U of Buckingham | MA in French and British Decorative Arts
MA in French and British Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors
University of Buckingham, starting September 2022
Bursary applications due by 20 June 2022
Applications are invited for a bursary on the University of Buckingham’s MA in Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors starting September 2022. Generously funded by The Leche Trust, the award is worth £7,500 and will contribute towards course fees. The deadline for bursary applications is Monday, 20 June, 4.30pm.
This unique MA in French and British Decorative Arts and Interiors, taught in partnership with the Wallace Collection, focuses on the development of interiors and decorative arts in England and France in the ‘long’ eighteenth century (c.1660–c.1830) and their subsequent rediscovery and reinterpretation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
A key element of the course is the emphasis on the first-hand study of furniture, silver, and ceramics, where possible in the context of historic interiors. Based in central London, it draws upon the outstanding collections of the nearby Wallace Collection and the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as the expertise of the Wallace Collection curatorial staff and other leading specialists who participate in the teaching.
Bursary priority will be given to applicants:
• with excellent academic qualifications, seeking, or currently pursuing careers in museums, the built heritage or conservation,
• in need of financial assistance,
• have a strong interest in the decorative arts and historic buildings,
• or, for those wishing to go on to pursue academic research in the decorative arts and historic interiors.
The bursary is also open to part-time students commencing their studies in 2022 for whom the funding would be spread over two-years. To be eligible for the bursary, students will need to have applied for and been offered a place on the course.
Online Symposium | Women and Religion in 18th-C France
After Magdeleine Horthemels, Burial of Nuns at the Abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs (Musée de Port-Royal des Champs).
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From the conference website:
Women and Religion in Eighteenth-Century France: Ideas, Controversies, Representations
Online, Queen Mary, University of London, 24 June 2022
Organized by Marie Giraud and Cathleen Mair
From Catholics to Protestants, abbesses to lay sisters, or even artists and salonnières, religious women played an important role in the social, cultural, and political life of France during the eighteenth century. Drawing on new approaches and sources, this interdisciplinary symposium will consider the identities, controversies, ideas, experiences, and representations of religious women in the period. It will explore how women of faith navigated, adopted, challenged, or subverted the religious canon, cultural norms, and social conventions as the understanding of religion, politics, and power shifted rapidly throughout the eighteenth century.
The keynote address will be delivered by Professor Mita Choudhury (Vassar College), whose work on gender, sexuality, and the place of nuns within the larger political and intellectual world of pre-revolutionary France lays the groundwork for further studies of women religious in the period.
The symposium will take place online via Zoom and is free to attend. All times in BST. Please click here to register to attend. The Zoom link will be circulated with registered attendees 24 hours in advance. A PDF version of the programme is available to download here.
This event is generously supported by London Arts and Humanities Partnership and the Doctoral College Initiative Fund at Queen Mary University of London.
P R O G R A M M E
9.30 Welcome and Housekeeping
• Marie Giraud (QMUL) and Cathleen Mair (QMUL)
9.45 Panel 1 — Living Faith: Everyday Religion in Women’s Letters
Chair: Ben Jackson (Birmingham)
• Cormac Begadon (Durham University), Nuns and Their Confessors: Appeals, Emotions, and Gender in the English Convents
• Gemma Betros (Australian National University), Marie de Botidoux: Religion in the Life of a Young Woman in Late-Eighteenth-Century Paris
10.45 Panel 2 — Recovering Voices: Women Religious in Print Culture
Chair: Gemma Tidman (QMUL)
• Rebecca Short (University of Oxford), Posthumous Presence: Religious Authority in the Lettres à une illustre morte (1770)
• Sean Heath (Independent Scholar), Je ne suis qu’une femme: Madame de Lionne’s Intervention in the Chinese Rites Controversy, 1700–1705
11.45 Break
12.00 Panel 3 — Faith on Trial: Religious Sects and the State
Chair: Liesbeth Corens (QMUL)
• Sarah Barthélemy (Durham University / Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles), Gender, Catholicism, and Dissimulation: The Trial of Adélaïde Champion de Cicé
• Otto Selles (Calvin University), Prophétesses de Sion: Women and the Multipliant Sect (Montpellier, 1720–1723)
13.00 Lunch Break
14.00 Panel 4 — Contested Meanings: Women Religious and Revolutionary Politics
Chair: Ben James (KCL)
• Corinne Gressang (Erskine College), What Does Liberty Mean to a Nun?
• Richard Yoder (Pennsylvania State University), Jacqueline-Aimée Brohon: Victim-Soul and Revolutionary Prophet
15.00 Panel 5 — Representing Faith: Spaces and Objects of Devotion
Chair: Hannah Williams (QMUL)
• Killian Harrer (University of Munich), Wellsprings of Devotion: Marian Apparitions and Female Pilgrims in Revolutionary France
• Samuel Weber (EHESS), Handmaids of the Sacred Heart: Nuns’ Production of Paraphernalia and the Making of Sentimental Catholicism in Eighteenth-Century France
16.00 Break
16.15 Keynote Lecture
Chair: Miri Rubin (QMUL)
• Mita Choudhury (Vassar College), Reflecting on Gender, Religion, and the Historian’s Craft
Versailles Acquires Portrait of Catherine Duchemin
Press release from château de Versailles, via Art Daily (28 May 2022). . .
Unidentified artist, Portrait of Catherine Duchemin, oil on canvas (Palace of Versailles Dist RMN, C. Fouin).
The Palace of Versailles has just acquired an oil on canvas painting of Catherine Duchemin (1630–1698, the first woman to be admitted as a painter to France’s Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture) in 1663. Acquiring this rare painting serves to further enrich Versailles’ collection of Académie artists’ portraits, which until now has featured men exclusively.
Catherine Duchemin was one of the rare few female painters working in 17th-century France and known to us today. She stands out from her fellow female artists in her achievement in being the first woman admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture on 14 April 1663 upon presenting a painting of flowers that prompted the academy to feel it was a “duty” and an “honour,” “in accordance with the King’s wishes […] to spread her grace among all those who excel in the arts of painting and sculpture […] without regard to differences between the sexes.”
Catherine Duchemin was born in 1630, the daughter of a Parisian painter and decorator who may well have taught her the basics of painting. At the age of 27 in 1657, she married the sculptor François Girardon. Despite a number of pioneering examples at the time, female artists were relatively rare in those days: it would take a further generation for their artistic careers to flourish in Paris. This first admission of a woman to the Académie was of paramount importance, serving as an event that would prompt change beyond Catherine Duchemin’s own life, as others followed in her footsteps up until the early 18th century.
The model’s steady gaze meets the viewer’s eyes as she readies herself to begin painting a bouquet of double-flowered anemones and poppies in a vase. The format of the canvas, the opulence of the armchair, and the elegance of the colourful, black ribbon-embellished clothing are all highly ambitious.
Although the painting is unsigned, cross-referencing it with portraits from the Palace of Versailles’ collection and notably those produced by Académie members may allow for this remarkably well-executed piece to be attributed to a named artist. Catherine Duchemin may have painted the floral composition herself, which would make this portrait the only remaining example of her work. Indeed, the artist “excelled at painting flowers” to the extent that “so real were they, you might almost smell them,” according to her first biographer, Florent Le Comte. The three flowers—one budding, the other in full bloom, and the third a poppy used to symbolise slumber—may be read as an allegory for life.
Once it has been restored, this portrait will fit seamlessly in with the exceptional collection of Académie member portraits that now hang in the Louis XIV rooms. These 17th-century artworks are invaluable testimonies to how the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture would once have worked: a key component in Louis XIV’s arts promotion policy.
At Christie’s | Hubert de Givenchy: Collectionneur
From the press release for the sales:
Hubert de Givenchy: Collectionneur
Christie’s, Paris, live: 14–17 June 2022, and online: 8–23 June 2022
Christie’s has announced details of the full 1229 lots in the Hubert de Givenchy: Collectionneur sale, which will be offered in auctions taking place live in Paris (Sale 21549 and Sale 20825) and online (Sale 21420) between 8 and 23 of June 2022. A passionate aesthete, deeply rooted in the culture of his country, Hubert de Givenchy (1927–2018) embodied a constant and successful quest for an ideal, that of classical beauty. The extraordinary variety and richness of works in these sales perfectly represent the world-renowned couturier’s deep passion for objects and impeccable good taste. The overall estimate for the collection is in the region of €50million.
Hubert de Givenchy’s bedroom at Hôtel d’Orrouer © François Halard. Christie’s Images Limited.
Christie’s will present selected highlights from the auctions as follows:
Provenance
For Hubert de Givenchy, each object had a life of its own. For him, appreciation and engagement came not only from the beauty of the object, but also from its provenance, and the auctions are filled with such pieces of prestigious provenance. In the 1950s, the young couturier began his ‘second career’ as an art collector. From the collection of Coco Chanel, who invited him regularly for dinner, comes a superb Régence console (estimate €60,000–100,000), while from the collection of José-Maria and Misia Sert comes a rare Italian neoclassical console table, probably the work of Torinese craftsmen active at the court of Savoy (estimate €12,000–18,000). From the ‘Palais Murat’, the home of a very important collection visited by the royal families of the 19th century, comes a shaped porphyry potpourri vase, probably acquired by the King of Naples around 1780 (estimate €60,000–100,000). Of Imperial provenance are a pair of monumental girandoles attributed to Pierre-Philippe Thomire for Tsar Paul I of Russia (estimate €700,000–1,000,000). These sculptural pieces surrounded the access to the garden at his Paris home, the Hôtel d’Orrouer. In the same salon, any visitors’ eye was drawn to a set of Regency ormolu-mounted vases attributed to Vulliamy & Son delivered around 1807 to the 1st Earl of Harewood (estimate €100,000–150,000). Today, the name of Hubert de Givenchy is synonymous with a prestigious provenance, sought-after by the most discerning collectors.
Attributed to François Girardon, Bacchus, ca. 1700, estimate: €1.5–2.5million.
Architecture
From fashion to decoration, Givenchy approached his projects as an architect, as did his mentor Cristóbal Balenciaga. Architecture embodies Givenchy’s ideal of balance, harmony, and majesty and is therefore omnipresent in many of the pieces included in the collection, as is the case with a superb baroque bronze censer from Augsburg (estimate €30,000–50,000) and a pair of late Louis XV candlesticks attributed to Pierre Gouthière (estimate €60,000–100,000). Architecture is also present in paintings, such as Hubert Robert’s The Pool in the Terms (estimate €12,000–15,000) and the Landscape with Obelisk and Colonnade (estimate €250,000–350,000). In Givenchy’s bedroom at Hôtel d’Orrouer, the neoclassical lines of the monumental desk by Roentgen are perfectly matched by those of a mechanical box by the same artist (estimate €8,000–12,000) and a Louis XVI commode by Pierre Garnier (estimate €200,000–400,000).
Seat Furniture
For Givenchy, “every object is the result of an encounter, of love at first sight” (2). Chairs—which are represented by more than 400 examples—occupy a very special place in the collection. Not hesitating to declare himself “madly in love” (1) with a Louis XVI fauteuil, Givenchy was also seduced by a pair of bergères stamped by Georges Jacob from the same period (estimate €15,000–25,000). Equally, he appreciated the lines of a pair of Régence armchairs, formerly from the collection of Lady Baillie at Leeds Castle (estimate €100,000–200,000). Often Givenchy reupholstered furniture with modern textiles such as a Louis XVI bergère by Nicolas-Quinibert Foliot with a designed textile by Georges Braque (estimate €6,000–10,000), transcending periods and styles. The sale also includes a number of more modern seat models from the 20th century, including Decour bergères from the grand salon of the Manoir du Jonchet (estimate €800–1,200).
Wild Life
Givenchy also liked to be surrounded by representations of animals. They were omnipresent and gave life and majesty to the interiors he designed. For example, The Gazelle by Jean-Marc Winckler watched over the guests in the dining room of Hôtel d’Orrouer (estimate €1,000–1,500). Givenchy had three deer heads added to the façade of the Jonchet in honour of his patron saint, and in 2011 he generously donated the casts that allowed the restoration of the Cour des Cerfs to the Château de Versailles. Posthumously, the large stag by François Pompon, was donated to the Château de Chambord, having originally decorated the grand salon at Manoir Jonchet. In the park of the Manoir du Jonchet, lived a splendid pair of bronze deer, executed in 1964 by Janine Janet, gifted as a present by Cristóbal Balenciaga (estimate €80,000–120,000 each). And approaching the house, visitors were greeted by François-Xavier Lalanne’s Oiseaux de jardin (estimate €400,000–600,000 each), while a 1973 turtle by the same artist slumbered in Givenchy’s bedroom (estimate €20,000–30,000). Furthermore, the park held five sculptures by Diego Giacometti (estimate €20,000–30,000 each) immortalising Bucky, Lippo, Sandy, and Assouan, Givenchy’s canine companions. Animals were also to be found at the Hôtel d’Orrouer, where a pair of 19th-century gilded copper Tibetan deer were placed on the mantel piece of the main salon (estimate €20,000–30,000).
Fine Arts
Givenchy’s eye was equally drawn to Domenico Piola’s monumental 1695 painting Alexander and the Family of Darius (estimate €80,000–120,000), Max Ernst’s luminous, tiny 1961 Untitled (Soleil) (estimate €50,000–70,000), and the elegant minimalism in Robert Courtright’s 1972 painting Untitled (estimate €10,000–15,000). In the collection, representations of the human figure abound, whether a pair of busts of emperors in the Antique style (estimate €250,000–350,000) or the portrait Grande tête de Katia by Henri Matisse (estimate €7,000–10,000). Keeping with the collector’s concept of architecture and fashion, fabric and clothing were important, as in the portrait of an Indian dignitary, luxuriously dressed in 17th-century Persian fashion (estimate €60,000–80,000).
The ‘Empire’ living room at Hôtel d’Orrouer in Paris © François Halard. Christie’s Images Limited.
Decorative Arts
Givenchy had always loved imposing furniture and especially large armoires and bookcases. The auction offers two superb armoires, the first dating from the Louis XIV period, made in the Boulle technique, with ebony marquetry, and the second a replica made by Michel Jamet at de Givenchy’s request to form a pair (estimate €50,000–100,000, the pair). Furthermore, the collection includes a splendid commode, attributed to Joseph Poitou (estimate €250,000–400,000) as well as an important selection of pieces by Diego Giacometti, a close friend, including a Console oiseau et coupelle from 1976 (estimate €400,000–600,000). Collectors will also be able to acquire an imposing contemporary travertine and granite dining table (estimate €8,000–12,000), which comes from the Manoir du Jonchet.
Givenchy and the Colour Green
A leitmotif of the interiors created by Givenchy, the colour green is undoubtedly not foreign to the feeling of serenity and calm evoked by all visitors entering Hôtel d’Orrouer or the Manoir du Jonchet. Green is omnipresent in the collection, and the salon on the second floor of the Hôtel d’Orrouer is named in its honour. A natural sponge, painted in green by Charles Sevigny (estimate €2,000–3,000) is a nod to another great master of the art mixing modern and classical works, Charles Sevigny. He decorated Givenchy’s first apartment, in addition to those of the Empress of Iran and Bunny Mellon.
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Note (added 27 June 2022)— A press release (via Art Daily) reports on the results of the auctions. “Total: €118,116,172 / $123,694,746 / £101,932,654 – doubling the low pre-sale estimate.”
New Book | Indian Tiles: Architectural Ceramics
From Penguin Random House:
Arthur Millner with contributions by Mehreen Chida-Rasvi, Indian Tiles: Architectural Ceramics from Sultanate and Mughal India and Pakistan (London: Prestel, 2021), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-3791387666, £70 / $95.
Historic India, which now encompasses the modern nations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, is celebrated for the richness of its architectural and decorative arts, but less well known for glazed tiles. Arthur Millner opens up this hitherto neglected subject with a richly illustrated narrative of the development of tiles across the South Asian Subcontinent. Millner traces the craft’s roots in Muslim Persia, Afghanistan and Central Asia, showing how imported glazing techniques combined with an ancient local tradition of clay craftsmanship. He explores the production, designs and influences in Indian tiles from antiquity to the colonial period, tracing the historical evolution through a series of key eras, including the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire in Northern India as well as the independent sultanates in the Deccan, Bengal, Central India and the Indus region. Although glazed tiles are generally associated with Islam, they also briefly flourished in both Hindu strongholds, such as Gwalior and Orchha, and in Christian Portuguese-ruled Goa. More than four hundred photographs, many of little-known sites, are drawn from the author’s years of travel as well as from colleagues, the archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum, auction houses and other celebrated institutions. These images capture both the architectural context and the visual appeal of the vibrant colors and intricate designs, and provide a visual compendium of the different styles and techniques. Taken together they offer a unique chronicle of an important and environmentally threatened aspect of the region’s cultural, artistic and religious evolution over centuries—one that will appeal to both the specialist and general reader including anyone with an interest in Indian history and architecture, as well as those interested in Islamic art and ceramics.
Arthur Millner is a consultant and independent scholar in the field of Indian and Islamic art. He lectures at the London School of Oriental and African Studies, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Asiatic Society, and the Oriental Rug and Textile Society. He is the author of numerous articles and the 2015 book, Damascus Tiles (Prestel). He also makes tiles himself in his spare time.
New Book | Indian Botanical Art
Distributed by ACC Art Books:
Martyn Rix, Indian Botanical Art: An Illustrated History (New Delhi: Roli Books, 2022), 224 pages, ISBN: 978-8195256655, $35.
This book brings together striking botanical art of Indian origin spanning a period of 300 years, focussing on the 18th and 19th centuries. Drawn mostly from original works held in the collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, some of the paintings have never been published before. They showcase the richness and variety of art commissioned from talented, mostly unknown, Indian artists who made a substantial contribution to the documentation of the flora of the Indian subcontinent. A foreword written by Sita Reddy places the collections in contemporary context. The book concludes with works from a new generation of botanical artists in India, who excite interest today.
Martyn Rix is a renowned horticulturalist, author of many books, and editor of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. He is the recipient of the Veitch Memorial Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society for services to horticulture, and a Tercentenary Bronze Medal from the Linnean Society.
Exhibition | Indian Textiles: 1,000 Years of Art and Design
Fragment of chintz, coastal southeast India, 1700–30, made for a Dutch market but found in Japan (Washington, DC: The George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum, T-2864; Bruce M. White Photography).
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Closing this week at The Textile Museum at The George Washington University (with videos of past programming and the catalogue still available) . . .
Indian Textiles: 1,000 Years of Art and Design
The Textile Museum, The George Washington University, Washington DC, 22 January — 4 June 2022
Vibrant textiles have long been synonymous with Indian culture. Their distinctive abstract, floral, and figurative patterns have inspired countless variations. Featuring masterworks from The Textile Museum Collection and the private collection of Karun Thakar, this major exhibition and accompanying publication showcase court weavings, folk embroideries, and other fabrics from the eighth through the early 20th centuries.
The Indian subcontinent is home to some of the world’s most ancient and illustrious textile traditions. Over the centuries, Indian textile artists have developed an enduring design vocabulary—from simply woven stripes to floral motifs to complex narrative scenes. Indian Textiles: 1,000 Years of Art and Design presents a stunning array of fabrics patterned with India’s most distinctive designs: abstract, floral, and figurative.
Some of the region’s oldest known textiles feature abstract patterns such as circles, stripes, and zigzags. Examples in the exhibition range from a fragment of a block-printed cloth traded to Egypt around the 15th century to intricately embroidered dresses made in present-day Pakistan’s Swat Valley in the 1800s and 1900s.
Floral patterns in Indian textiles became increasingly widespread in the 13th century, and artists excelled in adapting them for global markets. Embroidered caps from Bengal, for example, were fashionable ‘at home’ wear in 18th-century Europe; a man would often don one in the evening after removing his wig.
Figurative patterns provide a window into different religious beliefs across South Asia. A 15th-century narrative cloth from Gujarat depicts deities and other figures central to the Jain religion. A shrine cloth from Uttar Pradesh honors Sayyid Salar Mas’ud, a Muslim warrior-saint venerated by Muslims and Hindus alike.
The exhibition is accompanied by a gallery guide and a catalogue.
Karun Thakar, Rosemary Crill, Steven Cohen, Avalon Fotheringham, and Sylvia Houghteling, Indian Textiles: 1,000 Years of Art and Design (London: Hali Publications, 2021), 391 pages, ISBN: 978-1898113966, $80.
Installation view of Indian Textiles: 1,000 Years of Art and Design at the George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum, featuring on the back wall (center, top) a ceremonial cloth crafted in India for Indonesian buyers; late 18th or 19th century, Karun Thakar Collection (Dave Scavone/The George Washington University Museum and the Textile Museum).
Online | Hogarth’s Topographies: Decolonizing Sámi Representations
This Thursday, from The Lewis Walpole, Yale Library:
Joar Nango and Mathias Danbolt | Decolonizing Sámi Representations and the Legacy of Colonial Topographies
William Hogarth’s Topographies: A Series of Conversations
Online, The Lewis Walpole Library, 2 June 2022, noon EST
Topography is central to William Hogarth’s canonical progress series in which London settings play a decisive narrative role. Lesser-known works by the artist, however, also engage with topographical representation. Pierre Von-Ow’s online exhibition William Hogarth’s Topographies considers the artist’s illustrations of national and colonized geographies beyond the metropole. Among international topographical views are Hogarth’s illustrations of Sápmi in the Scandinavian north, referred to at the time as “Lapland.” Artist Joar Nango and art historian Mathias Danbolt will discuss the legacy of historical representations of the Sámi, and their reworking of colonial archives in the service of Indigenous Sámi self-determination. This is an online event, and registration is required.
Joar Nango (born 1979 in Alta, Norway) is a Sámi architect and indigenous artist, living in Norway. Nango’s work investigates the nomadic conception of space, territories, and ideas of the concept of home. He focuses on different ways of dealing with materiality, movement, and space. He has exhibited internationally both separately as an individual artist including at Documenta14 (2017), Chicago Architecture Biennial (2019), Institute for Modern art (Brisbane, 2019), National Museum of Canada (2019), Bergen Kunsthall (2021), and National Museum of Norway (2022). He is also involved in collective projects. In 2010 he established the architecture collective FFB which makes an architecture celebrating the failure of capitalism. Since 2020, he has been involved as a host and director of the ongoing TV production PCA-TV (Post-Capitalist Architecture TV) in which the 6th episode features a commissioned work for Toronto Biennial of Art in May 2022.
Mathias Danbolt is a Norwegian art historian who has a special focus on queer, feminist, and decolonial perspectives on art and visual culture. Danbolt is currently leading three collective research projects: “The Art of Nordic Colonialism: Writing Transcultural Art Histories” (2019–23), “Okta: Art and Social Communities in Sápmi” (2019–22), and “Moving Monuments: The Afterlife of Sculpture from the Danish Colonial Era” (2022–25). In 2017 Danbolt curated the visual culture exhibition Blind Spots: Images of the Danish West Indies Colony (2017–18), with Mette Kia Krabbe Meyer and Sarah Giersing at the Royal Danish Library. Danbolt is professor of art history at University of Copenhagen.
This program is organized by The Lewis Walpole Library in conjunction with the online exhibition William Hogarth’s Topographies, curated by Pierre Von-Ow, PhD candidate in Yale’s Department of The History of Art.
Online Exhibition | William Hogarth’s Topographies
Portrait of William Hogarth from a detail of the trade card of John Smith, printseller, at Hogarth’s Head, ca. 1760
(Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, 749.00.00.02, Box 105)
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From The Lewis Walpole Library:
William Hogarth’s Topographies
Online, The Lewis Walpole Library, open from 17 May 2022
Curated by Pierre Von-Ow, with Cynthia Roman and Susan Walker
This online exhibition explores William Hogarth’s engagement with topography, an important, if lesser-known aspect of his art. Topography is understood for this project in the broad definition provided in Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755): “Description of particular places.” First, a series of engraved illustrations that the artist produced in his mid-twenties for the Travels of the French explorer Aubry de La Motraye (1723) offers an opportunity to study his methods to represent territories he only visited through textual descriptions. Then the Five Days Peregrination (1732), an impromptu trip to Kent on which Hogarth embarked with four fellows to satirize the tradition of the Grand Tour as well as the practice of antiquarians in Britain, demonstrates his irreverential relationship with historical traces of the country’s past. Finally, Hogarth’s engraved frontispiece for Joshua Kirby’s influential treatise on perspective is read in the light of the longer tradition of perspective studies in Britain and contemporary debates about the respective roles of the eye and of mathematical rules in the representation of space.
Drawing primarily from the extensive collections of Hogarth’s graphic work at the Lewis Walpole Library and other Yale collections, Hogarth’s Topographies seeks to contribute to recent historiographic efforts that re-read Hogarth’s work in a more international perspective, most notably the Hogarth and Europe retrospective at Tate Britain (November 2022 — March 2023), which stresses the necessity of approaching the artist’s work in the light of a broader European and global context that resonates in his production.
Exhibition | Luis Paret (1746–1799)
Luis Paret y Alcázar, The Shop of Geniani, 1772, oil on panel, 49 × 57 cm
(Madrid: Museo Lázaro Galdiano)
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Now on view at the Prado:
Paret
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 24 May — 21 August 2022
Curated by Gudrun Maurer
In the words of Javier Solana, President of the Royal Board of Trustees of the Museo Nacional del Prado: “Luis Paret is possibly the 18th-century Spanish artist who most deserved a major exhibition of the type now opening at the Museo del Prado.” With the invaluable collaboration of private and public lenders and the support of Fundación AXA, the Prado has thus reunited most of the artist’s known paintings. They include Masquerade, The Puerta del Sol, Paret’s Daughters, View of Bermeo, and The Annunciation to Zacharias, in addition to a remarkable group of drawings such as Hannibal at the Temple of Hercules in Cadiz and The Oath of Allegiance to don Fernando as Prince of Asturias, which together allow for an appreciation of the richness and variety of a painter alert to the changes of his day and one characterised by a remarkable originality and versatility.
In this first monographic exhibition on Paret organised by the Prado, Gudrun Maurer, the museum’s Curator of 18th-century Painting and Goya and the curator of the exhibition, has surveyed Paret’s professional career with the aim of singling out the excellent technical level and striking originality with which the artist depicted his chosen subjects while also presenting the new information on Paret’s working method obtained from the scientific analysis of his paintings undertaken by the Museum’s technical department.
The exhibition offers a complete survey of Paret’s career and is divided into nine sections. The first provides a unique opportunity to compare a key drawing from his early period with the first documented painting by his celebrated fellow-Spaniard Francisco de Goya, who, like Paret, was born in 1746. The two artists started their careers (Paret in fact five years before Goya) after being singled out in competitions organised by different Fine Arts Academies: Paret by the Academia de San Francisco in Madrid and Goya by the one in Parma, Italy. Those two works which brought the artists recognition—both, in fact on the subject of Hannibal—are now on display in the exhibition, one loaned from the Academia de San Fernando and the other in the Prado’s collection. In general, the two paintings reveal the importance of both academic competitions and the period of training in Italy for artists’ careers. The comparison with Goya also emphasises Paret’s notable technical and compositional skills at this early date while the marked artistic personalities of the two artists are evident in the different styles of their works.
Luis Paret y Alcázar, Masquerade, detail, ca. 1767, oil on panel
(Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado)
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The next section starts with a small group of early drawings by Paret from the collection of the Prado and the Biblioteca Nacional de España. They reveal the artist’s originality in his inventive and versatile approach to the subjects and the modernity of his choices. Subjects include The Necromancer, The Glory of Anacreon, and Roman Military Trophy. The principal work in this room is one of Paret’s earliest known paintings, Masquerade of 1767 from the Prado’s collection. It once again reveals Paret’s modernity in the context of his time, as an artist who from the outset was able to respond to the new demand for images of society in the public and private space and which reflected the varied fashions and customs of the different social classes. Displayed here are other small-format cabinet paintings on innovative subjects in the context of Spanish art of this period, such as Scene of a Boudoir (previously Play Rehearsal) from the Prado; The Letter from the Musée Goya in Castres; Geniani’s Shop from the Museo Lázaro Galdiano; and The Puerta del Sol from the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Cuba. In addition, paintings on rarely depicted episodes from life at the Spanish court, such as The Royal Couples and Charles III dining before the Court (both in the Prado), offer a panoramic view of different facets of contemporary society and also demonstrate the success Paret enjoyed between 1766 and 1775, the year he was exiled.
Luis Paret y Alcázar, Zebra, 1774, Black pencil, gouache brush and opaque pigment gouache (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado).
The third section presents one of the artist’s exquisite coloured drawings of birds alongside Zebra from the Prado’s collection and a private collection respectively, works executed by Paret for the Natural History Cabinet of the Infante don Luis, Charles III’s brother, who appointed Paret his painter in 1774. They reveal the artist’s ability to combine an almost scientific depiction of his subjects with landscape settings of great subtlety and refined beauty.
The fourth section focuses on Paret’s few known portraits, which are notable for their exquisite technique and personal, intimate nature. They also mark the transition between the artist’s Madrid phase and his years in Bilbao. The four known Self-portraits of around 1770–75 to 1780 reflect the painter’s powerful, self-confident personality but also his different states of mind. This is evident during his exile in Puerto Rico when he portrayed himself not just as a jíbaro or local peasant in 1776 but also in the melancholy Self-portrait in the Studio of 1777 which Paret sent to a trusted individual in Madrid, as the inscription detected by the recent X-radiograph reveals. Shown alongside these works are other portraits such as those of the artist’s wife and their daughters, compositions enhanced by complex floral ornamentation; a portrait of a typical Enlightenment gentleman (on loan from the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando); and that of Antonio Sancha from the Biblioteca Nacional de España. Finally, there are compositions on the theme of motherhood, such as the small painting of The Virgin and Child from the Abelló Collection, The Orange Seller from Patrimonio Nacional, and the two floral bouquets from the Prado. Flowers were an enormously important motif in Paret’s work and one that reveals the virtuosity characteristic of all the paintings in this section.
The fifth section opens with a painting of The Circumspection of Diogenes which Paret sent from Bilbao in 1780 to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and which led to his nomination as an Academician of Merit. His subsequent enhanced reputation is evident in the large-format religious compositions that he executed in Bilbao, such as The Invention of the True Cross painted for the Gortázar family and their family chapel (private collection) and The Martyrdom of Saint Lucy for the parish church of Santa María in Larrabezúa (now in the Museo Diocesano de Arte Sacro in Bilbao). These exceptionally exquisite paintings of great technical and compositional delicacy demonstrate Paret’s importance in the context of 18th-century Spanish art. Their presence in the exhibition makes it possible to appreciate his mastery in devising subjects that were unusual in the context of the day and his ability to create scenes of a monumental nature with extremely dynamic figures. Furthermore, they reveal the artist’s extensive knowledge of classical sculpture and the work of the Old Masters such as Rubens, as well as his exceptional manner of combining grandiose, classical beauty with lighter Rococo resources such as a markedly pastel palette. The juxtaposition of these works with small-format paintings and drawings on religious subjects—including The Apparition of Saint Michael to Charles VIII of France and Saint Francis of Paula (private collection), a unique subject in Spanish art—and with a number of his designs for religious monuments in Bilbao further reveals Paret’s multifaceted nature in this pictorial genre.
Luis Paret y Alcázar, Self-portrait Attired in Blue, ca. 1780, oil on paper affixed to canvas (Colección Abelló).
The next section is devoted to paintings and drawings on bucolic subjects and classical, erotic ones produced for private clients. These reveal Paret’s enormously original powers of invention, including The Triumph of Love over War from the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao and the drawings of The Eclogue from the Prado, which are shown together with paintings on similar subjects from real life, albeit with a certain critical element, such as Gallant Scene of High Society and Gallant Scene of Low Life (private collection), Saying the Rosary from Patrimonio Nacional and the drawing of The Procuress and the Lovers from the Prado. The small painting of Young Woman asleep in a Hammock from the Prado establishes a connection between the two worlds through references to classical sculpture and modern society, the latter including the exoticism of the Caribbean.
The seventh section features eight of the nine currently known views of the Basque Country painted by Paret, executed for the Prince of Asturias, for private clients and as commissions for Charles III. These are now divided between museums in Spain, France, and the UK. The group constitutes a striking survey of landscape and also of the variety of society of the day, its different working and leisure activities and the region’s ports and coastline. These notably complex paintings in both technical and compositional terms are among Paret’s most important creations from his time in Bilbao. Also on display are the two fine drawings of ports in the Basque country, loaned from private collections, which reveal the artist’s masterly ability in the use of different media, such as black chalk, pen, and brush, which he employed to capture the characteristics of these landscapes and the brilliant effects of light observed in nature.
The eighth section focuses on two oils on canvas executed by the artist for the chapel of San Juan del Ramo in the church of Santa María de la Asunción in Viana: The Annunciation to Zacharias and The Visitation of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth. In these striking paintings, which are among the last produced by Paret during his Bilbao period, the remarkable quality and technical and compositional complexity achieved by the artist reaches its peak. Furthermore, they reveal the original way in which he made use of models to add liveliness and expressivity to his figures and scenes, as well as the excellent technique that he employed to describe all the details in his works with enormous naturalness and variety. Also evident is the way in which Paret applied a modern, art historian’s eye to make use of the Baroque and Neo-classical styles in order to emphasise the era of the scenes depicted. Finally, this section includes a group of excellent preparatory drawings for one of these paintings (private collection) and for the mural decoration of this chapel (Museo del Prado).
Luis Paret y Alcázar, The Oath of Allegiance to Ferdinand VII as Prince of Asturias, 1791, oil on canvas, 237 × 159 cm (Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado).
Following his return to Madrid in 1789, in 1792 Paret was appointed Vice-secretary of the Academia de San Fernando and Secretary to its Architectural Committee, receiving few commissions for paintings but producing numerous drawings of beautiful scenes and figures for book illustrations and other projects. The paintings from the end of the artist’s career are displayed in this ninth section of the exhibition. They include three allegories of one of the provinces of Spain, works of enormous classical beauty which are the only ones now known from a series of ten paintings executed in 1789 for the headquarters of the Five Major Guilds in Madrid (private collection and Museo del Prado). The one in the Prado was only rediscovered five years ago and was acquired for the Museum. Finally, visitors will be able to appreciate an example of Paret’s creative process through the painting of The Oath of Allegiance to don Fernando as Prince of Asturias, its remarkable preparatory drawing in the Louvre, two preliminary drawings of details for that work (Biblioteca Nacional), and an infrared reflectograph that reveals an excellent underdrawing. Other equally important examples are shown in a video.
The exhibition closes with an unfinished painting of The Botanical Garden from the Paseo del Prado. It depicts the entrance to the garden, located close to the Museo del Prado.
This extremely comprehensive survey of Paret’s career furthers an analysis of his approach and techniques while promoting his recognition as the most important Spanish artist of the 18th century alongside Goya.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue by the curator Gudrun Maruer with texts written by her, by other specialists, and by the technical staff of the Museo del Prado and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao.
Gudrun Maurer, ed., Paret (Madrid: Prado, 2022), 288 pages, €28.
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