Exhibition | In and around Piranesi’s Rome
Charles-Louis Clérisseau, Travelers in the Interior of the ‘Temple of Mercury’ at Baiae, ca. 1761, opaque watercolor, 27 × 47 cm
(NY: The Morgan Library & Museum, 1985.62)
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Now on view at The Morgan:
In and around Piranesi’s Rome: Eighteenth-Century Views of Italy
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 10 January — 4 June 2023
By the mid-eighteenth century, the Grand Tour, a study trip through Europe with a period of residence in Italy, had become a fixture in the education of European aristocrats and the training of artists. These young travelers were eager to return home with reminders of their experience, which contributed to a demand for paintings, prints, and drawings of Italian views, or vedute. Rome and the vestiges of its ancient past were especially popular subjects, as is also reflected in the nearby display of oil sketches. The burgeoning genre spawned specialized artists (vedusti), particularly at the French Academy in Rome, a center of creative exchange for not only academy members but also other artists active across the city.
Artists took various approaches to vedute. Some adopted a documentary route, recording archeological and architectural sites, occasionally enlivened with figures. Others altered elements of an existing view or invented an entirely fictive scene, known as a capriccio. In both real and imagined modes, a powerful influence and creative force was the Italian Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), who for some time maintained a workshop across the street from the French Academy and interacted with many of its artists.
Exhibition | Fortune and Folly in 1720
Installation view of Fortune and Folly in 1720
The New York Public Library, 2022
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At the NYPL (and on view during this year’s CAA conference) . . .
Fortune and Folly in 1720
New York Public Library, 23 September 2022 — 19 February 2023
Curated by Nina Dubin, Meredith Martin, and Madeleine Viljoen
In 1720, everyday citizens converged on the banking streets of Paris, London, and Amsterdam, speculating in New World trading companies and other maritime ventures. By the close of that year, an unprecedented bull market would culminate in the world’s first international financial crash. Orchestrated by the insolvent governments of France and England, and fueled by illusions of colonial wealth, these investment bonanzas—henceforth known as the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles—have remained synonymous with the temptations of get-rich-quick schemes and the dangers of herd behavior. Three centuries and many booms and busts later, their imprint is indelible. Not only did the bubbles accelerate the growth of a financial system overflowing with stock shares, newly created banknotes, and other mysterious paper devices imbued with financial alchemy—they also illustrated the power of trust and dread, faith and fear, as drivers of market volatility.
The works on display draw from the collections of The New York Public Library and include a trove of caricatures from a Dutch volume known as The Great Mirror of Folly (Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid). Published as the crisis was unfolding, these prints portray the bewildering forces of modern economic life. Loaded with jokes, often of a scatological nature, The Great Mirror of Folly lifts the curtain on a farcical political theater whose stars include bankers and statesmen—and that’s just for starters. Offering tragicomic depictions of malevolent traders, hoodwinked investors, and villainous seductresses, the prints hold up a mirror to our own age, with its ever more complex monetary instruments and periodic meltdowns. They also reflect on the intersections between art and finance, reminding us that both are products of human imaginings.
Madeleine Viljoen, Nina Dubin and Meredith Martin, Meltdown! Picturing the World’s First Bubble Economy (Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2020), 157 pages, ISBN: 978-1912554515, $65 / €50.
Online Salon | Promenades on Paper: 18th-C. French Drawings
From AHNCA:
Virtual Salon on The Clark’s Exhibition of Eighteenth-Century French Drawings from the BnF
Online, Wednesday, 1 February 2023, 7pm ET
The Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art and the Dahesh Museum join with the Clark Art Institute for a Virtual Salon on the Clark’s current exhibition Promenades on Paper: Eighteenth-Century French Drawings from the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Focusing on select drawings from the exhibition, curators Esther Bell, Anne Leonard, and Sarah Grandin will offer a varied and lively picture of artistic practices in the years leading up to and just after the French Revolution. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Please register here.
Esther Bell is Deputy Director and Robert and Martha Berman Lipp Chief Curator at the Clark Art Institute. Prior to joining the Clark, Bell was the curator in charge of European paintings at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Bell has published essays and organized exhibitions on a range of subjects, from seventeenth-century genre painting to eighteenth-century theater to nineteenth-century millinery.
Anne Leonard is Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Clark Art Institute. In addition to curating numerous exhibitions of works on paper, she is co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Music and Visual Culture (2014) and author/editor of Arabesque without End: Across Music and the Arts, from Faust to Shahrazad (2022).
Sarah Grandin is Clark-Getty Paper Project Curatorial Fellow at the Clark Art Institute. She specializes in French works on paper and the material culture of the ancien régime. She has published essays on typography, drawing, and Savonnerie carpets, and is preparing a monograph on issues of scale in the graphic and decorative arts under Louis XIV.
Exhibition | Looking Up: Studies for Ceilings, 1550–1800
Ferdinando Galli Bibiena, A Grand Illusionistic Ceiling, 1720/1740, pen and brown ink with gray and brown washes over graphite on laid paper
(Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1994.73.1)
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From the NGA:
Looking Up: Studies for Ceilings, 1550–1800
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 29 January — 9 July 2023
Curated by Jonathan Bober
In modern architecture and contemporary interior design, ceilings have lost much of their original, complex meaning, becoming neutral fields or featuring generic decoration. However, in the European tradition that spanned nearly four centuries, ceilings were where the most ambitious, compelling, and meaningful painted compositions appeared.
Felice Giani, A Coffered Dome with Apollo and Phaeton, ca. 1787, pen and brown ink with gray, blue, and pink washes over black chalk on wove paper (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1991.81.1).
Looking Up: Studies for Ceilings, 1550–1800 presents some 30 examples of the evolution of ceiling decoration. These works move from architectural frameworks housing conventional paintings to the illusion of a single, soaring space teeming with figures and dynamic movement during the baroque, and then on to the geometric organization and idealized form associated with neoclassism. Some of the drawings are vibrant preliminary studies; others are large-scale models that give a sense of the experience of the intended final composition. Studies of single motifs and individual figures reveal how these grand projects enticed viewers to pause and look up.
The exhibition is curated by Jonathan Bober, Andrew W. Mellon Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Art.
Display | Print and Prejudice: Women Printmakers, 1700–1930
Dorothea Knighton (1780–1862), Landscape, early nineteenth century, lithograph, 6.4 × 9 cm
(London: V&A, E.343-2017)
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From the V&A:
Print and Prejudice: Women Printmakers, 1700–1930
Victoria & Albert Museum, 5 November 2022 — 1 May 2023
This display charts the development of women artists’ remarkable but overlooked engagement with printmaking from the 18th to early 20th centuries—from picturesque landscapes, to intimate portraits and vibrant botanical works.
Adam Smith 300 in 2023
From the press release (23 November 2022) for Adam Smith 300 . . .
The University of Glasgow is marking the 300th anniversary of pioneering Scot Adam Smith (1723–1790) with a year-long celebration of his life, work, and influence.
The tercentenary commemoration of the ‘father of economics’ includes a host of events in Scotland and around the world, designed to inspire renewed discussion about Smith’s ideas. Smith’s work has had a lasting impact on the way the world considers economics, politics, and society more broadly. The planned programme of events aims to consider how his ideas from 300 years ago can help answer some of the biggest challenges we face today.
Throughout 2023 the University of Glasgow has a raft of programmes and events that will give academics, students, and the public new insights into his life and work. Highlights include:
• Tercentenary Week (5–10 June 2023)—a week-long series of activities, including talks and exhibitions at the University of Glasgow featuring scholars from the London School of Economics, the universities of Princeton and Harvard, and the University of Cambridge.
• An on-campus and virtual exhibition of significant and rare Smith-related artifacts—including letters, first edition books, and material from the University of Glasgow’s archives.
• The Adam Smith Tercentenary Global Lecture Series, featuring internationally renowned speakers from academia, business, and public policy.
• New research into Smith’s life and writings.
• The Royal Economic Society and Scottish Economic Society Joint Conference in April, featuring global academics reflecting upon Smith’s legacy.
Other activities involve a national student competition to re-design the front cover of The Wealth of Nations, online courses for adult learners, and new programmes to introduce high school to Adam Smith and his ideas. Universities from across the world, in North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Australia will be joining in the commemorations with their own events to mark the tercentenary.
Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, said: “Adam Smith is one of our most famous alumni, and he left an indelible impact on the University of Glasgow, on the fields of economics and moral philosophy, and on the wider world. His studies and writings introduced new ideas, insights, and concepts that shaped our understanding of economics today but were revolutionary in their day. To mark the tercentenary of his birth we will see academics, students, and the public discuss his continued relevance at a series of events taking place in Glasgow and across the world. I look forward to taking part in the University’s commemoration of Adam Smith as we evaluate his legacy and consider how his thoughts and ideas from 300 years ago can still help us answer the greatest challenges of today.”
Adam Smith—born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in June 1723—started his studies at the University of Glasgow aged 14. In 1740, he was awarded the Snell Scholarship, which is still in existence today, and left to study at Oxford. In 1751, Smith returned to Glasgow as a Professor of Logic, later becoming Professor of Moral Philosophy. While at Glasgow, Smith published the first edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759, developing upon the principles and concepts explored in his lectures. Smith’s final connection with the University came in 1787 when he assumed the prominent position of Rector. He published arguably his most famous work The Wealth of Nations in 1776 and died in 1790.
Exhibition | The Sun King and the Prince of Orange
Adam Frans van der Meulen, Landscape with King Louis XIV at the Capture of Maastricht on 30 June 1673, 1673–1690, oil on canvas, 72 × 92 cm
(Venlo: Limburgs Museum, L24496)
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Opening this summer at the Limburg Museum in Venlo (65 km northeast of Maastricht). 2023 marks the 350th anniversary of the fall of Maastricht—which itself followed in the wake of the ‘Rampjaar’ (Disaster Year) of 1672. The museum was recently recognized with a 2022 International Design Award in graphic design for its campaign, “Limburgs Museum: Van ós / For Everybody,” by Total Design.
The Sun King and the Prince of Orange: Battle for the Meuse Valley
De Zonnekoning en Oranje: Slaags aan de Maas
Der Sonnenkönig und Oranien: Kämpfe an der Maas
Limburgs Museum, Venlo, 10 June 2023 — 7 January 2024
“I believe a spectacular event is going to unfold in front of our eyes.”
–King Louis XIV, shortly before the Siege of Maastricht
June 2023 will mark the 350th anniversary of the conquest of Maastricht by Louis XIV, the French Sun King. The city’s reputation as one of the best-fortified cities on the continent caused all of Europe to stand in disbelief at the end of the thirteen-day long military campaign. The victory was proudly showcased in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles as well as on the Porte Saint-Denis in Paris. In 1676, the Prince of Orange’s attempt to reconquer the city for the Dutch Republic failed. As a result, French soldiers and administrators remained in Maastricht until 1679. What motives drove the actions of the two sovereigns? What did this region signify to them? And how did their actions affect the people? These questions lie at the heart of the grand exhibition The Sun King and the Prince of Orange: Battle for the Meuse Valley.
In collaboration with Service Historique de la Défense, Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Rijksmuseum and Paleis het Loo.
Exhibition | A Japanese Bestiary
Co-organized with the Edo-Tokyo Museum, this exhibition brings together more than a hundred ukiyo-e prints, paintings, and everyday objects to explore the relationship between humans and animals in Japan during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Un bestiaire japonais: Vivre avec les animaux à Edo-Tokyo, XVIIIe–XIXe siècle
Maison de la culture du Japon, Paris, 9 November 2022 — 21 January 2023
La gentillesse avec laquelle les Japonais traitent les animaux surprend les premiers Occidentaux qui se rendent dans l’archipel. Les liens entre les humains et le monde animal sont cependant plus complexes comme en témoigne une remarquable réplique d’une paire de paravents de 1634 représentant un panorama détaillé d’Edo et de ses faubourgs. Outre des scènes avec le shogun poursuivant cerfs et sangliers, ou chassant au faucon, on y remarque des montreurs de singes, des chiens errants, des bœufs de labour, des chevaux sacrés…
Dans la section suivante sont présentés les différents rôles des animaux, en lien avec la vie de la noblesse guerrière, des paysans et des commerçants. L’établissement d’Edo comme capitale des guerriers explique une forte présence de chevaux militaires dans les premiers temps. Avec la paix durable, le nombre de chevaux de trait, soutien de la vie citadine, se met à croître. Les bœufs sont utilisés pour le transport des marchandises à Edo ainsi que pour le labour dans les zones rurales à l’extérieur de la ville. Les activités culturelles connaissent un essor important et on s’entoure volontiers d’animaux de compagnie : petits chiens et chats, rossignols et cailles, poissons rouges, ou encore grillons et criquets dont on apprécie le chant. Nombre d’estampes et d’ouvrages sur la façon de s’en occuper sont publiés.
Dans les zones périphériques d’Edo où vit une abondante faune sauvage, la noblesse guerrière pratique régulièrement la chasse. On chasse au faucon des grues, des oies et des canards. Organisées par le shogun, les grandes chasses au cerf visent les cervidés, sangliers, lièvres et faisans. Certains animaux sauvages sont associés à des croyances religieuses, tel le renard, connu pour être le messager d’Inari, dieu des moissons. Les habitants d’Edo, ville riche en collines, rivières, et ouverte sur la mer, vivent profondément en lien avec la nature.La vie des animaux sauvages est un élément familier, étroitement lié aux croyances religieuses et aux rites saisonniers.
À partir du début du XVIIe siècle, Edo s’urbanise rapidement et la population devient friande de nouvelles attractions. Des animaux rares, notamment les paons et perroquets provenant de Chine ou de Hollande, sont exposés dans des lieux spécifiques, ancêtres des zoos, avec des boutiques proposant nourriture et boissons. Très vite, la mode des animaux exotiques connaît un boom sans précédent. Avec l’entrée dans l’ère Meiji (1868–1912), période de modernisation et d’ouverture à l’Occident, le Japon construit des installations sur le modèle occidental, tels que zoos et hippodromes.
À l’époque Edo, la puissance financière nouvelle de la classe commerçante stimule la naissance d’une véritable culture citadine et le raffinement des objets du quotidien: les motifs décoratifs représentant des animaux évoluent vers une plus grande liberté de conception et des variations plus riches. Vers la fin du XIXe siècle, la symbolique des motifs animaliers commence à s’estomper et l’accent est mis de plus en plus sur le côté «kawaii» des animaux de compagnie.
Exhibition | Mr. Pergolesi’s Curious Things
Now on view at Cooper Hewitt–and please note the upcoming programming described below. . .
Mr. Pergolesi’s Curious Things: Ornament in 18th-Century Britain
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York City, 1 October 2022 — 29 January 2023
Curated by Julia Siemon
Michel Angelo Pergolesi, Ornament Design, Tripod and Roman Standards, 1776, pen and ink, brush and watercolor over graphite on laid paper; 48 × 34 cm (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; gift of an unknown donor, 1980-32-1443; photo by Matt Flynn).
Mr. Pergolesi’s Curious Things: Ornament in 18th-Century Britain showcases fanciful drawings and prints by Michel Angelo Pergolesi (died 1801), an Italian-born artist whose professional specialty, in his words, was “the ornaments of the ancients.” In the early 1760s, Pergolesi moved to London, where he helped popularize a neoclassical style that employed ornament inspired by artifacts from ancient Greece and Rome. Brilliantly hued watercolors from Cooper Hewitt’s collection highlight Pergolesi’s skill in transforming ancient relics—what he called “curious Things”—into lighthearted decorative motifs. Although his name is now largely forgotten, these rarely seen works call attention to Pergolesi’s legacy, to the Beaux-Arts neoclassical decoration of Cooper Hewitt’s historic mansion (built 1897–1902), and to the ways in which ornament of all kinds enlivens our built environment.
The exhibition is made possible with support from the Marks Family Foundation Endowment Fund. It was organized by Julia Siemon. Exhibition design is by Field Guide Architecture and Design with graphic design by Kelly Sung.
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Left: Pietro Santi Bartoli, Gli antichi sepolcri, overo Mausolei Romani et Etruschi, trovati in Roma & in altri luoghi celebri…, Rome, 1697, plate 84 (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute Library, 82-B2112). Middle: Copy of the Portland Vase, 1850–60, manufactured by Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, stoneware (Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Mrs. Frederick F. Thompson, 1915-30-1; photo by Matt Flynn). Right: Michel Angelo Pergolesi, Ornament Design with Portland Vase and Two Cameos, 1776, pen and ink, brush and watercolor over graphite on laid paper (Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Unknown Donor, 1980-32-1463; photo by Matt Flynn).
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The Antique in Print: The Classical Past and the Visual Arts in the Long 18th Century
Online, Wednesday, 18 January 2023, 1.00pm ET
Classical reliefs, sarcophagi, frescoes, coins, and gems were frequently copied and readapted by Renaissance artists from the 15th century onwards. Yet it was only in the age of the Enlightenment that a selection of them was canonized, illustrated, and diffused in Europe through antiquarian publications. Scholars and travelers on the Grand Tour viewed antiquity through the lens of these books. Their printed illustrations offered a range of images and symbolic references for artists, decorators, and architects whenever they wanted to quote the Antique in their creations. Join us as Dr. Adriano Aymonino explores how the print culture of the long 18th century shaped the visual and allegorical language of Neoclassicism. At the same time, he will contextualize Michel Angelo Pergolesi’s drawings and popular set of prints (Designs for Various Ornaments, 1777–1801). Dr. Julia Siemon, curator of Cooper Hewitt’s Mr. Pergolesi’s Curious Things: Ornament in 18th Century Britain will provide a brief overview of the exhibition at the start of the program.
The program will feature a lecture with a slideshow presentation followed by an audience Q&A hosted through Zoom, with the option to dial in as well. Details will be emailed upon registration. This program includes closed captioning. It will be recorded and available on Cooper Hewitt’s YouTube channel a week following the lecture. For general questions or if we can provide additional accessibility services or accommodations to support your participation in this program, please email CHEducation@si.edu or let us know when registering.
Adriano Aymonino is Director of Undergraduate Programmes in the Department of History of Art at the University of Buckingham and Programme Director for the MA in the Art Market and the History of Collecting. He has curated several exhibitions, such as Drawn from the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal, held at the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London in 2015. His book Enlightened Eclecticism was published by Yale University Press in June 2021 and has won the 2022 William MB Berger Prize for British Art History. He is currently working on a revised edition of Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny’s Taste and the Antique (2023); and on a critical edition of Robert Adam’s Grand Tour correspondence, which will be hosted on the Sir John Soane’s Museum website (2024). He is also co-editor of the series Paper Worlds published by MIT Press and associate editor of the Journal of the History of Collections.
Julia Siemon is Assistant Curator of Paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Prior to joining the Getty, she was Assistant Curator of Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, where she organized Mr. Pergolesi’s Curious Things: Ornament in 18th-Century Britain. Previously, as Assistant Research Curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, she organized The Silver Caesars: A Renaissance Mystery (2017–18) and was editor and co-author of the related volume. Her other publications include contributions to The Medici: Portraits and Politics 1512–1570 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021) and A Royal Renaissance Treasure and its Afterlives: The Royal Clock Salt (British Museum Research Publications, 2021). She holds a PhD from Columbia University (2015), where she specialized in Italian Renaissance painting.
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Tour with Exhibition Curator Julia Siemon
Cooper Hewitt, New York, Friday, 20 January 2023, 1.30pm ET
In this guided tour with exhibition curator Julia Siemon, visitors will encounter fanciful drawings and prints by Michel Angelo Pergolesi, an Italian-born artist whose professional specialty, in his words, was “the ornaments of the ancients.” The tour is free with reserved museum admission; limited space is offered on a first-come basis.
Exhibition | Weng Family Collection: Art Rocks
Scholar’s rock, Qing dynasty, stone (Boston: MFA, Gift of the Wan-go H. C. Weng Collection and the Weng family, in honor of Weng Tonghe).
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Now on view at the MFA Boston:
Weng Family Collection of Chinese Painting: Art Rocks
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 26 March 2022 — 27 November 2023
In China, rocks in their natural form are objects of great aesthetic appreciation. As far back as one thousand years ago, serious art collectors and critics acquired and competed for rocks with the same passion they afforded great works of painting and calligraphy.
Jin Nong (1687–1764), Elegant Ink (Landscapes after Ancient Masters) / 龍梭墨妙畫冊 (金農), Qing dynasty, 1757, ink on paper, 27 × 35 cm (Boston: MFA, Gift of the Wan-go H. C. Weng Collection and the Weng family, in honor of Weng Tonghe, 2018.2828.1).
Rather than celebrating superficial beauty, collectors exalted imperfection for its expressive possibilities and sought rocks that were not symmetrical or smooth or pretty. They used terms like strange, weird, and awkward as complimentary descriptions of the rocks they most preferred. The humble rock became, like an abstract sculpture, a medium to explore forms and textures, and to express one’s inner being. In the minds of serious connoisseurs, rocks, as microcosms of mountains—or even the entire universe—were meditations on life itself.
From 2018 to 2021, Wan-go H. C. Weng (1918–2020) made the largest gift of Chinese paintings and calligraphy to the MFA in the institution’s history, comprising more than 390 objects acquired and passed down through six generations of his family. Rocks were integral to the Weng family’s art collection, as subjects of paintings and as art objects themselves.
Glass in the shape of a rock / 北京造湖石形料器, Qing dynasty, 18th century, 7 inches (17.8 cm) high (Boston: MFA, Gift of the Rosenblum Family, 2001.221).
This exhibition features more than 25 works from the gift as well as the MFA’s collection that explore how rock aesthetics have permeated architecture, landscape design, and painting styles in China for a millennium. Visitors can envision themselves in paintings of gardens where colossal rocks loom over a scholar’s studio, or scenes of fantastical caves where artists gaze in awe at mysterious rock formations. And rocks of all kind—large and small, weird and imperfect—are on view throughout the gallery, welcoming viewers to ponder, explore or, like the ancient poets, venerate.
This is the third in a series of three exhibitions celebrating the landmark donation made by Wan-go H. C. Weng, a longtime supporter of the MFA who, until he passed away in 2020 at the age of 102, devoted his life to the preservation, study, and promotion of China’s cultural heritage.
More information is available from Asian Art.
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Note (added 14 October 2023) — The posting was updated to include the extended run of the exhibition (from 3 May to 27 November).
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