Enfilade

Ethan Lasser, the new curator of American Art at the Harvard Art Museums, completed his dissertation at Yale in 2007, writing on “Figures in the Grain: The Enlightenment of Anglo-American Furniture, 1660-1800.” Press release (dated 15 August 2012) . . .

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The Harvard Art Museums are pleased to announce the appointment of Ethan Lasser as Margaret S. Winthrop Associate Curator of American Art, effective September 18, 2012. Lasser will join the Art Museums’ Division of European and American Art.

Lasser’s innovative work as a curator and academic experience align well with the Art Museums’ teaching and research mission. From 2007 to the present, Lasser has been curator of the Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a research institute committed to advancing progressive scholarship in American art through exhibitions, publications, teaching, and public programming. In 2008, he reinstalled the foundation’s permanent galleries at the Milwaukee Art Museum, a 13,000-square-foot exhibition space for American paintings and decorative arts. He has also served as adjunct professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he initiated the Object Lab, a summer program for undergraduates focused on teaching American art and craft history through hands-on research with artifacts. Lasser is currently developing two new exhibitions—The Practice and Poetics of Repair and Makers: Craft and Industry in American Art—both of which explore his interest in art-making processes and materiality. Lasser, who graduated magna cum laude from Williams College, has a PhD in art history from Yale University. (more…)

Thanks to Courtney Barnes for passing along this press release from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (dated 3 August 2012) . . .

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has agreed to purchase the exceptional mahogany dressing table that has been on loan to the Museum for 36 years. Made in Philadelphia in the late 1760s or early 1770s, the table is the mate to the Museum’s monumental high chest, which was donated in 1957 by Amy Howe Steel Greenough. The dynamic carved decoration on both the high chest and the dressing table depicts a scene from Aesop’s fable of “The Fox and the Grapes” on their central drawers. The impressive proportions of these remarkable examples of 18th-century craftsmanship echo the architectural framework of the bedchamber for which they were made. Together, they epitomize the elegance and sophistication that distinguish Philadelphia furniture as the finest produced in British colonial North America.

“The Museum has now realized its cherished dream of keeping ‘The Fox and the Grapes’ dressing table together with its companion high chest,” said Timothy Rub, the Museum’s George D. Widener Director and Chief Executive Officer. “The two anchor our galleries of early American art; and now that their future together is secure, we can continue to display and interpret them as superlative artistic achievements.”

The high chest was known to Museum curators early in the 20th century when it was borrowed from Mary Fell Howe for the 1924 exhibition Philadelphia Chippendale. Lauded for its stately presence, highly figured mahogany, abundant carved ornament, and the rare depiction of a narrative from one of Aesop’s fables, the high chest also generated curiosity about whether or not its companion piece—the dressing table—was still in existence. “The Fox and the Grapes” dressing table was soon discovered and made its debut in William MacPherson Hornor, Jr.’s 1935 publication The Blue Book of Philadelphia Furniture: William Penn to George Washington. Joseph Kindig, Jr., the preeminent York, Pennsylvania, furniture and gun dealer, purchased the dressing table from Miss Eliza Davids in the late 1930s. Though Kindig was an antiques dealer, the dressing table was not offered for sale. Instead, it remained in the Kindig’s private home. Mr. Kindig died in 1971, and soon thereafter a friend of the Museum alerted curators to the whereabouts of the coveted “Fox and Grapes” dressing table. The Kindigs agreed to lend the dressing table so it could be displayed next to its high chest in 1976 for Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art, the great survey celebrating American art exhibited at the Museum during the bicentennial year. The two looked superb together—each had found its accompaniment—and after the exhibition closed, the dressing table remained on loan to the Museum. (more…)

The following petition, written by Jeffrey Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture at Harvard University, voices concerns for the exhibition fate of Old Masters at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. The German text is available at the petition website. Kate Connolly reported on the story for The Guardian (12 July 2012).

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We write to you to ask that you reconsider the current plan to empty the Gemäldegalerie to make room for a display of twentieth-century art from the Pietzsch collection.

We understand that Mies van der Rohe’s Nationalgalerie provides inadequate space for Berlin’s growing collections of modern art, and we welcome the prospect of a permanent home for them.

However, finding that space in the Gemäldegalerie at the expense of one of the world’s premier collections of Old Master paintings, without also making concrete plans to display that collection concurrently in its entirety, would be a tragedy. In the current plan, it appears that once again the past is being asked to make way for the present without sufficient attention to its future. The disappearance into storage of whatever paintings cannot be displayed in the Bode Museum – which we call on you to disclose — is not acceptable, even for only six years. In the current political and economic climate, and with stiff competition for funding from politically more expedient, if culturally more dubious, plans to rebuild the Stadtschloß, we fear that six years could easily become a decade or more.

All too often, it seems, great works of art in Berlin serve as pawns in a seemingly endless chess game, to be moved about and sacrificed at the will and whim of politicians. Germany is fortunate in that culture remains a focus of political and public concern. That concern, however, would best be expressed by finding a reasonable solution, one that respects a legacy that barely survived the centuries and that deserves better than to be rendered invisible for an indeterminate length of time.

We therefore write to ask, not that you shelve your plans for the Pietzsch collection, but rather that you complement them with an adequate strategy that will do justice to the whole of Berlin’s extraordinary collections. We believe that the Old Master collection should be moved to make way for the Pietzsch collection only after space on the Museuminsel has been found to accommodate it – hardly a rash proposal.

Yours sincerely, Jeffrey Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture, Harvard University

To add your name to the petition, click here»

Press release from Sweden’s National Museum:

Pehr Zethelius, Queen Lovisa Ulrika’s Memorial Cup, silver, ca. 1782. Photo: Hans Thorwid/Nationalmuseum.

Queen Lovisa Ulrika’s memorial cup was donated to the museum at the annual meeting of the Friends of Nationalmuseum. This unique object was made by silversmith Pehr Zethelius and presented as a memento to Johan Wingård, Bishop of Gothenburg, in thanks for the funeral sermon that he gave for the deceased Queen in 1782.

The existence of Queen Lovisa Ulrika’s memorial cup, donated by the Friends of Nationalmuseum, has been unknown to most people until now. The silver cup is an impressive size and weighs almost three kilos, as befits a sister of King Fredrik the Great of Prussia. The rediscovery of the memorial cup adds an important jigsaw piece to the history of Swedish design at the Nationalmuseum. At the same time, this magnificent piece is an example of the long royal tradition of presenting an expensive gift to the key officials at ceremonies of state such as christenings and funerals.

The Dowager Queen Lovisa Ulrika died at Svartsjö Palace on 16 July 1782 and was buried in Riddarholmen Church on 31 July. The funeral sermon was given by Chaplain to the Queen Johan Wingård, Bishop of Gothenburg. In thanks for this, he was given this specially commissioned cup, which was then passed down through the family. The craftsman who made the memorial cup was Pehr Zethelius (1740-1810), a leading light in Swedish silversmithing during the late 18th century. Pieces from his workshop show both high artistic and technical quality. Zethelius became a real trendsetter and was responsible for introducing new styles from the Continent.

The memorial cup was donated in memory of Henry Montgomery (1927-2010), chairman of the Friends of Nationalmuseum from 1982-1994. The Barbro and Henry Montgomery Donation Fund was established in 1998 and is managed by the Friends of Nationalmuseum.

Press release from London’s National Gallery:

Sir Thomas Lawrence, “Portrait of the Hon. Emily Mary Lamb,” 1803 (London: National Gallery)

A portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence that has never been on public display since it was painted over two hundred years ago is now available for visitors to enjoy at the National Gallery in Room 34. Portrait of the Hon. Emily Mary Lamb (1787–1869), 1803, has been allocated to the National Gallery by Arts Council England under the Acceptance in Lieu scheme, which allows donors to leave major works of art to the nation in lieu of inheritance tax. Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) is generally regarded as one of the finest European portraitists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, portraying some of the most important personalities of his day. This work is an important addition to the National Gallery’s British collection. The Gallery currently holds examples of formal and full-length works by Lawrence – John Julius Angerstein, aged about 55, about 1790; John Julius Angerstein, aged over 80, 1824; and Queen Charlotte, 1789 – but this painting exemplifies Lawrence’s influential but more informal depiction of children and families. Its inclusion in the collection will enable Gallery visitors to appreciate the breadth of Lawrence’s repertoire.

The oval portrait depicts the 16-year-old sitter in motion, her head turned towards the viewer in a pose that has a long tradition in the history of portraiture. However, Lawrence brings a freshness to the work, reflected in the informality and economy of his brushwork. The Hon. Emily Lamb went on to become an influential, politically prominent society hostess. She first married Peter Leopold Clavering-Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper. After his death, in 1839 she married Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, who served twice as Prime Minister between 1855 and 1858 and again from 1859 to 1865. Her brother, Viscount Melbourne, also served as Prime Minister. His wife, Lady Caroline Lamb, was notorious for her affair with Lord Byron.

The work was commissioned by the subject’s father, Peniston Lamb, 1st Earl Melbourne, whose image can also be seen in the Gallery represented in a work by Stubbs, The Milbanke and Melbourne Families, about 1769. Lawrence’s painting has been in the possession of the sitter’s descendants since its completion. Born in Bristol, Lawrence was largely self-taught and a child prodigy; he was already producing accomplished portraits in crayon aged 10. He went on to become a pupil at the Royal Academy at the age of 18 and exhibited his first portrait the following year. He had a distinguished career during which he became a member of the Academy, going on to become its president in 1820. He was appointed Painter-in-Ordinary to King George III and received a knighthood in 1815.