Enfilade

From Art Market Studies:

Anne Helmreich | Charting our Future: Art Market Studies & Provenance Research in a Digital Age
The 2022 Hugo Helbing Lecture
Online, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich, 27 April 2022, 18.15 (CET)

Frans Hogenberg and Abraham Ortelius, Typvs Orbis Terrarvm, detail (Antwerp: Abraham Ortelius, 1584?) https://www.loc.gov/item/2017585795/

‘Here be dragons’, a trope used by Western early modern mapmakers to signify uncharted or dangerous territories may also describe attitudes to digital approaches in art history within certain circles. But if we aim to understand the histories of art markets at scale and over space and time, we must set sail. This talk will chart potential future directions for art market studies and provenance research, exploring both possibilities and challenges offered by digital methods. To frame this exploration, the talk will draw on complex issues raised by the transatlantic art trade at the turn of the last century and its key nodes of New York and London. In particular, it is concerned with the role played by dealers, such as Boussod, Valadon & Cie, Knoedler, Yamanaka & Co., and Hagop Kevorkian, and the different forms of archival evidence we can deploy to study this question, ranging from paper documents produced at the time—stockbooks, exhibition catalogues and reviews, correspondence, photographs, etc.—to today’s digital databases and online museum catalogues.

Anne Helmreich is Associate Director, Getty Foundation, and formerly Associate Director, Digital Initiatives, Getty Research Institute, both of the J. Paul Getty Trust. She has also served as Dean, TCU College of Fine Arts; Senior Program Officer, The Getty Foundation; and Associate Professor of Art History and Director, Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, Case Western Reserve University. Her current research focuses on the history of the art market and the productive intersection of the digital humanities and art history. Her essay “The Art Market as a System, Florence Levy’s Statistics” appeared in American Art in Fall 2020. “Purpose-built: Duveen and the Commercial Art Gallery,” co-authored with Edward Sterrett and Sandra van Ginhoven, was published by Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide in Summer 2021. She and Pamela Fletcher recently co-authored “Digital Methods and the Study of the Art Market” for The Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities and Art History (Routledge, 2020) and the epilogue to Art Crossing Borders: The Internationalisation of the Art Market in the Age of Nation States, 1750–1914 (Brill, 2019).

The lecture will also take place via Zoom; you can attend via the following link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85659345839?pwd=UmFZYU0xN1NxMGJ1MjlQM054NXgvZz09
Meeting-ID: 856 5934 5839 | Password: 148258

Presented by the Public Statues and Sculpture Association:

Vicky Avery, Database Presentation: Black People in European Sculpture, 1450 to the Present Day
Online, Public Statues and Sculpture Association, Wednesday, 4 May 2022, 1.30pm

Jacob Epstein, First Portrait of Roma of Barbados (detail), ca. 1932, bronze (Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum, M.1-1945).

Vicky Avery is keen to share her new sculpture mapping database with the PSSA in order to get critical feedback on its pilot phase—which focuses exclusively on sculpture located in the UK—before she applies for further funding. The database aims to increase expert and lay understanding of, and engagement with, sculptures of Black people created from 1450 onwards by artists born in, or based in, the continent of Europe. This is a neglected but important category of Western art, which needs urgent research and reinterpretation.

Dr Victoria Avery has been Keeper of the Applied Arts Department at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, since 2010, prior to which she was Associate Professor in the History of Art Department, University of Warwick. Vicky has researched, lectured, and published widely on all aspects the applied arts, especially on European sculpture and Italian Renaissance bronzes, most recently editing the monograph Michelangelo: Sculptor in Bronze. She has also been responsible for co-curating several ambitious, interdisciplinary, research-led collaborative exhibitions at the Fitzwilliam, most recently Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500–1800. She is currently co-curating a legacies-related exhibition, Enslavement and Resistance: Cambridge’s World History (working title, 25 July 2023 — 7 January 2024).

From Rienzi:

Misty Flores | Worcester Cabinet Cup and Stand by Thomas Baxter
Online, Rienzi, MFAH, Houston, Tuesday, 19 April 2022, 1pm (Central Time)

Worcester Porcelain Manufactory, Thomas Baxter, Cabinet Cup and Stand, ca. 1814–16, porcelain (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston / Photograph: Bonham, 2021).

This Worcester porcelain cup depicts Mirza Abu’l Hassan Khan (1776–1845), the Persian ambassador sent to the English court in 1809. A figure of much fascination while in England, he was the subject of prints and poetry and was even depicted on porcelain objects. Find out more about this Cabinet Cup and Stand, newly acquired by Rienzi, during this free 30-minute talk with assistant curator Misty Flores. Live via Zoom.

Registration is available here»

Presented by the Yale Center for British Art:

Visitors in the Study Room, YCBA (Photo by Harold Shapiro).

This two-part online discussion is for graduate students from any discipline who are interested in pursuing a professional career in museums. In each session, Yale alumni who work in the field share their personal experiences and professional opinions. The goal is to better equip individuals for a museum position by discussing the range of specialist professions that support museums and sharing information about how to be competitive in the job market. There will be opportunities to ask questions with the online Q&A feature.

Attendees must register to receive the link.

Yale Alumni Panels: Museum Careers and Trajectories
Friday, 8 April 2022, 11.00am (ET)

This session addresses personal career trajectories to highlight the diversity of pathways into museums and the range of positions related to audience outreach, curatorial practice, collections, and programming. Each panelist shares their current duties and responsibilities and how their position fits into their wider career goals and intellectual life. The discussion also touches on how to prioritize the skills and experience needed to be competitive in the job market, such as publishing scholarly research, gaining work experience, presenting at conferences, networking, interning, and applying to professional or fellowship positions.

Panelists
• Ashley James (Yale PhD 2021, English Literature, African American Studies, and Gender Studies), Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
• Elizabeth Mattison (Yale MA 2014, History of Art), Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Curator of Academic Programming, Hood Museum of Art
• Rebecca Peabody (Yale PhD 2006, History of Art and African American Studies), Head of Research Projects & Programs, Getty Research Institute

Moderator
• Laurel Peterson (Yale PhD 2018, History of Art), Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings, Yale Center for British Art

To join us for this program, please register here»

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Yale Alumni Panels: Museums and the Hiring Process
Friday, 22 April 2022, 11.00am (ET)

This session focuses on the process of applying, interviewing, and securing a position within the museum field. Panelists reflect on their own successes and share insights into the recruitment process at their respective institutions. The conversation also covers some of the effective strategies that candidates have used and touches on resources and training options.

Panelists
• Desirée Gordon (Yale BA 2002, American Studies and Cultural Anthropology), Director of Programs and Strategy, Brooklyn Arts Council
• Megan Heuer (Yale BA 2000, Women’s and Gender Studies), Director of Public Programs and Public Engagement, Whitney Museum of American Art
• Julie Ludwig (Yale MA 1996), Associate Archivist, The Frick Collection

Moderator
• James Vanderberg, Educator, High School, College, University, and Community Engagement, Yale Center for British Art

To join us for this program, please register here»

This Thursday from The Clark:

Sarah Grandin | A Market for Imitation: Engraving Drawing in Eighteenth-Century France
Online, The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 7 April 2022, noon (ET)

Gilles Antoine Demarteau, after François Boucher, Femme nue, after 1757, engraving in crayon manner with roulette on laid paper.

Sarah Grandin leads a virtual lunchtime talk exploring works on paper from the Clark’s collection, showcasing the role prints played in making drawing more accessible to the public in eighteenth-century France. After Grandin’s (recorded) presentation of a selection of works by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, François Boucher, Jean-Antoine Watteau, and others, she will join in a live Q&A session. Presented via Zoom and Facebook Live, the event is free, but advance registration for the Zoom transmission is required.

Sarah Grandin holds a PhD in the History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University (awarded in 2021) and is the Clark-Getty Paper Project Curatorial Fellow (2020–22) at The Clark Art Institute.

This program is made possible with support from the Getty Foundation through The Paper Project initiative.

From the BGC:

Anne Lafont, Making Ornamental Africa: An Enlightenment Process
The Iris Foundation Awards Lecture
Online and in-person, Bard Graduate Center, New York, 26 April 2022, 6pm

Could it be that in the geographical conception of art developed in Enlightenment Europe, the primary role and the function of the so-called Black Continent was one of ornament? Or, on the contrary, did the aesthetic conception elaborated by the European Enlightenment deprive Africa of artistic potentiality? These two opposing hypotheses coexist in eighteenth-century artworks and texts. The talk will focus on some objects whose material, form, argument, use and reception invite us not only to historicize the notion of African art, but also to identify the registers of categorization specific to this pivotal eighteenth-century moment, when both anthropology and aesthetics were invented. African objects, as well as European objects inspired by the African presence in Europe, rub up against the emergence of these two disciplines, which intersected around the importance of the senses and sight, in particular.

Registration is open for a limited in-person audience. Bard Graduate Center requires proof of vaccination and photo identification to enter the building. Guests are required to wear masks regardless of vaccination status. This talk will also be available on Zoom (registration is available here). A link will be circulated to registrants by 4pm on the day of the event. This event will be live with automatic captions.

Anne Lafont is an art historian and professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. She is interested in the art, images, and material culture of France and its colonial empire in the modern era, as well as in historiographical questions related to the notion of African art. She has published on art and knowledge in an imperial context, on gender issues in the discourse on art in the 18th and 19th centuries, and her most recent book is entitled L’Art et la Race: L’Africain (tout) contre l’oeil des Lumières. It was awarded the 2019 Fetkann Maryse Condé Literary Prize and the 2020 Vitale and Arnold Blokh Prize. Anne Lafont participated, as a member of the scientific committee, in the Musée d’Orsay exhibition The Black Model (2019). In 2021, she was awarded a residential fellowship from the cultural services of the French Embassy in the United States, the Villa Albertine, and she serves, for the academic year 2021–22, as the Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor of Art History at Williams College (Massachusetts).

From The Royal Oak Foundation:

Caroline Stanford | Eleanor Coade and Her Remarkable Stone
Online, The Royal Oak Foundation, 30 March 2022, 2pm (ET)

Eleanor Coade (1733–1821) was a successful Georgian entrepreneur who created artificial stone for use in monuments, which she called Coade stone. Inventing the recipe and the firing technique, Mrs. Coade bought an existing artificial stone factory in South London in 1769 and turned out Coade stone architectural detailing, urns, tombs, and statues for the next 50 years. She combined artistic flair with successful marketing skills, and every architect of the time including Robert Adam, Sir John Soane, John Nash, and James and Samuel Wyatt commissioned her work for their projects. Her manufactory’s output was mostly classical in style but also produced wares in Gothic, Egyptian, and Chinese styles. Mrs. Coade’s genius lay in her entrepreneurship—convincing designers that her product was better than natural stone for its durability and weatherproof nature.

In an era, when successful businesswomen were far from typical, Eleanor Coade was exceptional. Many examples of Coade stone made during and after the inventor’s lifetime remain in the UK and beyond, including the South Bank lion at the east end of Westminster Bridge. The Landmark Trust’s historian, Caroline Stanford, will talk about this successful 18th-century business woman and her business practice, describing how Coade stone transformed late-Georgian architecture, including its use in America. Stanford will also feature Belmont, Coade’s own villa, rescued and restored by the Landmark Trust and available to rent.

Caroline Stanford read Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford and has two Masters in Early Modern History from Birbeck College London and in Historic Conservation at Oxford Brookes. She has been The Landmark Trust’s historian since 2001 and writes and speaks extensively about the Landmark Trust’s buildings. She was research historian for the Landmark Trust’s 2015 restoration of Eleanor Coade’s seaside villa, Belmont in Lyme Regis. A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Stanford has also served on the committee of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. She co-authored Landmark: A History of Britain in 50 Buildings and has contributed to many television and radio programmes. She is currently working on a part time DPhil in Architectural History at Oxford University on “Fired Artificial Stone, 1650–1850” and is a leading Coade scholar.

Online via Zoom Webinar
Wednesday, 30 March 2022, 2.00 pm (ET)
$15 ROF members; $20 non-members

Recording Rental
Available between Thursday, 31 March and Monday, 11 April
Rent the recorded lecture to watch at your leisure
$15 ROF members; $20 non-members

Chinoiserie Figures, Imperial Porcelain Factory, 1752–60
(Jordanville, New York: Russian History Museum)

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Sponsored by the museum:

Ekaterina Heath | Art in Chinese Style during the Reign of Elisabeth Petrovna
Online, Russian History Museum, Jordanville, New York, 9 April 2022, 1.00pm (EDT)

Empress Elisabeth Petrovna (1709–1762), second-eldest daughter of Peter the Great, was an unexpected ruler whose place on the throne was under constant threat. As a young child, she experienced the intrigue and mystery of the Chinese embassy’s visit to Empress Anna Ioannovna. This visit had a lasting effect. The fact that the Chinese desired a relationship with a European country was unique in international relations at the time; yet Russian Empire’s attitude towards China remained ambiguous throughout Elisabeth’s reign. The Empress oscillated between critiquing China and seeking good relations with the Chinese Emperor.

The malleability of art in Chinese style (chinoiserie) allowed to use it to reflect the changing meanings of the East. At the same time, Russian chinoiserie often reveals more about Russian court culture and politics than it does about Russia’s complex relationship with China. Chinoiserie’s multiple meanings also served Elizabeth Petrovna to challenge the norms of her gender to support her legitimacy to rule. Neither Chinese nor European, chinoiserie allowed the Imperial court to define and promote the values and interests of the empress and the Russian state. Join us as we explore this unique combination of diplomacy through decorative arts.

This virtual lecture will be presented live via Zoom. Registered users will be emailed a link to join. If you’re unable to watch the live stream, please fill out this form and we will send you a link to the recording.

Dr. Ekaterina Heath is a Research Associate at the University of Sydney. She has published essays on Russian eighteenth-century art and gardens. Her recent articles include “Grand Tour Memories In Maria Feodorovna’s Pavlovsk Park, St Petersburg, 1782–1825” (with Emma Gleadhill), “Giving Women History: A History of Ekaterina Dashkova through Her Gifts to Catherine the Great and Others,” and “Sowing the Seeds for Strong Relations: Seeds and Plants as Diplomatic Gifts for the Russian Empress Maria Fedorovna.” She is finishing a book on Empress Maria Fedorovna’s use of Pavlovsk Park to influence Russian politics. This online talk is based on a chapter that Ekaterina Heath wrote with Professor Jennifer Milam, to be published shortly in the volume Russian Orientalism in a Global Context (edited by Maria Taroutina and Allison Leigh).

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Opened in 1984, the Russian History Museum in Jordanville, New York, 60 miles east of Syracuse, “promotes the understanding and appreciation of the rich history and culture of Russia and the Russian diaspora.” The museum’s history is closely associated with the Holy Trinity Monastery, founded in 1930. The monastery became “an important spiritual and cultural center for the Russian diaspora, [and] emigres from the former Russian Empire, displaced by revolution, civil war, and World War II, began to view the monastery as a trusted repository for the treasured artifacts and documents they brought with them from their homeland or had painstakingly collected abroad” (from the museum’s website). Responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the museum’s ‘plea for peace’ is available here.