Enfilade

From the V&A:

Fara Dabhoiwala | Black Genius: Science, Race, and the Extraordinary Portrait of Francis Williams
Online and in-person, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 16 October 2024, 7pm (2pm ET)

Unidentified painter, Portrait of Francis Williams of Jamaica, ca. 1740, oil on canvas, 76 × 64 cm (London: V&A).

Join historian Fara Dabhoiwala for the captivating story behind one of the V&A’s most fascinating portraits.

In 1928, the V&A acquired a previously unknown portrait. It shows the Black Jamaican polymath Francis Williams (c. 1690–1762), dressed in a wig, surrounded by books and scientific instruments. In all of the previous history of Western art, there is no other image like this: a man who had been born into slavery, shown as a gentleman and scholar. The museum presumed it was a satire—but who had made it, when, where, and why, has remained a puzzle ever since. Join Fara Dabhoiwala as he reveals the astonishing story of the painting’s true meaning, its connections to the greatest scientists of the Enlightenment—and Francis Williams’s extraordinary message to posterity. This talk will be streamed on Zoom, and all ticketholders will receive a link to view the morning of the event.

The talk is in association with the London Review of Books.

From the Cooper Hewitt:

Rachel Jacobs | A Dictionary of Ornament: Highlights from Cooper Hewitt’s Print Collection
Online (via Zoom), 24 October 2024, 1.00pm ET

Title page and Frieze Designs, plate 7 from IIe Cahier d’Ornements et Frises (2nd Book of Ornaments and Friezes), 1777; Jacques Juillet after Henri Sallembier, published by Le Père et Avaulez (Paris); etching and engraving in red ink on laid paper (Cooper Hewitt).

Join Cooper Hewitt for an illustrated talk exploring the Decloux collection of ornament and architecture prints. The museum is home to the premier collection of ornament prints in the United States, consisting of over 13,000 European prints from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The lecture will include highlights from the collection by some of the most celebrated artists and designers of the period, as well a discovery of more hidden treasures by many forgotten or lesser-known artists and printmakers.

Ornament prints were produced with the purpose of illustrating designs, patterns, or motifs of decorative ornament for use by craftsman and applicable to all aspects of applied arts from ceramic vases to furniture, from wall paneling to wrought-iron gates. This illustrated talk will introduce the Decloux collection of ornament and architecture prints by exploring the language of ornament. How do these printmakers and publishers describe and title their works? What are the most common terms and motifs found in this broad genre and why? And how do these two-dimensional intaglio prints translate to real three-dimensional objects and interiors?

The talk is free with registration. It will also be recorded and posted on Cooper Hewitt’s YouTube channel within two weeks.

Rachel Jacobs is an independent curator specializing in French 17th-and 18th-century books and prints, based in Toronto, Canada. Since 2021, she is the Remote Senior Research Cataloguer for the Decloux collection of ornament and architecture prints in the Department of Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She was previously Curator of Books and Manuscripts at Waddesdon Manor (Rothschild Collections) National Trust in England, where she continues to work remotely part-time. She has curated several exhibitions at Waddesdon Manor including most recently Alice’s Wonderlands: Life, Collections, and Legacy of Alice de Rothschild (1847–1922) (2022–23, co-curated).

Caitlin Condell is the associate curator and head of the Department of Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, where she oversees a collection of nearly 147,000 works on paper dating from the 14th century to the present. She has organized and contributed to numerous exhibitions and publications. Prior to joining the Smithsonian, Condell held positions at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and The Museum of Modern Art.

From the Society of Antiquaries:

Jussi Nuorteva | A Swedish-Finnish Antiquarian and Military Officer in England
Online (via YouTube), Society of Antiquaries of London, 14 October 2024, 1.30pm

August Philip Armfelt, ca. 1830 (Wiurila Manor, Halikko, Finland).

Discover the life of Baron August Philip Armfelt (1768–1839), Aide-de-Camp of the Swedish King Gustaf, and hear about his adventures during a trip to England in 1790–1791.

Free poster display on the ground floor of the Society’s Burlington House premises, 10am–4pm each day:
Tuesday, 15 October
Wednesday, 16 October
Thursday, 17 October
Friday, 18 October

During this period, the connection between Sweden and France had been close, but those ties were broken in the French Revolution of 1789. Afterward, new connections arose between Britain and Sweden. Britain was concerned about the rising power of Russia in the Baltic Sea area, crucial for import of tar and iron—essential materials in shipbuilding. Sweden, where Finland had been part of since 12th century, was the most important producer of these goods. Thus, new relations were formed.

While in England, August Philip Armfelt met many interesting people, not only the royals. His autobiography, around which the exhibition is built, tells of his various meetings and conversations with many other areas of the society. Armfelt met people like Goodfellow, the Swedish artist Elias Martin (one of the early academicians of the Royal Academy of Arts), and abolitionists like John Wedgwood and Swedish Carl Bernhard Wadenström. Sadly, Armfelt’s travels lasted only until 1792, when Swedish King Gustaf III was murdered by his opponents and a block of noble men took the power.

Live-streamed and open to anyone to join online, the lecture forms part of a series of events organised by the Embassy of Sweden in London and the Embassy of Finland in London, with the support of Samfundet Ehrensvärd, Medical Counsellor Sakari Alhopuro, Stiftelsen Tre Smeder and the Kalevi Kuitusen Foundation.

The YouTube link is available here»

Jussi Nuorteva was National Archivist of Finland until his retirement in 2022. He is a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, as well as Chancellor of the Orders of the White Rose of Finland and the Lion of Finland.

This evening from YCBA:

Artists in Conversation | Flora Yukhnovich
In-person and online, Hastings Hall, Yale School of Architecture, New Haven, 1 October 2025, 6pm

Flora Yukhnovich, photo by Kasia Bobula.

Flora Yukhnovich will talk to Eleanor Nairne, the Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Watch the livestream here.

The Artists in Conversation series brings together curators and artists to discuss artistic practices and insights into their work.

Born in 1990 in Norwich, UK, Flora Yukhnovich developed her characteristic painting language while studying at City and Guilds of London Art School, where she completed her MA in fine art in 2017. She also studied portraiture at the Heatherley School of Fine Art in London. Yukhnovich’s art boldly explores materiality and process as vehicles for meaning, with cascading and swirling forms that evoke rhythm and energy, flowing between representation and abstraction. Her immersive paintings splice historic styles, from French rococo and Italian baroque to abstract expressionism, with references drawn from contemporary films, music, literature, and consumer culture. Through her work, Yukhnovich addresses dynamics of power inherent in received readings of art-historical subjects and their associated hierarchies. She questions notions of femininity and gender that are hard-wired into the aesthetic language of color and form.

Yukhnovich received the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award in 2013 and 2016. She has participated in group and solo exhibitions worldwide. Her work is included in many collections, including the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; the Roberts Institute of Art, London; and the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. She lives and works in London.

Eleanor Nairne is the Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and department head, modern and contemporary art, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Previously, she was the senior curator at Barbican Art Gallery, London, where her exhibitions included Basquiat: Boom for Real (2017), Lee Krasner: Living Colour (2019), Jean Dubuffet: Brutal Beauty (2021), Soheila Sokhanvari: Rebel Rebel (2022), Alice Neel: Hot Off The Griddle (2023), and Julianknxx: Chorus in Rememory of Flight (2023–24). She also curated Erotic Abstraction: Eva Hesse / Hannah Wilke (2021) at Acquavella Galleries in New York.

This fall at the Prado (as noted by Nina Siegal in The New York Times) . . .

Bénédicte Savoy | Returning Looted Heritage: 1815, The Dismantling of the Louvre and the Rebirth of Museums in Europe
La recuperación del patrimonio saqueado: 1815, el desmantelamiento del Louvre y el renacimiento de los museos en Europa
Online and in-person, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 7, 14, 21, and 28 November 2024

Bénédicte Savoy (Photograph by Maurice Weiss).

Between 1794 and 1811, successive French governments seized “works of art and science” from different states of Europe. This policy of appropriation, made legitimate by the belief that works of art, the natural by-product of freedom, should be returned to the land of liberty (i.e., France), gave rise to a major flow of cultural objects (paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, exquisite incunabula, etc.) from the countries involved towards France.

The vast majority of these objects, grouped together in the Louvre and the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, were claimed by and returned to their rightful owners after the fall of the Empire (1814–1815). The restitution of 1815, a major historical and cultural event in Europe, mobilized the European intelligentsia and had a major impact on the cultural geography of the continent. The passions unleashed at the time fueled the European historiography of disentailment and confiscations during the 19th century. Most of the arguments exchanged then continue even now to structure the contemporary debate on restitutions. The lectures seek to identify the transnational concerns and consequences of this important event. Lectures will be given in French with simultaneous Spanish translation.

7 November — Reclaiming Cultural Heritage
The first lecture delves into the concept of restitution, especially from the point of view of those persons who traveled to Paris in 1815 with the intention of demanding the return of the plundered treasures. We shall study the relationship between post-conflict gestures of restitution and processes of reclaiming the objects of value. Among the key ideas to be discussed are the following: What steps are taken to actually reclaim the works of art? Who takes the initiative? In what circumstances? What resistance strategies are carried out by the possessing institutions?

14 November — The Interplay of Law and Morality
This lecture examines the complex relationship between legal principles and moral considerations as evidenced in the 1815 restitution debates. These discussions have profoundly influenced contemporary perspectives on repatriating looted assets. We contrast the legalists, who argue from a legal standpoint against the repossession of goods by Napoleon’s adversaries, with the moralists, who champion the rights of nations to their heritage and advocate for cultural justice. The enduring tension and the relevance of these two-century-old arguments will be critically analysed.

21 November — The Dilemma of Universality
In 1814 and 1815 European intellectuals praised the Louvre’s model for its intellectual, emotional, and historical significance while acknowledging the ethical dilemma it posed: the presence of these treasures in the museums in Paris was possible only because of their absence from other cities. This session explores the paradox of the universal museum concept and the ensuing debate over whether cultural assets should be centralized or dispersed to foster cultural development. The dismantling of the Louvre and the debates it sparked offer insights into museum discourse that echo through subsequent decades.

28 November — Paths to Reconnection
Following the upheaval of 1815, within a drastically transformed geopolitical landscape, there ensued diverse approaches to cultural reappropriation. They varied from nation to nation, community to community, spilling over even to academies and universities. The return of artworks to their places of origin opened up then, as it continues to do now, the possibility of finding a multitude of destinations beyond that of museums, including their reinstatement in original locations such as churches. This lecture will address how societies navigate the post-conflict recovery of their heritage and the time it takes to determine the rightful place for these works of art.

Devoted to the study of the processes of restitution of cultural property to countries looted by France during the Napoleonic period, the 12th Cátedra del Prado is led by Bénédicte Savoy, professor for Modern Art History at the Technische Universität Berlin. Between 2016 and 2021 Savoy also held a professorship at the Collège de France in Paris, where she taught the cultural history of artistic heritage in Europe from the 18th century to the 20th century. Her research focuses on museum history, Franco-German cultural transfer, Nazi looted art, and research on postcolonial provenance. In 2018 Professor Savoy wrote the report On the Restitution of African Cultural Heritage together with Senegalese scholar Felwine Sarr. This report was commissioned by Emmanuel Macron, President of France. She has received numerous awards for her research, academic activities, and teaching, including the 2016 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation and, most recently, the Berlin Science Prize. She is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a Knight of the French Legion of Honor and a member of various other institutions, advisory boards, and committees. Her most recent publications include the book Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat, which has been translated into several languages, and the joint publication Atlas der Abwesenheit: Kameruns Kulturerbe in Deutschland (Atlas of Absence: Cameroon’s Cultural Heritage in Germany).

As noted at Events in the Field, maintained by The Decorative Arts Trust:

Hannah Carlson | Objects Up Close: Gendering Pockets and Purses
Online, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, 10 July 2024, 10.30am EDT

Pocket (Lady’s pocket), United States, 1780–1840, linen, wool, and silk (woven, embroidered, crewelwork), 56 × 39 cm (Winterthur, 1966.1126).

Explore the fascinating history of women’s and men’s pockets in this virtual lecture featuring a tie-on pocket in Winterthur’s collection. Through the 18th century, women used the tie-on pocket, an accessory worn under the skirt and wrapped around the waist. Men had pockets integrally stitched into the three-piece suit. Hannah Carlson, Winterthur summer research fellow and senior lecturer in the apparel design department at the Rhode Island School of Design, will explore the ‘pocket question’ and politics of individual preparedness and privacy.

Register for this free event here»

Hannah Carlson teaches dress history and material culture at the Rhode Island School of Design. After training as a conservator of costume and textiles at the Fashion Institute of Technology, she received a PhD in material culture from Boston University. She is the author of Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close (Algonquin Books, 2023).

Upcoming at the Mellon Centre:

Louis Nelson | Global Houses of the Efik, with Shaheen Alikhan as respondent
Online and in-person, Paul Mellon Centre, London, 5 June 2024, 5pm

Carl Wadström, Design for a House in a Tropical Climate, from An Essay on Colonization (London, 1794).

Much of the scholarship on the globalised house of the early modern period privileges colonisers creating a false impression that globalisation was unidirectional. A more responsible examination explores the ways colonised communities also engaged in acts of collection, reinscription, and identity construction. Unlike many African communities, the Efik in Old Calabar (now modern Nigeria) never gave Europeans land rights to build the trading forts that slowly became the huge slave castles now dotting the West African coast. Forbidding European development allowed Africans far greater control over the landscapes of exchange along the waterline, where British ships’ captains would purchase enslaved Africans from Efik traders. Visitors’ descriptions include lavish accounts of the ways wealthy Efik traders donned British costume, swords, cocked hats, and umbrellas. But even more surprising for many were the traders’ houses. These took the common form of a raised two-storey house with a gallery on all sides. Over generations, some of these trading families stockpiled extraordinary collections of English material goods including gilt pier glasses, sofas, marble sideboards, engravings, clocks, and handsome dining tables. Years of negotiations while dining onboard with ships’ captains also meant that these traders could easily navigate both African and British dining practices. It was common practice for Efik traders to order not just objects but whole houses. This paper explores this practice and offers preliminary frames for interpretation.

Louis P. Nelson, Professor of Architectural History at the University of Virginia, is a specialist in the built environments of the early modern Atlantic world, with published work on the American South, the Caribbean, and West Africa, and is a leading advocate for the reconstruction of place-based public history. Louis is an accomplished scholar, with two book-length monographs published by University of North Carolina Press and Yale University Press, three edited collections of essays, two terms as senior co-editor of Buildings and Landscapes—the leading English language venue for scholarship on vernacular architecture—and numerous other articles. His work focuses on the early American South, the Greater Caribbean, and the Atlantic rim. Architecture and Empire in Jamaica (Yale, 2016) won three major book awards and was very positively reviewed in twelve different venues ranging from the popular Times Literary Supplement to the scholarly William and Mary Quarterly, The Art Bulletin, and Architectural History, many calling it a tour de force.

Shaheen Alikhan’s dissertation work, continuing from her MA thesis in architectural history on the construction of eighteenth-century slaving vessels, focuses on the reshaping and creation of waterfront spaces to facilitate the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans. These liminal spaces, essential but unique within the larger landscape of chattel slavery, represented concentrated areas in which enslaved and legally free Africans and members of the African diaspora took opportunities to learn, communicate, earn wages, and build relationships and they have been largely overlooked. As an architectural historian, Shaheen has contributed to anthologies pertaining to the Caribbean world and reparative justice, and worked as a digital documentation specialist. She is currently in discussion with a publisher about her book Building a Floating Prison: Slave Ships throughout the Long Eighteenth Century.