Exhibition | Le Petit Salon
Now on view at the Middlebury College Museum of Art:
Le Petit Salon: The Journey of an 18th-Century Room from Paris to Vermont
Middlebury College Museum of Art, 8 July — 7 December 2025
The Middlebury College Museum of Art possesses a jewel of French neoclassicism, Le Petit Salon, a delicately painted, paneled room made around 1776 for a Parisian mansion. It was designed by Pierre-Adrien Pâris ( 1745–1819), subsequently the architect of court fêtes for Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. His client was the duc d’Aumont, a renowned collector and patron of the arts, who had the panels installed in his Paris home, now the Hôtel de Crillon on Place de La Concorde. Gifted to Middlebury in 1959, but held in storage since the 1990s, the room will be reassembled for the first time in three decades.
The exhibition follows the journey of Le Petit Salon from Paris to Middlebury via Manhattan, where for fifty years it formed part of the decor of the Bliss family’s Gilded Age mansion. At Middlebury, the Petit Salon became part of Le Château, the college’s French language dorm, itself a fanciful recreation of a 16th-century Norman manoir. The exhibition incorporates Pâris’s 1776 exquisite watercolor elevations of Aumont’s mansion, as well as studies from his long educational sojourn in Rome and Naples. Included in the exhibition are loans from Bowdoin College, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and the Fine Arts Museum of Besançon.
Gabriel Wick, Le Petit Salon: The Journey of an 18th-Century Room from Paris to Vermont (Saint-Remy-en-l’Eau: Monelle Hayot, 2025), 192 pages, €35.
Exhibition | Valkenburg — Willem de Rooij
Dirk Valkenburg, Study of Cashews, Maracujas, a Tropical Chicken Snake, and an Ameiva Lizard from Suriname, detail, 1706–08, oil on canvas, 40 × 48 cm (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper).
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Now on view at Utrecht’s Centraal Museum:
Valkenburg — Willem de Rooij
Centraal Museum Utrecht, 13 September 2025 — 25 January 2026
Dirk Valkenburg (1675–1721) was one of the first Europeans to depict Indigenous and enslaved people on Surinamese plantations, while also painting hunting still lifes and portraits of Dutch elites. The breadth of his oeuvre makes it particularly relevant for research into colonial image production and the ‘white gaze’. In this installation, Willem de Rooij displays 30 works in idiosyncratic combinations, inviting reflection on how these 18th-century Dutch elites used art to support and legitimise colonial ideology.
Since the early 1990s, Willem de Rooij (b. 1969) has created temporary installations in that explore the politics of representation through appropriation and collaboration. In 2005, he represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale and has since exhibited in leading museums worldwide. A distinctive feature of his practice is the reuse and rearrangement of existing images and objects, often based on in-depth art-historical and cultural research. In doing so, he creates new meanings between diverse visual elements. Recent exhibitions include King Vulture (Akademie der Künste, Vienna) and Pierre Verger in Suriname (Portikus, Frankfurt). De Rooij teaches in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Amsterdam and lectures internationally.
The exhibition will be accompanied by the first comprehensive publication on Dirk Valkenburg’s oeuvre: a catalogue raisonné developed in collaboration with the RKD–Netherlands Institute for Art History. This volume, edited by Willem de Rooij and Karwan Fatah-Black—historian and expert in Dutch colonial history, (Leiden University)—includes new essays by international scholars and thinkers from various disciplines, including art history, anthropology, postcolonial, and queer studies.
Conference | Lost Cities in a Global Perspective
From ArtHist.net:
Lost Cities in a Global Perspective:
Sources, Experience, and Imagery, 15th–18th Centuries
University of Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’, Caserta, 16–17 October 2025
Organized by Giulia Ceriani Sebregondi, Francesca Mattei, and Danila Jacazzi
In conjunction with the Research Project “The Vesuvian Lost Cities before the ‘Discovery’: Sources, Experience, and Imagery in Early Modern Period” (VeLoCi)
Many cities, all over the world, have disappeared over the centuries, abandoned—but perhaps never forgotten—destroyed by natural disasters or buried under new urban layers, re-emerging for different reasons. Fascinating historians, explorers, archaeologists, architects, and artists, the ‘lost cities’—both literally and metaphorically—have continued to exist in literary sources, descriptions, chronicles, and sometimes in iconographic representations. Starting from the case study of the Vesuvian cities, this international conference will investigate in an interdisciplinary and comparative way the material and imaginary dimensions assumed by the lost cities in a global perspective, before the birth of archaeology as a science in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The full program is available here»
t h u r s d a y , 1 6 o c t o b e r
10.00 Welcome
10.30 Session One | Textual Sources for the Reconstruction of Lost Cities
Chair: Giulia Ceriani Sebregondi (Università degli Studi della Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’)
• Il territorio di Pompei in età moderna — Danila Jacazzi (Università degli Studi della Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’)
• In Search of the Lost Palace: The First Attempts at an Ideal Reconstruction of Diocletian’s Palace in Split — Josip Belamarić (Institute of Art History in Split; Department of Art History, University of Split)
• Pirro Ligorio e le città vesuviane — Francesca Mattei (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)
11.30 Coffee Break
12.00 Session One, continued
• Views of Palmyra in the 17th and 18th Centuries — Gregorio Astengo (IE School of Architecture and Design, Madrid/Segovia)
• Il mito etrusco nelle narrazioni dell’origine delle città campane scomparse — Concetta Lenza (Università degli Studi della Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’)
13.10 Light Lunch
14.10 Session Two | Lost Cities between Antiquarian Research and Material Exploration
Chair: Francesca Mattei (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)
• ‘Certi belli sassi et prede piccade antiquissime’: il Lapidarium quattrocentesco di Brescia — Alessandro Brodini (Università degli Studi di Firenze)
• When Were the Vesuvian Lost Cities Discovered? Traces and Evidence about Ancient Stabiae in the Early Modern Period — Giulia Ceriani Sebregondi (Università degli Studi della Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’)
• La rocca Paolina di Perugia: una città sepolta che ha custodito la memoria della città medievale — Paolo Belardi (Università degli Studi di Perugia), Francesca Funis (Università degli Studi di Perugia)
15.10 Tea Break
15.40 Session Two, continued
• Beneath Resina: Traces of Herculaneum before the Excavations — Giorgia Pietropaolo (Università degli Studi della Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’)
• Il luogo del convento francescano di San Gabriel a Cholula (Messico) — Daniel Fernando Macìas Parra (Università Iuav di Venezia)
• Da Corpus Civitatis a casale collinare: Distruzioni e rifondazioni della Città Nova dell’Annunziata di Massa Lubrense — Giuseppe Pignatelli Spinazzola (Università degli Studi della Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’)
f r i d a y , 1 7 o c t o b e r
9.30 Session Three | Visual Culture and Cartography, Travel, and Exploration Reports
Chair: Alessandro Brodini (Università degli Studi di Firenze)
• The City of Soltaniyeh in Northern Iran — Lorenzo Vigotti (Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna)
• Percorrendo le città vesuviane di XV e XVI secolo tra narrazione e osservazione dell’antico — Giorgia Aureli (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)
• Phantom Cities of the Living Library: The Early Modern Imagining of Amazonian Urbanscapes — Juan Carlos Mantilla (King’s College London)
10.30 Coffee Break
11.00 Session Three, continued
• La presenza delle città sepolte nella produzione vedutistica cinque e seicentesca — Milena Viceconte (Universitat de Lleida)
• La morte o la sopravvivenza della città antica per eccellenza: Atene osservata da Cornelio Magni (1674), viaggiatore parmigiano nel mondo ottomano — Alper Metin (I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies)
• La riscoperta delle città perdute in Abruzzo nel periodo del Grand Tour — Diletta Haberl (Università degli Studi dell’Aquila)
• La ‘riscoperta’ della città maya di Palenque: vedute e interpretazioni tra il XVIII e XIX secolo — Arianna Campiani (Sapienza Università di Roma)
12.50 Light Lunch
13.50 Session Four | Myth, Imaginary, and Cultural Memory
Chair: Milena Viceconte (Universitat de Lleida)
• Frammenti di Roma perduta: l’immagine della Domus Aurea nella prima età moderna — Federica Causarano (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)
• Hochelaga’s Transatlantic Afterlife, 1535–1678 (Canada) — Lorenzo Gatta (I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies)
• Gladiators in Altera Roma: Tenochtitlan in the European Imagination (Mexico) — Delia Cosentino (DePaul University, Chicago)
14.50 Tea Break
15.20 Session Four, continued
• L’oro, le conchiglie, l’assenza: identità e memoria della Taranto ‘perduta’ negli appunti di viaggiatori europei ed eruditi tra Settecento e Ottocento — Stefania Castellana (Università del Salento)
• Costantinopoli ‘seconda Pompei’: il mito della città sepolta dai Patria Costantinopolitana alla letteratura odeporica di epoca moderna — Maria Carolina Campone (Scuola Militare ‘Nunziatella’ di Napoli)
• The Lost City of Oyo-Ile in Yoruba Cultural Memory and Identity — Adekunle Adeyemo (Redeemer’s University, Ede, Nigeria)
16.50 Closing Roundtable — Giulia Ceriani Sebregondi, Francesca Mattei, Danila Jacazzi
Call for Papers | Decentring Europe: Nordic–Iberian Histories
From ArtHist.net and the Call for Papers:
Decentring Europe: Nordic–Iberian Histories in Transregional Perspective
University of Gothenburg, 21–22 May 2026
Proposals due by 15 November 2025
We are writing to announce the Call for Papers for the fourth workshop of SWESP, the International Research Network on Iberian–Nordic Contacts throughout History. The workshop is free of charge, and we offer partial bursaries to cover travel costs for doctoral students and early-career researchers with limited access to funding.
This interdisciplinary conference will explore the multifaceted connections and entanglements between the Nordic and Iberian worlds. Moving beyond traditional centre-periphery and modernisation narratives, the event aims to foster dialogue on how exchanges across these regions have shaped diplomatic, economic, political, and cultural networks from the late medieval period to the contemporary era. We welcome approaches from comparative and transnational history, histoire croisée (entangled history), and other interdisciplinary frameworks that examine both the continental lands and the overseas territories of these regions.
We invite contributions from a wide range of disciplines, including history, literature, arts, philosophy, and the social sciences. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
• Cross-regional diplomatic, religious, and military networks
• Movements of people, goods, and ideas; political exile and migration
• Comparative studies of governance, reform, and military/maritime infrastructures
• Cultural exchange, translation, and artistic reception; knowledge production and scientific transfer
• Comparative gender, family, and welfare structures
• Environmental and climatic histories
• Transregional solidarities and intellectual entanglements
We encourage submissions that focus on specific historical periods or adopt cross-temporal perspectives. The workshop aims to illuminate the shared questions and conceptual paradigms that emerge from studying the Nordic and Iberian regions in relation to one another. Proposals should be sent as a Word or PDF document containing a title, a short abstract (maximum 250 words), and the author’s name and affiliation to the organisers at swespnet@gmail.com by 15 November 2025. The results of the selection process will be communicated by 15 December 2025. If you wish to request a bursary, please include a short motivation letter (maximum 250 words) explaining how attending the workshop may impact your career, with details of available funding.
Organising Committee
A. Jorge Aguilera-López (University of Helsinki), Enrique J. Corredera Nilsson (University of Bern), Lucila Mallart (Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona), Kenneth Nyberg (University of Gothenburg), Ingmar Söhrman (University of Gothenburg)
Print Quarterly, September 2025
David Lucas, after John Constable, A Mill, 1829, mezzotint, 182 × 250 mm
(Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, inv. P.145-1954)
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The long eighteenth century in the latest issue of Print Quarterly:
Print Quarterly 42.3 (September 2025)
a r t i c l e s
• Elenor Ling and Harry Metcalf, “John Constable’s Working Relationship with David Lucas on the English Landscape Series,” pp. 272–85. This article examines the collaborative partnership between John Constable (1776–1837) and his engraver David Lucas (1802–81) using the mezzotint print series English Landscape as a case study, based particularly on the technical examination of various impressions and plates.
• Niklas Leverenz, “Lithographs from Shanghai of the East Turkestan Engravings, 1890,” pp. 301–06. This short article examines the popularity of the East Turkestan engravings depicting the 1755–60 Qianlong Emperor’s conquest. Leverenz specifically discusses a set of 34 photolithographs printed in 1890 by the photographer Herman Salzwedel (active c. 1877–1904) in Shanghai.
n o t e s a n d r e v i e w s
Claude Gillot, The Speculator Raised by Fortune to the Highest Degree of Wealth and Abundance, 1710–11, counterproof of engraving, with additions in red chalk, 255 × 220 mm (Paris, Private collection).
J.-Louis Darcis, after Guillaume Lethière, Portrait of Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1795, engraving, platemark 355 × 305 mm, page 440 × 320 mm (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France).
• Dagmar Korbacher, Review of Andaleeb Badiee Banta, Alexa Griest and Theresa Kutasz Christiensen, eds., Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400–1800 (Goose Lane Editions, 2023), pp. 307–10.
• Daniel Godfrey, Review of Gwendoline de Mûelenaere, Early Modern Thesis Prints in the Southern Netherlands: An Iconological Analysis of the Relationship between Art, Science, and Power (Université Catholique de Louvain, 2022), pp. 310–12.
• Meredith M. Hale, Review of Julie Farguson, Visualising Protestant Monarchy: Ceremony, Art and Politics after the Glorious Revolution, 1689–1714 (The Boydell Press, 2021), pp. 313–15.
• Rena M. Hoisington, Review of Jennifer Tonkovich, Claude Gillot: Satire in the Age of Reason (Paul Holberton, 2023), pp. 315–17.
• Michael Snodin, Review of Orsola Braides, Giovanni Maria Fara, and Alessia Giachery, eds., L’arte di tradurre l’arte: John Baptist Jackson incisore nella Venezia del Settecento (Leo S. Olschki, 2024), pp. 317–19.
• Benito Navarrete Prieto, Review of Ana Hernández Pugh and José Manuel Matilla, Del lapicero al buril. El dibujo para grabar en tiempos de Goya (Museo del Prado, 2023), pp. 320–24.
• Giorgio Marini, Review of Ilaria Miarelli Mariani, Tiziano Casola, Valentina Fraticelli, Vanda Lisanti, and Laura Palombaro, eds., La storia dell’arte illustrata e la stampa di traduzione tra il XVIII e il XIV secolo (Campisano Editore, 2022), pp. 324–28.
• Julie Mellby, Review of Roberta J. M. Olson, Audubon as Artist: A New Look at The Birds of America (Reaktion Books, 2024), pp. 328–29.
• Thea Goldring, Review of Esther Bell and Olivier Meslay, eds., Guillaume Lethière (Clark Art Institute, 2024), pp. 347–52.
Exhibition | William Blake: Burning Bright
William Blake, The Tyger (Plate 42, from Songs of Innocence and of Experience), detail, 1794, color-printed relief etching with hand coloring in watercolor (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection).
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Now on view at YCBA:
William Blake: Burning Bright
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 26 August — 30 November 2025
Curated by Elizabeth Wyckoff and Timothy Young
One of the most compelling figures in the history of British art and poetry, William Blake (1757–1827) developed an idiosyncratic worldview during a tumultuous era that witnessed the American and French Revolutions. He expressed his radical perspectives on religious belief, politics, and society through highly original illuminated books, watercolors, paintings, and poetry. This exhibition showcases the Yale Center for British Art’s impressive collection of works by Blake, with special focus on the inventive hand-printed publications that bring to life his poetry and prophecies.
The YCBA’s extensive holdings include Blake’s most innovative and celebrated books, such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789–94) and The First Book of Urizen (1794). Blake’s mastery of watercolor painting and his phenomenal imaginative powers are evident in the one-of-a-kind illustrations for The Poems of Thomas Gray (between 1797 and 1798) and in the only fully hand-colored version of his culminating poem, the 100-page Jerusalem (1804–20). This stunning presentation highlights the artist’s ambitious vision and skill, as well as his unparalleled contributions to art, literature, and spirituality.
Born in London at a time of major social change and upheaval, Blake aspired to be an artist and a poet from a young age. During his apprenticeship, he developed an elegant black-and-white engraving style that he deployed in both commissioned and original prints and book illustrations. He is best known for devising an unorthodox technique to create colorful illuminated books that merged his poetry and his art. His most notable innovation was a method for printing text and image from a single copper plate. Blake’s work was largely unacknowledged during his lifetime, yet today his striking imagery and stirring words are widely celebrated.
Blake, the second volume in the YCBA’s Collection Series, examines the art and methods of William Blake through the lens of one of the great collections of his work. Written by Elizabeth Wyckoff, with an essay by Sarah T. Weston, the book features exquisite reproductions of his paintings, watercolors, prints, and illustrated books, including the only hand-colored copy of his epic poem Jerusalem.
Elizabeth Wyckoff, Blake (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2025), 136 pages, ISBN: 978-0300284577, $40. With an essay by Sarah Weston.
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Programs exploring multiple dimensions of Blake’s life, work, and legacy will accompany the exhibition. Please visit britishart.yale.edu for the most up-to-date information.
Opening Celebration
Thursday, September 4, 4pm
A conversation with exhibition curators Elizabeth Wyckoff, Curator of Prints and Drawings, and Timothy Young, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, followed by gallery talks and a reception.
The Enduring Influence of William Blake
Thursday, October 30, 5pm
Author John Higgs will talk with Timothy Young, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts.
Songs from the Imagination: Music Inspired by the Poetry of William Blake
Thursday, November 20, 5pm
Yale Voxtet, the Institute of Sacred Music’s select group of graduate student singers, will perform in the Library Court.
Create Community: Imagined Worlds in the Art of William Blake and Hew Locke
Thursdays, October 2, 16, and 23, 5:30pm
This three-part workshop will explore William Blake: Burning Bright and Hew Locke: Passages through a close investigation of material and process. Enrollment is limited to twelve people, and preregistration is required.
Curator Tours
Thursdays, September 18, October 30, and November 20, 4pm
Docent Tours
Saturdays, 3pm
Exhibition | Nusantara: Six Centuries of Indonesian Textiles
Ceremonial Weaving (Palu), late 18th–early 19th century, cotton, warp-faced plain weave, warp ikat, made in Sulawesi, Indonesia, 195 × 154 cm (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Robert J. Holmgren and Anita E. Spertus, 2017.48.4).
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From the press release for the exhibition:
Nusantara: Six Centuries of Indonesian Textiles
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 12 September 2025 — 11 January 2026
Organized by Ruth Barnes with the assistance of Arielle Winnik
Celebrating the largest collection of Indonesian textiles in the Western Hemisphere
The Yale University Art Gallery is pleased to present Nusantara: Six Centuries of Indonesian Textiles, a sweeping exhibition that celebrates the elaborate textile heritage of Indonesia and explores the ancient interisland links found in this vast maritime region. Presenting more than 100 examples of unparalleled craftsmanship and artistic innovation, the exhibition offers a singular opportunity to dive deep into the cultural and historical significance of one of the finest collections of Indonesian textiles in the Western Hemisphere.
The wide array of textiles from the 14th to the 20th century displayed in the exhibition are drawn from the Gallery’s holdings. Central to the Gallery’s Department of Indo-Pacific Art, the textile collection boasts approximately 1200 examples from Indonesia and Sarawak (Malaysia). Significant pieces include over 600 textiles originally acquired by Robert J. Holmgren and Anita E. Spertus, later presented to the Gallery by Thomas Jaffe. This group features weaving from maritime Southeast Asia, where textiles are not just artistic creations but serve an important role in ceremonies and rituals. They also embody gender roles and social status, reflecting the wearer’s identity and heritage.
The Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi hold an important place within the Gallery’s collection, counting more than 200 and 100 examples each, respectively. The remainder of the collection encompasses textiles from regions throughout Indonesia, showcasing the country’s rich cultural diversity.
Indonesia has historically been at the crossroads of major trade routes, resulting in a blend of Indigenous and foreign influences. In the 10th and 11th centuries, Indonesian textiles began to show the Influence of Indian designs. The impact of Chinese and later Islamic cultures is also evident, yet these borrowed motifs were transformed into distinctively Indonesian traditions. Drawing its title from the original name for the Indonesian archipelago, Nusantara, the exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to view the full range of rich imagery and technical mastery of this remarkable art form.
The exhibition is made possible by Hunter Thompson, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, and the Robert Lehman, B.A. 1913, Endowment Fund. It was organized by Ruth Barnes, the Thomas Jaffe Curator of Indo-Pacific Art, with the assistance of Arielle Winnik, the Donna Torrance Assistant Curator of Indo-Pacific Art.
Call for Papers | Diplomatic Gifts
Mughal Artist, Europeans Bring Gifts to Shah-Jahan (July 1633), detail ca. 1635–50, 34 × 24 cm
(Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 1005025.t).
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From the Call for Papers (which includes French and Italian versions) . . .
Diplomatic Gifts in the Modern and Contemporary Eras:
Definitions, Changes, and Patrimonialisation on a Global Scale
French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, Rome, 2-3 March 2026
Proposals due by 15 October 2025
The eloquent evidence of peaceful trade, diplomatic gifts have been the subject of significant research in recent decades. Following Marcel Mauss’s seminal work on the anthropology of gift-giving, historians of modern diplomacy (Frigo; Bély) have focused on the material and political contexts in which intercultural and interreligious exchanges have taken place. While connected history has taken significant objects as its landmarks (Subrahmanyam; Gruzinski; Cooke), art history (Castelluccio; Rado) has profitably focused on the relationships between diplomacy and trade, on technical and artistic transfers, and on circuits and actors, particularly from the perspective of the involvement of royal, imperial or national factories. Researchers have placed strong emphasis on case studies in specific areas of exchange or types of gifts. More recently, legal historians have analysed how contemporary regulations have sought to replace frequent corrupt practices with transparency.
Using connected, material and post-colonial art histories, as well as cultural anthropology and museography, this symposium wishes to better understand these ‘ambassador objects’ (Kasarhérou) in their semantic richness, materiality and temporalities, and to consider the fertile ‘rhizomes’ (Bachir Diagne) that they fertilise in other territories. The aim of this reflection is, first of all, to take a fresh look at the definitions and sometimes tenuous distinctions between diplomatic gifts, tributary presents and spoils of war, commemorative commissions or creations, as well as their different roles (symbolic, emotional, pacifying, political, etc.) in the institution of international relations and the ritualisation of exchanges, by combining especially anthropology and political history. The aim is to analyze, by comparing narratives, the status they have on both sides of the chain, in various contexts.
The cultural practice of friendship gifts immediately raises the question of the conditions under which they are commissioned and produced, as well as the symbolic value of the materials. As studies articulating history of diplomacy and history of trade (Zhao and Simon; Schaub; Guerzoni) have demonstrated, gifts solicit support from local skills and crafts, as well as factories, or innovative technologies, while also promoting, legitimising and celebrating the high level of mastery of their producers, echoing in this way the prosperity and perfect governance of the territory that produced them. Concerning the creators, they may be employed by the powerful, or even benefit, as autonomous artists, from competition between princes. In some cases, particularly in interfaith relations, the emissaries themselves may be involved in the creation of these gifts. Alongside the use of traditional Indigenous productions or commissioned works, the potential use of hybrid objects or ‘border objects’ will also be examined—objects that carry acclimated external cultures and embody multiple layers of meaning, such as dynastic gifts. By addressing the choice of objects and their materiality in the light of economic and socio-cultural phenomena, and without neglecting the history of religion and the weight of ideologies, the conference aims to compare the order processes, the methods of adaptation and the balance between norms and freedoms, by recontextualising practices and examining the underlying strategies of domination.
If the uniqueness of a ceremonial gift lies in the richness and sophistication of its message, which simultaneously represents the giver and is tailored to the recipient, in the magnificence of its execution or material, but also in the ritual of its presentation, the typologies of chosen objects are many: official portraits, carpets, militaria, tableware, naturalia, costumes, jewellery and watches, religious or apotropaic objects, or even animals and court dwarfs, etc. The presentations will explore a variety of cases and will pay particular attention to certain specific objects that are, by their very nature, diplomatic gifts, such as presentation portraits, medals, handsteinen, or peace pipes.
Considering the long history of diplomatic relations, the conference aims above all to fully analyse the evolving agency of gifts, from the strengthening of princely dynastic alliances to the consolidation of nation states, as well as the way in which the objects offered construct and potentially reconfigure links. How do these objects fit into a policy of gift-giving, whether serial or renewed over time? According to what rituals must these witnesses, which seal the agreement, themselves reactivate the alliance (counter-gift, reconnection journey, etc.)? How are they perceived and understood a few years after they were offered, and when they become part of discourses on patrimonialisation, especially in places dedicated to their collective conservation, which are themselves, in turn, active tools? What reflections about space and display accompany these objects, with what staging, visual strategies, and what use of materials during the diplomatic encounter, and once they have been deposited with the recipient? What discourses and narratives do they represent? Furthermore, what happens to gifts that do not reach their intended recipients, and what is their symbolic impact? Some gifts, testimonies of peaceful ties, have been appropriated by other dominant, colonising or occupying powers: what were the sometimes complex circuits, cultural or propagandistic issues, and effects of semantic transfers?
The conference, hosted by the Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis, will also benefit from visits to relevant sites and collections and from a comparison with contemporary practices of protocol exchanges. It will debate from polycentric perspectives, encouraging cross-views on the phenomena and analysing sources bilaterally or multilaterally. Particularly welcome, without exclusions, are contributions focusing on enlarged geographical frameworks (from the Viceroyalty of New Spain to the Mughal or Chinese courts, from Versailles or Venice to Topkapi or Damascus, from the court of the Oba to that of Portugal, etc.) and shedding light on the following themes:
• Diplomatic gifts, their variations, and definitions
• The conditions under which gifts were made and the role of intermediaries (artists, princes, ministers, diplomats, protocol officers, building superintendents, merchants, etc.)
• The object’s lives, its staging and locations (palaces, studioli, cabinets of curiosities, galleries, official salons, etc.), ephemeral decorations, and architecture
• The meanings of the offering in context and its impact on international relations, the links between diplomatic gifts and commercial or religious strategies
• Analysis of representations, in all their forms, of exchanges of gifts (diplomatic embassies, Christian missions, ecumenical meetings, alliances, dynastic celebrations, translation ceremonies, etc.)
• The variety of commemorations of the gift (including discursive and spectacular forms) and cross-analysis of visual, literary, and historical narratives
• Patrimonialisation of diplomatic gifts: from princely collections to missionary, ethnographic, national, presidential, or transnational museums
• The evolution of gifts in relation to diplomatic practices (codification, professionalisation)
• Aborted gifts and unexpected captures, the authentication and falsification of diplomatic gifts with their material traces, provenance research on diplomatic gifts
• Diplomatic donations in the context of regulatory practices (sumptuary laws, transparency policies, etc.)
Interested researchers should send a proposal for a paper with a title and abstract (maximum 3000 characters) and a biographical presentation (maximum 5–10 lines) with their current affiliation to the following addresses by 15 October 2025: natachapernac@yahoo.fr; valqhristova@yahoo.fr; and patrizia.celli@villamedici.it. Proposals and papers may be submitted in French, Italian, or English. The organisation will cover the accommodation and meals of the speakers and will help in finding financial support for their travel expenses.
Organizing Committee
• Patrizia Celli, assistante chargée des colloques et du secrétariat du Département d’histoire de l’art – référente archives, Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis
• Alessandro Gallicchio, directeur du Département d’histoire de l’art, Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis
• Valentina Hristova, maîtresse de conférences en histoire de l’art moderne, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens
• Natacha Pernac, maîtresse de conférences en histoire de l’art moderne, Université Paris-Nanterre
Scientific Committee
• Lucien Bély, professeur émérite d’histoire moderne, Paris, Sorbonne Université, membre de l’Institut, Académie des sciences morales et politiques
• Francesco Freddolini, Professore associato di storia dell’arte moderna, Rome, Sapienza – Università di Roma
• Serge Gruzinski, directeur de recherche émérite en histoire, Paris, CNRS / EHESS
• Guido Guerzoni, historian and economist, adjunct professor, Milan, Università Luigi Bocconi
• Mei Mei Rado, Assistant Professor of Textile and Dress History, New York, Bard Graduate Center
Call for Articles | Mexican Art in Europe, 16th–21st Centuries
From ArtHist.net:
Mexican Art and Its Collections in Europe, 16th–21st Centuries: Interwoven Histories
Edited volume in preparation for submission
Proposals due by 31 October 2025; completed papers will be due by 28 February 2026
We invite contributions to an edited volume that will explore the histories, meanings, and trajectories of Mexican art in European contexts, from the early modern period to the present day. Building on the discussions initiated at the international conference Mexican Art and Its Collections in Europe (16th–21st Centuries): Interwoven Histories (2025), this book seeks to highlight the complexities of artistic transfer, collection, display, and reception of Mexican art across the continent. While Mexican-European artistic relations have often been studied in connection with major Western European centers, we particularly welcome perspectives that address Central and Eastern Europe as crucial—though often overlooked—sites of collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting Mexican art.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
• The circulation of Mexican artworks and objects in Europe from the 16th century onwards
• European collecting practices and their political, colonial, and cultural contexts
• Exhibitions of Mexican art in Europe and their impact on audiences and scholarship
• Transatlantic artistic exchanges between Mexico and Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries
• Cold War cultural diplomacy and Mexican art in Eastern and Central Europe
• Contemporary artistic dialogues, curatorial strategies, and institutional collaborations
• Methodological approaches to studying transcultural art histories
All contributions and abstracts should be submitted in English. Abstracts (max 300 words) and a short bio (max 150 words) should be submitted by 31 October 2025 to Dr. Emilia Kiecko, Institute of Art History, University of Wrocław, emilia.kiecko@uwr.edu.pl. Acceptance notification will be communicated by 15 November 2025. Full papers (6,000–8,000 words) will be due by 28 February 2026.
Conference | Impressions of Empire: Works on Paper
From ArtHist.net:
Impressions of Empire: Works on Paper as
Agents of Intermedial Translation and Cultural Exchange
Online and in-person, Colnaghi Gallery, London, 25–26 September 2025
The Colnaghi Foundation and Athena Art Foundation in London are delighted to host this symposium exploring how works on paper were used to construct meaning and identity, and engendered the intermediary exchange of artistic ideas during the period of global empire and colonisation. The symposium will be hosted both online and in the Colnaghi Gallery in London.
t h u r s d a y , 2 5 s e p t e m b e r , online and in-person
12.30 Arrival
13.00 Welcome
13.15 Session One
• Chloé Glass (Research Associate, Prints and Drawings, Art Institute of Chicago) — Decoding Stefano della Bella’s Etchings
• Eunice Yu (DPhil Candidate, University of Oxford) — Collecting and Constructing National Identity in Print: Translations of Empire from the Black Sea to the Adriatic
14:20 Coffee and Tea Break
14.45 Session Two
• Emily Cadger (PhD candidate, University of British Columbia and Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Western Washington) — Political Poppies and Beautiful Books: Illustrated Floral-hybrids as Interpreters of Empire in the Fin-de-siècle Children’s Books of Walter Crane
• Vivian Tong (Lecturer in Chinese Art History at the Hong Kong Baptist University) — Images of Nature in a Global Horticultural Expansion: Sketching a Story of Sino-European Commerce, Cultural Exchange, and Colonial Expansion with Chinese Export Watercolours in the 18th and 19th Centuries
• Joseph Litts (PhD Candidate, Department of Art & Archeology, Princeton University) — The Plantation Landscapes of Anna Atkins and Anne Dixon, online presentation
16.15 Break
16.30 Session Three
• Linda Mueller (Post-doctoral Researcher, University of Zurich) — Drawing the Contract: Visualizing Obligation in the Early Modern Mediterranean and Atlantic Worlds
• Gonzalo Munoz-Vera (Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech School of Architecture) — Rediscovering Latin America: Robert Burford’s Panorama of Lima (1834) through the Eyes of Lieutenant William Smyth, online presentation
17:45 Drinks
f r i d a y , 2 6 s e p t e m b e r , online only
11.00 Welcome
11.10 Session One
• Victoria Adams (PhD, the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau) — The Art of the Empire in the ‘Britain of the South’: Works on Paper in the British Art Section of the 1906–1907 New Zealand International Exhibition
• Chandni Jeswani (Art and Architectural Historian) — Mapping Kashi: Pilgrimage Cartographies and Colonial Translations on Paper
12.15 Break
12.45 Session Two
• Michael Hartman (Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth) — Collecting Portraits to Control Land in 18th-Century British North America
• Catherine Dossin (Associate Professor of Art History, Purdue University) — Harbors of Power: Maritime Identity and Colonial Ambition in 18th-Century French Prints
14.00 Break
14.30 Session Three
• Annemarie Iker (Lecturer in Writing, Princeton University) — Cuba and Catalan Modernisme
• Ashar (Usher) Mobeen (PhD Candidate, Western University) — Palimpsests of the Heavens: Empire, Epistemicide, and the Papered Sky
15.15 Closing Remarks
Enfilade 
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