Foundation of One of the Oldest Black Churches in U.S. Unearthed
Brick building foundation of the Baptist Meeting House, ca. 1800–18, Nassau Street, Williamsburg, 16 × 20 feet; the building was destroyed in 1834 by a tornado, with a new building being built on the site in 1856 (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
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From the press release (7 October 2021). . .
After a year of excavating the site of one of the nation’s oldest Black churches, Colonial Williamsburg’s archaeologists believe they have found what they and members of First Baptist Church have been searching for: the church’s first permanent structure dating to the early 1800s. The announcement—shared earlier this week with the descendant community—coincides with the church’s community-wide 245th anniversary celebration this weekend.
“The early history of our congregation, beginning with enslaved and free Blacks gathering outdoors in secret in 1776, has always been a part of who we are as a community. To see it unearthed—to see the actual bricks of that original foundation and the outline of the place our ancestors worshiped—brings that history to life and makes that piece of our identity tangible. After 245 years, this is a reason to truly celebrate,” said the Rev. Dr. Reginald F. Davis, pastor of First Baptist Church.
An 1817 penny and a group of straight pins recently unearthed at an archaeological dig at the site of the original First Baptist Church of Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia (Photo: Jason B. Copes/Colonial Williamsburg Foundation).
Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists have been digging since September 2020 at the site of the church’s original structure near the intersection of Nassau and Francis streets in Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area. The newly-identified 16 × 20-foot brick building foundation sits alongside a brick paving and on top of a layer of soil that dates to the early 1800s. Additional archaeological evidence, including an 1817 coin and a straight pin discovered under the paving, indicate that the foundation was constructed sometime in the first quarter of the 19th century. Tax records suggest that by 1818, the congregation was worshipping on the site in a building known as the Baptist Meeting House—in all likelihood, the congregation’s first permanent structure.
“We always hoped this is what we’d find,” said Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg’s director of archaeology. “Now we can move forward to better understand the footprint of the building. Is it the only structure on the site? What else was around it? What did it look like? How was it being used? This is really only the beginning.”
In addition to the original structure, Colonial Williamsburg’s archaeologists have discovered at least 25 confirmed human burials at the site. A community meeting is scheduled for October 30 for the descendant community to discuss next steps and make decisions regarding the investigation of the burial sites.
The physical remains of First Baptist’s original structure have been buried for 165 years, first under the foundation of a brick church building constructed in 1856 after the first church was destroyed by a tornado, and later under a parking lot that all-but silenced the remarkable history of the church. Over the past five years, that silence has been broken through an ongoing collaboration between the church and Colonial Williamsburg.
“Colonial Williamsburg is committed to telling a more complete and inclusive story of the men and women who lived, worked and worshiped here during our country’s formative years,” said Cliff Fleet, president and CEO of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. “The history of this congregation is a story that deserves to be at the forefront of our interpretation and education efforts, and we are honored to play a part in bringing that story to light.”
First Baptist Church, which relocated in 1956 to 727 Scotland Street, partnered with Colonial Williamsburg in 2016 to renovate the church’s historic bell, allowing it to ring that year for the first time since segregation. Now known as the Freedom Bell, its remarkable journey is recounted in the Let Freedom Ring Foundation’s new documentary film History Half Told is Untold, premiering Saturday, October 9, at 2pm and 6pm at the Hennage Auditorium as part of First Baptist Church’s 245th anniversary celebration. Tickets are free but must be reserved online.
Additional anniversary events include a ‘behind-the-fence’ tour of the Historic First Baptist Church archaeology site on Nassau Street on Saturday, October 9 from 10am to 4pm and an outdoor service on Sunday, October 10 at 11am, featuring Rev. Dr. Gwendolyn Boyd, the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra String Ensemble, and the First Baptist Church Chamber Choir. All events are open to the public.
“This discovery could not come at a better time,” said Connie Matthews Harshaw, a member of First Baptist Church and president of the Let Freedom Ring Foundation. “We are so excited to welcome both our church community and the local community back after a difficult year of closures, and the discovery of the original site of our church is such a beautiful reminder of the power of public history to tell stories that inspire and unite us.”
Excavation of the Nassau Street site will continue weekdays 9am to 4pm, weather permitting, as part of a multi-year project seeking information needed to accurately reconstruct the earliest version of the church’s first permanent structure, surrounding landscape and topography; to locate burials; and to learn about the worship experience of the church’s early congregants. The project is supported by generous gifts from the Lilly Endowment Inc., The Ford Foundation, the Richard S. Reynolds Foundation and multiple individual donors, including a $100,000 anonymous gift from Two Friends of History.
For more information on the history of First Baptist Church and details of Colonial Williamsburg’s previous work with the community on this archaeological project, read the 25 August 2020 press release announcing the project and the 14 January 2021 update.
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First Baptist Church was organized in 1776 by enslaved and free Blacks in defiance of laws of the day forbidding the congregation of African Americans. First led by the Rev. Moses, a free Black itinerant preacher, they built a brush arbor at Green Spring Plantation several miles from Williamsburg to gather secretly in song and prayer. Organized as Baptists by 1781 under the Rev. Gowan Pamphlet, an enslaved man in Williamsburg, worshipers moved to Raccoon Chase, a rural area just outside the city. Moved by their stirring hymns and heartfelt prayers, Jesse Cole, a member of the city’s White Cole family offered the congregation use of a building on property that is now part of the Historic Area on the northwest corner of South Nassau Street and Francis Street West. By 1818, a structure referred to as the Baptist Meeting House stood on this property and may have existed here as early as the late-18th century.
In 1834, a tornado destroyed the Baptist Meeting House along with several other structures on the Cole property. The African Baptist Church, as it became known before the Civil War, dedicated a new brick church on the site of the earlier building in 1856. Several years later, in 1863, the congregation was renamed First Baptist Church.
In 1956, Colonial Williamsburg acquired the land on South Nassau Street from First Baptist Church and tore down the 19th-century building. Payment for the Nassau Street property covered the land and construction costs of the congregation’s current church at 727 Scotland Street, which opened the following year.
Online Series | Graphic Landscape
‘Part of the Interior of the Elephanta’, from Thomas and William Daniell, Antiquities of India, Oriental Scenery, aquatint, 1795.
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From the Paul Mellon Centre:
Graphic Landscape: The Landscape Print Series in Britain, 1775–1850
Online, Paul Mellon Centre and the British Library, 2, 4, 9, 11 November 2021
Organized by Mark Hallett and Felicity Myrone
Graphic Landscape: The Landscape Print Series in Britain, 1775–1850 is a four-day programme of online webinars taking place between 2 and 11 November 2021, presented jointly by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the British Library.
Landscape and topographical print series proliferated in the late eighteenth century and in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Indeed, the format seems to have enjoyed an artistic and commercial boom in this period. Some examples of these series, such as Turner’s Liber Studiorum (1807–19) and Constable’s English Landscape Scenery (1830–33), are extremely well known. Many others, however, have still to receive sustained and critical attention. This programme of four online seminars is designed to look afresh at the late Georgian and early Victorian landscape print series and to stimulate new research on this important strand of graphic art. Participants will bring a wide range of perspectives to bear on the topic and address works in a variety of graphic media.
Graphic Landscape: The Landscape Print Series in Britain, 1775–1850 is co-convened by Mark Hallett at the Paul Mellon Centre and Felicity Myrone at the British Library.
Additional information—including paper abstracts, speaker biographies, specific times, and registration links—can be found here.
T U E S D A Y , 2 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1
Day 1 | 12.00–14.00
12.00 Print, Politics, and Industrialisation
• Introduction by Mark Hallett (Director, Paul Mellon Centre) and Felicity Myrone (Lead Curator, Western Prints and Drawings, British Library)
• Amy Concannon (Senior Curator, Historic British Art, Tate), ‘A Captur’d City Blazed’: Printmaking and the Bristol Riots of 1831
• Lizzie Jacklin (Keeper of Art, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums), Mining Landscapes: Thomas Hair’s Views of the Collieries
• Morna O’Neill (Associate Professor of Art History, Art Department, Wake Forest University), John Constable, David Lucas, and Steel in English Landscape
T H U R S D A Y , 4 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1
Day 2 | 12.00–14.00
12.00 Print and Property
• Introduction by Richard Johns (Senior Lecturer in History of Art at the University of York)
• John Bonehill (Lecturer, History of Art, University of Glasgow), Picturing Property: The Estate Landscape and the Late Eighteenth-Century Print Market
• Kate Retford (Professor of Art History, Birkbeck, University of London), Views of the Lakes at the Vyne
• James Finch (Assistant Curator, 19th-Century British Art, Tate Britain), Amelia Long’s Views from Bromley Hill
T U E S D A Y , 9 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1
Day 3 | 12.00–14.00
12.00 Revisiting the Canon
• Introduction by Cora Gilroy-Ware (Associate Professor, History of Art, University of Oxford)
• Greg Smith (Independent Art Historian), Engaging with the Voyage Pittoresque de la France: Thomas Girtin’s Picturesque Views in Paris and Their Appeal to the ‘Most Eminent in the Profession’
• Timothy Wilcox (Independent Scholar), John Sell Cotman’s Architectural Antiquities of Normandy: A Catastrophic Miscalculation?
• Gillian Forrester (Independent Art Historian, Curator and Writer), A Glossary for the Anthropocene? Turner’s Liber Studiorum in the Era of Climate Change
T H U R S D A Y , 1 1 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1
Day 4 | 14.00–16.00
14.00 A Wider View: From Collaboration to Empire
• Introduction by Mark Hallett (Director, Paul Mellon Centre) and Felicity Myrone (Lead Curator, Western Prints and Drawings, British Library)
• Sarah Moulden (Curator of 19th-Century Collections, National Portrait Gallery), Creative Collaboration: Cotman’s Norfolk Etchings
• Eleanore Neumann (PhD Candidate, University of Virginia), Translating Topography: Women and the Publication of Landscape Illustrations of the Bible (1836)
• Alisa Bunbury (Grimwade Collection Curator, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne), Taken From Nature: Printed Views of Colonial Australia
• Douglas Fordham (Professor of Art History, University of Virginia), Travel Prints or Illustrated Books?
New Book | The Built Environment Transformed
Distributed by Oxford UP:
Geoffrey Timmins, The Built Environment Transformed: Textile Lancashire during the Industrial Revolution (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-1800856530, £40 / $75.
This book is concerned with the remarkable changes made to the built environment in Lancashire’s main textile district—essentially the eastern and central parts of the county—during the Industrial Revolution (c1780–c1850). A case-study approach is taken, with findings from investigations at six different types of site being presented. The sites included are water-powered mill remains in the Cheesden valley, near Rochdale; Barrow Bridge factory village, near Bolton; the former handloom weavers’ colony at Club Houses, Horwich; Preston’s Winckley Square; Eanam wharf at Blackburn; and, to the north of Bolton, the road between Bromley Cross and Edgworth. The case studies show how, in rural and urban areas alike, developments in industry, housing, and transport greatly extended the built environment and brought striking new features to it. Emphasis is placed on interpreting the physical evidence the sites provide, linking it with that taken from various types of documentary source, especially historical maps. By making comparisons with developments occurring at similar types of site elsewhere in Britain, as well as in Europe and North America, the forms the changes took are explained and their significance assessed. Additionally, insights are provided into the economic and social impact the changes brought, especially on the everyday lives that people led.
Geoffrey Timmins is Emeritus Professor in the School of Humanities, Language, and Global Studies at the University of Central Lancashire.
Exhibition | Portraits en Majesté: de Troy, de Largillierre, Rigaud
Nicolas de Largillierre, La Belle Strasbourgeoise , detail, ca. 1703, oil on canvas, 132 × 106 cm. The painting sold at Christie’s in Paris on 15 September 2020 (Sale 19158, Lot 212) for €1.57million, surpassing its high estimate of €1million.
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Now on view at the Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud:
Portraits en Majesté: François de Troy, Nicolas de Largillierre, Hyacinthe Rigaud
Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, Perpignan, 26 June — 7 November 2021
Curated by Pascale Picard, Dominique Brême, and Ariane James-Sarazin
S’inscrivant naturellement dans la programmation du musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud dont les collections accordent une large place à l’enfant du pays, Portraits en majesté bénéficie d’un partenariat exceptionnel avec le musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon.
Portraits en majesté valorise de façon inédite—puisque c’est la première fois qu’un tel rapprochement est proposé—les trois artistes français qui, de Louis XIV à Louis XV ont révolutionné l’art du portrait : François de Troy (1645–1730), Nicolas de Largillierre (1656–1746) et Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659–1743), au travers d’une sélection généreuse et exigeante de leurs plus belles œuvres qui transcendent le genre et s’imposent avant tout pour leur esthétique. Chaque salle souligne tant la singularité de la matière des trois peintres que les éléments de vocabulaire (format, veine, modèle, composition…) relevant d’une inspiration commune. Le rapprochement de leurs œuvres met en exergue le fait que le portrait, tels que de Troy, de Largillierre et Rigaud le conçurent, se voulait une création d’art total, réunissant en son sein tous les genres.
La commissaire générale
• Pascale Picard, Directrice du musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud de Perpignan
Les commissaires scientifiques
• Dominique Brême, Directeur du musée du Domaine départemental de Sceaux
• Ariane James-Sarazin, Conservatrice générale du patrimoine, Directrice adjointe du musée de l’Armée de Paris
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Dominique Brême and Ariane James-Sarazin, eds., Portraits en Majesté: François de Troy, Nicolas de Largillierre, Hyacinthe Rigaud (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2021), 296 pages, ISBN: 978-8836644209, €35.
Au cours de son règne—le plus long de l’histoire de France—Louis XIV accorda aux arts une place centrale dans l’accompagnement de son projet politique : architecture, peinture, sculpture, musique ou danse bénéficièrent ainsi d’un mécénat royal quasiment sans limite. Représentant les acteurs de cet âge d’or, le portrait peint trouva particulièrement à s’y épanouir, surtout à partir des années 1680, lorsque trois artistes, concurrents mais amis, entreprirent de renouveler le modèle trop sage du portrait classique en lui insufflant un élan baroque inattendu. Francois de Troy (1645–1730), Nicolas de Largillierre (1656–1746) et Hyacinthe Rigaud (1649–1753) révolutionnèrent ainsi la syntaxe du portrait français et, plus généralement, du grand portrait d’apparat européen. Habiles à varier incessamment sur un schéma de composition très contraignant—celui du triangle de base de la figuration humaine—ils donnèrent au genre ses lettres de noblesse en le hissant à un niveau de difficulté de conception et de qualité d’exécution au moins égal à celui des grands tableaux d’histoire. Accompagnant l’exposition d’une centaine de chefs-d’œuvre, ce livre étudie les modalités pratiques, théoriques et esthétiques de l’art du portrait français à son apogée.
New Book | French Rococo Ébénisterie
From The Getty:
Anne-Lise Desmas, ed., French Rococo Ébénisterie in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2021), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1606066300, $75. Available as a free online publication, in multiple formats, here»
The first comprehensive catalogue of the Getty Museum’s significant collection of French Rococo ébénisterie furniture.
This catalogue focuses on French ébénisterie furniture in the Rococo style dating from 1735 to 1760. These splendid objects directly reflect the tastes of the Museum’s founder, J. Paul Getty, who started collecting in this area in 1938 and continued until his death in 1976. The Museum’s collection is particularly rich in examples created by the most talented cabinet masters then active in Paris, including Bernard van Risenburgh II (after 1696–ca. 1766), Jacques Dubois (1694–1763), and Jean-François Oeben (1721–1763). Working for members of the French royal family and aristocracy, these craftsmen excelled at producing veneered and marquetried pieces of furniture (tables, cabinets, and chests of drawers) fashionable for their lavish surfaces, refined gilt-bronze mounts, and elaborate design. These objects were renowned throughout Europe at a time when Paris was considered the capital of good taste. The entry on each work comprises both a curatorial section, with description and commentary, and a conservation report, with construction diagrams. An introduction by Anne-Lise Desmas traces the collection’s acquisition history, and two technical essays by Arlen Heginbotham present methodologies and findings on the analysis of gilt-bronze mounts and lacquer.
This open-access catalogue is available for free online and in multiple formats for download, including PDF, MOBI/Kindle, and EPUB. For readers who wish to have a bound reference copy, this paperback edition has been made available for sale.
C O N T E N T S
Timothy Potts, Director’s Foreword
Glossary of Woods Used in French Furniture from the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection
Contributors
Essays
• Anne-Lise Desmas — Introduction: Acquisitions History of the Rococo Ébénisterie Collection
• Jessica Chasen, Arlen Heginbotham, and Michael Schilling — The Analysis of East Asian and European Lacquer Surfaces on Rococo Furniture
• Arlen Heginbotham — Technical Note: The Use of X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (XRF) in the Technical Study of Gilt Bronze Mounts in This Catalogue
Catalogue
Bibliography
About
New Book | Watteau, Gersaint, et le Pont Notre-Dame
From Presses Universitaires du Septentrion:
Youri Carbonnier, Sophie Raux, Christophe Renaud, François Rousselle, eds., avec Youri Carbonnier, Laura Louvrier-Masquelier, Nicolas Moucheront, Mylène Pardoen, Sophie Raux, Sophie Reculin, Christophe Renaud, François Rousselle, Rémi Synave, Watteau, Gersaint, et le pont Notre-Dame à Paris au temps des Lumières: Les enjeux d’une restitution numérique (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Éditeur Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2021), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-2757432839, 22€. Also available in a PDF edition.
Le pont Notre-Dame fut l’un des ponts habités les plus extraordinaires de Paris. Son histoire reste attachée à un événement : la présentation éphémère en façade de la boutique de Gersaint de la fameuse Enseigne peinte par Watteau en 1720. À quoi ressemblait ce pont monumental avant la destruction de ses habitations? Pourquoi L’Enseigne de Gersaint eut-elle un tel retentissement? Comment se projeter dans cet univers si étranger à notre expérience actuelle des ponts parisiens? Comment dépasser l’image mentale que chacun peut se faire à partir des sources qui nous sont parvenues? Autant de questions qui ont motivé cette restitution numérique du pont Notre-Dame. En s’attachant à restituer le sens des espaces et des volumes de son architecture disparue, ainsi qu’à rendre sensible l’ambiance lumineuse et sonore de son environnement, ses auteurs offrent une exploration inédite en 5D du pont, ainsi qu’une réflexion sur l’apport des technologies numériques à la recherche historique.
S O M M A I R E
Sophie Raux
• Introduction : Un dialogue entre présent et passé
Youri Carbonnier
• Le pont Notre-Dame
• Des maisons sur un pont
• La pompe du pont Notre-Dame
Sophie Raux
• Le pont Notre-Dame et le commerce d’art à Paris
Christophe Renaud
• Restitutions historiques et photoréalisme
• Notions de simulation d’éclairage
Sophie Reculin
• Ombres et lumières sur le pont Notre-Dame : la première simulation de l’éclairage public durant l’époque moderne
Nicolas Moucheront
• L’histoire du pont Notre-Dame au XVIIIe siècle : enjeux professionnels et épistémologiques
François Rousselle
• La restitution du pont Notre-Dame en 3D temps réel
Mylène Pardoen
• De l’ambiance sonore
Sophie Raux
• De quoi L’enseigne de Gersaint était-elle l’image ?
• Jean Antoine Watteau (Valenciennes, 1684 – Nogent-sur-Marne, 1721)
• Edme-François Gersaint (Paris, 1694 – Id., 1750)
Laura Louvrier, François Rousselle, Rémi Synave
• Restituer l’intérieur de la boutique de Gersaint : questions méthodologiques et techniques
François Rousselle
• Des applications adaptées aux supports de restitution
Youri Carbonnier
• Paysage restitué, paysage recréé, paysage rêvé ?
• Apports et limites de la restitution 5D du pont Notre-Dame
Index des noms
Liste des auteurs
Remerciements
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Also see, Sophie Raux, “Virtual Explorations of an 18th-Century Art Market Space: Gersaint, Watteau, and the Pont Notre-Dame,” Journal18, Issue 5 Coordinates (Spring 2018), https://www.journal18.org/2542. DOI: 10.30610/5.2018.3
Conference | Body and Power: The Body in Political Art
From ArtHist.net:
Corps et pouvoir: le corps dans l’art politique des temps modernes
Body and Power: The Body in Political Art in Early Modern Times
Online and In-person, Hôtel d’Assézat, Toulouse, 6–8 October 2021
During the Renaissance, it became common to see bodies—both male and female—transformed and strategically exploited through artworks. Real or mythical, aged or juvenile, often bearers of a complex imaginary, they were conceived and perceived as metaphors and regularly used as propaganda devices. In early modern times, the representation of the body had a fundamental place in the process of exaltation and legitimation of the elite.
‘Body and Power’ tends to emancipate from the figure of the prince—although central but not exclusive. Rulers relied on the idealisation of their own person to reinforce their pre-eminence. However, if their bodies were staged and glorified within their portraits—as an essential element to reassure or impress—they could also be juxtaposed with others. The bodies of these secondary figures, whether enemies or allies, could be used to intensify the message, either within or outside of their representations. Thus, all bodies could be evoked: those of the elites as well as those of auxiliaries, intended to support the idea of power from a semantic point of view.
Elements that make this power concrete, visible, and palpable will also be examined. Apparent objects covered the bodies to transcend them, while in response, bodies in turn covered the objects, all of which articulated a substantial discourse that must be deciphered. These same bodies adorned the space of palaces and other places where authority was exercised. Within both perennial and ephemeral decorations, they gave rhythm to the facades through anthropomorphic orders, populated niches, adorned the porticoes of triumphal entrances, inhabited fountains, staircases, fireplaces, etc. Here again, each of these expressions must give rise to a reflection on its context of creation and exhibition, as well as its intentions.
The programme revolves around the inherent relationship between the body and the polysemy of the terms ‘power’ and ‘potency’, referring to ability as well as strength and authority. Showing a body is an effective way to subjugate and convince. The posture, the gestures, the musculature attributed to it, the sensuality, the grace, the elegance that emerge from it, contribute to translate ideas. The body is both subordinated and esteemed by and for power and, like a mirror effect, it is also through its aesthetic, emotional, and symbolic power that it honours and valorises the powerful.
If for a long time the biblical reference served as a pretext for the exhibition of these bodies, the reappropriation of ancient culture brought them out of the private and sacred spheres and into the public space. This development reflects a widespread understanding of the hermeneutic power, the expressive and persuasive range of the body, whose evocative power is developed in relation to the close relationship between physical impression and psychological aspect. These compositions, full of vitality, affect, and dynamism, conferred an emotional and sensory force on ambivalent and sometimes violent subjects that was indispensable to the process of political seduction. It is then a question of assessing the place of the senses—optical and haptic—in political iconography, both formally and semiotically.
In short, the ambition of these two days is to explore issues related to the body as a bearer of political discourse by bringing together artworks created from the Renaissance to the dawn of the 19th century. By bringing together young and experienced researchers, both French and foreign, this event will allow us to compare methodologies (formal, iconographic, and aesthetic approaches, etc.) by bringing together various case studies discussing these imposing, heroic, seductive, disturbing, or repulsive bodies, whose anatomy was more or less revealed to embody, among other things, the figure of the invincible victor as well as that of the vulnerable victim.
For online access, please contact corps.pouvoir@gmail.com.
W E D N E S D A Y , 6 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1
14.30 Introductions by Mathilda Blanquet and Juliette Souperbie
15.00 Opening Lecture
• Victor I. Stoïchita (Professeur émérite, Université de Friburg), Gardiens du corps, gardiens du visage
15.40 Discussion
T H U R S D A Y , 7 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1
8.45 Welcome
9.15 Morning Session
Moderation: Juliette Souperbie (Doctorante, Université de Toulouse)
Le corps comme stratégie figurative dans les représentations des élites / The Body as a Figurative Strategy in the Representations of Elites
• Chloé Pluchon-Riera (Doctorante, Université de Grenoble), Petits corps, grandes ambitions. Enjeux politiques des portraits d’enfants dans l’Italie de la première modernité (XVe–XVIe siècles)
• Yann Lignereux (Professeur, Université de Nantes), Voy le portrait au vif de Henri quatrième. Sur une économie modeste de la persuasion politique : les portraits gravés d’Henri IV
• Émilie Ginestet (Doctorante, Université de Toulouse), Le corps inaltérable du roi, triompher du temps de Louis XIII à Louis XVI
• Andreas Plackinger (Maître de conférences, Université de Freiburg im Breisgau), Quelques observations sur l’imaginaire du souverain-père (XVe–XVIIIe siècles)
• Itay Sapir (Professeur, Université du Québec à Montréal), Le roi est mort, vive le roi ? : le corps royal à l’instant de son décès
• Dominic-Alain Boariu (Chercheur Senior, Université de Fribourg), Louis-Philippe à l’épreuve de la photographie
13.00 Lunch Break
14.30 Afternoon Session
Moderation: Frank Fehrenbach (Professeur, Hamburg Universität)
Pouvoirs du corps dans les objets d’apparat / Body’s Power in Pageantry Objects
• Gaylord Brouhot (Docteur, Historien de l’art et de la mode), Quand la mode façonne la persona privée d’une Reine : le « Cabinet Doré » de Marie de Médicis
• Simon Colombo (Doctorant, Université de Toulouse), Le corps-décor : fantaisies anatomiques dans les armes et armures de la Renaissance
• Yannis Hadjinicolaou (Chercheur associé, Université de Hambourg / Warburg Haus), The Ruler in Action: Falconry, Training, and the Body
• Diane Bodart (Professeure associée à Columbia University, en détachement de l’Université de Poitiers) – en visioconférence, Armures de lumière pour la Conquête
17.30 Discussion
F R I D A Y , 8 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1
8.45 Welcome
9.15 Morning Session
Moderation: Pascal Julien (Professeur, Université de Toulouse)
Le pouvoir du corps : sens et émotions enflammés dans l’imaginaire politique / The Power of the Body: Meaning and Emotions Ignited in the Political Imagination
• Mathilda Blanquet (Doctorante, Université de Toulouse / Junior Fellow Hamburg Universität), De l’éphèbe à l’athlète : variations esthétiques dans la sculpture politique (Florence, XVIe siècle)
• Mathilde Jaccard (Doctorante, Université de Genève), Pistoia 1479 : une Déjanire dénudée en Fortitude endeuillée
• Juliette Souperbie (Doctorante, Université de Toulouse), Sublime et dévoilé, immonde et écrasé : les ambiguïtés du corps féminin dans l’iconographie bourbonnienne
• Nicolas Cordon (Chercheur associé, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne), La politique du corps dans la Sala Regia du Vatican : interface et pouvoir de sujétion
• Bastien Hermouet (Doctorant, Université de Toulouse), La draperie et le corps sacré du roi : le buste de Louis XIV par le Bernin
13.00 Lunch Break
14.00 Afternoon Session
Moderation: Émilie Roffidal (Chargée de recherche CNRS, laboratoire FRAMESPA)
Les règnes du corps dans les décors princiers / The Reigns of the Body in Princely Decorations
• Tania Levy (Maîtresse de conférences, Université de Brest), Aprochant de corsage & traict de visage a la noble personne du Roy nostre sire’. Le corps du roi dans les entrées royales françaises du XVIe siècle : décors et manuscrits
• Marie Bouichou (Masters de l’université Columbia et de Toulouse), Le corps dans l’apparat politique des princes et des élites. Carrosses et décors éphémères au XVIIe siècle à Rome
• Caroline Ruiz (Doctorante, Université de Toulouse / membre de la Casa de Velázquez), Des corps déchus, un corps célébré : La fontaine de la Renommée de Sa Majesté Catholique à San Ildefonso (1728–1738)
• Giulia Cicali (Post-doctorante, EPHE), Vers l’apothéose du corps absolu
16.15 Discussion
16.30 Concluding Remarks
Exhibition | The Hidden Horizontal: Cornices in Art and Architecture
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, De Romanorum magnificentia et architectura: Della magnificenza ed architettura de’ Romani (Rome, 1761). ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Rar 1311.
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From the press release for the exhibition:
The Hidden Horizontal: Cornices in Art and Architecture
Die unterschätzte Horizontale: Das Gesims in Kunst und Architektur
Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich, 25 August — 14 November 2021
Curated by Linda Schädler and Maarten Delbeke, with Anneke Abhelakh, David Bühler, and Emma Letizia Jones
In architecture, the cornice hides in plain sight. Omnipresent as the elaborate junction between roof and wall, or wall and ceiling, this ornamental element seems to have attracted far less attention from architects, critics, or theoreticians than, for instance, columns or the architectural orders. But in a new exhibition at the Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich, the cornice makes its long overdue grand entrance, displaying its many incarnations in art and architecture. Over 150 drawings, prints, books, and objects from the 15th century to the present day are united in a new dialogue, some shown for the first time in Switzerland.
Cornices are everywhere. Once you start looking, their ubiquity is almost irritating. Windows, doors, ceilings, mirrors, and wall panelling from across the centuries sport elaborate profiles at their edges. The skyline of any city street is a ragtag procession of cornices in various states of materiality, refinement, and maintenance. It does not stop there. Cars and clothes, furniture, and household objects feature their own cornice-like elements. Strips, bands, and lines of paint act like cornices by framing, delineating, or crowning almost any kind of artefact. Still, they attract far less attention from architects, critics, theoreticians, or even the general public than other building parts. In response, a reappraisal of this underrated element are presented in the current exhibition at Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich, where the cornice is placed at centre stage.
Giuseppe Gallli Bibiena, Sketch for Set Decoration ‘Scena per angolo’, 1700–50, pen and ink drawing (Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich).
The cornice, once an essential part of any classical composition, incurred the wrath of modernists at the beginning of the 20th century. It has, at various times, been identified as the most expressive part of architecture, as well as the most problematic. It has drawn attention to itself in drawings, etchings, and other works of art. Hence, a history of the cornice in many ways offers a new window onto the multiple histories of architecture and its representations. For, on account of its ubiquity, the cornice carries several layers of meaning: as an element defined by, and defining building regulations; as the solution to the technical problem of joining wall and roof; and as a site to expression of social aspirations or distinction. As the visual limit of a construction, the cornice is as much about the individual building as it is about the city or the landscape. As an ornament applied to buildings, it involves matters of taste and aesthetics as much as of craft and industrial production. And as a subject depicted in two-dimensional works of art on paper, it allows us to interrogate the art historical conventions of image-viewing and composition. Finally, as a complex three-dimensional object, the cornice raises questions of cultural representation and communication through material transfers over time.
The exhibition unites a unique selection of drawings, prints, books, and objects from the 15th century to the present day. Authors and artists exhibited include Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Gottfried Semper, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier, amongst many others. By bringing works from earlier centuries from the ETH collections into direct dialogue with loans from important institutions in Switzerland and abroad—including the Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris, the Louvre, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, the Drawing Matter Collections (UK), the Berlin State Museums, the Rietberg Museum Zurich, and more—the exhibition exposes the ‘hidden horizontal’ at the centre of five centuries of art and design thinking.
Featuring works by:
Cherubino Alberti, Daniel Badger, Ottavio Antonio Baiardi, Baccio Bandinelli, Pietro Santi Bartoli, Nicolas Beatrizet, François-Joseph Bélanger, Stefano della Bella, Ferdinando and Giuseppe Galli Bibiena, Jacques-François Blondel, Jan van Bronchorst, Andreas Buschmann, Richard Cahan, Cesare Cesariano, Charles Chipiez, François Collignon, Francesco Colonna, Le Corbusier, Pascal Coste, Marco Dente after Raphael, Deutscher Werkbund, Wendel Dietterlin, Giovanni Dosio, Albrecht Dürer, Louis-Émile Durandelle, Charles Eisen, Theodor Fischer, Domenico Fontana, Johannes Gachnang, George Jackson and Sons, Ludger Gerdes, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Hubertus Goltzius, Karl Adolf Graffenried, Michael Graves, Iain Hales, Herzog & de Meuron, Utagawa Hiroshige, Jacques Hittorff, Daniel Hopfer, Lucas Kilian, Henri Labrouste, Mari Lending, Johann Baptist Marzohl, Johann Matthäus Mauch, Meister GA mit der Fussangel, Nicoletto da Modena, Richard Nickel, Friedrich Ohmann, Ordinary Architecture (Charles Holland and Elly Ward), Andrea Palladio, Manuel Pauli, Georges Perrot, Pablo Picasso, Christiane Pinatel, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Marcantonio Raimondi, Mies van der Rohe, Diego Prévost Sagredo, Antonio Sangallo the Younger, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Gottfried Semper, Sebastiano Serlio, Hermann Spielberg, Philippe Starck, Christian Ludwig Stieglitz, Gabriel Ludwig Stürler, Johann Georg Sulzer, Charles Heathcote Thatham, Philippe Thomassin, Constantin Uhde, Agostino Veneziano, Howard Charles Walker, Frank Lloyd Wright, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Hans Vredeman de Vries, and Nicolai Zabaglia.
The presentation is jointly organised by the ETH collection of prints and drawings, Dr. Linda Schädler, and the chair of the History and Theory of Architecture ETH Zürich, Prof. Dr. Maarten Delbeke. Additional curatorial support has been provided by Anneke Abhelakh, David Bühler, and Dr. Emma Letizia Jones.
Programming details including guided tours, a lecture series, and walks can be found here.
Publications
Illustration from Vorbilder für Fabrikanten und Handwerker (‘Patterns for Manufacturers and Handicraftsmen‘), edited by Christian Peter Wilhelm Beuth and Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1821).
A special edition of gta papers (the journal of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture ETH Zurich) dedicated to the cornice will be published in Fall 2021 to coincide with the exhibition (retail price: Fr. 25.–). Edited by Maarten Delbeke, Erik Wegerhoff, and Adam Jasper, the issue features an introduction by Maarten Delbeke and texts by Richard Anderson, Guido Beltramini, Emma Letizia Jones, Edoardo Piccoli, Linda Schädler, Oliver Streiff, David Bühler, Flavia Crisciotti, Linda Stagni with Claudio Gianocelli, Xu Han, and Maxime Zaugg.
The September 2021 issue of werk, bauen + wohnen focuses on the cornice as well. It contains an introduction by Maarten Delbeke, the first German translation of Luigi Moretti’s 1952 text “I valori della modenatura: Wert und Wirkung plastischer Profile,” a text by Mario Rinke, and reviews of projects by De Smet Vermeulen Architecten, 31/44 Architects, KilgaPopp Architekten, Joos & Mathys Architekten, Lütjens Padmanabhan Architekten, and Studio Anne Holtrop.
New Book | Château de Haroué
From Rizzoli:
Victoria Botana de Beauvau-Craon, with photographs by Miguel Flores-Vianna and foreword by Jean-Louis Deniot, Château de Haroué: The Home of the Princes de Beauvau-Craon (New York: Rizzoli, 2021), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-0847870929, $65.
A dazzling tour of Château de Haroué, the epitome of opulent French style and one of today’s must-see examples of vibrant eighteenth-century architecture and design.
Located in a remote village in the Lorraine region of northeastern France, the estate of Chateau de Haroue is an unrivaled treasure of Gallic culture and heritage. Built between 1720 and 1729 for Marc de Beauvau, Prince de Beauvau-Craon, constable of Lorraine and viceroy of Tuscany, his descendants have inhabited the castle and kept it going in high style ever since. Here, readers are invited to discover the château’s impressive architecture and fashionably chic interior design. Newly commissioned photographs by Miguel Flores-Vianna alongside archival documents offer unprecedented access to 82 sumptuous rooms, which are enlivened by dynamic tapestries and family portraits, a breathtaking artwork collection, and stately antique furniture. Informative texts by Victoria Botana de Beauvau, one of France’s preeminent modern-day aristocrats and an It girl in Parisian society, paint a picture of the castle’s architectural splendors, lifestyle, notable events, and her family’s unique approach to keeping history alive.
Victoria Botana de Beauvau is a creative director and producer. Miguel Flores-Vianna is a renowned Argentine-born, London-based photographer whose images regularly appear in Architectural Digest and Cabana magazine. Jean-Louis Deniot is a French interior designer and a close friend of the de Beauvau-Craon family.
New Book | At Home in the Eighteenth Century
From Routledge:
Stephen G. Hague and Karen Lipsedge, eds., At Home in the Eighteenth Century: Interrogating Domestic Space (New York: Routledge, 2021), 378 pages, ISBN 978-0367276799, $160.
The eighteenth-century home, in terms of its structure, design, function, and furnishing, was a site of transformation—of spaces, identities, and practices. Home has myriad meanings, and although the eighteenth century in the common imagination is often associated with taking tea on polished mahogany tables, a far wider world of experience remains to be introduced. At Home in the Eighteenth Century brings together factual and fictive texts and spaces to explore aspects of the typical Georgian home that we think we know from Jane Austen novels and extant country houses while also engaging with uncharacteristic and underappreciated aspects of the home. At the core of the volume is the claim that exploring eighteenth-century domesticity from a range of disciplinary vantage points can yield original and interesting questions, as well as reveal new answers. Contributions from the fields of literature, history, archaeology, art history, heritage studies, and material culture brings the home more sharply into focus. In this way At Home in the Eighteenth Century reveals a more nuanced and fluid concept of the eighteenth-century home and becomes a steppingstone to greater understanding of domestic space for undergraduate level and beyond.
Stephen G. Hague is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at Rowan University. He specializes in British and British imperial history and is the author of The Gentleman’s House in the British Atlantic World, 1680–1780 (2015). He researches and writes on the intersections of political, social, cultural, and architectural history.
Karen Lipsedge is an Associate Professor in English Literature, at Kingston University, England. Her research focuses on eighteenth-century domestic space, material culture, and society and its representation in British eighteenth-century literature and art. She is the author of Domestic Space in the Eighteenth-Century British Novel (2012).
C O N T E N T S
Introduction, Stephen Hague and Karen Lipsedge
Part I: The Organization and Arrangement of Space
1 Paula Humfrey, Staging Fictions for Domestic Privacy in Early Eighteenth-Century London Households
2 Karen Lipsedge, Reading Pamela through the Domestic Parlour: Rooms, Social Class, and Gender
3 Kristin Distel, ‘I will not be thus constrained’: Domestic Power, Shame, and the Role of the Staircase in Richardson’s Clarissa
4 Julie Park, ‘A Small House in the Country: Cottage Dreams and Desires in the Eighteenth-Century English Imagination
Part II: Money, Value, and Consumption
5 Stephen Hague, ‘I am now determined to inform you what I am sure will amaze you’: Objects, Domestic Space, and the Economics of Gentility
6 Beth Cortese, Home Economics: Female Estate Managers in Long Eighteenth-Century Fiction and Society
7 Gillian Williamson, Genteel, Respectable, and Airy: The Lodgings Market in London, 1770–1800
8 Deborah L. Miller, “Great earthly riches are no real advantage to our posterity”: Space, Archaeology, and the Philadelphia Home
Part III: Different Perspectives on Home
9 Victoria Barnett-Woods, Transatlantic Domesticity and the Limits of a Genre in A Woman of Colour
10 Margaret A. Miller, Making Room: Queer Domesticity in Jane Austen’s Emma and the Anne Lister Diaries
11 Jon Stobart, Servants’ Furniture: Hierarchies and Identities in the English Country House
12 Katie Barclay, Making the Bed, Making the Lower-Order Home in Eighteenth-Century Scotland
13 Laura Keim, Hierarchies of the Home: Spaces, Things, and People in the Eighteenth Century
14 Oliver Cox, Twenty-First Century Visitors in Eighteenth-Century Spaces: Challenges and Opportunities
Conclusion: Assessing Eighteenth-Century Domestic Space, Stephen Hague and Karen Lipsedge
Enfilade 
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