Hamburger and Grafton on the Warburg Library
From The New York Review Blog (1 September 2010) . . .
Jeffrey Hamburger and Anthony Grafton, “Save the Warburg Library!”
. . . both Labour and Tory governments seem bent on rearing hierarchies, crushing autonomy, and destroying morale. The idea, apparently, is to reconfigure the universities on a corporate model—not, however, the democratic model used by Google and other corporations that are flourishing now, but the older one of the 1950s, which did wonders for such British industries as shipbuilding and car manufacturing.
Particularly painful is the University of London’s attempt to disperse the unparalleled collections of the Warburg Institute. Named for a supremely imaginative historian of art and culture, Aby Warburg, the institute began as his library in Hamburg, which was devoted to the study of the impact of classical antiquity on European civilization. The library was rescued from Hamburg in 1933, following Hitler’s rise to power, thanks in part to the help of British benefactors. . . .
Recent articles in the German and Swiss press have called attention to the Warburg’s travails. If the University of London insists on following through with its plan, perhaps the German authorities can find the means to bring the Warburg back to its original home. That would certainly be preferable to watching as philistines demolish a great European institution.
The rest of this version of the essay can be found here at the New York Review Blog; a longer version will appear in the September 30 issue of The New York Review.
CAA Travel Grants for the 2011 Conference in New York
Although funds are modest, CAA will offer a limited number of Annual Conference Travel Grants to graduate students in art history and studio art and to international artists and scholars. Travel grants are funded solely by donations from CAA members—please contribute today. Charitable contributions are 100 percent tax deductible.
Graduate Student Conference Travel Grant
This $150 grant is awarded to a limited number of advanced PhD and MFA graduate students as partial reimbursement of expenses for travel to the 2011 Centennial Conference in New York. To qualify for the grant, students must be current CAA members. Candidates should include a completed application form, a brief statement by the student stipulating that he or she has no external support for travel to the conference, and a letter of support from the student’s adviser or head of department. For an application and more information, please contact Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs, at 212-691-1051, ext. 248. Send application materials to: Lauren Stark, Graduate Student Conference Travel Grant, CAA, 275 Seventh Ave., 18th Floor, New York, NY 10001. Deadline: September 24, 2010.
International Member Conference Travel Grant
CAA presents a $300 grant to a limited number of artists or scholars from outside the United States as partial reimbursement of expenses for travel to the Centennial Conference in New York. To qualify for the grant, applicants must be current CAA members. Candidates should include a completed application form, a brief statement by the applicant stipulating that he or she has no external support for travel to the conference, and two letters of support. For an application form and additional information, please contact Lauren Stark, CAA manager of programs, at 212-691-1051, ext. 248. Send materials to: Lauren Stark, International Member Conference Travel Grant, CAA, 275 Seventh Ave., 18th Floor, New York, NY 10001. Deadline: September 24, 2010.
Resource: ‘Treasure Hunt’ and the National Trust
Quebec House, by Roy Willard. ©Estate of Roy Willard
As noted in previous postings, the blog format seems to lend itself nicely to acquisition news. Emile de Bruijn of the National Trust edits a terrific site for just such a purpose. Treasure Hunt regularly includes fascinating postings, often with information that one would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere (or at least hard-pressed to know one should look for such things anywhere). A recent posting, for instance, addresses Quebec House, in Westerham, Kent, “the childhood home of James Wolfe, who was born there in 1727 and spent the first 11 years of his life there.” As is often the case with historic properties, one faces the vexing dilemma of choosing a particular period to present over others: in this case, should the Trust go with the a newly-discovered 1630s scheme for the main bedroom or maintain the mid-eighteenth-century presentation that prevails throughout the rest of the house?
A number of recent postings also address Emile’s experience at this year’s Ashridge Garden History Summer School (30 July — 4 August). It looks like an amazing program.
Looking for Clocks from ‘Peter Stretch’s Corner’
As noted by Cynthia Drayton at The Magazine Antiques (29 July 2010) . . .
Tall clock. works by Peter Stretch, Philadelphia, 1735-1746 (Winterthur)
The early Philadelphia clockmaker Peter Stretch (1670–1746) and his two clockmaking sons, Thomas (1697-1765) and William (1701-1748), are the subject of a forthcoming catalogue raisonné to be published by the Winterthur Museum and Country Estate in Delaware.
Peter Stretch was born in Leek in Staffordshire, England, and apprenticed with his older brother Samuel, a clockmaker who specialized in lantern clocks there. A Quaker, Peter Stretch and his wife and three sons left England for Philadelphia in 1703. He set up his shop on the southwest corner of Second and Chestnut Streets known as “Peter Stretch’s Corner,” where he made and sold clocks and imported wares. He joined the Common Council of Philadelphia in 1708, and nine years later received a commission from the council to work on the town clock. . . .
Readers with clocks made by Peter, William, or Thomas Stretch or bills, personal correspondence, account books, letter books, diaries, advertisements, or business records are asked to contact Donald L. Fennimore, Curator Emeritus, by mail at Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, Winterthur, Delaware, 19735; telephone 302-888-4598; or e-mail dfennimore@winterthur.org.
The notice at The Magazine Antiques is available here»
Dissertations beyond North America
Looking for a dissertation? In addition to the guide provided by the College Art Association of theses completed and in process (now found at caa.reviews), arthistoricum.net covers not only German programs but also (as noted below) “in ausgewählten weiteren Ländern.” I’m not sure how comprehensive such a description is intended to be, but there are titles included from the United States, the UK, and France. The arthistoricum site also suggests checking the database at INHA. Other recommendations for Enfilade readers are most welcome.
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Informationen zur Forschungsdatenbank
Die Datengrundlage der Forschungsdatenbank bilden die in der Zeitschrift Kunstchronik jährlich in den August- und September/Oktober-Heften publizierten Meldungen über abgeschlossene Magister-, Master- und Diplomarbeiten sowie über begonnene und abgeschlossene Dissertationen in Deutschland und in ausgewählten weiteren Ländern. Die seit 1985 veröffentlichten Daten wurden bis Anfang 2009 auf der Website vom Bildarchiv Foto Marburg in einer Datenbank präsentiert. Diese Datenbank wird nicht mehr angeboten, sondern hat nun unter dem Namen ‘Forschungsdatenbank’ mit veränderter Funktionalität hier auf arthistoricum.net ihren Platz gefunden. Die jahrgangsweise geordneten Übersichten auf der Homepage des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte (1996-2007) werden künftig ebenfalls durch die Forschungsdatenbank auf arthistoricum.net ersetzt werden. Recherchierbar sind die Datensätze der Jahrgänge 1985 bis 2009. Die Datensätze sind komplett thematisch erschlossen (Systematik, Geographica, Künstler und andere behandelte Personen). In einer weiteren Ausbaustufe soll es den meldenden Institutionen ermöglicht werden, ihre Datensätze direkt im System einzutragen. Die gedruckte Veröffentlichung in der Kunstchronik wird dann aus der Datenbank generiert werden. Weitere Verzeichnisse und Datenbanken von kunsthistorischen Forschungsarbeiten:
New Research Tools from the Getty
As recently posted to the caah listserv (Consortium of Art and Architectural Historians) . . .
The Getty Research Institute is pleased to announce the new Provenance Index® database “Payments to Artists.”
The wealth of most Renaissance and Baroque painters was principally derived from what they earned selling their art. Data that documents payments to artists—as opposed to resale prices or inventory evaluations—is the primary means for analyzing the socioeconomic lives of painters in early modern Europe. This new online database contains approximately 1,000 payments recorded in Rome between 1576 and 1711.
We are grateful to Richard Spear who gathered this set of data in order to write the Rome section of his book Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of Seventeenth-Century Italian Painters (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), which focuses on painters active in five major Italian cities. In its initial phase, this new Provenance Index® database is limited to information from Richard Spear’s research. It nonetheless is conceived as an open-ended, pilot project that can be easily corrected and significantly expanded as other scholars provide information from all periods of Western painting.
In addition, we would like to let patrons know of the following resources actively being added to and made freely available from the Getty website. The Getty Provenance Index® databases, part of the Project for the Study of Collecting and Provenance (PSCP), are compiled with the collaborative participation of institutions and individuals in Europe and the United States. The databases contain indexed transcriptions of inventories, auction catalogs, and stock books. More than one million records covering the period from the late sixteenth to the early twentieth century are searchable online. Originally designed as research tool for the ownership history of individual masterpieces, the index also allows scholars to model complex market developments, social networks, and cultural transfers.
- 64,000 new records from French auction catalogs of the 1770s and 1780s have recently been added to the Sales databases, completing a collaborative project with the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris. The French auction market from the early 17th to the early 19th centuries is therefore fully covered.
- A new custom display and downloading feature has been implemented which accommodates statistical analysis and data visualizations. Users are now able to save up to 10,000 records onto their computers and manipulate them according to their own scholarly purposes.
Publication Grants
Millard Meiss Publication Grants
Applications due by 1 October 2010
Millard Meiss Publication Grants CAA awards Millard Meiss Publication Grants to support book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of art and related subjects that have been accepted by a publisher on their merits but cannot be published in the most desirable form without a subsidy. For complete guidelines, application forms, and grant description, please visit http://www.collegeart.org/meiss or write to publications@collegeart.org.
Garden History
From the Editor
It’s been bothering for me a while that Enfilade hasn’t done more with the history of eighteenth-century gardens. Those of you who keep better tabs on the field than I, please don’t be shy about submitting any notices regarding conferences, CFPs, reviews, or new publications.
For readers who would like to know more, you might spend some time at the fine website of the London-based Garden History Society, which includes news of upcoming events, recent book reviews from the society’s journal Garden History, and general information about the work of the GHS. Also have a look at the fine blog, Early American Gardens, which focuses on “America’s colonial Atlantic coast & early republic” particularly in terms of “what primary sources reveal was actually in these gardens, when various garden components were noted, & what people were doing in these gardens & why” (my thanks to Janet Blyberg for the reference). I’m afraid this sort of sampling just reinforces how much I’ve overlooked, but it’s a start. -C.H.
Ruminations with a Recommendation or Two
From the Editor
Summer is here, but I think we’re living in the late autumn of the print magazine. There’s been lots of talk in academic circles about the dubious future of paper-format journals, but it’s perhaps interesting to consider the migration to the digital realm from both sides of the periodical spectrum — not only from the the Ivory Tower of erudition but also from the populism of Main Street.
The point has been brought home to me over the past year on a number of occasions as I’ve first learned of the end of various design magazines from design blogs. An article in Sunday’s edition of The New York Times (20 June 2010) presents the next logical step. Claire Cain Miller explains the origins of a new online design magazine, Lonny: “Michelle Adams, 27, a former market assistant at Domino, and Patrick Cline, 34, a photographer and photo retoucher, were talking . . . in May 2009 after Condé Nast closed Domino, its sprightly home magazine. Over dinner at Chili’s, they mourned the loss of the magazine and other design magazines, like Blueprint and House & Garden, and joked that they should start their own.” So they did, and 600,000 readers later, theirs looks to me like the future.
A blog, of course, isn’t exactly the same thing as a digital magazine, but this relatively new format seems to be coming of age in its own right, and there are certainly loads of fine examples that facilitate an exchange of information that simply couldn’t have happened in any way even ten years ago. To underscore just two: I’m still a big fan of Courtney Barnes’s Style Court, and I’ve recently discovered a new favorite from Janet Blyberg, JCB. Janet was on the Attingham Program with me earlier this month (she supplies a terrific episodic account of the trip with amazing photographs). As an art historian and museum professional, she brings a smart sensibility to a wide range of topics — including lots of gems for dix-huitièmistes: postings, for instance, on Woodford Mansion in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park and the house built by the botanist John Bartram (also in Philadelphia). The food postings are pretty terrific, too.
In the midst of this media migration from paper to the digital realm (reinforced by the likes of Scribd), things will surely be lost . . . and lots gained. It seems to me that one challenge for scholarly publications is finding a way not simply to mimic the older paper versions but to take advantage of the potential for entirely new features that just weren’t possible previously. The likes of Style Court and JCB might just be doing crucial, experimental work with important implications for even stuffy, scholarly publications. They definitely make the world a brighter place.
ProQuest to Take Over Future Indexing at BHA
While the Getty’s decision this past spring to take over the Bibliography of the History of Art saved the resource from simply disappearing (and made it available to the public free of charge), its usefulness remained in question since without ongoing updates, the BHA would gradually become less and less credible as an indexing tool. Well, this just in . . .
The Getty Research Institute (GRI) has announced an agreement with ProQuest, an information-technology firm supporting global research, that will allow ProQuest to take over the indexing of the International Bibliography of Art (IBA), better known as the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA). The agreement will not only provide a secure future for a resource considered central to the study of art history, but will also assure its continuing development and its accessibility to researchers around the world. . .
For the full story, see the posting at CAA News (23 June 2010)
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