusual and appealing trade catalogs in the exhibition is a German Art Nouveau-inspired cake decorating book from 1910 and a baby carriage catalog from 1934 offering Art Deco styled tubular steel baby prams. These trade catalogs demonstrate the distillation of major art movements applied to quotidian objects.
The earliest trade catalog in the exhibition is Muster zu Zimmer-Verzierungen und Ameublements, a neo-classical interior design catalog by luxury German manufacturer Voss und Compagnie, offering entire rooms that can be bought en masse or as separate pieces. It is illustrated with richly toned hand-colored engravings that detail the design and color of the objects.
One of the library’s most fragile and weighty catalogs is Album des principaux modeles de verres: produits spéciaux en verre coulé. It is a magical trade catalog with sixty-five intact glass samples manufactured by French glassmaker Saint-Gobain. Founded during the time of Louis XIV, the company remains a manufacturer of glass for construction.
The majestic ironwork catalogue of Maison Garnier has pink-tinted papers and was bound in Morocco leather as a special copy for Rémy Garnier, the son of the firm’s founder. The firm’s initials are boldly blind stamped on the cover.
The most unusual and perhaps unexpected catalog, Urinoirs, illustrates the decorative ironwork structures of urinals (or pissoirs) that adorned the streets of Paris from the 1840s to the mid-twentieth century. The ornamentation of these structures demonstrates an impulse to beautify the animated street life of Paris and other cities.
Many of the trade catalogs have been digitized. All of the trade catalogs in Watson Library are accessible and can be consulted in the Florence and Herbert Irving Reading Room. The thirty-three on display will be available immediately after the exhibition’s closing in early March 2025. Information on using the library is here.
Master Drawings, Winter 2024
In the latest issue of Master Drawings:
Master Drawings 62.4 (Winter 2024)
a r t i c l e s
• Perrin Stein, “The Crown, the City, and the Public: Saint-Aubin’s Images of Paris.”
• Kim de Beaumont, “A Curious Swan Song for Gabriel de Saint-Aubin: The Comte d’Estaing’s New World Naval Exploits.”
• Margaret Morgan Grasselli, “A Drawing by Hubert Robert and Jean Robert Ango: Correcting a Technical Description.”
• Sarah Catala, “Signed ‘Roberti’: Drawings by Hubert Robert and Jean Robert Ango.”
• Kee Il Choi Jr., “Learning to Draw: The Éducation visuelle of Alois Ko and Étienne Yang.”
r e v i e w s
• Aaron Wile, Review of the exhibition catalogue Claude Gillot: Satire in the Age of Reason, by Jennifer Tonkovich.
• Eduoard Kopp, Review of the exhibition catalogue, Promenades on Paper: Eighteenth-Century French Drawings from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, edited by Esther Bell, Sarah Grandin, Corinne Le Bitouzé, and Anne Leonard.
• Ashley E. Dunn, Review of the exhibition catalogue Impressionists on Paper: Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec, by Ann Dumas, Leïla Jarbouai, Christopher Lloyd, and Harriet Stratis.
o b i t u a r y
• Perrin Stein, Obituary for Alaster Laing.
Exhibition | L’Isle-Adam across Three Centuries
Now on view:
Trois siècles à L’Isle-Adam
Musée d’art et d’histoire Louis Senlecq, L’Isle-Adam, 20 October 2024 — 21 September 2025
À vingt-cinq kilomètres à vol d’oiseau de Paris, L’Isle-Adam se trouve aux portes du parc naturel régional du Vexin français, du Pays de France et du département de l’Oise. Qualifiée de « paradis terrestre » par Honoré de Balzac dans une lettre qu’il écrit à sa soeur en 1819, la ville bénéficie d’un environnement exceptionnel situé entre rivière et forêt domaniale. Avec l’exposition Trois siècles à L’Isle-Adam, les visiteurs sont invités à un voyage à travers l’histoire et le patrimoine de la cité adamoise et de son territoire.
Organisé de manière chronologique et couvrant une période allant du XVIIIe au milieu du XXe siècle, le parcours s’articule autour des grandes thématiques représentées dans les collections du musée. L’histoire et l’évolution urbaine de L’Isle-Adam y sont évoquées : des fastes des princes de Conti au développement de la villégiature et des loisirs. Le passé industrieux de la ville est également mis en avant, avec les manufactures de terres cuites décoratives qui ont fait la célébrité de L’Isle-Adam de la fin du XIXe au début du XXe siècle.
La région ayant attiré de nombreux artistes, c’est aussi à travers l’oeil des peintres que l’on découvre les paysages des bords de l’Oise et de la campagne environnante, par les toiles de Jules Dupré (1811–1889), Léon Victor Dupré (1816–1879), Auguste Boulard père (1825–1897), Renet-Tener (1846–1925), Fernand Quignon (1854–1941) et Emilio Boggio (1857–1920).
L’exposition rassemble peintures, sculptures, aquarelles, gravures, affiches publicitaires, cartes postales et photographies anciennes, toutes issues du fonds du musée.
Enfilade 
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