New Book | Heritage
Available from Blackwell’s:
James Stourton, Heritage: A History of How We Conserve Our Past (London: Apollo, 2022), 496 pages, ISBN: 978-1838933166, £40.
Heritage is all around us: millions belong to its organisations, tens of thousands volunteer for it, and politicians pay lip service to it. When the Victorians began to employ the term in something approaching the modern sense, they applied it to cathedrals, castles, villages, and certain landscapes. Since then a multiplicity of heritage labels have arisen, cultural and commercial, tangible and intangible—for just as every era has its notion of heritage, so does every social group, and every generation. In Heritage, James Stourton focuses on elements of our cultural and natural environment that have been deliberately preserved: the British countryside and national parks, buildings such as Blenheim Palace and Tattersall Castle, and the works of art inside them. He charts two heroic periods of conservation—the 1880s and the 1960s—and considers whether threats of wealth, rampant development, and complacency are similar in the present day. Heritage is both a story of crisis and profound change in public perception, and one of hope and regeneration.
James Stourton is a British art historian, a former Chairman of Sotheby’s UK, and the author of Great Houses of London, British Embassies, and the authorized biography of Kenneth Clark. Stourton frequently lectures for Cambridge University History of Art Faculty, Sotheby’s Institute of Education, and The Art Fund. In addition, he is a senior fellow of the Institute of Historical Research, and he sits on the Heritage Memorial Fund, a government panel that decides what constitutes heritage and thus what should be saved for the nation.
C O N T E N T S
Preface
Introduction
1 The First Threats
2 The Search for Arcadia
3 Assembling a National Collection
4 The Exodus of Paintings
5 Brave New World
6 Birmingham and Anti-Heritage
7 The Backlash: The Heroic Period of Conservation
8 Rescuing a City: York
9 The Sack of Bath
10 The Archaeologists
11 Beyond the Town
12 The Fall and Rise of Country Houses
13 The Enthusiasts: Canals and Railways
14 Regeneration: Mills, Housing, and Power Stations
15 Regeneration: Cities, Docklands, and Basins
16 Liverpool Story
17 Margate Sands
18 The Heritage Industry and the Lottery
19 Churches
20 Museums
21 Heritage: An Unfinished History
Acknowledgments
Endnotes
Select Bibliography
Dulwich Loans over 50 Paintings to Strawberry Hill
From the press release, via Art Daily and Richmond.gov.uk:
The Tribune, Strawberry Hill House, with loans from Dulwich Picture Gallery (Photo by Matt Chung).
Over fifty Old Master paintings on long-term loan from Dulwich Picture Gallery—and a further eight works from a private English collection—have just gone on display at Strawberry Hill House, helping to recreate the atmosphere of how the house would have appeared over 250 years ago.
As part of an ambitious project—through acquisitions and loan agreements, including the partnership with Dulwich Picture Gallery—Strawberry Hill House, the remarkable former home of the writer, antiquarian, and politician, Horace Walpole (1717–1797) is endeavouring to return some of the 6000 objects from the collection that Walpole amassed during his lifetime and, where possible, to recreate the original atmosphere of the house, when the rooms were filled with fantastic works of art.
In 1842, following Walpole’s death, the contents of the house were dispersed in a famous auction, known as the Great Sale. Since then, it has been a long-held desire of the Strawberry Hill Trust to bring as many pieces possible back to the historic villa in Twickenham. Indeed, its efforts have recently seen the acquisitions of an extraordinary portrait of Catherine de Medici and a celebrated Chinese ceramic fish tub with a macabre past. This appetite to acquire original objects and to display contemporaneous artworks has helped to create an atmosphere that would be familiar to Walpole were he alive today.
Detail of the Tribune, Strawberry Hill House, with loans from Dulwich Picture Gallery (Photo by Matt Chung).
The relationship between Strawberry Hill House and Dulwich Picture Gallery began in 2011 with the long-term loan of the portrait of Dorothy, Viscountess Townshend, ca. 1718 by Charles Jervas. Dorothy Walpole (1628–1726) was the sister of Sir Robert Walpole, Horace’s father. This portrait of his great aunt now hangs in its original position in the Great Parlour, where Walpole displayed portraits of both his family and some of his closest friends.
Among the paintings from the latest loan is a set of twenty-six British monarchs, assembled by the founder of Dulwich College, Edward Alleyn. These include Henry VIII, ca. 1618; Queen Anne Boleyn, ca. 1618; and Queen Mary, ca. 1618. These royal portraits have been hung in the Holbein Chamber, reflecting Walpole’s passion for history and its protagonists, which also influenced the overall arrangement of the artworks throughout the house. As an antiquarian and writer possessed of a vivid imagination, Walpole had a deep interest in royal and historical figures, evident throughout his collection, as well as in the designs of the house itself. The ceiling in the Holbein Chamber is a copy of the Queen’s Dressing Room in Windsor Castle, while the one in the Library is decorated with heraldic emblems, mythical beasts, coats of arms, and images of mounted crusaders, all reflecting Walpole’s various interests in the medieval period.
Dr Silvia Davoli, Strawberry Hill House Curator says: “Our collaboration with Dulwich Picture Gallery offers us the unique opportunity to borrow a substantial number of paintings that are very similar in style, period, and schools to those once collected by Horace Walpole; and it is thanks to these artworks that the rooms of Strawberry Hill finally appear to us in all their glory, much as they did in Walpole’s time.”
Attingham Courses in 2023
This year’s Attingham course offerings:
The Attingham Trust offers specialist courses for the study of historic houses and their collections based on contextual, in-situ study. Course members are drawn from different fields of the heritage sector, including curators, architects and architectural historians, conservators, academics, historic house managers, and decorative arts specialists from around the world. The clear objectives of the courses are to examine the architectural and social history of historic houses and palaces, to study their contents and collections, and to stimulate discussion on conservation, preservation, display, and interpretation. Group discussion is core to the programmes, and participants are expected to share their knowledge and expertise and engage with current debates.
Members of the Royal Collection Studies programme in the Print Room at Windsor Castle, looking at drawings by Holbein.
70th Attingham Summer School, 1–16 July 2023
Applications due by 29 January 2023
This intensive residential course will include visits to country houses in Sussex, Oxfordshire, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire. The course directors and visiting lecturers are established specialists in their fields, and the range of study is specifically chosen to address a wide curriculum with hands-on object study. In addition to architecture and planning, the focus is on the study of interiors, furniture, paintings, sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, plasterwork, textiles, and other applied arts. Limited scholarship funding is available. More detailed information can be found here»
Royal Collection Studies, 3–12 September 2023
Applications due by 12 February 2023
This annual course, a collaboration now in its 27th year with The Royal Collection, provides a ten-day immersive opportunity to study the British royal collection, one of the most outstanding collections of art and decorative art in the world. Based near Windsor, the course also examines the history of the collection and the key roles played by monarchs and their consorts over the centuries. Combining a mixture of lectures and tutorials, visits to both the occupied and unoccupied palaces in and around London, and close-up object study, Royal Collection Studies aims to give experienced professionals in the heritage sector a deeper understanding of this remarkable collection. Limited scholarship funding is available. More detailed information can be found here»
Attingham Study Programme: Andrea Palladio, Venice, and the Veneto, 18–26 September 2023
Applications due by 12 February 2023
The 2023 Study Programme will consider the impact of Palladian architecture, Venetian painting, sculpture, and decorative art on the development of the country house in Europe, Britain, and the USA. Based in and around Venice and its lagoon and accompanied by specialists in their field, the course will also consider the preservation, conservation, and ecology of Venice and its artistic legacy. More detailed information can be found here»
The London House Course, October 2023
Applications details forthcoming
This non-residential week-long course studies the development of the London house from the Renaissance to the present. It combines visits to houses with lectures by leading authorities. Progressing broadly chronologically and exploring all over London, the course takes members inside grand aristocratic buildings, smaller domestic houses, artists’ studios, and the garden suburb. More detailed information can be found here»
Call for Papers | (Dis-)Appropriation of Synagogue Architecture
Pałac Karnickich, Warsaw. Constructed in 1877 for a government official and rebuilt after World War II, the building now houses the Deutsches Historisches Institut Warschau.
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From ArtHist.net and the Deutsches Historisches Institut Warschau:
Jewish or Common Heritage? (Dis-)appropriation of Synagogue Architecture in East-Central Europe since 1945
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the German Historical Institute, Warsaw, 12–14 September 2023
Proposals due by 31 January 2023
The synagogues that remained standing after World War II have faced an uncertain destiny. As abandoned buildings, they were susceptible to decay quickly and, as former buildings of worship—for legal, cultural, and architectural reasons—posed a great challenge in terms of their reuse. Consequently, many synagogues simply fell into ruins, some were turned into secular buildings of various purposes, and few could have been used as houses of prayer again.
In postwar Europe, synagogue architecture was culturally categorized as an element of Jewish heritage that appeared to be isolated from the common heritage of a city or town—wherever a synagogue stood. At first, synagogues were not considered a shared but a distinct patrimony of a place. A shift in such a state of affairs could have been observed in the last three decades that witnessed a ‘rediscovery’ of synagogues. Though one can still find abandoned synagogues in small towns, in most of the bigger municipalities, these buildings were ‘rediscovered’ as a part of local history and culture and thus became part of the common heritage. In many regions of Europe, the ‘rediscovery’ of the former synagogues led to their restoration and opening to the public, and in rare cases, to their reuse by Jewish communities.
“The Jewish Town / Muranów (1648–1772),” gallery of the Core Exhibition at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw (Photo by M. Starowieyska and D. Golik). More infromation»
These processes have already been quite well researched in western parts of Europe. A desideratum, however, is approach to the Jewish architectural heritage in those East-Central European territories, whose state affiliation changed after 1945 and whose population was exchanged. For example, in the former Eastern German territories, synagogues still standing at the end of the war became a foreign body in the urban space in a double sense. They neither belonged to the heritage of the new inhabitants, understood as ‘national’ or ‘own’, nor were they clearly attributable to the heritage of the pre-war German population. Synagogues were, therefore, not ‘hostile’ buildings, but in any case, they were irritating as characteristic objects of architecture. A contributing factor was that Jewish communities lasted only in a few cities in these areas.
The aim of the conference is a historicization of the processes of rediscovery in the recent past. We invite contributions linking the historical dimension in dealing with the Jewish architectural heritage with current developments in this field. The focus will be on the historical, political, and cultural preconditions and present processes having an impact on the handling of the Jewish built heritage. The key actors and decision-makers should also be taken into account. Therefore, the connection of the micro and macro levels is indispensable for the understanding of these developments because the impact of local actors and political decisions at the central level are closely interrelated. Global and memory culture trends have also contributed to the interest or disinterest in the respective religious buildings. In addition, transnational networks that influenced the preservation of synagogues will be considered, for example, in the context of the Polish-German dialogue.
The conference will not only discuss examples of a ‘successful rediscovery’ of Jewish architectural monuments. The aim is rather to draw conclusions about broader contexts based on concrete examples. It may be possible to identify patterns that indicate ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of the rediscovery. We also invite contributions that would pose the question of a model of a ‘successful’ or ‘failed’ rediscovery. If possible, however, the focus should be on those East- Central European cities or regions whose territorial affiliation changed in the wake of World War II.
The conference is a cooperation of Bet Tfila – Research Unit for Jewish Architecture in Europe at TU Braunschweig, GHI Warsaw and POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. It takes place within the framework of the “DFG Priority Program 2357: Jewish Cultural Heritage,” which is funded by the German Research Foundation. The conference will take place 12–14 September 2023 at the POLIN Museum for the History of Polish Jews and at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw. Travel costs to and from the conference can be reimbursed within the usual limits.
Submissions will be accepted from any discipline as long as the topic relates to this broad theme. Scholars, experts, and practitioners are welcome. Abstracts should be 200–300 words. Although we welcome speakers from any country, the language of the conference will be English. For best consideration, please submit your abstract and a short CV by 31 January 2023 to Kamila Lenartowicz (k.lenartowicz@tu-braunschweig.de) and Christhardt Henschel (henschel@dhi.waw.pl). Applicants will be informed about their participation by 14 March 2023.
Organizers
• Kamila Lenartowicz and Zuzanna Światowy (Bet Tfila – Research Unit for Jewish Architecture in Europe, Technische Universität Braunschweig)
• Christhardt Henschel (German Historical Institute, Warsaw)
• Aleksandra Jakubczak-Gabay (POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews)
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For the American context, see Mark Gordon, “Rediscovering Jewish Infrastructure: 2022 Update on United States Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Synagogues,” American Jewish Historical Society (4 November 2021), available here. –CH
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Note (added 18 January 2023) — More information on the polychrome ceiling, a life-sized wooden replica of the ceiling of the synagogue of Gwoździec at the POLIN Museum, is available here at Enfilade (now largely out-dated) and here with Ariel Fein’s essay for SmartHistory (4 April 2022).
Call for Papers | Listening In: Architectures, Cities, Landscapes
From the conference website:
Listening In: Conversations on Architectures, Cities, and Landscapes, 1700–1900
ETH Zurich, 14–15 September 2023
Proposals due by 10 March 2023
Who do we listen to when we write histories of architectures, cities, and landscapes? How many women authors can we find among our sources? How many of them are cited by those whose research we read? We argue that women and other marginalised groups have always been part of conversations on architectures, cities, and landscapes—but we have not had the space to listen to them. This conference is an invitation to reconstruct such conversations, real, imagined, and metaphorical ones, taking place in the 18th and 19th centuries, in any region, in order to diversify the ways we write histories. Taking the art of conversation, integral as both practice and form to the period in Western thought, and repurposing it to dismantle the exclusivity of historiography, this conference calls for contributions which bring women into dialogue with others.
Listening In proposes a new approach to the ‘canon’ and its protagonists. Rather than either fighting its existence or expanding it by means of ‘exceptions to the rule’, we call for the setting up of productive conversations. We acknowledge that the canon never exists on its own; instead, it is shaped by what Griselda Pollock has called “that which, while repressed, is always present as its structuring other” (1999, 8). This conference is envisaged as a listening exercise. We regard a conversation as both codified practice as well as a specific act of verbal exchange, spoken or written, on a particular subject—here architectures, cities, and landscapes—occurring in a specific site, from street to salon, kitchen to court, construction site to theatre, field to church, or book to newspaper, to name but a few.
We invite papers on conversations that grapple with hierarchies and inequalities, incorporating asymmetrical power relationships while taking care not to gloss over the struggle, pain, and conflict often occurring in these situations. Papers should highlight at least one protagonist identifying as a woman, and are encouraged to also listen to
• persons marginalised because of their race, class, religion, sexual orientation, or else,
• so-called ‘canonical’ figures, both architects and critics as well as those from other professions, disciplines, or domains,
• individuals from different geographical regions, including those affected by the violence of imperialism and colonialism.
Can a focus on conversations help to include in historiography new protagonists as well as sites which we have so far not seen? How about printed sites, in pamphlets, books, magazines, newspapers, or letter writing? And what are the critical notions around which these conversations occur, such as the sublime, character, or sensibility, but also those emerging from indigenous or non-western knowledges, on different sites and in different media? Further, what shifts, if we start from conversations, rather than, for instance, drawings and buildings? How will it affect histories of architectures, cities, and landscapes if these conversations are inclusive rather than exclusive?
This call invites contributions from and on all regions, particularly those that centre intersectional marginalisations. We are interested to hear about every-day experiences and sites so far less explored as well as new reflections on better-known events and structures. We hope to attract speakers from diverse regions, disciplines, backgrounds, and career stages, who are willing to engage with new materials in innovative ways, listening to each other and our sources. The conference is planned as a focused, single-strand event aimed at creating networks of scholars, facilitating exchanges, stimulating groundbreaking discussions, and producing new knowledges.
Listening In is organised in the context of two externally funded research projects based at gta, ETH Zurich: WoWA (Women Writing Architecture 1700–1900) is funded by the ERC, led by Anne Hultzsch, and studies female experiences of architecture and landscapes as recorded in women’s writings from South America and Europe. The SNSF-funded project Building Identity: Character in Architectural Discourse and Design 1750–1850, led by Sigrid de Jong and Maarten Delbeke, focuses on the uses and meaning of the notion of ‘character’ in architectural criticism and practice. Both projects share an interest in the experiences of marginalised groups, especially those who identified as women, and strive to have them heard not in a niche, but in the centre of our field. With this conference we wish to open up our approaches to a wider field of research, going beyond our respective geographical frameworks.
Please submit the following by 10 March 2023 to listening@arch.ethz.ch
• an abstract of no more than 300 words
• your name and professional affiliation if any
• a short curriculum vitae (ca 100 words)
Key Dates
1 December 2022 Launch call for papers
10 March 2023 Deadline to submit abstracts
April 2023 Paper selection and notification of authors
1 May 2023 Speakers confirm their participation
14–15 September 2023 Conference at ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Organisers
PD Dr Anne Hultzsch
Dr Sigrid de Jong
Prof Maarten Delbeke
Dr Sol Pérez Martínez
New Book | Portraits of Resistance
From Yale UP:
Jennifer Van Horn, Portraits of Resistance: Activating Art during Slavery (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022), 344 pages, ISBN: 978-0300257632, $60.
A highly original history of American portraiture that places the experiences of enslaved people at its center
This timely and eloquent book tells a new history of American art: how enslaved people mobilized portraiture for acts of defiance. Revisiting the origins of portrait painting in the United States, Jennifer Van Horn reveals how mythologies of whiteness and of nation building erased the aesthetic production of enslaved Americans of African descent and obscured the portrait’s importance as a site of resistance. Moving from the wharves of colonial Rhode Island to antebellum Louisiana plantations to South Carolina townhouses during the Civil War, the book illuminates how enslaved people’s relationships with portraits also shaped the trajectory of African American art post-emancipation. Van Horn asserts that Black creativity, subjecthood, viewership, and iconoclasm constituted instances of everyday rebellion against systemic oppression. Portraits of Resistance is not only a significant intervention in the fields of American art and history but also an important contribution to the reexamination of racial constructs on which American culture was built.
Jennifer Van Horn is associate professor of art history and history at the University of Delaware.
C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Neptune Thurston’s Portraits
1 Making Portraits
2 Fleeting Portraits
3 Haunted Portraits
4 Viewing Portraits
5 Destroying Portraits
Epilogue: Archibald Motley’s Portraits
Notes
Illustration Credit
Index
New Book | Adam Smith’s America
From Princeton UP:
Glory Liu, Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023), 384 pages, ISBN: 978-0691203812, £30 / $35.
The unlikely story of how Americans canonized Adam Smith as the patron saint of free markets
Originally published in 1776, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was lauded by America’s founders as a landmark work of Enlightenment thinking about national wealth, statecraft, and moral virtue. Today, Smith is one of the most influential icons of economic thought in America. Glory Liu traces how generations of Americans have read, reinterpreted, and weaponized Smith’s ideas, revealing how his popular image as a champion of American-style capitalism and free markets is a historical invention.
Drawing on a trove of illuminating archival materials, Liu tells the story of how an unassuming Scottish philosopher captured the American imagination and played a leading role in shaping American economic and political ideas. She shows how Smith became known as the father of political economy in the nineteenth century and was firmly associated with free trade, and how, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the Chicago School of Economics transformed him into the preeminent theorist of self-interest and the miracle of free markets. Liu explores how a new generation of political theorists and public intellectuals has sought to recover Smith’s original intentions and restore his reputation as a moral philosopher.
Charting the enduring fascination that this humble philosopher from Scotland has held for American readers over more than two centuries, Adam Smith’s America shows how Smith continues to be a vehicle for articulating perennial moral and political anxieties about modern capitalism.
Glory M. Liu is a college fellow in social studies at Harvard University. Her work has appeared in publications such as Modern Intellectual History, The Washington Post, and Aeon.
New Book | Adam Smith Reconsidered
From Princeton UP:
Paul Sagar, Adam Smith Reconsidered: History, Liberty, and the Foundations of Modern Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022), 248 pages, ISBN: 978-0691210834, £28 / $35.
Adam Smith has long been recognized as the father of modern economics. More recently, scholars have emphasized his standing as a moral philosopher—one who was prepared to critique markets as well as to praise them. But Smith’s contributions to political theory are still underappreciated and relatively neglected. In this bold, revisionary book, Paul Sagar argues that not only have the fundamentals of Smith’s political thought been widely misunderstood, but that once we understand them correctly, our estimations of Smith as economist and as moral philosopher must radically change.
Rather than seeing Smith either as the prophet of the free market, or as a moralist who thought the dangers of commerce lay primarily in the corrupting effects of trade, Sagar shows why Smith is more thoroughly a political thinker who made major contributions to the history of political thought. Smith, Sagar argues, saw war, not commerce, as the engine of political change and he was centrally concerned with the political, not moral, dimensions of—and threats to—commercial societies. In this light, the true contours and power of Smith’s foundational contributions to western political thought emerge as never before.
Offering major reinterpretations of Smith’s political, moral, and economic ideas, Adam Smith Reconsidered seeks to revolutionize how he is understood. In doing so, it recovers Smith’s original way of doing political theory, one rooted in the importance of history and the necessity of maintaining a realist sensibility, and from which we still have much to learn.
Paul Sagar is senior lecturer in political theory at King’s College London and the author of The Opinion of Mankind: Sociability and the Theory of the State from Hobbes to Smith (Princeton).
Adam Smith 300 in 2023
From the press release (23 November 2022) for Adam Smith 300 . . .
The University of Glasgow is marking the 300th anniversary of pioneering Scot Adam Smith (1723–1790) with a year-long celebration of his life, work, and influence.
The tercentenary commemoration of the ‘father of economics’ includes a host of events in Scotland and around the world, designed to inspire renewed discussion about Smith’s ideas. Smith’s work has had a lasting impact on the way the world considers economics, politics, and society more broadly. The planned programme of events aims to consider how his ideas from 300 years ago can help answer some of the biggest challenges we face today.
Throughout 2023 the University of Glasgow has a raft of programmes and events that will give academics, students, and the public new insights into his life and work. Highlights include:
• Tercentenary Week (5–10 June 2023)—a week-long series of activities, including talks and exhibitions at the University of Glasgow featuring scholars from the London School of Economics, the universities of Princeton and Harvard, and the University of Cambridge.
• An on-campus and virtual exhibition of significant and rare Smith-related artifacts—including letters, first edition books, and material from the University of Glasgow’s archives.
• The Adam Smith Tercentenary Global Lecture Series, featuring internationally renowned speakers from academia, business, and public policy.
• New research into Smith’s life and writings.
• The Royal Economic Society and Scottish Economic Society Joint Conference in April, featuring global academics reflecting upon Smith’s legacy.
Other activities involve a national student competition to re-design the front cover of The Wealth of Nations, online courses for adult learners, and new programmes to introduce high school to Adam Smith and his ideas. Universities from across the world, in North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Australia will be joining in the commemorations with their own events to mark the tercentenary.
Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Glasgow, said: “Adam Smith is one of our most famous alumni, and he left an indelible impact on the University of Glasgow, on the fields of economics and moral philosophy, and on the wider world. His studies and writings introduced new ideas, insights, and concepts that shaped our understanding of economics today but were revolutionary in their day. To mark the tercentenary of his birth we will see academics, students, and the public discuss his continued relevance at a series of events taking place in Glasgow and across the world. I look forward to taking part in the University’s commemoration of Adam Smith as we evaluate his legacy and consider how his thoughts and ideas from 300 years ago can still help us answer the greatest challenges of today.”
Adam Smith—born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in June 1723—started his studies at the University of Glasgow aged 14. In 1740, he was awarded the Snell Scholarship, which is still in existence today, and left to study at Oxford. In 1751, Smith returned to Glasgow as a Professor of Logic, later becoming Professor of Moral Philosophy. While at Glasgow, Smith published the first edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759, developing upon the principles and concepts explored in his lectures. Smith’s final connection with the University came in 1787 when he assumed the prominent position of Rector. He published arguably his most famous work The Wealth of Nations in 1776 and died in 1790.
Exhibition | The Sun King and the Prince of Orange
Adam Frans van der Meulen, Landscape with King Louis XIV at the Capture of Maastricht on 30 June 1673, 1673–1690, oil on canvas, 72 × 92 cm
(Venlo: Limburgs Museum, L24496)
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Opening this summer at the Limburg Museum in Venlo (65 km northeast of Maastricht). 2023 marks the 350th anniversary of the fall of Maastricht—which itself followed in the wake of the ‘Rampjaar’ (Disaster Year) of 1672. The museum was recently recognized with a 2022 International Design Award in graphic design for its campaign, “Limburgs Museum: Van ós / For Everybody,” by Total Design.
The Sun King and the Prince of Orange: Battle for the Meuse Valley
De Zonnekoning en Oranje: Slaags aan de Maas
Der Sonnenkönig und Oranien: Kämpfe an der Maas
Limburgs Museum, Venlo, 10 June 2023 — 7 January 2024
“I believe a spectacular event is going to unfold in front of our eyes.”
–King Louis XIV, shortly before the Siege of Maastricht
June 2023 will mark the 350th anniversary of the conquest of Maastricht by Louis XIV, the French Sun King. The city’s reputation as one of the best-fortified cities on the continent caused all of Europe to stand in disbelief at the end of the thirteen-day long military campaign. The victory was proudly showcased in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles as well as on the Porte Saint-Denis in Paris. In 1676, the Prince of Orange’s attempt to reconquer the city for the Dutch Republic failed. As a result, French soldiers and administrators remained in Maastricht until 1679. What motives drove the actions of the two sovereigns? What did this region signify to them? And how did their actions affect the people? These questions lie at the heart of the grand exhibition The Sun King and the Prince of Orange: Battle for the Meuse Valley.
In collaboration with Service Historique de la Défense, Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Rijksmuseum and Paleis het Loo.
Enfilade
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