Call for Articles | Race and Architecture in the Iberian World
From ArtHist.net:
Race and Architecture in the Iberian World, ca. 1500–1800s
Special Issue of Arts (2023), guest edited by Cody Barteet and Luis Gordo Peláez
Proposals due by 15 December 2022; finished articles due by 1 June 2023
In the field of art history, previous scholarship has addressed (and continues to address) the contribution of Indigenous, Black, Asian, and mixed-raced artists to the early modern visual culture in the Atlantic world. Frequently scholars are interested in documenting race and its enduring legacy through a variety of cultural artifacts such as paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, featherworks, metalwork, etc. However, much less attention has been given to architectural history, and particularly that of the early modern Iberian world.
Recently, Irene Cheng, Charles L. Davis II, and Mabel O. Wilson edited a ground-breaking volume titled Race and Modern Architecture (2020). Their publication provides an important collection of essays that discuss how the discipline of architectural history has been shaped by racial thought. Likewise, the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians dedicated a short roundtable-style conversation on the subject of race and architecture in the 1400s through the 1800s (Carey, Dudley, Escobar, et. al. 2021). Each short paper considers the role of race in architecture and implores other scholars to investigate this understudied topic. This special issue of Arts is a response to this scholarly call to engagement. Specifically, we will explore the intersection of race, labor, and architectural history and their interconnectivity with the architecture and its accompanying artistic forms in the early modern Iberian world. We do so through considering how race and architecture are activated through construction projects, the building trades, the history of labor, and in plans, pictorial, and print representations, etc., in the vast territories (European, American, African, Asian) that comprised the Spanish and Portuguese empires.
We invite contributors to submit their research in English for consideration. Please note that there is a two-stage submission procedure. We will first collect a title and short abstract (maximum 250 words), five keywords, and a short bio (150 words), by 15 December 2022, via email to Dr. Cody Barteet (cbarteet@uwo.ca) and Dr. Luis Gordo Peláez (luisgordopelaez@csufresno.edu) or Dora Wang from Arts Editorial Office (dora.wang@mdpi.com). Selected abstracts will be invited to submit papers of 7000–9000 words for peer review by 1 June 2023. Journal publication is expected to occur from late spring through fall 2023, depending on the revision time needed after peer review. Each article will be published open access, on a rolling basis after successfully passing peer review.
Guest Editors
Cody Barteet, cbarteet@uwo.ca
Luis Gordo Peláez, luisgordopelaez@csufresno.edu
Special Issue Editor
Dora Wang, dora.wang@mdpi.com
Mark Hallett Departs the Mellon Centre to Lead the Courtauld
From the PMC announcement (11 November 2022) . . .
The Paul Mellon Centre’s Director, Mark Hallett, will be stepping down after more than a decade in post to take up a new role next year as the Märit Rausing Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art.
During his time as Director, Hallett has overseen a major expansion and diversification of the London-based Centre, which is part of Yale University, and a partner of the Yale Center for British Art at New Haven. Under his leadership, the Centre has become celebrated for its support of world-class research on all periods and aspects of British art and architecture, understood in their broadest global contexts. Over the past ten years, the Centre has not only dramatically extended its scholarly reach, but also tripled in size. It has enthusiastically embraced the benefits of online publication and communication, and wholeheartedly committed itself to diversifying the field of British art studies. Over this same period, the Centre has also developed a highly ambitious series of research, teaching, learning, and networking initiatives, all of which have been designed to promote the very best scholarship on British art and architecture, to share knowledge and expertise, and to widen the Centre’s audiences.
Mark Hallett said: ‘’It has been a great honour to have led the Centre over the last decade. During that time, I have worked with a brilliant team of colleagues, both in London and in New Haven, to make the PMC a vital, vibrant, and expansive centre for the study of British art. Today, the Centre is in wonderful shape, and I know it will continue to thrive and develop. At the Courtauld, I look forward to building on the remarkable legacy of the current Märit Rausing Director, Professor Deborah Swallow, and to working with similarly world-class academics, curators, students, and supporters in helping the Courtauld write a new and exciting chapter in its history.’’
Susan Gibbons, Vice Provost for Collections and Scholarly Communication, Yale University, and ex-officio Chief Executive of the Paul Mellon Centre, said: ‘’The transformation of the Centre under Mark’s leadership has been remarkable. He has opened the doors of the Centre wide, not only to London, but to the world, while carefully sustaining the high quality research and scholarship that has been the hallmark of the organization. From the launch of British Art Studies and the British Art in Motion undergraduate film competition, to the formation of networks for researchers and practitioners, to broadening fellowship and grant opportunities, Mark has truly championed new ways to understand and engage with British art history.”
At Bonhams | Fine Clocks
The Old Rectory, in the village of Chilton Foliat, a Queen Anne style home, most of which dates to the mid eighteenth century. It’s located at the West Berkshire/Wiltshire border, two miles north of Hungerford. In May it was, as noted by Country Life, listed for £5.95 million.
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Press release from Bonhams:
Fine Clocks Sale
Bonhams, London, 30 November 2022
The Old Rectory, Chilton Foliat Sale
Bonhams, London, 6 December 2022
Two exquisite timepieces by the father of English clockmaking, Thomas Tompion (1639–1713) from the Elliot Collection of fine English clocks feature in Bonhams Fine Clocks Sale in London on Wednesday, 30 November 2022. The collection also includes an important late 17th-century ebony veneered longcase clock of three-month duration by another great clockmaker of the golden age, Joseph Knibb (1640–1711). In addition to these masterpieces of timekeeping, Old Master pictures, 19th-century paintings, and classic English decorative arts from Alan and Tara Elliot’s historic country home are to be offered in a separate sale—The Old Rectory, Chilton Foliat—at Bonhams on Tuesday, 6 December.
Thomas Tompion and Edward Banger, Type 3 Burr Walnut Longcase Clock, London, no. 463, ca. 1707
Tompion’s ebony table clock numbered 198, was made in around 1692, and embodies all that Tompion owners cherish (estimate: £200,000–300,000). The tall rectangular dial with its twin subsidiaries allows the crucial functions (time, winding, date, strike or silent) to be controlled from the front of the clock—an example of perfect industrial design. The exquisitely engraved backplate was created by the craftsman known today only as ‘Engraver 155’. 155’s confident and free engraving is of the highest order. He was responsible for the backplate of the year-going ‘Mostyn Tompion’ in the British Museum and decorated the miniature clock supplied to Queen Mary in 1693, which sold at Bonhams in 2019 for a record price of £1.6 million.
Knibb’s ebony veneered longcase clock of three-month duration with Roman-striking and one-and-a-quarter second pendulum is perhaps the most beguiling clock in the collection (estimate: £120,000–180,000). Knibb had an irrepressibly inquisitive brain and was obsessed by saving power in his clocks’ movements. An ordinary longcase clock hammer strikes its bell 156 times a day; Knibb realised that this was a massive drain on the power of the mechanism and sought different ways to sound the hours. His pièce de résistance was the development of the Roman striking system—as exemplified by this clock—whereby a deep bell represents the numeral 5, while a higher pitched bell represents 1. While one o’clock is marked by a single high hammer blow, five o’clock is a single low blow. Six o’clock, therefore, is one low blow followed by one high blow. This ingenious system saves 96 hammer strikes a day. Over the three months that the Elliot clock runs, 9,216 hammer blows are saved. Although inspired, the system never met with popularity, and it is rare to find a Roman striking clock today. They can always be spotted from a distance however, as the numeral 4 is denoted as IV instead of IIII.
The sale also includes an early 20th-century mahogany two-day marine chronometer by Victor Kullberg used by Ernest Shackleton in 1921, likely as part of the Quest expedition to Antarctica in 1921–22 (estimate: £1,500–2,500). Originally conceived as an Arctic voyage to travel north of Alaska, a last-minute loss of funding meant that the expedition could not go ahead. The entire cost of a replacement voyage was offered by John Quiller Rowett, who had agreed to partially fund the Arctic voyage, on condition that it be south bound to the Antarctic. The chronometer was collected by Shackleton from Greenwich on 21 July 1921, and the voyage began on 17 September of that year. Shackleton was unwell on board the Quest, and unfortunately, by the time the ship reached South Georgia, he was quite ill. He died of a heart attack shortly after arriving on 5 January 1922.
James Stratton, Bonhams Director of Clocks, said: “To own a clock by Thomas Tompion is every clock collector’s dream. Alan Elliot, who put together the wonderful collection we are offering in this sale, was fortunate enough to have two in his stewardship, as well as an important longcase clock by Joseph Knibb. Other Elliot clocks include a lantern clock from 1685 and a table clock by Langley Bradley, the man who made the first clock for St Paul’s Cathedral. Elsewhere in the sale, the marine chronometer taken by Sir Ernest Shackleton to the Antarctic on the Quest expedition is a timely reminder of a true British hero, the centenary of whose death we are marking this year.”
Other highlights include:
• A fine and rare early 18th-century walnut longcase clock by Thomas Tompion and Edward Banger, London, no. 463. This second of Alan Elliot’s Tompion clocks is particularly interesting as it was made when Tompion was in a brief partnership with his niece’s husband, Edward Banger. Estimate: £100,000–200,000.
• An 18th-century walnut striking longcase clock of one month duration by George Graham, London no. 590. Estimate: £30,000–50,000.
• A late 17th-century ebony veneered quarter-repeating timepiece by Langley Bradley, London. It is likely that this clock was used in a bedroom as it doesn’t strike the hours every hour. Anyone waking up in the night and wanting to know the time could pull a cord on the side to sound the hour and the quarters past the hour. This would have been invaluable before the advent of electricity or matches to light a candle. Estimate: £5,000–8,000.
New Book | Small Things in the Eighteenth Century
From Cambridge UP:
Chloe Wigston Smith and Beth Fowkes Tobin, eds., Small Things in the Eighteenth Century: The Political and Personal Value of the Miniature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 280 pages, ISBN: 978-1108834452, $99.
Offering an intimate history of how small things were used, handled, and worn, this collection shows how objects such as mugs and handkerchiefs were entangled with quotidian practices and rituals of bodily care. Small things, from tiny books to ceramic trinkets and toothpick cases, could delight and entertain, generating tactile pleasures for users while at the same time signalling the limits of the body’s adeptness or the hand’s dexterity. Simultaneously, the volume explores the striking mobility of small things: how fans, coins, rings, and pottery could, for instance, carry political, philosophical, and cultural concepts into circumscribed spaces. From the decorative and playful to the useful and performative, such small things as tea caddies, wampum beads, and drawings of ants negotiated larger political, cultural, and scientific shifts as they transported aesthetic and cultural practices across borders, via nationalist imagery, gift exchange, and the movement of global goods.
Chloe Wigston Smith is the author of Women, Work, and Clothes in the Eighteenth-Century Novel (2013) and co-editor, with Serena Dyer, of Material Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Nation of Makers (2020). Her current research, supported by a British Academy fellowship, centers on material culture and the Atlantic world.
Beth Fowkes Tobin, a recipient of NEH and NSF fellowships, is the author of The Duchess’s Shells: Natural History Collecting in the Age of Cook’s Voyages (2014), Colonizing Nature: The Tropics in British Arts and Letters, 1760–1830 (2005), and Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth-Century British Painting (1999).
C O N T E N T S
Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Scale and Sense of Small Things — Chloe Wigston Smith and Beth Fowkes Tobin
Part I: Reading Small Things
1 ‘The Sum of All in All’: The Miniature Book and the Nature of Legibility — Abigail Williams
2 Nuts, Flies, Thimbles, and Thumbs: Eighteenth-Century Children’s Literature and Scale — Katherine Wakely-Mulroney
3 Gothic Syntax — Cynthia Wall
4 Small, Familiar Things on Trial and on Stage — Chloe Wigston Smith
Part II: Small Things in Time and Space
5 On the Smallness of Numismatic Objects — Crystal B. Lake
6 Crinoidal Limestone and Staffordshire Teapots: Material and Temporal Scales in Eighteenth-Century Britain — Kate Smith
7 ‘Joineriana’: The Small Fragments and Parts of Eighteenth-Century Assemblages — Freya Gowrley
8 ‘Pray What a Pox Are Those Damned Strings of Wampum?’ — Robbie Richardson
Part III: Small Things at Hand
9 ‘We Bought a Guillotine Neatly Done in Bone’: Illicit Industries on Board British Prison Hulks, 1775–1815 — Anna McKay
10 ‘What Number?’: Reform, Authority, and Identity in Late Eighteenth-Century Military Buttons — Matthew Keagle
11 Two Men’s Leather Letter Cases: Mercantile Pride and Hierarchies of Display — Pauline Rushton
12 The Aesthetic of Smallness: Chelsea Porcelain Seal Trinkets and Britain’s Global Gaze, 1750–1775 — Patricia F. Ferguson
13 ‘Small Gifts Foster Friendship’: Hortense de Beauharnais, Amateur Art, and the Politics of Exchange in Post-Revolutionary France — Marina Kliger
Part IV: Small Things on the Move
14 Hooke’s Ant — Tita Chico
15 Portable Patriotism: Britannia and Material Nationhood in Miniature — Serena Dyer
16 Revolutionary Histories in Small Things: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette on Printed Ceramics, c. 1793–1796 — Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth
17 A Box of Tea and the British Empire — Romita Ray
Afterword: A Thing’s Perspective — Hanneke Grootenboer
Select Bibliography
Index
Sydney’s Powerhouse Announces Gift of Schofield Jewellery
French demi-parure consisting of necklace (shown) and a pair of earrings (not pictured), gold and onyx cameos, 1820
(Sydney: Powerhouse, gift of Anne Schofield; photograph by Marinco Kajdanovski)
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Press release (3 November 2022) from Sydney’s Powerhouse:
Powerhouse today announced an unprecedented gift from Australia’s leading antique jewellery dealer, 100 rare pieces of historical gemstone jewellery, this acquisition is one of the most significant donations in the museum’s history.
Ring, gold, chrysoprase, and rose diamonds, ca 1780 (Sydney: Powerhouse, gift of Anne Schofield; photograph by Ryan Hernandez).
Anne Schofield’s personal jewellery collection includes works created between the 17th and early 20th centuries featuring an astonishing range of gemstones and techniques. Highlights from the Anne Schofield Collection include exquisitely crafted archaeological jewellery, 18th-century hardstone intaglios, Carlo Giuliano earrings, an Egyptian-style lapis lazuli demi-parure, Art Nouveau dragonfly and wasp pedants, Cartier and Georg Jensen pieces, and a French demi-parure with onyx cameos from 1820.
Internationally renowned for her knowledge and passion for fine jewellery, Ms Schofield established her legendary boutique Anne Schofield Antiques in Woollahra in 1970. It was the first successful business in Australia to specialise in antique jewellery. A long-standing donor and supporter of the Powerhouse as Life Fellow and honorary adviser for jewellery, in 2014 she generously lent 70 significant objects from her personal collection to the award-winning exhibition, A Fine Possession: Jewellery and Identity. [See The Culture Concept Circle for coverage of that show.]
The Anne Schofield Collection will be photographed and made available on the Powerhouse website and will be on display at Powerhouse Ultimo next year.
“Over the past 30 years I have made many individual donations of antique and costume jewellery to the Powerhouse, to enhance the museum’s existing holdings. Many famous collections throughout the world have grown in importance as a result of private donations and bequests. I strongly believe that collectors who have enjoyed success should consider giving back to their city or country as generously as Australia has given to them,” Anne Schofield said.
Ring (Italy), gold, enamel, garnets, and rose diamonds, ca 1760 (Sydney: Powerhouse, gift of Anne Schofield; photograph by Ryan Hernandez).
“Anne Schofield has extraordinary knowledge and expertise in fine jewellery. Over many years she has generously shared her knowledge with our museum and shared her collections with our audiences and communities. This transformative gift to the people of Sydney and NSW will have an impact for many generations to come,” Powerhouse Trust President Peter Collins AM KC said.
“Across her incredible career, Anne Schofield has continually sought out ways to share her remarkable collections with the public. This generosity of spirit could not be clearer than in this extraordinary donation that will transform the Powerhouse collection. Jewellery is not only powerful decorative art, but a form of social history and it is our privilege to be able to share this with the community. I pass on my deep gratitude and thanks to Anne for this gift and her ongoing commitment to the Powerhouse Museum,” Powerhouse Chief Executive Lisa Havilah said.
During her formative years in London in the early 1960s, Anne became passionate about the decorative arts with a focus on costume and, eventually, antique jewellery. In 1970 she established Anne Schofield Antiques on Queen Street Woollahra. In 2003 Anne was appointed a Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia AM for her services to the performing arts and to the decorative arts, particularly antiques, as an author and consultant. Anne is a member of the international Society of Jewellery Historians (SJH), a Life Fellow of the Powerhouse museum, a member of the Australian Art and Antique Dealers Association (AAADA), and co-author with Kevin Fahy of the seminal book Australian Jewellery: 19th and Early 20th Century.
Powerhouse sits at the intersection of arts, design, science, and technology and plays a critical role in engaging communities with contemporary ideas and issues. We are undertaking a landmark $1.4 billion infrastructure renewal program, spearheaded by the creation of the flagship museum, Powerhouse Parramatta; expanded research and public facilities at Powerhouse Castle Hill; the renewal of the iconic Powerhouse Ultimo; and the ongoing operation of Sydney Observatory. The museum is custodian to over half a million objects of national and international significance and is considered one of the finest and most diverse collections in Australia. We are also undertaking an expansive digitisation project that will provide new levels of access to Powerhouse collections.
Art Market | Fine Arts Paris & La Biennale, November 2022
Designed by Pierre-Antoine Mongin and produced by Joseph Dufour (1754–1827), Jardins de Bagatelle/Jardins Anglais, ca. 1802, imprimé à la planche en papiers raboutés, 51 × 380 cm. Offered by Carolle Thibaut-Pomerantz.
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From the July press release, via Art Daily:
Fine Arts Paris & La Biennale
Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, 9–13 November 2022
In February 2022, two leading French art fairs—the venerable Biennale, one of the world’s oldest art fairs (formerly known as La Biennale des Antiquaires) and the fast-growing Fine Arts Paris—announced that they had merged to create a new annual flagship event in Paris celebrating art from the Antiquity to present day. Now, Fine Arts Paris & La Biennale unveils details of its inaugural edition, which will take place at the prestigious Carrousel du Louvre, from 9 to 13 November, before moving to the Grand Palais Ephémère in November 2023 and then to the renovated Grand Palais in November 2024.
86 internationally renowned galleries and talented young dealers will participate in what promises to be a major event in the global art market calendar. A showcase of art, culture, savoir-faire, and heritage, Fine Arts Paris & La Biennale will present carefully selected artworks spanning no fewer than fourteen categories, including Antiquities, Old Masters, Antique Furniture, Modern and Contemporary Art, Tapestries, Ceramics, and Jewellery, as well as Tribal Art, Asian Art, Islamic Art, and Books and Manuscripts.
Louis de Bayser, President of Fine Arts Paris & La Biennale said: “Fine Arts Paris & La Biennale is Paris’s only fair dedicated to Fine Arts, tracing the entire history of art across time and continents. In the next three years, as we move from the Carrousel du Louvre to the Grand Palais Ephémère and ultimately the Grand Palais, our objective will be to expand the fair’s global reputation and growth, as well as to contribute to reinforce Paris’s status and importance on the international art market”.
Rosalba Carriera, Portrait of a Gentleman in Blue Coat, 18th century, pastel, 55 × 40 cm. Offered by Galerie de Bayser.
Following on the footsteps of its illustrious predecessors, the new fair will bring together prominent Old Master galleries, led by a strong contingent of renowned French specialists (De Bayser, Didier Aaron, Baulme, Perrin, Giovanni Sarti, Coatalem, Mendes, Terrades, Leegenhoek, Talabardon & Gautier) and young art dealers (Edouard Ambroselli, Chaptal). They will be joined by London gallerist and pre-eminent scholar of 18th-century Venetian view painting Charles Beddington; Artur Ramon, one of Spain’s most important specialists in the field; Costermans, Brussels’ oldest art gallery, and the Geneva-based Dutch and Flemish painting specialist de Jonckheere who will present a 16th-century panoramic view by Hans Bol, among other masterpieces.
Antique Furniture and Decorative Arts
France’s long and glorious tradition of furniture-making and decorative arts will be reflected in the extraordinary selection showcased by Parisian galleries Steinitz, Léage and Oscar Graf. Belgium silver specialist Janssens van der Maelen will also participate alongside London dealer Brun who will unveil a terracotta bust of Napoleon.
Furthermore, the fair will welcome passionate gallerists with an unusual profile, including Portuguese neurologist turned collector and art dealer Mário Roque and 36-year-old Maxime Carron who, following a sporting education, created Royal Provenance, a gallery in Paris specialising in European heirlooms. Having recently sold a chair that once belonged to Queen Marie-Antoinette’s bedroom, he will unveil many more fascinating treasures, including a rare early 19th-century Morocco case containing the keys of Paris parks, possibly given by King Louis Philippe to his eldest son, Ferdinand-Philippe d’Orléans, Duke of Orléans (1810–1842) on the occasion of his coronation in 1830.
The fair will also welcome Carolle Thibaut-Pomerantz, one of very few specialists in historic wallpapers in the world. The New York/Paris-based gallerist, whose greatest finds are now part of the major museums including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, will present a selection of wallpapers dating from the 18th century to the 1950s, including three large panels known as Jardins de Bagatelle / Jardins Anglais, designed by Pierre-Antoine Mongin and produced ca. 1800–04 by the French wallpaper and fabrics manufacture, Joseph Dufour in Macon.
Sculpture
Sculpture will feature strongly, with some of the most discerning specialists in the discipline vying to present rare pieces. The Parisian gallery Sismann, which focuses on Old Master sculpture, will present a Virgin and Child in limestone, made in Toul (France), ca. 1330–1340. Trebosc + van Lelyveld, Chiale and Ratton-Ladrière will show an ensemble of works from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. Michel Poletti and Alain Richarme from Univers du Bronze will celebrate the Golden Age of French sculpture (1830s–1930s) with works by Antoine-Louis Barye, Emmanuel Fremiet, Henri Laurens, and a life-size bronze nude representing David Victorious over Goliath, ca. 1894–1910, which was once in the collection of Auguste Lumière, the inventor of the cinematograph. The bronze is one of only two known similar works by the artist, the other being in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay.
Renowned for his early 20th-century animal sculptures, Xavier Eeckhout will exhibit an exquisite bronze lion cub made in 1935 by Louis de Monard. Galerie Malaquais will celebrate French figurative sculpture with Assia, a 1936 monumental sculpture by Charles Despiau, dedicated to and from the collection of the eminent French art dealer, editor and historian Georges Wildenstein (1892–1963).
Modern and Contemporary Art
Modern and Contemporary Art will also take centre stage in this inaugural edition of the fair. In a nod to history, Marianne Rosenberg, the granddaughter of Paul Rosenberg, perhaps the most important Modern Art dealer of the first half of the 20th century (who, for a time, worked with Wildenstein) will be present at the fair. Her New York gallery, Rosenberg & Co will exhibit a very rare oil on board by Henry Rousseau, La Citadelle, ca. 1893. Specialising in drawings for four generations, the Galerie de Bayser will unveil a magnificent charcoal drawing of a woman wiping her neck by Edgar Degas and a pastel depiction of a monkey by Simon Bussy.
Other leading modern and contemporary art galleries will include Jill Newhouse (New York), Lancz, La Béraudière (Brussels), and reputed French dealers, such as Applicat-Prazan, Berès, Brame & Lorenceau, Laurentin, Seine 55, Ary Jan, La Présidence, and Opera Gallery, which will showcase a roll call of modern and contemporary artists, from Fernand Léger and Marc Chagall, to Pierre Soulages and Fernando Botero. They will be joined by two Paris-based contemporary art galleries, RX and Christophe Gaillard.
Antiquities and Non-Western Arts
Tracing a complete world art history, Fine Arts Paris & La Biennale will bring together specialists in Antiquities, Tribal Art, Asian Art, and Islamic Art. A Roman marble Head of Aphrodite from the 2nd century AD will be one of the highlights presented by Kevorkian, a third-generation Parisian dealer specialising in Islamic Art.
They will be joined by Kent Antiques, a prominent London gallery dealing in Islamic and Indian art, Orientalist paintings, and courtly objects which will present an important Iznik blue and white pottery tile decorated with Saz leaves and khatai blossoms made in the Ottoman Empire, ca. 1545–50.
Asian Art will be represented by two highly regarded gallerists: Tamio Ikeda whose Parisian gallery Tanakaya will feature original Japanese prints, Ukiyo-e and Shin-Hanga, paintings, bronzes, ceramics, and lacquers; and Christophe Hioco, who will showcase a bronze head of Buddha from Thailand, Sukhothai, made in the late 14th–early 15th century.
In addition, the fair will be distinguished by a roster of Tribal Art galleries, led by Belgian African art expert Didier Claes and Oceanic art specialist Anthony Meyer. Visitors will be able to admire a 19th-century Dogon mask from Mali in the booth of Barcelona dealer Montagut, while the Parisian galleries Monbrison, Flak, and Belgian art dealers Mestdagh will impress with a display of artifacts from Oceania, Indonesia, Africa, India, and Japan.
Rare Books and Prints
A great drawing or painting is not always found in a frame, as demonstrated by the selection of rare books, manuscripts, and prints in the fair. The fourth-generation Parisian print dealer Prouté will present a 16th-century woodcut by Albrecht Dürer depicting the Christ in Limbo. They will be joined by H. H. Rumbler, Frankfurt specialists in Old Master prints; London dealer Daniel Crouch, a world authority in the field of rare atlases and maps; and an outstanding group of book specialists whose expertise spans the 15th through the 20th centuries. These include young gallerist Camille Sourget, fourth-generation book specialist Stéphane Clavreuil, and Parisian expert Jean-Baptiste de Proyart.
Jewellery
Finally, breaking the boundaries between fine and decorative arts, the new fair will also celebrate jewellery as a form of art. Renowned dealers in antique jewellery (Bernard Bouisset, Orpheo Genève, Martin du Daffoy, Larengregor) will be joined by contemporary artist-jewellers Walid Akkad, Frédérique Mattei, and Chinese designer Feng J. One year after one of her creations entered the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Feng J will uncover spectacular new designs especially made for the fair. These include a masterpiece of jewellery craftmanship inspired by the artist’s passion for the Impressionist period: a diamond tiara whose various pastel tones are reminiscent of a Monet painting.
Conference | The Horse and the Country House
John Frederick Herring, Sr., Grey Carriage Horses in the Coachyard at Putteridge Bury, Hertfordshire, 1838, oil on canvas, 102 × 127 cm
(New Haven: Yale Center for British Art)
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From The Attingham Trust:
The Horse and the Country House: Art, Politics and Mobility
Online and In-person, Institute of Continuing Education, Madingley Hall, Cambridge, 18–19 November 2022
The Attingham Trust is organising a stimulating two-day conference in Cambridge focused on the horse and the country house. Following on from the successful Attingham Study Programme in 2018, issues and themes relating to the equestrian culture associated with these houses will be explored by an international panel of speakers.
Horses, once so vital to the smooth functioning of the country house in England, have, more recently, been marginalized and even omitted from discussions. Existing stable blocks are seldom used for their original purposes and the signs of the working horse and horse-drawn transport are often hard to find. Inside houses, the legacy of the horse in the form of sporting art and racing trophies is more evident, but rarely examined. The conference will encourage a wide-ranging assessment of the many roles played by horses in country house life. From sporting art and memorabilia, riding dress and horse tack, carriage design, stables and stable servants, mobility and horseracing, it will explore the ways in which the horse has been central to the artistic, social, cultural, and political functions of the country house.
Following an overwhelming response to the call for papers, the advisory committee has selected a varied list of international speakers including representatives of major museums, universities, and historic houses. Spread over the two days, there will be sessions on horse welfare, the employment of stable servants, social mobility, women riders and drivers, and the visual representation and material culture of horses.
Madingley Hall is a beautiful sixteenth-century country house and garden. Built by Sir John Hynde in 1543, and occupied as a residence by his descendants until the 1860s, the Hall is now owned by the University of Cambridge. It is close to the centre of town, with free parking available onsite. Specially discounted B&B rates are available if you would like to stay at Madingley Hall. To take advantage, please email reservations@madingleyhall.co.uk quoting “horse and the country house conference.”
In person tickets are now sold out, but the conference will be live-streamed thanks to the generous sponsorship of the Carriage Association of America. Tickets are available for purchase here. If you would like to be placed on a waiting list for in-person tickets, please email rebecca.parker@attinghamtrust.org.
F R I D A Y , 1 8 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 2
9.00 Registration
9.30 Welcome from Helen Jacobsen (Attingham Trust)
9.35 Introduction
• Elizabeth Jamieson (Attingham Trust) — The Horse and the Country House: An Untold History
10.00 Session 1 | The Domesticated Horse: Horse Welfare and Care of Servants
Chair: Christopher Garibaldi (University of Cambridge)
• Jana Schuster (University of Cambridge) — Transport Innovations, Stables, and Animal Welfare of the 2nd Duke of Montagu, 1709–49
• Jessica Dallow (University of Alabama, Birmingham) — Architecting Horses and Buildings: Stable Design and Culture at John Hartwell Cocke’s Bremo
• Frances Bailey (National Trust) — Chariots and Gold Cups, Tails and Hooves, Hermit and Hambletonian: The Lives of the Londonderry’s Horses
• John Stallard (Carriage Association of America) — The Pride of the Country House Stable: Carriages for Sport
11.30 Coffee Break
12.00 Session 2 | Evidence of the Horse: Architectural, Visual, and Textual
Chair: Michaela Giebelhausen (Courtauld Institute)
• Julian Munby (Independent Scholar) — Horse and Carriage in Town and Country: Sources and Issues
• Christopher Garibaldi (University of Cambridge) — Evidence of the Architectural History of the Royal Palaces of Newmarket in Paintings by Jan Siberechts and John Wootton
• Adam Menuge (University of Cambridge) — Blickling’s Early 17th-Century Stables Revisited
• Aurore Bayle-Loudet (Hermès) — Hermès and Horses, 1837–1914: A Story of Patrons and Muses
1.30 Lunch Break
2.30 Session 3 | Places for Horses: Old Buildings, New Life
Chair: Elizabeth Jamieson (Attingham Trust)
• Alexandra Lotz (State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology, Saxony-Anhalt) — The Stables of the Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz: New Life for Historic Buildings
• Sally Goodsir (Royal Collection Trust) — Creating and Curating the Royal Mews, Buckingham Palace
• Allesandra Griffo (Uffizi Galleries) — The Carriage Museum in the Stables of the Pitti Palace
• Paula Martin (Harewood House Trust) — The Horse at Harewood
• Phillippa Turner (National Trust) — The National Trust Carriage Museum at Arlington Court, Devon
• Thomas Reinhart (George Washington’s Mount Vernon) — The Mount Vernon Stables
3.45 Tea Break
4.15 Panel Discussion
5.30 Drinks Reception
S A T U R D A Y , 1 9 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 2
9.30 Coffee and registration for new delegates
10.00 Session 4 | Horsepower: Politics, Social Mobility, and Fashion
Chair: Oliver Cox (Victoria and Albert Museum)
• Sophie Chessum (National Trust) — Horse Racing and the Onslows of Clandon Park: A Case Study in Politics, Business, and the Country
• Jon Stobart (Manchester Metropolitan University) — Clergy and Carriages: The Place of the Horse in the Late Georgian Parsonage
• Emma Lyons (University College, Dublin) — Racehorses, Gambling, and Equestrian Buildings of Sir Edward O’Brien of Dromoland
• Maria-Anne Privat (Château de Compiègne) — Anglomania and French Horse-Drawn Carriages
11.30 Short Break
11.45 Session 5 | Women and the Horse: Riders, Hunters, and Carriage Drivers
Chair: Frances Bailey (National Trust)
• Erica Munkwitz (American University) — Country Contentments: Women, Hunting, and the English Countryside
• Helena Esser (Independent Scholar) — Horse-Riding and Gender in the Victorian Popular Imagination
• Charlotte Newman (National Trust) — Equine Adventures and Constructions of Femininity at Lanhydrock House, Cornwall
• Whitney White (Pebble Hill Plantation) — Elisabeth ‘Pansy’ Ireland Poe: An Extraordinary American Equestrienne
1.15 Lunch Break
2.15 Session 6 | The Commodification of the Horse: Visual Representation and Culture
Chair: Lydia Hamlett (University of Cambridge)
• Sebastian Edwards (Historic Royal Palaces) — The Horse from Hanover: The Role of the Horse and Equine Sport in the Court Culture of Kings George I and II
• Timothy Cox (British Sporting Art Trust) and Karen Hladik (Independent Scholar) — The Mysterious Case of Sir T.S. Bonnet and his Horse ‘Swallow’
• Michaela Giebelhausen (Courtauld Institute of Art) — The Trouble with George Stubbs: More than Just a Horse Painter
• Alexandra Mayson (University of Oxford) — ‘Extraordinary Sagacity’: Representations of Arab Horses and Arabic Horsemanship in Four Horseracing Prizes from the 1830s
• Sheila O’Connell (Independent Scholar) — Magnificent or Comic: Horses and Riders in Prints
4.10 Closing Remarks and Tea
Exhibition | ‘Without Hands’: The Art of Sarah Biffin
Now on view at Philip Mould in London:
‘Without Hands’: The Art of Sarah Biffin
Philip Mould & Company, London, 1 November — 21 December 2022
Sarah Biffin, A miniature watercolour of subaltern or captain of a British ‘royal’ regiment of line infantry by, ca. 1815–20.
The remarkable story of Sarah Biffin (1784–1850), has been largely overlooked by historians. Those who have attempted to illustrate her life have often perpetuated misconceptions, and Biffin’s artistic reputation has suffered as a result. This exhibition, established upon ground-breaking primary research, is the first of its kind to present Biffin’s artistic achievements and represent her history.
Sarah Biffin (or Beffin) was born into a farming family in Somerset in 1784, where her baptism records state that she was “born without arms and legs.” Teaching herself to write and draw from a young age, Biffin rose to fame as an artist and established a professional career as a portrait painter. Throughout her long and successful career, she travelled extensively, took commissions from royalty, and recorded her own likeness through exquisitely detailed self-portraits. Her artworks—many proudly signed “Without Hands”—are a testament to her talent and accomplishment.
Around the age of twenty, Biffin left home. She contracted herself to a ‘Mr Dukes’ who toured the country with Biffin, visiting county fairs where she was described as the “Eighth Wonder.” Using her mouth and shoulder, Biffin would sew, write, and paint watercolours and portrait miniatures in front of crowds who turned up and left with a sample of her writing included in the cost of their ticket. One such spectator was the wealthy and well-connected Earl of Morton, who supported her in her quest to finesse her artistic skills. In her mid-twenties she began formal tuition with a miniature painter, William Marshall Craig. From 1816 she set herself up as an independent artist and later took commissions from nobility and royalty.
Biffin travelled extensively, exhibiting her artwork and taking commissions all over the country and abroad. She took studios in cities including London, Brighton, Birmingham, Cheltenham, and Liverpool. In each of these cities, she taught the art of miniature painting and was a champion of women students in particular. Continuously recording her own image throughout her lifetime, Biffin’s self-portraits evidence the artistic aptitude, self-respect, and skill of this tenacious artist.
Following the story of her life, the exhibition includes original handbills and broadsides from Biffin’s time in travelling fairs, along with the samples of her writing included in the cost of the entry tickets. Visitors to the exhibition will also be able to see examples of the art from her professional career, including portraits, landscapes, and highly-skilled still lifes. More personal exhibits include private letters (including one to her mother) and almost every self-portrait she ever painted. With advisor, artist Alison Lapper MBE (born 180 years later with the same condition); consultant and contributor, Professor Essaka Joshua (specialist in Disability Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana); and loans from national institutions, the exhibition will celebrate Biffin as a disabled artist who challenged attitudes to disability.
The catalogue is published by PHP and distributed by The University of Chicago Press:
Emma Rutherford and Ellie Smith, eds., with contributions by Essaka Joshua, Alison Lapper, and Elle Sushan, ‘Without Hands’: The Art of Sarah Biffin (London: Paul Holberton, 2022), 80 pages, ISBN: 978-1913645366, £18 / $25.
Emma Rutherford is a portrait miniatures consultant at Philip Mould & Company in London. Ellie Smith is a researcher at Philip Mould & Company. Professor Essaka Joshua is a specialist in disability studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Based in Brighton, Alison Lapper is an artist, television presenter, speaker, and Gig-Arts Charity patron. Elle Shushan is a specialist, author, lecturer, and museum consultant in Philadelphia.
New Book | Sculpture at the Ends of Slavery
From the University of California Press:
Caitlin Meehye Beach, Sculpture at the Ends of Slavery (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2022), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-0520343269, £47 / $60.
From abolitionist medallions to statues of bondspeople bearing broken chains, sculpture gave visual and material form to narratives about the end of slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sculpture at the Ends of Slavery sheds light on the complex—and at times contradictory—place of such works as they moved through a world contoured both by the devastating economy of enslavement and by international abolitionist campaigns. By examining matters of making, circulation, display, and reception, Caitlin Meehye Beach argues that sculpture stood as a highly visible but deeply unstable site from which to interrogate the politics of slavery. With focus on works by Josiah Wedgwood, Hiram Powers, Edmonia Lewis, John Bell, and Francesco Pezzicar, Beach uncovers both the radical possibilities and the conflicting limitations of art in the pursuit of justice in racial capitalism’s wake.
Part of the Phillips Collection Book Prize Series and supported by the Simpson Imprint in Humanities.
Caitlin Meehye Beach is Assistant Professor in Art History and Affiliated Faculty in African and African American Studies at Fordham University.
C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments
Introduction — ‘Within a Few Steps of the Spot’: Art in an Age of Racial Capitalism
1 Grasping Images: Antislavery and the Sculptural
2 ‘The Mute Language of the Marble’: Slavery and Hiram Powers’s The Greek Slave
3 Sentiment, Manufactured: John Bell and the Abolitionist Image under Empire
4 Relief Work: Edmonia Lewis and the Poetics of Plaster
5 Between Liberty and Emancipation: Francesco Pezzicar’s The Abolition of Slavery
Coda — ‘Sculptured Dream of Liberty’
Notes
List of Illustrations
Index
New Book | Repertoires of Slavery: Dutch Theater, 1770–1810
From Amsterdam UP:
Sarah Adams, Repertoires of Slavery: Dutch Theater between Abolitionism and Colonial Subjection, 1770–1810 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022), 252 pages, ISBN: 978-9463726863, €117.
Through the lens of a hitherto unstudied repertoire of Dutch abolitionist theatre productions, Repertoires of Slavery prises open the conflicting ideological functions of antislavery discourse within and outside the walls of the theatre and examines the ways in which abolitionist protesters wielded the strife-ridden question of slavery to negotiate the meanings of human rights, subjecthood, and subjection. The book explores how dramatic visions of antislavery provided a site for (re)mediating a white metropolitan—and at times a specifically Dutch—identity. It offers insight into the late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century theatrical modes, tropes, and scenarios of racialised subjection and considers them as materials of the ‘Dutch cultural archive’, or the Dutch ‘reservoir’ of sentiments, knowledge, fantasies, and beliefs about race and slavery that have shaped the dominant sense of the Dutch self up to the present day.
Sarah J. Adams holds a Ph.D. in Dutch Literature (Ghent University, 2020). Her postdoctoral project Blackface Burlesques, funded by the Research Foundation — Flanders, investigates the scenarios, tropes, and techniques used to design and represent ‘Blackness’ on the comic stage of the Low Countries before the heyday of minstrel culture.
C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Introduction
1 Dutch Politics, the Slavery-Based Economy, and Theatrical Culture in 1800
2 Suffering Victims: Slavery, Sympathy, and White Self-Glorification
3 Contented Fools: Ridiculing and Re-Commercializing Slavery
4 Black Rebels: Slavery, Human Rights, and the Legitimacy of Resistance
5 Conclusions
Bibliography
Consulted Archives, Collections, and Databases
Literature
Appendix
Enfilade 
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