Journal of the History of Collections, July 2014
The eighteenth century in the Journal of the History of Collections (though other pieces for periods both earlier and later will likely also be of interest) . . .
Journal of the History of Collections 26 (July 2014)
A R T I C L E S
Alexander Echlin, “Dynasty, Archaeology and Conservation: The Bourbon Rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum in Eighteenth-Century Naples,” pp. 145–59 (first published online 1 April 2014).
The rediscovery of the ancient sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the eighteenth century attracted a huge response from contemporary commentators. Many of these, as well as almost all subsequent judgements from historians, are very critical of the Bourbon excavators. Charles, King of Naples, and his team of antiquaries have been depicted as charlatans, treating ancient artefacts and the sites poorly, interested in them only in so far as they glorified their kingdom. In this article it is argued that, with an understanding of contemporary approaches to antiquity and conservation, this verdict on the Bourbons seems unduly harsh. Their archaeological methods and treatment of classical art were typical for the eighteenth century and were, in some ways, progressive. In support of this harsh judgement of Charles, Winckelmann has been portrayed as a savage critic of the excavations; in reality he was kinder to the Bourbons than historians have believed.
Julia Lenaghan, “The Cast Collection of John Sanders, Architect, at the Royal Academy, ” pp. 193–205 (first published online 4 November 2013).
John Sanders (1768–1826) was an architect and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He was the first student and a life-long friend of Sir John Soane. In 1817 in retirement he travelled to the Continent, where he studied and recorded with academic zeal the architectural monuments of the classical world which had so influenced his mentor and his world. In Rome he amassed a comprehensive and original collection of plaster casts of ‘architectural’ details. This collection was purchased by the Royal Academy in 1830, and much of it remains today part of the permanent collection of the Academy. This article presents the history and use of this early, non-figural, collection of plaster casts.
Paulo Oliveira Ramos, “The Royal Decree of 1721 and the Ephemeral Archaeological Collection of the Royal Academy of Portuguese History,” pp. 223–27 (first published online 22 January 2014).
In the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, the palace of the Dukes of Braganza collapsed and its priceless treasures were lost forever. Although the content of its archaeological collection—said to constitute the first Portuguese museum of archaeology—is almost impossible to recover in detail today, the process behind its formation can be glimpsed in the documentary record. Two main aspects have emerged in the course of the present research: on the one hand, the relevance of the Royal Decree of 1721 as a crucial moment in the history of heritage preservation in Portugal and in Europe—and also as the inspiration for the archaeological collection; and, on the other hand, the antiquarian commitment of the Marquis of Abrantes.
Stephen Clarke, “Rosamond’s Bower, The Pryor’s Bank, and the Long Shadow of Strawberry Hill,” pp. 287–306 (first published online 4 March 2014).
The influence of Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill is traced in the little-known collections created in the 1830s and early 1840s at Rosamond’s Bower by the writer and antiquary Thomas Crofton Croker (joint author of the Gooseberry Hall satire of the Strawberry Hill sale of 1842) and by Thomas Baylis and Lechmere Whitmore at The Pryor’s Bank, both at Fulham. They were active purchasers at the sale (particularly Baylis), and Walpole’s Description of Strawberry Hill is a continuing presence behind Croker’s accounts of both collections. Both houses were social spaces, presented for antiquarian display, and in the case of The Pryor’s Bank in particular that display was played out in entertainments and Dickensian amateur theatricals. An under-explored element in this combination of collecting, antiquarianism, and jocularity is the Noviomagian Society, an antiquarian dining club of which Croker was a founder and which has connections to both houses.
R E V I E W S
• Jeremy Coote, Review of Holophusicon: The Leverian Museum – An Eighteenth-Century English Institution of Science, Curiosity, and Art,” pp. 317–18 (first published online 18 April 2014).
• Jörg Zutter, Review of Houghton Revisited: The Walpole Masterpieces from Catherine the Great’s Hermitage, pp. 319–21 (first published online 11 June 2014).
• Arthur MacGregor, Review of Natural Histories: Extraordinary Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library, pp. 322–23 (first published online 8 May 2014).
• Peter Mason, Review of Historias Naturales: Un Proyecto de Miguel Ángel Blanco, pp. 323–24 (first published online 16 May 2014).
• Charles Sebag-Montefiore, Review of Provenance: An Alternate History of Art, pp. 324–25 (first published online 18 April 2014).
Summer 2014 Issue of the CODART eZine
The 4th issue of the CODART eZine focuses on the eighteenth-century:
CODART eZine 4 (Summer 2014)
Jan Ekels, A Writer Sharpening His Pen, 1784
(Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum)
• Tom van der Molen, “Editor’s Note: Eighteenth-Century Art”
• Gerdien Verschoor, “Welcome: CODART Director Dies under Avalanche of Books”
• Virginie D’haene, “Bruges Artists Abroad: Neoclassicist Drawings in the Printroom of the Groeningemuseum”
• Stefaan Hautekeete, “A Cabinet of the Most Delightful Drawings: Eighteenth-Century Netherlandish Drawings from the Collection of Jean de Grez, To Be Exhibited at the Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België (Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Belgium) in 2016”
• René Dessing, “Historic Country Houses in the Netherlands”
• Silke Gatenbröcker, “Duke Anton Ulrich of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel: One of the First Collectors of Dutch Paintings outside the Netherlands”
• Jacek Tylicki, “Collecting at the Court of Poland-Lithuania and the Activities of King Stanislaus II August”
• Curator’s Interview: Paul Knolle interviewed by Andrea Rousová
• Friends: Brian Capstick interviewed by Gerdien Verschoor
• Rebecca Long, “CODART ZEVENTIEN Congress Review”
About CODART
CODART—the international council for curators of Dutch and Flemish art—aims to further the study, care, accessibility and display of art from the Low Countries in museums around the globe. It serves as a platform for exchange and cooperation between curators from different parts of the world, with different levels of experience, and from different types and sizes of institutions. Our organization stimulates international inter-museum cooperation through a variety of activities, including congresses, focus meetings, publications and our website. By these means CODART strives to solidify the cultural ties between the Netherlands and Flanders, and to make the artistic heritage of these countries accessible to the international art-loving public.
Teixeira’s Topographia de la Villa de Madrid in The Art Bulletin
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In the latest issue of The Art Bulletin (which I’m just now catching up on). . .
Jesús Escobar, “Map as Tapestry: Science and Art in Pedro Teixeira’s 1656 Representation of Madrid,” The Art Bulletin 96 (March 2014): 50–69.
Abstract: Pedro Teixeira’s Topographia de la Villa de Madrid is arguably the greatest representation of a city in the Spanish Habsburg world. Measuring nearly six feet high and more than nine feet wide, the map is a remarkable scientific achievement as well as a sophisticated art object. An exploration of the map’s text and ornament details the efforts of a scientist working in a court setting to shape a grandiose picture of the Spanish capital. Displayed on a wall, Topographia de la Villa de Madrid rivaled paintings and tapestries in their ability to exalt the image of a powerful ruler.
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Though dating to the the mid-seventeenth century, the map caught my attention for Enfilade because of this statement and footnote toward the end of the article:
As testament to the map’s legacy, a derivative map at a smaller scale than Teixeira’s was engraved in four plates in 1683 by the Dutch-Spanish artist Gregorio Fosman (1635–1713) and printed in the Madrid studio of Santiago Ambrona.107 (66).
107. Molina Campuzano, Planos de Madrid, 283–89, notes that the depiction of the city in Fosman’s map is approximately one-seventh the size of Teixeira’s. Fosman’s image would, in itself, serve as a model for a number of eighteenth-century maps of Madrid engraved by foreign artists in Paris, Amsterdam, and Augsburg. . . (69).
If anyone is looking then for the equivalent for Madrid of Giambattista Nolli’s 1748 map of Rome, Teixeira’s Topographia de la Villa de Madrid would seem to be at least part of the answer. -CH
The Burlington Magazine, June 2014
The eighteenth century in The Burlington:
The Burlington Magazine 156 (June 2014)
A R T I C L E S
• Meredith M. Hale, “Amsterdam Broadsheets as Sources for a Painted Screen in Mexico City, c. 1700,” pp. 356–64.
European print sources for a twelve-panel screen made in Mexico City (c. 1697–1701).
• Alvar González-Palacios, “Giardini and Passarini: Facts and Hypotheses,” pp. 365–75.
New documents on the gold- and silversmith Giovanni Giardini (1646–1721).
• Koenraad Brosens and Guy Delmarcel, “Raphael’s Acts of the Apostles: Italians in the Service of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Leyniers Tapestry Workshop, 1725–55,” pp. 376–81.
A seven-part series of tapestries made by Daniel Leyniers (1752–54) in the Villa Hugel, Essen, based on Raphael’s Acts of the Apostles (woven 1516–21).
R E V I E W S
• Simon Jervis, Review of the exhibition William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain, pp. 391–94.
• Christopher Baker, Review of Christopher Rowell, ed., Ham House: 400 Years of Collecting and Patronage (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the National Trust, 2013), pp. 398–99.
• Kate Retford, Review of the exhibition catalogue Moira Goff et al, Georgians Revealed: Life, Style, and the Making of Modern Britain (British Library, 2013), p. 401.
• David Pullins, Review of the exhibition From Watteau to Fragonard: Les Fêtes Galantes, pp. 408–10.
• Philippe Bordes, Review of the exhibition Le Goût de Diderot, pp. 413–15.
Candle-lit Theater
Michael Hawcroft’s article in the current issue of French Studies should be useful for anyone thinking about candles and early modern lighting conditions, particularly in the theater. At a more immediately experiential level, The Globe’s new Wanamaker Playhouse (opened since January) serves as the ideal venue.
Les Farceurs italiens et français, ca. 1670
(Paris: Collections Comédie-Française)
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Michael Hawcroft, “New Light on Candles on the Seventeenth-Century French Stage,” French Studies 68 (2014): 180–92.
Abstract: Modern accounts of the seventeenth-century French stage have repeatedly asserted that plays were divided into short acts of some twenty to thirty minutes in performance because the candles that lit the theatres had to be snuffed at frequent intervals. This article claims that there is no evidence for this assertion and aims to evoke the technological constraints of candle usage at the time so as to suggest that candles could be managed in such a way that they did not actually dictate dramaturgical practice. The article considers seventeenth-century theoretical discussion of the division of plays into acts: such discussion never alludes to candles, but refers to historical precedent and spectator attention spans as perceived explanations for the phenomenon of act division. It aims to adduce compelling evidence against the traditional view and concludes that the snuffing of candles took advantage of the opportunity offered by act division, but was never its cause.
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The Wanamaker Playhouse as described by Andrew Dickson for The Guardian:
Andrew Dickson, “New Globe Playhouse Draws Us inside Shakespeare’s Inner Space,” The Guardian (7 January 2014).
Crafted from oak and lit by candles, the Globe’s new playhouse isn’t just a jewel box of a theatre—it’s also a time machine
The new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse—an offshoot of the modern Globe, named in memory of its founder—aims to bring the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in from the cold, creating an indoor playhouse closely modelled on the one his company began to use in 1608, across the Thames at Blackfriars. Although it’s not the first time someone has attempted the feat—US scholars constructed a rival Blackfriars in the unlikely setting of a small city in Virginia 13 years ago—this will be the most authentic version yet, accurate (or as close as is possible) down to every hollow-bored oak pillar and trompe-l’oeil fresco. The whole project has cost £7.2m: one reason it’s taken the Globe nearly two decades to get around to building it. . . .
The first shock, after descending from the attic, is how tiny the auditorium feels: while the Globe can accommodate 1,500 people, with up to 700 jostling on foot, the Playhouse seats just 340. But this only makes it more intimate, says academic Farah Karim-Cooper, who chairs the research group that has steered the project. “The proximity is unbelievable,” she says. “You can get intimacy in the Globe—and when that happens it’s beautiful. But here, it’s really something.” . . .
But the greatest indoor breakthrough was something we now take for granted: control over light, impossible in the open air until the invention of gas lighting in the late 18th century. The Playhouse will be illuminated exclusively by candles, with artificial electronic daylight filtering through internal ‘windows’. The team hopes this will be the new space’s true revelation. The Jacobeans used candles made from animal fat, but the Globe have gone for pure beeswax, costing up to £500 per show. . .
The Burlington Magazine, March 2014
The (long) eighteenth century in The Burlington:
The Burlington Magazine 156 (March 2014)
A R T I C L E S
• François Marandet, “The Pool of Bethesda by Louis Chéron: A Modello Discovered at the Wellcome Library, London,” pp. 162–63.
An oil-sketch by Louis Chéron in the Wellcome Library, London, is identified as a study for the large painting of the Pool of Bethesda (1683) in S. Pantaleone, Venice.
• Massimo Favilla and Ruggero Rugolo, “A Portrait of a Baby Girl by Lorenzo Tiepolo,” pp. 164–69.
An attribution to Lorenzo Tiepolo of a Portrait of a Baby Girl in a High Chair (c.1770–76).
R E V I E W S
• Jocelyn Anderson, Review of Geoffrey Tyack, ed., John Nash: Architect of the Picturesque (English Heritage, 2013), pp. 175–76.
• Uta Christina Koch, Review of the exhibition Fragonard: Poetry and Passion / Poesie und Leidenschaft, pp. 194–95.
• Francis Russell, Review of the exhibition Pietro Bellotti: Another Canaletto, pp. 198–99.
March 2014 Issue of RIHA Journal
The latest issue of RIHA Journal, the open access journal of the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art (RIHA), addresses the theme “When Art History Meets Design History.” Here are the eighteenth-century offerings:
Katie Scott, “Persuasion: Nicolas Pineau’s Designs on the Social,” RIHA Journal (March 2014).
This essay offers a Latourian account of the wood sculptor Nicolas Pineau’s design process via a reading of Jean-François Bastide’s [1758] novella La petite maison. It argues that the conventional form assumed by his drawings or ‘inscriptions’—the indications of scale, the delineation of options, the signatures and marginal notes—can be read as traces of seduction that helped ‘translate’ potential patrons to a taste for Rococo. The essay further suggests that the activation of the taste at the point of commission was kept alive in the designs executed by the bi-modal asymmetry that is characteristic of the goût pittoresque because its exercise was considered a mark of refinement.
Matthew Craske, “Model Making and Anti-Competitive Practices in the Late Eighteenth-Century London Sculpture Trade,” RIHA Journal (March 2014).
This article concerns the generation of anti-competitive practices, and the associated discontents, that rose to the fore in the London sculpture trade in the late eighteenth century (1770–1799). It charts the business strategies and technical procedures of the most economically successful practitioners, whose workshops had some of the characteristics of manufactories, and whose critics accused them of conducting a “monopoly” trade. Small-scale practitioners lost out in the competition for great public contracts on account of their design processes and their inability to represent any manifestation of “establishment.” A combination of three factors increased the gap between a handful of powerful “manufacturers” and the rest of the trade: the foundation of the Royal Academy, shifts in the ways designs were evaluated, and a growing number of very lucrative contracts for public sculpture. I conclude that such were the discontents within the London trade that by the 1790s, there was a marked tendency for practitioners who were not manufacturers to be attracted to democratic political movements, to the Wilkite call for liberty and the rise of civic radicalism in the merchant population of London.
Anne Puetz, “Drawing from Fancy: The Intersection of Art and Design in Mid-Eighteenth-Century London,” RIHA Journal (March 2014).
This paper attempts to bring the world of mid-eighteenth-century British design into fruitful conversation with contemporary art theory and practice. Taking the neighbourhood and milieu of the St Martin’s Lane area in London as a starting point, I investigate connections between British “rococo” design and William Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty in terms of shared formal values and contemporary implications of “modernity.” I argue for a mutual indebtedness rather than “art” directing “design.”
The Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art (NKJ) Now Online
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The Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art / Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek (NKJ) is now available online via subscription with access to all 62 volumes dating back to 1947. The online version gives this unique and high quality publication an extra dimension. NKJ, reflecting the variety and diversity of approaches to the study of Netherlandish art and culture, is now even more accessible and easy to use. Each NKJ volume is dedicated to a particular theme. The latest volume (62) is dedicated to Meaning in Materials 1400–1800. For details see www.brill.com/nkjo or contact marketing@brill.com.
Journal of the History of Collections 26 (March 2014)
The eighteenth century in the current issue of the Journal of the History of Collections:
Journal of the History of Collections 26 (March 2014)
A R T I C L E S
José Saporiti Machado and Miguel Telles Antunes, “Aniceto Rapozo’s Cabinet at the Lisbon Academy of Sciences: A Window into Brazilian Eighteenth-Century Timber Resources,” pp. 21–33.
From the end of the eighteenth until the beginning of the nineteenth century, wood samples were regularly sent to the Royal Army Arsenal in Lisbon for testing. The large number and variety of samples, as well as increasing interest on Brazil, explain why, in 1805, the Prince Regent of Portugal commissioned the preparation of four collections containing 1,213 timber specimens from Brazil and twelve from other origins. One of these collections, housed in a cabinet at the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, is now being studied in order to reveal its origins and to identify the wood samples. Botanical identifications will provide valuable information about the wood resources and the species used by furniture-makers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Arthur MacGregor, “Patrons and Collectors: Contributors of Zoological Subjects to the Works of George Edwards (1694–1773),” pp. 35–44.
Through his lavishly illustrated and eminently accessible Natural History of Uncommon Birds (1743–51) and Gleanings of Natural History (1758–64), George Edwards became one of the most influential naturalists and illustrators of mid-eighteenth-century England. The specimens on which he relied – either alive, stuffed, or in spirits – were generally in the ownership of others and his practice of carefully acknowledging the source of each of his subjects sheds considerable light on the extent to which exotic birds and animals were to be found in the possession of a range of owners from wealthy grandees to humble citizens, as well as specialist traders who emerged to supply this growing market. Edwards’s texts are drawn upon here to chart the degree to which exotic species, alive or dead, had begun to penetrate households great and small by the mid 1700s, particularly in the London area; an online appendix lists and identifies those who supplied him with specimens.
Debora J. Meijers, “An Exchange of Paintings between the Courts of Vienna and Florence in 1792–1793: A Logical Step Taken at the Right Moment,” pp. 45–61.
It may come as a surprise that in the turbulent political period of spring 1792 a decision was taken at the courts of Vienna and Florence to carry out an exchange of paintings, the aim of which was ‘to complete’ the collections of the Emperor and the Grand Duke, each ‘with the profusion of the other’. There are, however, signs that this step originated in the recent past of both galleries and further that it related to the developments of that particular historical moment. The exchange can be interpreted as a logical consequence of the recently introduced taxonomic division into schools, the advancement of which would lead to an unprecedented level of ‘completeness’. Besides being a perfect seed-bed for emerging artists, the presentation of ‘all’ the schools could also be seen as a metaphor for political power. But in this time of war with France the exchange served mainly as a bond between two brothers who were pursuing very different political courses.
R E V I E W S
• David Howarth, Review of Christopher Rowell, ed., Ham House: 400 Years of Collecting and Patronage (2013), pp. 117–19.
• Rosemary Sweet, Review of Noah Heringman, Sciences of Antiquity: Romantic Antiquarianism: Natural History and Knowledge Work (2013), pp. 119–20.
• Arthur MacGregor, Review of Glyn Williams, Naturalists at Sea: Scientific Travellers from Dampier to Darwin (2013), pp. 120–22.
• Mark A. Roglán, Review of Shelley M. Bennett, The Art of Wealth: The Huntingtons in the Gilded Age (2013), p. 125.
• Fiona Savage, Review of Sarah Longair and John McAleer, eds., Curating Empire: Museums and the British Imperial Experience (2012), pp. 125–26.
• Francesco Paolo de Ceglia, Review of Medical Museums: Past, Present, Future (2013), pp. 126–27.
Design History 27 (March 2014)
A selection of offerings from the latest issue of Design History:
Design History 27 (March 2014).
Julie Bellemare, “Design Books in the Chinese Taste: Marketing the Orient in England and France, 1688–1735,” pp. 1–16.
This article examines design books replicating Asian and Asian-inspired imagery in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England and France. Often created to provide craftsmen with new sets of decorative patterns, the designs compiled in these books served to imitate a range of new manufactured products imported from Asia, for which local demand was growing at a steady pace. Design books provide a particularly fruitful entry point into the European conception of the ‘orient’ by synthesising exotic images from a variety of pictorial sources into convenient formats. The present discussion focuses on two specific books: A Treatise of Japaning and Varnishing, by John Stalker and George Parker, published in London and Oxford in 1688, and Livre de desseins chinois, tirés d’après des originaux de Perse, des Indes, de la Chine et du Japon by Jean-Antoine Fraisse, which appeared in Paris in 1735. Using these case studies, I argue that not all patterns found in design books were intended to be replicated on real objects; some also circulated independently as images available to a broader consumer base than previously thought. I examine the books’ contents, publishing history and the marketing strategies employed for reaching wide audiences and generating a desire for the ‘orient’.
R E V I E W S
• Deborah Sugg Ryan, Review of Tatiana C. String and Marcus Bull, eds., Tudorism: Historical Imagination and the Appropriation of the Sixteenth Century (2011); and Andrew Ballantyne and Andrew Law, Tudoresque: In Pursuit of the Ideal Home (2011), pp. 97–101.
• Susan House Wade, Review of Liza Antrim, Family Dolls’ Houses of the 18th and 19th Centuries (2011), pp. 103–04.
• Galen Cranz, Review of Anne Massey Chair (2011), pp. 104–06.
• Dominique Grisard, Review of Chris Horrocks, ed., Cultures of Colour: Visual, Material, Textual (2012), pp. 106–08.
C F P : S P E C I A L I S S U E S
Beyond Dutch Design: Material Culture in the Netherlands in an Age of Globalization, Migration and Multiculturalism, p. 114.
Articles due by 1 December 2014 (more…)
Enfilade
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