Online Symposium | Kaleidoscope Conversations, Color and Meaning
From the symposium programme:
Kaleidoscope Conversations
Online, Masterpiece London Symposium, 16–17 June 2021, 5.00–6.30pm (BST)
Organized with Thomas Marks
Masterpiece is delighted to host a programme of digital debate and discussion co-organised by the Fair and Thomas Marks, editor of Apollo, to bring together preeminent museum curators and conservators with the leading figures in the art and antiques trade, with the aim of encouraging constructive discussion, networking, and the exchange of knowledge and practical advice.
Kaleidoscopic Conversations is the fifth in a series of events that Masterpiece launched in 2018—and which in the past twelve months have fully embraced the possibilities of digital discussion, with recent online events focusing on conservation and artistic materials. This June the spotlight is on the history of colour, and particularly how the colours and pigments of artistic materials—and how those have been harnessed in works of art—have borne specific meanings in different times and cultures.
Over two days, experts will discuss how the local significance of colours should be fundamental to how we interpret and appreciate a range of artistic fields and how best the history and science of colour can be communicated to as wide an audience as possible in museums and other contexts. How do we move beyond the aesthetic presentation of paintings or brightly coloured objects to discussion of what colours once meant? How can we perceive or reimagine colours that have changed or faded over time? How do museums allow us to see colours in the best possible light and provide an understanding of the role that colour plays in display? As ever at the Masterpiece Symposium, attendees will be invited to participate in the discussion during break-out sessions that will follow the panels—with the aim of stimulating vibrant debate.
“This event builds on our online programme, which has aimed to foster a better understanding of works of art through the exploration of materials,” says Philip Hewat-Jaboor, Chairman of Masterpiece London. “The fifth Masterpiece Symposium will continue this thread by looking at the often forgotten role that colour plays in works of art themselves, as well as in historical interiors, and how colour is reconceived and communicated in modern museum displays.”
Register for the Masterpiece Symposium here»
All times listed are BST
W E D N E S D A Y , 1 6 J U N E 2 0 2 1
5.00 Introduction by Philip Hewat-Jaboor and Thomas Marks
5.05. Panel Discussion: Vivid Histories
The inclusion of specific colours in paintings and works of art has rarely, if ever, been merely decorative. From the value historically associated with splendid raw materials, such as lapis lazuli or natural dyes for textiles, to the symbolic meanings that different hues have held in different times and places, colour contains and reflects meaning—even if that meaning may fade over time. From magnificent marbles to splendid stained glass, vibrant colours or their combinations have not only awed viewers but have historically also spoken to them of a wide spectrum of significance. This panel will explore: the fastness or fleeting nature of some of the meanings historically attached to colour; the relationship between colour and style; that between colour and power or status; the challenges of retrieving the historical significance of color; the role of heritage scientists in recovering the history of colour; and the role of art historians in telling its stories.
• Renée Dreyfus | Distinguished Curator and Curator in Charge, Ancient Art and Interpretation, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Alexandra Loske | Curator, Royal Pavilion, Brighton
• Georges Roque | Philosopher, art historian, and author of La cochenille, de la teinture à la peinture: Une histoire matérielle de la couleur
• Matthew Winterbottom | Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
6.00 Break-out Session: Bright Ideas
All symposium participants will be split into small discussion groups. In this 25-minute session, they will be invited to continue the conversation of the preceding panel, drawing on their own knowledge and experience to explore how the history of colour can and should still be integral to how we think about art—and why this might be more urgent that ever as we strive to understand objects in global and local contexts.
T H U R S D A Y , 1 7 J U N E 2 0 2 1
5.00 Panel Discussion: The Chromatic Museum
In our memories, perhaps, museums sometimes exist in black and white—or in sepia tones. But working with colour—working in colour, even—is fundamental to museum installations and displays. And interpreting the historical meaning of colours is vital to how collections are communicated to the public. Richly coloured objects may be eye-catching, certainly, but how do curators and museum professionals translate that into significance for as broad an audience as possible? And how far do decisions made by curators and exhibition designers affect how we perceive and appreciate colour—or even reconstruct it—in the museum? This panel will explore: communicating the history of colour and its relationship to materials in the museum; lighting and colour; white cubes and wall colours; and how far new technologies can help in the understanding of colour.
• Emerson Bowyer | Searle Associate Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago
• Lisa O’Neill | Projects & Company Director, Centre Screen
• Philippa Simpson | Director of Design, Estate and Public Programme at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London
• Jennifer Sliwka | Deputy Director of the VCS project, Senior Research Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at King’s College London
5.55 Break-out Session: Widening the Spectrum
All symposium participants will be split into small discussion groups. In this 30-minute session, they will be invited to discuss how museums, academics, and the art market can work together to build a better understanding of displaying colour, and how such knowledge can be communicated to a wide public. What practical steps would further public engagement with the colourful history of art?
6.25 Closing Remarks by Philip Hewat-Jaboor
New Book | Nature’s Palette
From Princeton UP:
Patrick Baty, with contributions by Elaine Charwat, Peter Davidson, André Karliczek, and Giulia Simonini, Nature’s Palette: A Color Reference System from the Natural World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021), 288 pages, ISBN: 978-0691217048 $40.
A gorgeous expanded edition of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, a landmark reference book on color and its origins in nature.
First published in 1814, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours is a taxonomically organized guide to color in the natural world. Compiled by German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner, the book was expanded and enhanced in 1821 by Patrick Syme, who added color swatches and further color descriptions, bringing the total number of classified hues to 110. The resulting resource has been invaluable not only to artists and designers but also to zoologists, botanists, mineralogists, anatomists, and explorers, including Charles Darwin on the famous voyage of the Beagle.
Nature’s Palette makes this remarkable volume available to today’s readers, and is now fully enhanced with new illustrations of all the animals, plants, and minerals Werner referenced alongside each color swatch. Readers can see ’tile red’ in a piece of porcelain jasper, the breast of a cock bullfinch, or a Shrubby Pimpernel. They can admire ‘Berlin blue’ on a piece of sapphire, the Hepatica flower, or the wing feathers of a jay. Interspersed throughout the book are lavish feature pages displaying cases of taxidermy, eggs, shells, feathers, minerals, and butterflies, with individual specimens cross-referenced to the core catalog.
Featuring contributions by leading natural history experts along with more than 1,000 color illustrations and eight gatefolds, Nature’s Palette is the ideal illustrated reference volume for visual artists, naturalists, and anyone who is captivated by color.
Patrick Baty is the author of The Anatomy of Colour and the owner of Papers and Paints, a specialist paint business in London. Elaine Charwat is a doctoral researcher at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Peter Davidson is senior curator of minerals at National Museums Scotland. André Karliczek is a member of the German Optical Museum and part of cultur3D, a project that models cultural assets in 3D. Giulia Simonini is a conservator, paleographer, and art historian.
C O N T E N T S
A Colour Reference System From the Natural World
Introduction — Patrick Baty, The Origins, Development, and Influence of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours
Whites, Greys, and Blacks
1 Peter Davidson, Werner’s Mineralogical System and How His Nomenclature of Colours Became Syme’s Colour Standard
Blues and Purples
2 Elaine Charwat, Colours in Zoology: Subjectivity or Systematic?
Greens
3 Giulia Simonini, Syme’s Colour Chart in Botany: Origin and Impact
Yellows and Oranges
4 André Karliczek, One for All? Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours as a General Standard of Colour and Its Particular Use in Medicine
Reds and Browns
Reference for the Contemporary Printer, Artist, and Decorator
Bibliography
Sources of Illustrations
Index
Acknowledgments
Online Talk | Sarah Coffin on Fêtes and Feasts
From The Royal Oak Foundation:
Sarah Coffin | Fêtes and Feasts: Diplomatic Dining and the Noble Table, 1660–1830
Online, The Royal Oak Foundation, Wednesday, 16 June 2021, 6.00pm (EDT)
Martin van Meytens, Banquet at the Wedding of Joseph II to Isabella of Parma, 10 October 1760, detail, 1763, oil on canvas (Vienna: Schönbrunn Palace).
What do Italian architects, English, French, and German diplomats and noblemen, and French chefs all have in common? Between the 17th century and 1830, they served up fantastical ‘table architecture’ to honor their noble and royal guests. These tables showcased lavish temples, beautiful arrangements of food, specially created sugar and porcelain sculptures, silver and gilded display pieces, and even table fireworks.
Marriages, diplomatic visits, and treaty signings turned these meals into theatrical extravaganzas, in which the chef played the role of master of ceremonies, organizing all the details including musical entertainment to accompany the cuisine. When James II of England acceded to the throne in 1685, he sent Lord Castlemayne to Rome as Ambassador to the Vatican where he arranged an elaborate banquet in honor of the Pope.
While Italy and France led the way in culinary fashion, English visitors and diplomats were often the beneficiaries and sometimes the hosts. Chef Antonin Câreme’s splendid dinner for the Treaty of Versailles attended by Alexander I of Russia, Tallyrand and others led to the chef briefly being lured to England by George IV for a State Dinner for Tsar Alexander in 1816, who tempted the chef to then travel to Russia.
Sarah Coffin, will recount some of these amazing meals and illustrate the elaborate table settings and accoutrements devised to impress guests from the top echelons of European society and royalty. She will provide first-hand accounts by observers, as well as show prints and paintings that show the masterpieces that were created for the pleasures of the table.
Sarah D. Coffin is an independent decorative arts and design historian, curator, consultant, and lecturer who has extensively researched and explored the interaction of culinary design and history. Previously she was Senior Curator and Head of the Product Design and Decorative Arts Department at Cooper Hewitt for over 14 years, retiring in 2018. Her tenure at Cooper Hewitt included her curation of the exhibition Feeding Desire: Design and Tools of the Table, 1500–2005. Other exhibitions for Cooper-Hewitt included the blockbuster exhibition Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels (2011); Rococo: The Continuing Curve, 1730–2008; and The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s, which she co-curated and co-authored the exhibition catalog. Most recently she co-authored the exhibition catalogue for a show on Art Nouveau architect and designer Hector Guimard, opening in 2022 at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, and then The Driehaus Museum, Chicago.
Watch live on Wednesday, June 16 at 6.00pm (EDT), or rent the recording for 4 days. $15 Royal Oak members; $20 non-members.
Exhibition | Health in the Press
Now on view at the Sainte-Geneviève Library; from the exhibition booklet:
La santé dans la presse: Livres, journaux et publics au 18e siècle
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, 20 April — 17 July 2021
Organized by Maria Conforti and Yasmine Marcil
Cette exposition porte avant tout sur des questions de santé hors des milieux médicaux, auprès d’un public non spécialiste. En s’appuyant sur les fonds de la bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, il s’agit de montrer l’importance des périodiques et des livres imprimés dans la mise à disposition de savoirs et des nouvelles sur la santé, ainsi que de souligner la visibilité des ouvrages de médecine auprès du grand public.
83 documents sont présentés dans 7 parties thématiques:
• L’essor de la presse en Europe au 18e siècle
• Les débats sur l’inoculation
• Santé et voyage : le scorbut et la navigation
• La vogue du mesmérisme
• Les livres de médecine pour tous
• Les maladies des femmes, l’accouchement, l’allaitement
• Le succès de l’anatomie
Les journaux généralistes et spécialisés qui se multiplient en Europe durant le siècle des Lumières sont attentifs à l’actualité des publications et deviennent pour certains d’entre eux des lieux de débat, notamment par le biais du courrier de lecteurs. Certaines propositions thérapeutiques suscitent de larges débats tandis que l’on observe un intérêt nouveau pour les maladies des femmes ou le soin des enfants. Le goût pour l’anatomie, tout comme pour les sciences en général, se traduit par des propositions diversifiées, plus particulièrement à Paris, allant des cours aux démonstrations anatomiques et aux visites de cabinets de curiosité. Ces formations et ces activités attirent un public plus large que celui des seuls étudiants. Au-delà de ce public cultivé, des livres souvent rédigés par des médecins, comme Tissot et Buchan, apportant des conseils thérapeutiques, s’adressent à un vaste lectorat, comme en témoigne le succès de certains d’entre eux à l’échelle européenne. L’exposition place donc en regard périodiques et livres, ainsi que quelques gravures afin de montrer le rôle des imprimés dans l’élargissement du public et l’importance d’envisager ensemble livres et journaux.
Cette exposition a été conçue par Maria Conforti (Istituto e Museo di Storia della Medicina, Sapienza Università di Roma) et Yasmine Marcil (laboratoire CIM, Institut de la communication et des médias, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle).
Call for Papers | Napoleon’s Legacy
From ArtHist.net:
Imperial Material: Napoleon’s Legacy in Culture, Art, and Heritage, 1821–2021
Online, 3 September 2021
Organized by Matilda Greig and Nicole Cochrane
Proposals due by 12 July 2021
Napoleon Bonaparte died exactly two hundred years ago on a small island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. He had spent the last six years of his life in exile on St Helena, removed from political and military power, in the unusual situation of being able to try to shape and preserve his own posthumous legacy. He was, in a way, phenomenally successful. Napoleon is an instantly recognisable name to this day, and despite growing efforts in recent years to critically revise his reputation and highlight his role in issues such as the reinstatement of slavery, he has largely managed to escape the same level of historical censure as other infamous military dictators. This is perhaps partly because his name has become such an adaptable brand, standing for an entire era of people, places, and events, as well as a full two centuries’ worth of art, craft, and consumer commodities. While other events marking the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death have weighed his contributions to legislative, political, and military reform, less work has been done to confront his vast material, visual, and cultural legacy.
Napoleon’s death in 1821 prompted a frenzy of creation and circulation of materials relating to him, a whirling international trade in objects, images, texts and memorabilia which has essentially never since ceased. Death masks were made, shipped to Europe, waylaid, stolen, copied, and taken around Latin America by one of his doctors. Portraits were exchanged and exhibited, caricatures continued to abound, and actors took on the mantle of the Emperor from the stage to the film set. Personal items belonging to Napoleon were gifted to friends and family, collected by his admirers, and displayed at public exhibitions around the world: his horse, the key to his room, his toothbrush. These items make national headline news to this day when they are rediscovered, are sold for monumental sums to contemporary collectors and serve as key advertising strategies for museums. Napoleonic items can be official or personal, serious or comical, luxury or disposable: the former emperor can be equally thought of as a monumental Neoclassical marvel in white marble, as Joaquin Phoenix, or as a tiny cartoon figure astride a fat pony—yet little work has so far been done to bring together these diverse cultural histories in conversation.
We therefore invite researchers of all disciplines, and museum and heritage professionals, to reflect on the enduring material and visual legacy of Napoleon, what our interpretation and use of it means for the future as well as how it affects our understanding of the past.
Possible themes for papers include:
• Napoleon in theatre, TV and film; in music; in poetry; in art, sculpture and drawing; in books, ephemera, printing, paratext
• Napoleon in exhibitions and museums: museum histories, interpretations of collections, and how objects are presented to the public, including in past, present and future events; how Napoleon is used in marketing strategies or public engagement
• Private collecting and the choices and agency of collectors, including by historians; the memorabilia trade both in the 19th century and up to today; Napoleonic tourism and the creation, looting or buying of souvenirs from significant places
• Gender, sexuality, and Napoleonic memory; involvement of women as collectors, curators, consumers
• Race and empire: critical histories and commentaries on Napoleonic representations
• Medical histories of Napoleonic objects
• Dress, fashion, appearance
• Home décor
• Religion and the macabre
• Animals and Napoleonic symbolism
• The ‘golden’ or ‘rosy’ vs. ‘black’ legend of Napoleon and ongoing critical interpretations
• Comedy and ridicule
• Romanticisation, neoclassical heroism, masculinity
• Circulation and object histories
• Re-enactment
• Public commemoration; plaques, monuments, iconoclasm
• Napoleon and antiquity
Please submit abstracts for short 15-minute papers, along with a short bio, to ImpMatWorkshop@gmail.com by 12 July 2021. (Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words.) Following the workshop, we plan to pursue the publication of selected papers as a collected edition.
Convenors
Dr Matilda Greig (Cardiff University)
Dr Nicole Cochrane (University of Exeter)
Exhibition | Tables of Power: A History of Prestigious Meals
Jacques Roëttiers, Ornamental Centerpiece, Surtout de table, 1736 (Paris: Musée du Louvre). Additional information and exceptional details are available here.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Comprised of five sections, the exhibition traces the history of elite dining conventions from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to the present. The fourth section focuses on eighteenth-century France.
Les tables du pouvoir: Une histoire des repas de prestige
Musée du Louvre-Lens, 19 May — 26 July 2021
Organized by Zeev Gourarier with Michèle Bimbenet-Privat, Hélène Bouillon, Alexandre Estaquet-Legrand, Christine Germain-Donnat, and Marie Lavandier
Chapitre 4 : du service à la française au service à la russe
Le 18e inaugure de nouvelles manières d’envisager les plaisirs de la table. La forme trop protocolaire du Grand Couvert laisse si peu de place à la convivialité que, pour y échapper, on invente au sein des « petits appartements » à Versailles et dans les résidences privées du roi, la salle à manger puis la table à manger, de forme ronde. Dans le cadre des Soupers fins, on peut alors s’adonner en toute liberté et en bonne compagnie aux plaisirs d’une gastronomie en pleine effervescence. Le service offert par l’Impératrice Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche à Madame Geoffrin, qui tient l’un des plus célèbres salons artistiques et littéraires parisiens d’alors, rappelle l’atmosphère raffinée des repas consommés dans les toutes premières salles à manger au temps des Lumières.
À partir de 1740, la fabrique de Vincennes—transférée à Sèvres en 1756—met au point un procédé complexe de double cuisson qui permet d’obtenir une pâte onctueuse et translucide, la porcelaine tendre. L’exposition présente l’un des premiers services de table réalisés, à fond bleu céleste et décor de fleurs, offert à Louis XV. Ces pièces exceptionnelles font la renommée de la France dans toute l’Europe et créent une véritable diplomatie des services de Sèvres, abondamment offerts en cadeaux par le roi. Dès son instauration en 1804, le Premier Empire en devient un commanditaire majeur. Le Service Olympique fait partie des premiers services en porcelaine livrés à Napoléon. Il décore la table de fête au palais des Tuileries à l’occasion du mariage de son frère, Jérôme Bonaparte. La table du Cardinal Fesch, oncle de Napoléon, se déploie également au milieu du parcours. Sur un fond bleu lapis, imitant la pierre dure, le décor de portraits d’empereurs antiques à la manière des camées est un hommage subtil à Napoléon lui-même, qui lui offre ce service.
Au gré des régimes, la Manufacture de Sèvres habille les tables du pouvoir. À l’instar de la Présidence de la République, les ministères d’État disposent de leur propre vaisselle, passant commande aujourd’hui encore. Une table en miroir fait ainsi dialoguer le service des Départements (19e siècle) et son décor floral, au service Diane du ministère de la Culture, conçu vers 1960 et dont le décor est renouvelé en 2007 par l’artiste Fabrice Hyber.
À sa création à la fin du 18e siècle, la manufacture royale du Danemark rejoint la prestigieuse compétition que se livrent les différentes manufactures de porcelaine d’Europe. Elle réalise l’un des plus surprenants et opulents services de table de cette époque, le Flora Danica. Composé de plus de 1800 pièces à l’origine, il aurait été initialement destiné à l’impératrice de Russie Catherine II, grande amatrice de porcelaine, mais n’est jamais livré. Les motifs s’inspirent directement des planches illustrées du Flora Danica (« Flore du Danemark »), et forment comme un grand atlas botanique, avec plantes, champignons et autres lichens. Le service est aujourd’hui encore utilisé à la cour du Danemark lors des grandes occasions.
Dans le cadre de la pièce désormais réservée aux repas, la salle à manger, l’ordonnance du repas continue d’évoluer pour aboutir en un siècle à notre service actuel, dit « service à la russe ». Ce nouveau dispositif témoigne des transformations des modes de vie et de la culture alimentaire au début du 19e siècle. Il implique un nouvel ordonnancement des mets. Les plats ne sont plus présentés de manière harmonieuse et foisonnante en services successifs, mais sont désormais servis individuellement, simultanément à tous les convives. Ces dispositions permettent notamment à tous de manger chaud et réduisent le nombre de domestiques autour de la table. Les verres se multiplient et ne sont plus disposés sur des dessertes mais sur la table, et les couverts individuels s’alignent autour de l’assiette—tels que nous les connaissons aujourd’hui.
Zeev Gourarier, ed., Les tables du pouvoir: Une histoire des repas de prestige (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2021), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-2711878635, 40€.
A list of contents is available here»
Online Conference | The Evolving House Museum
From ArtHist.net and The Society for the History of Collecting:
The Evolving House Museum: Art Collectors and Their Residences, Then and Now
Online, The Society for the History of Collecting, 18–19 June 2021
Organized by Margaret Iacono and Esmée Quodbach
House museums are founded for a variety of reasons, from preserving architecturally significant structures to safeguarding the former homes of historically or culturally noteworthy men and women and their legacies. In other cases esteemed art collectors, such as Henry Clay Frick or Albert C. Barnes, established museums in their former residences to house their collections in perpetuity rather than donating them to preexisting institutions. While many successful examples like the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum continue to thrive, other lesser-known house museums do not attract enough support to remain operational. House museums, it seems, must evolve in order to remain relevant and to continue to attract visitors.
This conference explores a variety of themes relating to art collectors as founders of house museums. Among these are discussions about the motivates that encouraged collectors to establish private house museums instead of donating their collections to preexisting institutions; how collectors’ original intention have manifested themselves in their museums; how house museums’ collections or buildings have evolved over time; and how museums have reinterpreted their collections to remain relevant to contemporary and diverse audiences. Other issues concern how major historic events like the 2008 financial crisis or the recent COVID-19 pandemic have impacted house museums. To attend the event, please register at events@societyhistorycollecting.org.
All times are given in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)
F R I D A Y , 1 8 J U N E 2 0 2 1
11.00 Welcome and Introductory Remarks
11.15 Keynote Address
• Inge Reist (Director Emerita of the Center for the History of Collecting, The Frick Collection, New York), Whose House Is It Anyway?
11.45 Early Beginnings, the Gilded Age, and Beyond
• Anne Nellis Richter (Independent Scholar and Adjunct Faculty, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts), Cleveland House as Art Museum: ‘The Louvre of London’ (1806)
• Evelien de Visser (Curator of Fine Arts from 1750 and Information Specialist Van Gogh Worldwide, RKD—Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague), The Mesdag Collection in The Hague: The Lasting Legacy of Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Sientje van Houten
12.25 Q & A, followed by break
12.45 Early Beginnings, the Gilded Age, and Beyond, continued
• Mia Laufer (Associate Curator, Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul), A Tale of Two Museums: The Legacies of the Parisian Collectors Isaac and Moïse de Camondo
• Lynne Ambrosini (Deputy Director/Chief Curator Emerita, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio), The Evolution of Charles and Anna Taft’s Art Museum: Display, Space, Audience, and Acquisitions
• Martha Easton (Assistant Professor of Art History, St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia), Medievalism, Museums, and Modern Audiences: The Case of the Hammond Castle Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts
1.45 Q & A
S A T U R D A Y , 1 9 J U N E 2 0 2 1
11.00 Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Evolving House Museum over the Past Century
• Welcome and Introductory Remarks
• Marissa Hershon (Curator of Ca’ d’Zan and Decorative Arts, The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida), The Ringling Museum’s Ca’ d’Zan: Its Evolution from Winter Residence to Historic House Museum
• Anne Hilker (Independent Scholar, New York), The Fortunes of War: The Brief Life of the Jules S. Bache House Museum in New York, 1937–1943
• Rebecca Tilles (Associate Curator of 18th-Century French & Western European Fine and Decorative Arts, Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens, Washington, DC), Marjorie Merriweather Post’s Hillwood and the Vision from a Private Collection to Public Museum
12.15 Q & A, followed by break
12.35 Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Evolving House Museum over the Past Century, continued
• Chih-En Chen (PhD Candidate, History of Art and Archaeology, SOAS, University of London), Hung’s Art Gallery: Shaping the History of Collecting in Taiwan in the New Millennium
• Georgina Walker (Honorary Research Fellow, University of Melbourne), A New Type of House Museum: Lyon Housemuseum, Melbourne (2009)
• Julie Codell (Professor, Art History, Arizona State University, Tempe), Ecologies of House Museums: Some Final Thoughts
1.40 Q & A
Online Conference | Reproductive Prints in the 18th and 19th Centuries
From ArtHist.net (8 June) and the programme (as a PDF file) . . .
La Storie dell’Arte Illustrata e la Stampa di Traduzione, 18 e 19 Secolo
Online, Università di Chieti Gabriele d’Annunzio, Chieti, 10–11 June 2021
La storia dell’arte illustrata e la stampa di traduzione tra XVIII e XIX secolo
«Un coup d’oeil sur l’objet ou sur sa représentation en dit plus qu’une page de discours». Così scrive Diderot nel 1751 nell’Encyclopédie, introducendo un concetto rivoluzionario nella metodologia storico-artistica, che dalla descrizione letteraria passava all’analisi dei monumenti attraverso la loro riproduzione o supposta «replica». Nel XVIII secolo si assiste infatti alla «difficile nascita del libro d’arte» (F. Haskell) che segnerà un punto di non ritorno nella storiografia artistica. Prima dell’avvento della fotografia, infatti, è la stampa di traduzione, spesso al semplice contorno lineare ed eseguita rigorosamente al cospetto dell’opera, a essere la protagonista indiscussa della nuova storia dell’arte.
La cattedra di “Storia della Critica d’arte” del Dipartimento di Lettere, Arti e Scienze Sociali dell’Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. D’Annunzio” organizza un convegno internazionale di studi dedicato a quel particolare momento aureo della stampa di traduzione come parte integrante della produzione storico-artistica tra XVIII e XIX secolo, indagandone i vari aspetti metodologici e i molteplici apporti nazionali e internazionali.
Le giornate di studio si svolgeranno in modalità online, sulla piattaforma Microsoft Teams. Per partecipare e registrarsi inviare una mail a lastoriadellarteillustrata@gmail.com. Si rilasciano attestati di frequenza su richiesta.
Responsabilità scientifica
Ilaria Miarelli Mariani con Valentina Fraticelli, Tiziano Casola, Vanda Lisanti
Segreteria organizzativa
Laura Palombaro, lastoriadellarteillustrata@gmail.com
T H U R S D A Y , 1 0 J U N E 2 0 2 1
9:45 Apertura del collegamento e introduzione
10.00 Sezione 1 | LA STAMPA DI TRADUZIONE TRA RIFLESSIONE E DIBATTITO
Chair: Ilaria Miarelli Mariani (Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. D’Annunzio”)
• Stefano Ferrari (Accademia Roveretana degli Agiati), I “Monumenti antichi inediti” di Winckelmann e la riproducibilità dell’opera d’arte
• Paolo Pastres (Deputazione di Storia Patria per il Friuli), Tradurre o tradire? Il dibattito sulle stampe di traduzione in Italia nella seconda metà del Settecento
• Sara Concilio (Università degli Studi di Torino), Giovanni Gaetano Bottari e il libro illustrato: «un’opera utilissima e immortale»
• Susanne A. Meyer (Università degli Studi di Macerata), Una storia dell’arte da leggere in biblioteca: la “Geschichte der zeicnenden Künste” (1796–1821) di J. D. Fiorillo
11.15 Sessione 2 | STORIOGRAFIA E IMPRESE EDITORIALI
Chair: Gaetano Curzi (Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. D’Annunzio”)
• Chiara Lo Giudice (Università degli Studi di Padova), Stampe di traduzione come modelli: il caso della calcografia Wagner
• Tomáš Valeš Masaryk (University, Brno; The Czech Academy of Sciences, Praha), Between Original and Reproduction: Jakob Matthias Schmutzer as a Reproductive Engraver
• Antonella Bellin (ricercatrice indipendente) / Elena Catra (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia), “Quaranta quadri fra i più celebri della scuola veneziana”. Il progetto di Leopoldo Cicognara per la conoscenza del patrimonio pittorico veneziano
• Valentina Borniotto (Università di Genova), Pittura stampata. Scelte iconografiche nella “Storia della Pittura Italiana” di Giovanni Rosini: il caso genovese
• Raffaella Fontanarossa (ricercatrice indipendente), «Di queste pitture ne disegnai un riparto che il fu Gio. Rosini pose nelle tavole della sua Storia della Pittura»: il contributo di Santo Varni alla storia dell’arte illustrata
• Luca Mattedi (Fondazione Federico Zeri), Bologna, “Un grand nombre de productions des maîtres les plus célèbres, ignorées depuis longues années”: una panoramica sui dipinti di epoca rinascimentale della Recueil di Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun
12.45 Discussione
14.30 Sessione 3 | LA STAMPA DI TRADUZIONE OLTRE I CONFINI STORIOGRAFICI
Chair: Francesco Leone (Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. D’Annunzio”)
• Jessica Calipari (Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. D’Annunzio”), Il racconto biografico tradotto nella pubblicistica romana della prima metà dell’Ottocento
• Giuliano Colicino (Università degli Studi di Salerno), Illustrare la storia dell’arte per le famiglie: il “Poliorama Pittoresco” (1836–1846)
• Ilenia Falbo (Università della Calabria), I giornali eruditi dell’ultima Roma papalina (1846-1870). Illustrazioni e cronache d’arte
• Fernando González Moreno / Alejandro Jaquero Esparcia (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha), Guido Reni’s Pietà and Edgar A. Poe’s “The Assignation”: A Singular Case of Reception in 19th-Century North American Literature through the Reproductive Print
15.45 Sessione 4 | MUSEI E COLLEZIONISMO
Chair: Paolo Coen (Università degli Studi di Teramo)
• Martina Lerda (Università di Pisa), Le pinacoteche illustrate. L’uso delle riproduzioni in cataloghi e guide delle raccolte pittoriche italiane nel corso dell’Ottocento
• Francesco Paolo Campione (Università degli Studi di Messina), Le “Dipinture scelte del Morrealese” di Agostino Gallo (1821): stampa di traduzione e divulgazione artistica nella Sicilia del primo Ottocento
• Sandra Condorelli (Università di Catania), La “Descrizione de’ principali quadri esistenti nelle pinacoteche di Catania” di Agatino Longo
• Antonella Gioli (Università di Pisa), Circolazione e fortuna delle “Vedute del Museo Pio Clementino” (1791–1796)
• Ilaria Arcangeli (Università di Roma Sapienza), I “Disegni litografici dei Quadri Classici della Galleria di S. S. R. M. il Re di Sardegna”: un’impresa associativa promossa da Carlo Felice (1825–1840)
• Vanda Lisanti (Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. d’Annunzio”), I cataloghi illustrati del Museo Capitolino nell’Ottocento e l’équipe di artisti per la “Descrizione del Campidoglio” di Pietro Righetti (1833–1836)
• Elisa Acanfora (Università della Basilicata) I rapporti tra centro e periferie: la diffusione delle stampe di traduzione nell’Italia meridionale nel Settecento
17.30 Discussione
F R I D A Y , 1 1 J U N E 2 0 2 1
9.30 Apertura collegamento
9.45 Sessione 5 | RIPRODURRE LE GLORIE LOCALI TRA MEDIOEVO E PRIMO RINASCIMENTO
Chair: Alessandro Tomei (Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. D’Annunzio”)
• Paolo Delorenzi (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia), «Ces morceaux viennent d’être gravés pour la première fois». L’arte quattrocentesca nell’incisione veneta del XVIII secolo
• Manuela Gianandrea (Università di Roma Sapienza), Illustrare la storia della scultura romana dei bassi tempi: Ferdinando Mazzanti e il suo corpus di disegni
• Daniel Crespo Delgado (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Tradurre un’architettura eterodossa. Sessanta stampe e poche parole per le “Antigüedades Árabes de España” (1787–1804)
• Elena Dodi (Università degli studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. d’Annunzio”), La diffusione e ricezione europea degli affreschi del Camposanto di Pisa attraverso le incisioni di Carlo Lasinio
11.00 Sessione 6 | LE STAMPE CHE IMITANO I DISEGNI
Chair: Tiziano Casola (Università degli studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. d’Annunzio”)
• Benedetta Spadaccini (Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana), Le stampe che imitano i disegni dal XVII al XIX secolo
• Francesca Guglielmini (The British Museum, Prints and Drawings Department), Giovanni Antonio Armano and the Publication of Zanetti’s Parmigianino Drawings
• Laura Palombaro (Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. d’Annunzio”), La Raccolta di incisioni di Francesco La Marra e la fortuna della pittura barocca napoletana nella stampa del Settecento
• Hannah Lyons (Birkbeck College University of London, with the Victoria & Albert Museum), Imitations, Impressions, and Female Industry: Maria Cosway (1760–1838) and the British Print Market
• Gennaro Rubbo (Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. d’Annunzio”), La stampa di traduzione nel collezionismo inglese tra la fine del Settecento e gli inizi dell’Ottocento. Il caso di Francesco Bartolozzi: un italiano a Londra nel fondo Douce
12.15 Discussione
14.30 Sessione 7 | TRADURRE I GRANDI MAESTRI
Chair: Carla Mazzarelli (Università della Svizzera italiana)
• Anna Cerboni Baiardi (Università degli Studi di Urbino), Raffaello e i testi illustrati tra Sette e Ottocento
• Elena Petracca (Università degli Studi di Firenze), L’eredità romana di Robert van Audenaerde e Nicolas Dorigny nel Settecento.
• Francesca Cocchiara (Fondazione Centro Studi Tiziano e Cadore, Pieve di Cadore), Tiziano nelle stampe di traduzione tra XVIII e XIX secolo
• Ilaria Fiumi Sermattei (Istituto Centrale per la Grafica), La fortuna critica e visiva del Sassoferrato nella committenza della Calcografia Camerale negli anni della Restaurazione pontificia
• Michela Gianfranceschi (Università di Roma Sapienza), La sfida della pittura caravaggesca alla cultura classicista. Recueils di stampe e fogli sciolti tra XVIII e XIX secolo
• Alessio Costarelli (Università degli Studi di Bologna), Antonio Canova, gli Inglesi e la circolazione delle immagini
• Angelo Maria Monaco (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia), Veronese e i monumenti dei Dogi nelle incisioni di Giacomo Barri. Episodi singolari e precursori nel collezionismo veneziano nella seconda metà del Seicento
16.30 Sessione 8 | LE TECNICHE E IL COLORE
Chair: Valentina Fraticelli (Università degli Studi di Chieti-Pescara “G. D’Annunzio”)
• Chiara Piva (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia), Stampare a colori nel Settecento: sperimentazioni e dibattito critico
• Teresa Montefusco (Università della Svizzera Italiana), «La vera idea di quel magico incanto dei colori»: l’incisione e la traduzione del colorito nella pubblicistica romana (XVIII–XIX secolo)
• Maria Beatrice Failla (Università degli Studi di Torino), La litografia e la sfida del colore nel XIX secolo
• Alessandro Botta (Università degli Studi di Udine), Pittura divisionista e stampa di traduzione
17.30 Discussione
New Book | Visualising Protestant Monarchy
From Boydell and Brewer:
Julie Farguson, Visualising Protestant Monarchy: Ceremony, Art, and Politics after the Glorious Revolution, 1689–1714 (London: Boydell Press, 2021), 402 pages, ISBN: 978-1783275441 (hardcover), £75 / $99 and ISBN: 978-1787448179 (ebook) £20 / $25.
The first comprehensive, comparative study of the visual culture of monarchy in the reigns of William and Mary and Queen Anne
This book provides the first comprehensive, comparative study of the visual culture of monarchy in the reigns of William and Mary and Queen Anne. It makes innovative use of material evidence and new primary sources to re-evaluatethe practice of kingship and queenship to produce an original interpretation of the British monarchy during a period of vital transformation. The quarter century between the Glorious Revolution and the Georgian era witnessed prolonged military conflict with France and the birth of what we now call Great Britain. This book argues that a new style of monarchy likewise emerged in this period and that its survival largely depended on the efforts of the royal family: two English queens, a Dutch king, and a Danish prince.
Through a study of art and material culture (paintings, prints, the decorative arts, architecture, dress, and royal insignia) within the broader political context, the book explores how the English people were persuaded to transfer their loyalties from a traditional style of kingship, centred on ideas of divinely appointed rule and hereditary right, to one rooted in Protestantism and Parliament. The book argues that both ceremony and art played a vital role in the way the monarchy functioned after the Glorious Revolution. Crucially, it examines not only the production of images and use of ceremony but also the ways in which they were received by audiences, both in England and abroad. The book sets the on-going changes in the ideology of British monarchy within the wider context of royal politicking in Europe and pays close attention to gender and the practice of queenship as well as the ways in which military conflict shaped royal representational culture. Using a method that is centred on the visual—ceremonies and art—and on visuality, the study makes an original and important contribution to our understanding not only of the monarchy but also the political culture of the post-Glorious Revolution era.
Julie Farguson is College Lecturer in History at St Hilda’s College, Oxford.
C O N T E N T S
Introduction
• Establishing an Anglo-Dutch Royal Image, 1689–90: The Beginning of Stuart-Orange Kingship
• Anglo-Dutch Kingship and War, 1690–94: The Stuart-Orange Partnership in Action
• The Royal Image, 1695–1702: From Stuart Monarch to Orange King
• Transforming the Royal Image, 1702: Establishing Stuart-Oldenburg Kingship
• Military Affiliations, 1702–08: Stuart-Oldenburg Kingship and War
• The Royal Image, 1709–14: The Rise of Anna Augusta
Conclusion
Bibliography
New Book | Pots, Prints, and Politics
From Oxbow Books:
Patricia Ferguson, ed., Pots, Prints, and Politics: Ceramics with an Agenda, from the 14th to the 20th Century (London: The British Museum Press, 2021), 196 pages, ISBN: 978-0861592296, £40 / $80.
In this lavishly illustrated publication, 15 leading scholars challenge and interrogate a mixture of Asian and European ceramic objects—from teapots to chamber pots—bringing to light new meanings and agendas that are just as provocative now, as when they were made. The medium behind these messages are graphic sources. From Chinese woodblock prints to Japanese kyōka surimono (‘printed things’), and European copperplate engravings to chromolithographs, prints circulated ideas. Potters across time and cultures adapted these images into ceramic bodies or covered their surfaces with hand-painted or transfer-printed representations, giving expression to serious political and social issues: propaganda, self-promotion, piety, race, gender, national, and regional identities. Driven by commercial gain, altruism or imperial dictate, ceramic artists and manufacturers often risked their livelihoods, if not their lives, articulating their convictions.
The authors in this volume have explored these narratives on a variety of wares employing the British Museum’s world-renowned print collection as a base, as well as studying visual culture for material references. Pots, Prints and Politics invites us to look at ceramics as social objects, deciphering their many critical debates masquerading as mere ornament.
This publication has been generously supported by Ceramica-Stiftung Basel.
Patricia F. Ferguson was Project Curator in the Britain, Europe and Prehistory Department at the British Museum from 2017 until 2020, focusing on European ceramics and print sources. Between 2006 and 2017, she was a consulting curator in the Asian and Ceramics Departments of the Victoria and Albert Museum. As Honorary Adviser on Ceramics to the National Trust, she published Ceramics: 400 Years of British Collecting in 100 Masterpieces (2016) and Garnitures: Vase Sets from National Trust Houses (2016).
C O N T E N T S
Introduction, Patricia Ferguson
1 Luk Yu-ping (The British Museum), Pots, Prints, and Politics in China? Some Examples from the 14th to 17th Centuries
2 Elaine Buck (SOAS), A 14th-Century Longquan Pot with a Dual Purpose
3 Wenyuan Xin (The British Museum), Illustrated Hagiographies and Figure Production in Late Ming Fujian
4 Dora Thornton (Curator, Goldsmith’s Company), ‘Take Note’: The Construction of Political Allegories of the Sack of Rome (1527) on Italian Renaissance Maiolica in the British Museum
5 Elisa Paola Sani (The Courtauld Gallery), War on a Plate: The Battle of Mühlberg on a Maiolica Dish at the Wallace Collection, London
6 Claire Blakey (Burrell Collection) and Rachel King (British Museum), Prints and Post-Palissian Ceramics
7 Helen Glaister (Victoria and Albert Museum), Exotic Self-Reflections: Fashioning Chinese Porcelain for European Eyes
8 Catrin Jones (V&A Wedgwood Collection), ‘Aux plaisirs des dames’: Designing and Redesigning a Meissen Bourdalone
9 Patricia Ferguson (Hon. Adviser on Ceramics, The National Trust), Myth and Materiality: Admiral Anson’s Chinese Armorial Dinner Service at Shugborough Hall, Staffordshire
10 Alessandro Biancalana (Independent art historian and author), From stampa and riporto to giochi di bambini: Transfer Printing and Iconographic Sources at Carlo Ginori’s Porcelain Manufactory at Doccia
11 Sheila O’Connell (The British Museum), Jefferyes Hamett O’Neale (act. 1750–1801): Porcelain Painter and Print Designer
12 Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth (Victorian and Albert Museum), Propaganda on Pots: ‘King Louis’s Last Interview with his Family’ on a Creamware Mug, 1793–95
13 Mary Redfern (Chester Beatty Library), Pots for Poets: Ceramics Up-Close in Japanese Prints, Including Hokusai’s Everything Concerning Horses
14 Ronald W. Fuchs II (Reeves Center, Washington and Lee University) and Patricia Ferguson (Hon. Adviser on Ceramics, The National Trust), ‘Remember them that are in Bonds’: A Plate Made for the Abolition Movement
15 Mary Ginsberg (The British Museum), Appropriated Heroes: Prints, Pots, and Political Symbols in Revolutionary China
Bibliography
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