Online Workshops | Egypt in Early-Modern Antiquarian Imagery
From the Antiquitatum Thesaurus research project:
Ägypten in der frühneuzeitlichen antiquarischen Bildwelt
Egypt in Early-Modern Antiquarian Imagery
Online Workshops, 5 May, 2 June, and 7 July 2022
Antiquitatum Thesaurus: Antiquities in European Visual Sources from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
On the occasion of this year’s anniversaries of important milestones in the recent reception of Egypt, the academy project Antiquitatum Thesaurus devotes three digital workshops in the summer semester of 2022 to the perception of the land on the Nile in the early modern period. The focus will be on various personal motivations of some of the protagonists, the antiquarian or scientific methods they used, and a broad spectrum of media in which the engagement with Egyptian or Egyptianizing artifacts and images was reflected from the 15th to the 18th century. In addition, current research projects present their perspectives on the reception of Egypt.
Thursday, 5 May 2022, 4pm
• Michail Chatzidakis (Berlin), „Ad summam sui verticem pyramidalem in figuram vidimus ascendentes […] anti quissimum Phoenicibus caracteribus epigramma conspeximus“. Bemerkungen zu den ägyptischen Reisen Ciriacos d’Ancona
• Catharine Wallace (West Chester), Pirro Ligorio and the Late Renaissance Memory of Egypt in Rome
• Stefan Baumann (Trier), Project Presentation: Early Egyptian Travel Accounts from Late Antiquity to Napoleon
Please register at: https://bit.ly/3LQWgMB
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Thursday, 2 June 2022, 4pm
• Maren Elisabeth Schwab (Kiel), Herodots Ägypten im Interessenshorizont italienischer Antiquare
• Alfred Grimm (München), Osiris cum capite Accipitris. Zu einem Objekt aus der Bellori-Sammlung und dem Barberinischen „Osiris“
• Florian Ebeling (München), Project Presentation: Handwörterbuch zur Geschichte der Ägyptenrezeption
Please register at: https://bit.ly/3O4dS9O
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Thursday, 7 July 2022, 4pm
• Guillaume Sellier (Montréal), Oldest Egyptian Artefacts in Canada: The Quebec Palace Intendant’s Amulets
• Valentin Boyer (Paris), „Sphinxomanie“ durch die Ikonographie ägyptisierender Exlibris
• Nils Hempel, Timo Strauch (BBAW), Project Presentation: Antiquitatum Thesaurus. Antiken in den europäischen Bildquellen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts
Please register at: https://bit.ly/3rd7T8z
Call for Papers | Images & Institutions, Early Modern Scientific Societies
From ArtHist.net:
Images and Institutions: The Visual Culture of Early Modern Scientific Societies
Accademia dei Lincei, Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR), and the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome, 14–16 September 2022
Organized by Katherine Reinhart and Matthijs Jonker
Proposals due by 15 May 2022
One of the most important developments in early modern science was the foundation of institutions for collaborative research and the publication of knowledge, such as the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome (1603), the Accademia del Cimento in Florence (1657), the Royal Society in London (1660), the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris (1666), and the Scientific Academy of St Petersburg (1725). The communication of knowledge was integral to early modern processes of knowledge production in these new sites of collaborative science. Within these institutions, knowledge was not only acquired and disseminated orally and textually, but also visually. From drawings which circulated in society meetings to the printed plates in their published books, images across all media were vital to the developing practices of early modern science.
A growing body of scholarship has convincingly shown the importance of images and image-making practices to early modern knowledge production. Scholars have shown, for instance, that early modern botanists, zoologists, and physicians used drawings and prints as visual narratives to prove an argument or the existence of a species, as substitutes for the objects described, as mnemonic aids, or as tools themselves (Dackerman, Daston, Kusukawa). Research has also been done showing the important relationships between artists, natural philosophers and their collections (Baldriga, Egmond, Tongiorgi Tomasi). However, these studies have focused on single institutions or individual practitioners, and we still lack a comprehensive and comparative understanding of the relationships between visual culture and the developing practices of collaborative science.
Therefore, this project, Images and Institutions, seeks to fill that gap by bringing together an international team of historians of art and science for a three-day symposium in Rome to gain a larger picture of these relationships. Within these early institutions, images functioned in diverse ways: they communicated new ideas, recorded new phenomena, demonstrated new instruments, and stood in for missing specimens. They expressed theories, clarified arguments, organized concepts, and persuaded colleagues. Some images were created from nature or ad vivum, while others portrayed scientific ideas allegorically. In bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, this symposium will reevaluate the functions of images and image-making practices that were integral to the advancement of early modern science within its formative institutions. The symposium contributes to widening disciplinary boundaries by bringing scholars from different fields into conversation and by having a wide geographical perspective.
We are interested in how images and image-making practices contributed to the collective and collaborative production and dissemination of knowledge in scientific institutions from the 16th until the 18th century. Central questions for this symposium include: What common visual practices were shared among these institutions, and importantly, where did they diverge? How did differing national artistic contexts impact the visual culture of scientific institutions? And how did these relationships shift over time with new enlightenment societies founded in the 18th century? By comparing these institutions, this symposium will explore the ways in which images and image-making practices were integral to the advancement of early modern collaborative science.
The symposium will consist of 30-minute papers, which will be the basis for a published edited volume. The symposium will take place on 14–16 September 2022 in Rome, and some travel and lodging assistance is available. Scholars of art history, visual studies, and history of science and knowledge from all career phases are encouraged to apply. We welcome abstracts which explore visual strategies in early modern collaborative science, particularly in the context of Spain, Germany, Eastern Europe, as well as non-European regions.
To apply, please send an abstract of no more than 300 words, accompanied by a brief (2-page) CV to secretary@knir.it with the subject line: ‘Images and Institutions’. The deadline for abstracts is 15 May 2022. Applicants will be notified in early June. For queries, please contact Katherine Reinhart (kmreinhart@wisc.edu) or Matthijs Jonker (m.jonker@knir.it).
Scientific Committee
Irene Baldriga (Sapienza, Università di Roma), Sietske Fransen (Bibliotheca Hertziana), Matthijs Jonker (KNIR), and Katherine Reinhart (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
This symposium is made possible with support from the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR), Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, the Accademia dei Lincei (IT), the Association for Art History (UK), the Society for Renaissance Studies (UK), and The Huizinga Institute RNW History and Philosophy of Science (NL).
Call for Papers | The Cultural Ramifications of Water, 1650–1850
From the Call for Papers:
The Cultural Ramifications of Water in Early Modern Texts and Images, 1650–1850
A special issue of 1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era
Edited by Leigh G. Dillard and Christina Ionescu
Proposals due by 15 May 2022
This special issue offers a fresh, wide-ranging perspective on the agency of water in relation to knowledge, innovation, and individual or collective identity by investigating parallel and interconnected visual and/or textual representations of this fundamental element in the early modern period. We currently seek two more contributions to complete this issue that evolved from a series of panels at the 2021 virtual conference of the International Association of Word and Image Studies.
A number of bestselling novels of the early modern period include key episodes in which water—whether in the form of oceans, seas, ponds, lakes, torrents, springs, rivulets, falls, wells, or fountains—plays a crucial symbolic role, variously expressing the passions embodied by ‘nature’ or more cultivated versions of this dangerous element. Charged with significance and symbolism, these representations of water are sometimes used as a backdrop or setting to the main action, but at other times, they represent an active agent in the human dramas that unfold when characters interact with this element in its materiality and that interaction unexpectedly alters the course of their lives in consequential ways. The results are often deeply poignant—drowning, shipwreck, trauma, flooding, etc.—but they can also be positively transformative—self-discovery, spiritual healing, physical nourishment, even fulfilment, etc. Within fictional realms, water acts, moreover, as a marker of identity and place in literary cartographies, triggers vital memories and meanings, surreptitiously encodes libertine thoughts, and simultaneously separates and unifies peoples, countries, and continents. In early modern literary illustration, water is equally omnipresent, and its representation is endowed with a degree of complexity that invites a closer look from an interdisciplinary perspective.
As humans grappled with mechanisation and modernisation in the Age of the Industrial Revolution, water emerged from the background to become a key element in scientific and technical illustration. Technological innovations relying on the use of water, such as the stationary steam engine and the spinning frame, were prominently displayed and meticulously explained in encyclopedias, periodicals, and specialised treatises. Through empirical observation, both professional and amateur scientists lavished attention on natural phenomena such as geysers, waterfalls, and stalagmites and stalactites, often documenting their findings not only by conventional textual means but also inventive pictorial ones. At a time when the lack of water facilitated the spread of death and disease in overcrowded cities such as Hogarth’s London, bathing in thermal pools or exposure to seawater, which were strongly advocated in medical literature, were perceived by the wealthy as beneficial to health and healing. Prints depicting the age-old cult of water, watering-places, and structures designed to contain or manipulate the flow of water proliferated throughout Europe.
For this special issue of 1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, we invite proposals engaging with texts and images that shed light on the cultural ramifications of water during this important timeframe. In particular, we are interested in the way in which images visually interpret and subtly challenge the sophisticated textual dynamics between nature and culture or investigate the multiple configurations of water. Examples of verbal and visual engagements with water and its materiality during this transformative historical period may be selected from a diverse range of fields, including angling, architecture, art, botany, garden design, geology, horticulture, hydraulics, literature, natural history, medicine, and print culture. Papers addressing word and image interaction through the following topics are particularly welcome: architecture and landscape designs as a nexus of space, place, identity, and water; connections through water between humans and the environment; and water as a healing agent, source of life, and force of nature. Proposals that engage with the topic diachronically and transnationally would enhance this special issue. Please send proposal to Leigh G. Dillard (leigh.dillard@ung.edu) and Christina Ionescu (cionescu@mta.ca) by May 15, 2022.
Het Loo Reopens after Renovations
Construction at Apeldoorn, in the Netherlands, continues until at least 2023, but the palace interiors are once again open. From the press release, via Art Daily (18 April 2022). . .
Paleis Het Loo—the largest 17th-century palace of the House of Orange-Nassau and a national museum since 1984—is once again open for visitors. Built in the 1680s, it has been closed since 2018 for a thorough renovation. Kossmanndejong is working with the museum to give the palace a new lease on life. The design firm is still developing the exhibitions in the new underground extension, but you can now visit the renewed palace routes, with new audio tours, and watch a presentation on the history of Paleis Het Loo in the renovated historic palace.
New carpet runners are printed to match the historic floor coverings and include audio cues.
Visits now begin at the servants’ entrance, a room Kossmanndejong transformed to tell the history of Paleis Het Loo. A film brings a model of the palace and gardens to life with a journey through time, from the construction of the palace to the current renovation. Visitors can also admire traces left by residents of Paleis Het Loo over the past centuries. Most are everyday objects, from pots and shards to the water pipes from the gardens’ first fountains. Archaeologists discovered some of these objects during the renovation.
The palace rooms look the same as they did when the royals roamed them. To allow visitors to experience more fully this historic atmosphere, Kossmanndejong omitted as many ‘museum’ elements as possible. Unnecessary distractions, such as text signs, disappear. Kossmanndejong also examined how visitors should move through the space. While Paleis Het Loo is one of the most visited museums in the Netherlands, it’s also full of small corridors and narrow rooms. By adjusting the routes and audio tour length to support the expected number of visitors, Kossmanndejong ensures a smooth and comfortable visit.
“If you don’t notice we were there, that means we’ve done our job well.” –Robin Schijfs, lead designer for Kossmanndejong
To enhance the authentic palace experience, Kossmanndejong developed an ‘invisible’ runner that is almost indistinguishable from the original floors. Kossmanndejong photographed the floors and printed the patterns directly onto the runners. The route markers and audio stops are also printed on the carpet. This way, Kossmanndejong protects the palace’s historic floors while maintaining the rooms’ immersive qualities.
There are two routes in Paleis Het Loo. Along the East Route, visitors walk through the 17th-century palace, one of the great centres of power in early modern Europe. During the audio tour, William III’s best friend whispers the secrets of the Stadtholder-King. The West Route reveals how later generations of the royal family lived in the palace. You can choose between two stories: the comical family show At Home with the Royals or a more intimate tour focused on Queen Wilhelmina and her immediate family. Screenwriters wrote the three audio tours, imbuing each with its own character and transforming the narrative into a progressive story that builds along the route.
Exhibition | The Luxury of Clay: Porcelain Past and Present
Chris Antemann, An Occasion to Gather, 2021–22; porcelain, 48 × 96 × 24 inches, installed in Hillwood’s Dining Room 2022.
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Now on view at Hillwood:
The Luxury of Clay: Porcelain Past and Present
Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, Washington, D.C, 19 February — 26 June 2022
Curated by Rebecca Tilles
Hillwood founder Marjorie Merriweather Post valued porcelain objects for their beauty, exquisite design, and historic associations. While most were crafted for specific uses, these items are valued objects in their own right. Featuring more than 140 objects, the exhibition will trace the remarkable development of porcelain, from its origins in China to its discovery in Europe in the early 18th century, leading to contemporary artistic interpretations of this material.
Often referred to as ‘white gold’, due to its natural color and high value, porcelain was originally produced by China in the 9th century. The exportation to Europe by the Portuguese and Dutch in the 16th century created a vast demand for these goods, heretofore unknown outside of Asia. The recipe for porcelain remained a mystery in Europe until the early 18th century, when the Meissen Manufactory in Saxony discovered the essential ingredient, kaolin, a soft white clay. From there, the secret traveled throughout Europe, to Vienna in 1718 under Claudius du Paquier and nationalized in 1744 by Empress Maria Theresa; to Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1744 at the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory following Peter the Great’s visit to Saxony; to Berlin in 1763 at the Royal Porcelain Factory (KPM); and finally to France, at Sèvres in the late 1760s. With each new discovery came innovative colors, styles, and shapes, distinguishing factories from one another as each developed specialties. Moving chronologically through time, the exhibition will demonstrate how the discovery of this material in Europe shaped the luxury market and how the porcelain craze left a lasting impact on the art world.
Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887–1973) had an eye for beauty and a taste for exquisitely crafted objects when creating her collection. Beginning with Sèvres soft-paste porcelain, which she purchased in the 1920s–1960s, Post established herself as a cultivated and discerning collector of porcelain, later turning her attention to the collections of the Habsburg court and then acquiring Russian porcelain services during her time in the Soviet Union (1937–38), particularly diplomatic gifts and international commissions between Western European and Russian factories. At Hillwood, Post built the French and Russian porcelain rooms to house these treasures, displayed in special cases for all to see. Though Hillwood’s renowned collection of Sèvres was previously explored in the 2009 exhibition Sèvres: Then and Now, this is the first exhibition at Hillwood to investigate the full scope of her porcelain holdings.
The historical objects are complemented by a selection of modern-day examples. Drawing inspiration from examples from China, Germany, France, and more, contemporary artists such as Bouke de Vries, Cindy Sherman, and Roberto Lugo have continued the tradition of using porcelain to create beautiful works of art, and their pieces appear throughout the exhibition. Hillwood invited Chris Antemann to create new works to present in the dining and breakfast rooms in the mansion. In collaboration with Rebecca Tilles, curator, Antemann’s research led to large-scale porcelain centerpieces for the tables inspired by elements from the garden and collections at Hillwood. Additional works by Roberto Lugo and Eva Zeisel will be displayed in the entry hall, French porcelain room, and French drawing room.
New Book | Figures of the Enlightenment: Eighteenth-Century Meissen
Distributed by The University of Chicago Press:
Philip Kelleway and Tristan Sam Weller, Figures of the Enlightenment: A Catalogue of Eighteenth-Century Meissen from a Private Collection (London: Unicorn Publishing Group, 2022), 128 pages, ISBN: 978-1913491857, $45.
A compelling record of eighteenth-century taste through pieces of Meissen porcelain.
This book presents more than one hundred specially commissioned photographs of eighteenth-century Meissen porcelain from a significant private collection, illuminating what elite consumers of that era valued, aspired to, and found entertaining. With an expert eye, each object is showcased in the round and up close, highlighting all important features. Detailed entries accompany each item and an introductory essay helps to place them in their proper historical context. Anyone with an interest in the decorative arts of the eighteenth century will find this book a feast for the eyes.
Philip Kelleway is an art historian who has written widely on eighteenth-century porcelain, illustration, and landscape painting. Tristan Sam Weller is a photographer based in the United Kingdom.
Online Workshop | Making Masculinities
From ArtHist.net:
Making Masculinities: Material Culture and Gender in the 17th and 18th Centuries
Online and In-Person, University of Edinburgh, 6 May 2022
Research into the intersection of material culture and masculinity has steadily increased as scholars across disciplines choose to use material culture as a conceptual point of departure. The Material and Visual Culture in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Research Cluster aims to provide a space to continue the conversation. The cluster will host a one-day workshop fostering interdisciplinary discussion on the material approaches to historic ideas about gender through material culture. The workshop is spread over a series of formats to diversify how participants may interrogate this material. All sessions, except for the 3.20 workshop, are hybrid. The link to join the sessions will be provided via email the day before. Contact materialcultureresearcheca@ed.ac.uk with questions.
Registration is available here»
Abstracts are available here»
P R O G R A M M E
(British Standard Time)
9:30 Welcome and Introduction
9:45 Fashioning Masculinity
Chair: Georgia Vullinghs (National Museums Scotland)
• Ben Jackson (University of Birmingham), Making a Figure in 18th-Century England: Elite Masculinity, Social Expectation, and Material Goods.
• Maria Gordusenko (Ural Federal University), Self-Representation through Artworks as a Way of Life: Count Gustav Adolf von Gotter (1692–1762)
11.00 Break
11.20 Making Masculinities Roundtable
Chair: Emily Taylor (National Museums Scotland)
• Timothy Somers (Newcastle University), The Materiality of Men’s Practical Jokes
• Alysée Le Druillenec (Université Paris 1 – Panthéon- Sorbonne/Université Catholique de Louvain), Carrying the Holy Child as a Depiction of Masculinity in Christian Counter-Reformation Materiality
• Élise Urbain Ruano (Université de Lille), How Does Softness Affect Masculinity? The Paradox of 18th-Century Dressing Gowns
• Alexandra Atkins (Birkbeck), The Classical Portrait Bust and Masculinity in 18th-Century Country Houses
• Nicholas Babbington (University College London), The Royal Family and Domestic Disorder: The Satirization of George III’s Patriarchal Virtues in British Caricature, c.1785–1795
12.50 Lunch Break
1.50 Keynote
Chair: Meha Priyadarshini (University of Edinburgh)
• Sarah Goldsmith (University of Edinburgh), Hercules Himself? Materiality, Masculinity, and the Body in the Long 18th Century
3.00 Break
3.20 PhD / ECR Workshop
Fort Ross in the News
Orthodox Holy Trinity St. Nicholas Chapel at Fort Ross State Historic Park, Sonoma County, California. Occupying historic lands of the Kashaya Pomo tribe, the site’s first chapel, built in the mid-1820s, was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. In 1970, a reconstructed version burned. Shown here is the latest chapel, built in 1973, which continues to be used for Orthodox worship services. (Photo by Frank Schulenburg, via Wikimedia Commons, December 2016). For how the Russian invasion of Ukraine is dividing leaders of the Russian Orthodox church, see Jeanne Whalen’s recent reporting for The Washington Post.
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From The Washington Post:
Jason Vest, “‘Russia’s Jamestown in America’—and the Oligarch Who Has Helped Fund It,” The Washington Post Magazine (12 April 2022).
Since Vladimir Putin loosed Russian troops on Ukraine, there hasn’t been much pity for Russian oligarchs, who have seen their funds seized with alacrity. But there exists in America, thanks in part to a now-sanctioned Putin-allied billionaire, the most genuinely Russian landmark in the Lower 48. It’s called Fort Ross—or Fort Russ, as the Russians called it, way back in 1812, when it was founded. Today it’s a California state park and on the National Register of Historic Places. Overlooking the Pacific Ocean from high, craggy cliffs, the nigh-forgotten outpost—a challenging two-hour drive north from San Francisco—has lately garnered more attention than usual as something of a historic curiosity. . . .
Established in 1909 as one of the first entries into the California State Park system, today Fort Ross scrapes by with a staff of 11 and a budget of about $500,000. It is, in tandem with nearby Gerstle Cove in Salt Point State Park, long a favored family or school field-trip destination for Northern Californians. . . .
Sarah Sweedler, chief executive of the Fort Ross Conservancy notes at the end of the article:
“We have gotten a few weird emails,” she says. “But we’ve also gotten some supportive emails. Hopefully common sense will prevail. . . . Fort Ross is a rich story that goes way beyond the Russians. It’s a part of California history that’s ours—everyone’s.”
From Wikipedia:
Fort Ross is a former Russian establishment on the west coast of North America in what is now Sonoma County, California. It was the hub of the southernmost Russian settlements in North America from 1812 to 1841. Notably, it was the first multi-ethnic community in northern California, with a combination of Native Californians, Native Alaskans, and Russians. It has been the subject of archaeological investigation and is a California Historical Landmark, a National Historic Landmark, and on the National Register of Historic Places. . . .
Online Lecture | Tessa Murdoch on Huguenot Art and Culture
This afternoon from the YCBA:
Tessa Murdoch, Huguenot Refugee Art and Culture through the YCBA Collections
Online, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 21 April 2022, noon
William Hogarth, Mr. Garrick in the Character of Richard III, 1746, engraving (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art).
The Yale Center for British Art is pleased to present an online lecture on Thursday, 21 April 2022, at 12pm by Tessa Murdoch about Huguenot artistic production in early modern London. Focusing on the museum’s collections, Murdoch examines an array of paintings, prints, drawings, maps, and sculpture with notable examples including François Gasselin’s 1692 drawing View of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, and William Hogarth and Charles Grignion’s 1746 engraving Mr. Garrick in the Character of Richard III. This talk is based on research completed for her recent book Europe Divided: Huguenot Refugee Art and Culture (V&A publishing, 2021), which traces the international networks and artistic products created by French Protestant artists and craftsman in the wake of the Huguenot diaspora in the late seventeenth century.
Registration is available here»
Tessa Murdoch PhD FSA worked at the Museum of London (1981–1990) and at the Victoria and Albert Museum (1990–2021) where she was the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Research Curator from 2019. She is an adviser for the National Trust and the National Heritage Memorial Fund, a board member of the Idlewild Trust, and chair of trustees of the Huguenot Museum, Rochester. Murdoch’s most recent book, Europe Divided: Huguenot Refugee Art and Culture, was published by the V&A in 2021. She is currently consulting on the forthcoming publication Great Irish Households: Inventories from the Long Eighteenth Century (2022), and is co-editing, with Heike Zech, A Cultural History of Craft in the Age of Enlightenment (expected 2024).
RA Short Course | Art and Society in 18th-Century Britain
This summer from the RA:
Art and Society in 18th-Century Britain
RA Summer School Course, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2–6 August 2022
Angelica Kauffmann, Portrait of Lady Georgiana, Lady Henrietta Frances, and George John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, 1774, oil on canvas, 127 × 102 cm (Althorp House, Northamptonshire).
Immerse yourself in the Age of Enlightenment—its art, culture and society—at the historic Royal Academy.
The week-long course offers a grand tour of British art and society, with introductions to the artists, sitters, and collectors who defined the period. We look at the work of Hogarth, Reynolds, Kauffmann, and Turner, their impact on British society, and their lasting legacies. We meet some of the famous characters that defined the first age of celebrity via their portraits: Lord Burlington, the Duchess of Devonshire, the Prince of Wales, and Emma Hamilton.
We start the tour in London and look at the factors that resulted in the creation of the Royal Academy of Arts itself in 1768 and then widen our reach to explore ideas of Britishness and the English landscape; British relationships with its European neighbours, most notably their old enemy, France; and finishing at the dawn of the 19th century, embracing a newly global perspective, encompassing ideas of empire, travel, and exploration. The course covers numerous mediums and genres—from architecture to landscape—and the great European movements of the period: Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classicism, and Romanticism. The week is comprised of talks, seminars, and discussions based at the Royal Academy’s iconic 18th-century home, Burlington House, and will include access to many of London’s greatest art collections. The course is led by a broad range of experts and encourages a collaborative and discursive environment. After completing the course, participants will have a strong understanding of both the art and culture of the 18th century and the lasting impact that the Age of Enlightenment had on future generations of artists and their works.
Covid-19 update: We are looking forward to welcoming you back in a way that ensures everyone’s safety. Numbers will be limited to allow for social distancing, and we will be following the latest government guidelines. In the event of another national lockdown or enforced closure, we reserve the right to move this event online or to a future date. If you have any questions or concerns, or would like to discuss any accessibility needs, please contact academic.programmes@royalacademy.org.uk.
The course fee is £1,800, which includes all materials, light refreshments each day, and drinks receptions throughout the week. Minimum age 18.
Speakers
Dan Cruickshank is a writer, art historian, architectural consultant, and broadcaster who has made numerous history and culture programmes and series for the BBC including Around the World in Eighty Treasures, Adventures in Architecture, and Britain’s Royal Palaces. His books include London: The Art of Georgian Building, Life in the Georgian City, and The Secret History of Georgian London: How the Sex Industry Shaped the Capital. Dan is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Artists, a member of the Executive Committee of the Georgian Group, and on the Architectural Panel of the National Trust, and is an Honorary Fellow of RIBA.
Jacqueline Riding is the author of Jacobites (2016), Peterloo (2018), and the major biography Hogarth: Life in Progress (2021). She was the historical and art historical adviser on Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner (2014) and Peterloo (2018) and is a trustee of JMW Turner’s House, Twickenham.
Charles Saumarez Smith was Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy from 2007 to 2018 and is now Professor of Architectural History. He was trained as an architectural historian at King’s College, Cambridge and did a PhD at the Warburg Institute on the architecture of Castle Howard, published in 1990 as The Building of Castle Howard. He has been Slade Professor at Oxford University, is an Honorary Professor at Queen Mary University, and architecture correspondent for The Critic.
Mark Pomeroy has been Archivist of the Royal Academy since 1998. He completed post-graduate training in Archive Administration at Aberystwyth University in 1996 and was then appointed the first ever records manager to the UK Parliament. Mark has written extensively on subjects bearing on the history of the Royal Academy, most recently making contributions to the History of the Royal Academy and the Paul Mellon Centre’s Summer Exhibition Chronicle. His edited Letters of James Northcote (co-authored with Jonathan Yarker) is forthcoming. Mark sits of the Archives & Heritage Committee of BAFTA and is a regular lecturer for The Archives Skills Consultancy.
Martin Postle is Senior Research Fellow Paul Mellon Centre, and formerly the Deputy Director for Grants and Publications. Between 1998 and 2007 he worked at Tate as Senior Curator and Head of British Art to 1900. Martin’s publications include Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Subject Pictures (1995), Gainsborough (2002), and, with David Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings (2000). Among the exhibitions he has curated are Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity (Tate Britain and Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara 2005) and Johan Zoffany, RA: Society Observed (Yale Center for British Art and the Royal Academy of Arts, London 2011–12). Martin is currently in the early stages of preparing a catalogue raisonne of the oil paintings of Joseph Wright of Derby, to be published by the Paul Mellon Centre.
Rebecca Lyons is the Director of Collections & Learning at the Royal Academy with a remit covering the Collection, Library & Archive, Learning and Academic Programmes. For the last three years Rebecca has been Director of the Attingham Trust’s prestigious Royal Collection Studies for museum directors, curators, and art-world professionals based at Windsor Castle. She was Curator for the National Trust at Knole and Ightham Mote. Prior to this, Rebecca was Director of the Fine & Decorative Art MLitt and MA programmes at Christie’s Education, London/University of Glasgow where she taught for fifteen years. Rebecca sits on the steering committee for the Society for the History of Collecting and is chair of a large Academy Trust in East London. Educated at Oxford, the Courtauld, and Cambridge, Rebecca is the author most recently of an essay on 18th-century collector Welbore Ellis Agar for Getty Publications (2019) and a chapter for the Royal Collection exhibition catalogue George IV: Art and Spectacle (2019).
Will Iron is a cultural historian with interests in the fashion, art, and literature of the eighteenth century. He is Academic Programmes Manager at the Royal Academy of Arts, where he leads the ongoing series of art and cultural history courses, lectures, and academic conferences. Previously he worked at the British Fashion Council. He studied at Central Saint Martins and King’s College London.
Anne Lyles, an expert on British landscape painting, worked at Tate Britain for 25 years. Co-curator of the RA’s Late Constable exhibition, Anne also co-curated Constable: The Great Landscapes (Tate Britain and other venues, 2006–07) and Constable Portraits (National Portrait Gallery and Compton Verney, 2009), as well as advising on Constable and Brighton (Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, 2017).
Marcia Pointon is Professor Emerita in History of Art at the University of Manchester and Research Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She is author of Brilliant Effects: A Cultural History of Gem Stones and Jewellery (2009) and Rocks, Ice, and Dirty Stones: Diamond Histories (2017). Her work on portraiture has appeared in a wide number of scholarly journals over many years as well as in three monographs: Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (1993, now available on open access on the YUP A&Ae portal), Strategies for Showing: Women, Possession, and Representation 1665–1800 (1997), and Portrayal and the Search for Identity (2013). Marcia is also author of a popular guide to art history for students, now in its fifth edition: History of Art: A Students’ Handbook.
S.I. Martin works with museums, archives, and the education sector to bring diverse histories to wider audiences. As a museums consultant and curator he has worked with and for the Black Cultural Archives, National Maritime Museum, the V&A, Tate Britain, London Metropolitan Archives, National Portrait Gallery, Horniman Museum, the National Archives, RAF Museum, Wellcome Trust, and others. He has published five books of historical fiction and non-fiction for adult and teenage readers.
Clare Brant is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture at King’s College London, where she co-directs the Centre for Life-Writing Research. Her most recent scholarly book is Balloon Madness: Flights of Imagination in Britain, 1783–1786 (2017). She has co-edited nine essay collections and published widely on eighteenth-century and contemporary subjects. She has a Leverhulme Major Research Award (2022–25) for a forthcoming book, Underwater Lives: Humans, Species, Oceans. Clare is also a poet; her fourth collection, Breathing Space, was published by Shoestring Press in 2020.
Jonny Yarker, a leading dealer in British art, has written extensively on British art of the eighteenth century and the Grand Tour in particular. He is currently working on a book-length study of the British community in Rome entitled Savage Pilgrims: Rome and the Grand Tour, 1750–1798.
Christo Kefalas is a cultural anthropologist and art history researcher. Since 2018, she has worked for the National Trust, currently as the Senior Curator of Global and Inclusive Histories. She leads on institutional advice for the care and display of collections originating outside of Europe, while also promoting the greater global connectivity of all Trust collections. Christo was an editor and author of the Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties Now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery (2020). Her PhD from the University of Oxford focused on 19th-century Māori artefacts and a photography collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum. Christo brings an anthropological perspective on history and diverse cultural experiences to her public curation practice, acknowledging the importance of identity and power in society. She has worked as a curator for collections at The British Museum, Great North Museum Newcastle, and the Horniman Museum, where she managed the curatorial delivery of the permanent World Cultures Gallery in South London.
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