Call for Articles | Raconter / Narrative(s)
From the Call for Papers (English and French) . . .
Raconter / Narrative(s), Edited by Marine Kisiel and Matthieu Léglise
Special Issue of Perspective: actualité en histoire de l’art, no. 2022 – 2
Proposals due by 1 July 2021, with completed articles due by 15 December 2021
The journal Perspective’s thematic issue 2022 – 2 will explore the relationships between narration, art and art history. From the stories that inspire images and art objects, to those (re)constituted by its viewers, to the ‘story-telling’ of art historians, this issue is intended to make use of the act of narrating as a productively destabilizing heuristic tool. Even in the absence of figured diegetic content, the image and the art object narrate, if only as witnesses of an era or practices, as vehicles of narrativity. The resulting visual narratives in turn generate other narratives: fictions or legends, scholarly articles or fanciful ramblings, dialogues between artworks or viewers’ monologues. And art historical narratives as well, given that art historians continuously recount the process performatively, with its multiple mises en abyme and comings and goings in the grey areas between fact and fiction, expression and narration, description, analysis, and projection.
The historical place of the terminology of narrative within the field of literary studies also calls for examining the relationship between a narrative in images and its possible written sources. Does representing a story in images amount to imitating the textual narrative or faithfully reproducing its dramaturgy for the eye? What are the possibilities of visual narrativity relative to those of verbal language? The debt of figurative representation to its source has prompted a variety of responses from researchers in art history, some of whom posit the primacy of the written over the visual. Here, the concept of figurative thought (Pierre Francastel, La figure et le lieu : l’ordre visuel du Quattrocento, Paris, Gallimard, 1967) permits a distinction between two equally valid conceptual domains, where each narrative medium has its own logic. This dialectical approach, which connects the narrative image to its cultural environment, then opens the way to multiple interactions and reformulations, in particular through orality and a dialogue between the collective imaginary, individual imaginaries, and visual culture (Hans Belting, An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body [2001], Princeton / Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2011). In methodological terms, the emergence of narratology within French literary theory in the 1970s (Gérard Genette, Figures III [1972], selections translated as Narrative Discourse, An Essay in Method, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1980) provided a body of conceptual tools for renewing the study of the internal mechanisms of the literary narrative, in particular through the distinction between histoire (story), récit (narrative text) and narration (narrating act). The possible influence, or not, of this approach on the theoretical frameworks used in art history to analyze the narrative elements of the artwork or the image merits further consideration. And the same is true for the connections between visual, linguistic, and semiotic studies.
The figured narrative calls on a wide variety of visual means for shaping and spatializing narrative content through still and moving images (analog or digital), architecture, fashion, or art objects. Each work produced—monument, dress, painting, sculpture, film, book, digital interface, art object—requires a match between the narrative in images and its medium, dimensions and volume so as to fashion its visual effectiveness and reception by judiciously condensing or expanding it. Giving visual form to the narrative is also a means of fashioning or recounting its time In sum, this issue of Perspective seeks to take into account all the narrative dimensions, specificities, and potentialities of art objects and works and explore the way(s) the narrativity of the visual is rooted in a lengthy process of legitimization and empowerment.
If the image and the art object narrate, art historians in turn continuously provide a dialogical account of this multifaceted relationship as a kind of story within the story. The history of art, rooted in the works of Giorgio Vasari and Karel van Mander (considered as its modern founders), is based on a narrative exercise, from the ekphrasis of Antiquity to the epic narratives of modernist autonomy, but also anecdotes and biographical legends. The way art historians have forged their discipline by freeing themselves from a willfully mythical literary practice and gradually adopting, fashioning, and discussing ‘scientific’ methods bears witness to a complex relationship with the narrative and narration—otherwise stated, a kind of fiction. Some recent historiographical studies have focused on the question of these close ties between the writing of history and that of fiction. Mark Ledbury, in the collective work Fictions of Art History (Williamstown, Mass., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute / Yale University Press, 2013), Ivan Jablonka with History Is a Contemporary Literature: Manifesto for the Social Sciences [2014] (Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2018), and more recently, Myriam Métayer and Adriana Sotropa, the editors of Le récit de l’histoire de l’art. Mots et rhétoriques d’une discipline (Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, Éditions Esthétique du divers, 2017), for example, have offered fruitful insights. Is it possible to write history without telling stories? From the point of view of the images and art objects or that of the viewers, can—or should—we forego any narrative process? Can we communicate without narrating (or narrating ourselves)? If this is not the case, what epistemological conclusions can be drawn about the way we consider our practice—our writing—of art history? In the era of ‘alternative facts’ and storytelling, when the question of the relative nature of narratives is both a considerable risk and an opportunity, raising question about the making of narrative, the way that art and art history narrate (and narrate themselves), ultimately implies a return to teleological issues: what has meaning, what gives meaning, what creates meaning?
The appearance of an image, be it figurative, aniconic, material, or mental, gives rise to a story and a way of arranging it into a narrative. But does the absence of figuration signify the absence of narrative? For in the same way, the appearance of the image, be it material or mental, figurative or aniconic, gives rise to a desire to narrate. While no one will deny that the image and the narrative act go hand in hand, the precedence of one over the other remains an eternal subject of debate, as are the relaying and embedding processes that engender them, from the time of the paragone to modernist discourse predicting the end of narrative artworks. For the upcoming thematic issue, these different oppositions and complex transmission phenomena can be approached from a variety of vantage points, provided that the analysis is situated within a historiographical perspective addressing the narrative processes at work in the creation and reception of art from the origins to the present day, from symbolic Paleolithic expressions to contemporary cinema. For this reason, specific case studies bearing on iconographic analyses will not be accepted unless they raise broader critical questions.
Proposals involving one or several of the following approaches will be particularly welcome:
• Artists telling stories
• Artists telling their own stories (authorized accounts, etc.)
• Historians recounting the life of the artist (from Vasari to Ernst Kriz and Otto Kurz)
• Historians telling the story of visual narratives (iconography, iconology, interpretation, etc.)
• Synchronic narratives of art history (the ‘great’ movements, the ‘master’ narratives)
• Counter-narratives and re-narrated art historical narratives (historiography, fictionalization)
• The place and possibility of a collective and/or participatory narrative within the discipline
• The socio-political consequences and echos of art-historical narratives and counter-narratives (activism, societal debates)
Published by the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA) since 2006, Perspective is a biannual journal which aims to bring out the diversity of current research in art history through a constantly evolving approach that is explicitly aware of itself and its own historicity and articulations. It bears witness to the historiographical debates within the field, while remaining in continuous relation with the images and works of art themselves, updating their interpretations, and thus fostering global, intra- and interdisciplinary reflection. The journal publishes scholarly texts which offer innovative perspectives on a given theme. These may be situated within a wide range, yet without ever losing sight of their larger objective: going beyond any given case study in order to interrogate the discipline, its methods, history and limitations, while relating these questions to topical issues from art history and neighboring disciplines that speak to each of us as citizens.
Perspective invites contributors to update their historiographical material and the theoretical questionings from which they draw their work, to think from and around the starting point of a precise question, an assessment that will be considered an epistemological tool rather than a goal in itself. Each article thus calls for a new approach creating links with the great societal and intellectual debates of our time. Perspective is conceived as a disciplinary crossroads aiming to encourage dialogue between art history and other fields of research, the humanities in particular, and put into action the ‘law of the good neighbor’ developed by Aby Warburg. All geographical areas, periods, and media are welcome.
Narrative(s), no. 2022 – 2
Editors: Marine Kisiel (INHA) and Matthieu Léglise (INHA)
Issue coordinated with Anne-Orange Poilpré (université Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Please send your submissions (an abstract of 2,000 to 3,000 characters / 350 to 500 words, a provisional title, a short bibliography on the subject, and a biography of a few lines) to the editorial office (revue-perspective@inha.fr) before July 1st, 2021. Proposals will be examined by the issue’s editorial committee regardless of language (articles accepted for publication will be translated by Perspective). The authors of the pre-selected proposals will be informed of the committee’s decision by the end of July 2021. The complete articles (25,000 or 45,000 characters/ 4,500 or 7,500 words depending on the project) must be submitted by December 15th, 2021. These will be definitively accepted after the journal’s anonymous peer-review process.
Translated from French by Miriam Rosen
At Christie’s | Women in Art
From the press release, via Art Daily (3 May 2021) for the upcoming sale . . .
Women in Art, Sale 19614
Christie’s, Paris, 16 June 2021
Lot 10: Anne Vallayer-Coster, Vase of Flowers and Grapes on a Stone Ledge, 1781, oil on canvas, unlined, 18 × 15 inches. Estimate: 150,000–250,000€.
For the first time, Christie’s in France will hold a sale dedicated to women artists, covering all mediums—paintings, sculptures, books and autographed letters, photographs, engravings, design, jewels, and fashion (Sale 19614). The panorama will pay tribute to women artists working over five centuries, of different nationalities, all of whom have marked art history, from the 16th to the 21st century.
Alice Chevrier, specialist in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, and Bérénice Verdier, specialist in the Old Master Paintings Department, are in charge of the sale and note: “We are very proud to organise in France the first sale dedicated to women artists. In recent months, we have watched as events devoted to women artists were held by museums, including the exhibition Peintres femmes, 1780–1830 at the Musée du Luxembourg; the upcoming exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Elles font l’abstraction; and the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses), Female Artistic Creation, created by the Centre Pompidou and the Musée d’Orsay through their collaboration with the Aware association. It seemed therefore a good moment for Christie’s Paris to organize a sale with this focus for the art market and we have had great support from consignors and colleagues. We have been able to assemble an impressive selection of works from different periods and mediums, which should widen the appeal to many collectors, with estimates ranging from 200 to 300,000 Euros. We hope that the sale will throw light on the careers of these women artists, some of whom have remained in the shadow for too long!”
This sale focuses on artists from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries who have often been treated unequally in art history. In the Old Master Paintings section is a beautiful painting by Louise Moillon (1610–1696), Still Life (1636), the highlight of the sale, estimated at €300,000–500,000. A leader in the genre of fruit still lifes, Moillon is one of the few female painters from 17th-century France whose work is now well identified. Still LIfe is dated and signed, allowing scholars to situate it precisely in a body of work with only sixty-nine works attributed with certainty to the artist. The meticulous realism of Moillon’s works, the precise touch, full colors, and the rendering of the velvetiness or transparency of the fruits are a testament to the painter’s mastery of her craft, inherited from Flemish art and acquired by her familiarity with the work of a group of Dutch painters working in Saint-Germain.
Further highlights include a delicate autumnal composition by Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744–1818), Vase of Flowers and Grapes on Entablature (estimate: €150,000–250,000), executed in 1781 during the artist’s mature period, after her admission to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In an excellent state of conservation, the work has never been presented at auction and has not been exhibited since its last appearance at an exhibition in London in 1954. An artist of great modernity recognized by her peers, Vallayer-Coster inspired the Impressionists, notably Fantin La Tour.
Lot 104: Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Madame Charles Mitoire, née Christine-Geneviève Bron (1760–1842), avec ses enfants, allaitant l’un d’eux, 1783, pastel on paper laid down on canvas, 36 × 26 inches. Estimate: 150,000–250,000€.
Another important work in the section is a beautiful Portrait of a Woman by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842). Counted among the greatest portraitists of her time, the artist was successively the painter of the Court of France, the Kingdom of Naples, the Court of the Emperor of Vienna, and finally the Emperor of Russia. This is a rediscovery, as the work has never been published or offered for sale (estimate: €80,000–120,000). Collectors should be seduced by this beautiful testimony of the artist’s Parisian period.
Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614), an Italian painter who imposed her talent and erudition in the 16th century as the first woman artist elected to the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, offers here in full-length a portrait of a young boy with a dog (1585–90) a fine example of her art. A preparatory drawing for this painting is in the Uffizi Museum in Florence. The portrait is estimated at €60,000–100,000.
The sale, which will also feature a section devoted to decorative arts, includes a refined marquetry tray made by Rosalie Duvinage (Veuve ‘Widow’ Duvinage). It is one of the most original productions of the 1870s. Influenced by Japanese art, both in its technique and its iconography, it testifies by its forms to the eclecticism characteristic of the late 19th century.
The Rare Books and Manuscripts Department will offer a magnificent eight-page letter by George Sand (1804–1876) addressed to Gustave Flaubert, estimated at €6,000–8,000. The writer changed her name to that of a man to ensure her work was more widely read. This letter-confession is one of the most beautiful and moving of Sand’s correspondence: “Your letters fall on me like a rain that wets, and makes what is in germ in the ground grow right away. . . .” Collectors will also be able to purchase a letter which has never been published from Edith Piaf (1915–1963) to her lover, the Italian-French actor Yves Montand (estimate: €2,000–3,000), which she wrote to him while on tour in the North of France. She announced their breakup, after receiving a telegram from Montand, saying, “You may be right—I am too young for you— Wishing you with all my heart the happiness you deserve.”
In the field of science, women have also worked in a revolutionary way, and Marie Curie (1867–1934) is perhaps one of the most important figures, especially thanks to her 1903 thesis devoted to radioactivity, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, six months after its publication. Scientific bibliophiles will certainly be aware of the historical value of the book, offered in its first edition and signed by her hand (estimate: €10,000–15,000).
Dorothea Tanning (1910–2012) is represented in this sale through her engraved masterpiece: The 7 Spectral Perils (€25,000–35,000). Produced in 1950, these seven surrealist lithographs in exceptional condition will be presented in their original portfolio. The edition includes only 50 copies, some of which are already in the collections of the greatest international museums (including MoMA, Reina Sofia, Smithsonian American Art Museum).
Other important figures of the 20th century include Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002), Sarah Morris (b. 1967), Dora Maar (1907–1997), Sheila Hicks (b. 1934), and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva (1908–1992). The latter’s work La ville, la nuit, estimated at €30,000–50,000, is one of the highlights of the 20th-century section. This work comes from the collection of Max-Pol Fouchet, a renowned man of culture, who was a poet, novelist, art historian, literary and music critic. This work was a gift from the artist to Max-Pol Fouchet after their meeting on the shooting of a documentary dedicated to the artist.
Fashion will also be represented with a few pieces by the daring avant-garde couturier Elsa Schiaparelli, from her personal archives and recorded by her granddaughter Marisa Berenson, as well as a few dresses by the famous Madame Grès, including a draped dress from the 1930s that was exhibited in the major retrospective La couture à l’œuvre at the Bourdelle Museum in 2011. The art of jewelry will also be present with a splendid necklace, made by the surrealist artist Leonor Fini, estimated at €10,000–15,000. It is a true sculpture-necklace stylizing ‘Horns’ in yellow gold, wearable as a head jewel or a torque necklace.
Finally, Christie’s will give carte blanche to Inès Longevial (b. 1990) who will occupy an exhibition space in parallel with the pre-sale exhibition. Longevial executes drawings and paintings in resonance with impressions, feelings, sensations from which she naturally extracts the palette. The artist approaches her memories in color and gives form to candid and absorbed faces. If, in the artist’s work, faces often become the site of whimsical ornamentation, finding their roots in a patchwork of bright colors through, this new series tends towards a greater simplicity and plays above all on chromatic variations. The silent attitude of this woman, declined in several ranges of colors and caught in a convoluted set of arms is inspired by several women artists such as Dorothea Tanning, Leonor Fini. The exhibition is created in collaboration with the Ketabi Projects gallery.
Artists and writers presented in the sale: Carole Benzaken, Claude Cahun, Anne Vallayer-Coster, Marie Curie, Dadamaino, Sonia Delaunay, Veuve Duvinage, Lavinia Fontana, Leonor Fini, Sarah Morris, Maria Lai, Marie Laurencin, Vernon Lee, Suzette Lemaire, Dora Maar, Louyse Moillon, Berthe Morisot, Meret Oppenheim, Alice Paalen, Alicia Penalba, Maria Pergay, Edith Piaf, Jiang Qiong Er, Bettina Rheims, Ayako Rokkaku, Niki de Saint Phalle, George Sand, Claire Stansfi, Dorothea Tanning, Boi Tran, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Renée Vivien.
Sweden Nationalmuseum Acquires Two Portraits by J. E. Alphen
Johann Eusebius Alphen, Portrait of a Lady in a Blue Dress, 1767, watercolour and gouache on ivory
(Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, photo by Anna Danielsson)
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Press release (2 June 2021) from Sweden’s Nationalmuseum in Stockholm:
Nationalmuseum has acquired two portraits of women created by the Austrian court miniaturist Johann Eusebius Alphen in 1767. The portrayals of the models are unusually vivid, and the artist has even been carefully rendering the setting. The two portraits are unique because few signed works by Alphen have survived, as the artist was just 31 years old when he died.
In the mid-18th century, if a young artist wanted to further educate himself in miniature painting, Paris was one of the most interesting places to be. The city’s leading name was Jean-Baptiste Massé, a member of the academy and royal court painter. He revitalised miniature painting with his loose and unconventional brush technique. By this time Massé was no longer active as an artist, because he had started to have problems with his eyesight around 1740 and therefore declined to take on any more royal commissions.
Although Massé had essentially ceased painting, he would continue to play an important role as a teacher. In February 1764, the Austrian Johann Eusebius Alphen (1741–1772) came to Paris and was introduced to the French miniaturist. Yet Alphen was not the only student who quickly rose to favour. That same year, he faced competition from the Dane Cornelius Høyer, who also became a lodger with Massé until the master’s death in 1767. The two young artists, who were even the same age, each acquired the same technique of using loose brushwork. Alphen in particular became a virtuoso, as evidenced by the two recently acquired portraits of women. On their faces, he has combined a refined line and dot technique with a fluid brushstroke to depict clothing and other accessories. White highlights reinforce the sense of materiality and illusionism. This approach is reminiscent of pastel painting, in which Alphen was also skilled. As with his teacher Massé, the red and yellow dyes have faded into carnation, contributing to the unusually bright, powdered look of the faces. Only blue and grey halftones remain.
Johann Eusebius Alphen, Portrait of Countess van Lebel, 1767, watercolour and gouache on ivory
(Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, photo by Anna Danielsson)
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Both portraits are signed and dated “Peint par Alphen 1767.” It is unclear whether they were painted while the artist was still in Paris or recently after his arrival in Vienna. The younger lady, dressed in red, sits at a table with notes and a pen in front of her, as well as a book in one hand. The Canadian Mozart specialist Cliff Eisen of King’s College London has floated the theory that this young woman is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s sister Maria Anna, nicknamed Nannerl, who was five years older than the composer. Alphen’s portrait has a direct counterpart in a Swiss private collection. This preliminary study purportedly has ownership-related links to other Mozart portraits. Even if this were not the case, Alphen met the Mozart family on several occasions. The first time was in Brussels in 1763, then three years later in Paris, and finally in Vienna in 1767–68. Their last encounter was in Milan in 1771, where Alphen had a one-on-one rendezvous with Mozart, who mentions their meeting in a letter to his sister Nannerl.
So who is this young woman in red? It is undoubtedly the same model as in the sketch, but is she Maria Anna Mozart? The portrait acquired by Nationalmuseum bears the signature “Comtesse von Lebel.” No countess with this name is known to have lived, but could the name could be a euphemism for the Baroness Berchtold von Sonnenburg, the real Nannerl? In truth, this woman bears little resemblance to other famous representations of Mozart’s sister from around the same time. While this little mystery may never be answered, we can still appreciate the fact that Alphen’s two portraits are unusual examples of the artist’s great virtuosity as a miniaturist.
Nationalmuseum receives no public funding for the acquisition of artworks but relies on donations and gifts from private individuals and foundations to enrich its collections. The acquisition has been made possible by generous contributions from Hjalmar and Anna Wicander’s donation funds.
Print Quarterly, June 2021
The eighteenth century in the latest issue of Print Quarterly:
Print Quarterly 38.2 (June 2021)
Jeanne-Elisabeth Chaudet, Portrait of a Young Girl, traditionally Identified as Madame Villot, née Barbier, Carrying Her Father’s Sabre, oil on canvas, likely shown at the Salon in 1817 (Private Collection).
A R T I C L E S
Claire Brisby, “Orthodox Prints in the Samokov Painter’s Archive”
Addressing the distinctive category of religious prints produced for the Orthodox Christian market from 1698 to 1864, Brisby’s article focuses on prints that once formed the image archive of the painter Christo Dimitrov and his son and other family members in Samokov, Bulgaria—prints that have received limited scholarly attention. The article discusses various sites of print production and explores the use of prints in workshops as models for frescoes and paintings.
N O T E S
F. Carlo Schmid, “Prints after the Antique up to 1869”
The exhibition catalogue Phönix aus der Asche: Bildwerdung der Antike – Druckgrafiken bis 1869 / L’Araba Fenice: L’Antico Visualizzato nella Grafica a Stampa fino al 1869, reviewed here by F. Carlo Schmid, explores the development of printed images concerning architecture, sculpture, and objects of everyday life of classical antiquity. The prints date from the fifteenth to the second half of the nineteenth century and relate to works from, but not limited to, Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire. Of particular interest to eighteenth-century scholars, Schmid highlights that the original project out of which the exhibition and catalogue grew concerned Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli as a “space of artistic interaction” in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Adamo Scultori (Ghisi), Young Prisoner, 1566–80, engraving.
Francisco J. R. Chaparro, “Spanish Drawing Books”
A note on the exhibition catalogue El Maestro de Papel reviewed here by Francisco J. R. Chaparro, presents a comprehensive review of the scholarly attention directed towards Spanish drawing books. Chaparro makes reference to the Matías de Irala 1731 work and mentions the poor survival of the books. Chaparro tracks the appearance and reappearance of Jusepe Ribera’s etchings dated 1622 to highlight the further issue of cross-reference in these works. The note provides a critique of the exhibition while firmly situating it as a cornerstone for further research on the field of Spanish prints and drawings.
Ellis Tinios, “Surimono from the Virginia Shawan Drosten and Patrick Kenadjian Collection”
A laudatory note by Ellis Tinios on the catalogue The Private World of Surimino presents a brief analysis of surimono prints and notes, for instance, the importance of adequate lighting in revealing the complexities of blind printing and reflective inks.
David Ekserdijan, “A Portrait by Jeanne-Elisabeth Chaudet and Its Source”
David Ekserdijan presents the unusual artistic inspiration behind Jeanne-Elisabeth Chaudet’s painting A Portrait of a Young Girl of 1817, which sold in a 2006 Sotheby’s auction. The note features a side-by-side comparison with Adamo Scultori’s Young Prisoner or An Allegory of Servitude of 1566–80.
At Auction | Vase Designed by Thomas Hope
Gilt bronze-mounted patinated copper two-handled vase (detail) by Alexis Decaix, designed by Thomas Hope for his Duchess Street Mansion in London, ca. 1802–03, 26 × 13 × 12 inches (65 × 34 × 31 cm). Heritage Auctions, 18 June 2021, Sale 8046, Lot #61046, estimate: $40,000 to $60,000.
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From the press release, via Art Daily:
An extraordinarily rare and important early 19th-century urn, thought lost to history, was recently discovered by Heritage Auctions and is set to go to auction June 18 in Dallas, Texas (Sale 8046, Lot 61046). Designed by Thomas Hope, the urn was found in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the collection of David D. Denham, where it had been modified into a side table. Heritage has set a conservative pre-auction estimate of $40,000 to $60,000 on the rare bronze. According to research, the urn’s mate resides in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (M.33-1983), the world’s largest museum of applied and decorative arts and design.
Gilt bronze-mounted patinated copper two-handled vase by Alexis Decaix, designed by Thomas Hope for his Duchess Street Mansion in London, ca. 1802–03.
“This important discovery was a remarkable surprise,” said Karen Rigdon, Director of Fine & Decorative Art at Heritage Auctions. “No one knew where the urn was for decades until we recognized it during a house call.”
Hope commissioned the vase, decorated with ormolu (gilt-bronze) mounts, for the dining room of his mansion located on Duchess Street in London. It was made by acclaimed French artist Alexis Decaix based on Hope’s design, which mirrored a classical volute krater (an ancient Greek vase with two handles which was used for mixing wine and water). Hope likely commissioned the one-of-a-kind pair of bronze urns directly from Decaix. Experts working with Heritage matched the urn’s historical background with telltale details confirming the vase is the pair to the one at the V&A. The newly-discovered vase’s specific placement of the mask mounts at the obverse and reverse matched the vase in the museum’s collection, as does the placement of specific notches and scratches made to each vase.
Hope, the scion of a wealthy banking family, made his London home into an outstanding example of Neo-classical design. In 1807, Hope published in London an illustrated account of the house and its furnishings in a book titled Household Furniture and Interior Decoration. The book had a considerable influence on other architects and designers working in the Greek Revival style.
“The appearance of this second example confirms Hope clearly took great care to ensure the vases would be displayed in perfect harmony, which supports what is known about his incredibly meticulous nature and approach to collecting,” according to Hope experts Philip Hewat-Jaboor and William Iselin, who worked with Heritage to confirm the vase’s authenticity.
Heritage experts discovered the urn in Tulsa in the collection of the late David Denham. “Denham was a well-known social figure in the area and admired for his collector’s eye and meticulous attention to detail,” Rigdon said. “The estate is unsure when the vase first entered Denham’s collection or when it was made into a side table,” she added. “But its discovery closes a chapter on the unknown history of this important artwork.”
FPS Online Symposium | The Art of the Dealer
Garniture of Three Vases (vases des âges), Sèvres, 1781
(Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 84.DE.718).
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From the FPS:
The Art of the Dealer: Selling Antique Ceramics, 1850 to 2000
Online, 12–13 June 2021
The French Porcelain Society is delighted to announce a two-day webinar on selling antique ceramics in the pre-digital age from 1850 to 2000.
The first day will focus on the dealer in the long nineteenth century, emerging from his chrysalis as a seller of ‘curiosities’ and ‘Old Sèvres porcelain’ to modern scholar-dealer, trading on an international stage, selling to museums through antiques fairs, themed exhibitions, lectures, specialist monographs, and catalogues devoted to ceramics. Papers will consider the Parisian dealer Beurdeley, the furnishing of J. Pierpont Morgan’s London home and the dealers who supplied him, and the rising market for oriental ceramics popularised by Edgar Gorer.
On day two, speakers will consider the legacy and change that characterised porcelain dealing in the twentieth century with papers on Marjorie Merriweather Post and French & Company in the United States, the activities of Hanns Weinberg in the 1950s for the Antique Porcelain Company, and finally Robert Williams at Winifred Williams Antiques. Each day will conclude with a panel discussion.
Zoom link for both days on our website soon. The full programme, with abstracts, is available here. Registration in advance is required. This symposium is free and open to all, but donations (here) are appreciated.
The programme is made possible with the generous support of Richard Baron Cohen.
All times are BST/UK
S A T U R D A Y , 1 2 J U N E 2 0 2 1
17.00 Session 1
• Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth (Visiting Research Fellow, History of Art and Museum Studies, University of Leeds and Curator, 17th- and 18th-Century Ceramics and Glass, V&A Museum), Marks, Monographs, and Mediators: The Long Nineteenth Century
• Camille Mestdagh (Associate Researcher, LARHRA), The Importance of Porcelain in the Business of a Parisian Curiosity Dealer: The Beurdeley Dynasty, a Case Study
17.50 Break
17.55 Session 2
• Linda H. Roth (Director of Special Projects/Curatorial and Charles C. and Eleanor Lamont Cunningham Curator of European Decorative Arts, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut), Mr. Morgan’s London House
• Nick Pearce (Richmond Chair of Fine Art, School of Culture & Creative Arts, University of Glasgow), ‘Sheer Cleverness and Courage’: Edgar Gorer (1872–1915) and the Rise of the Specialist Dealer in Chinese Art
19.00 Panel discussion and Q&A
S U N D A Y , 1 3 J U N E 2 0 2 1
17.00 Session 3
• Diana Davis (Independent researcher), The Twentieth Century: Legacy and Change
• Rebecca Tilles (Associate Curator of 18th-Century French and Western European Fine and Decorative Arts, Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens) Marjorie Merriweather Post and the Role and Influence of French & Company
17.50 Break
17.55 Session 4
• John Whitehead, FSA (Antique dealer and author), The Antique Porcelain Company: Porcelain Dealing in the Post-war Period
• Errol Manners, FSA (Antique dealer and author), Robert Williams of Winifred Williams Antiques
19.00 Panel discussion and Q&A
Online Conference | Finding Shakespeare in the Royal Collection
Begun in September 2018, ‘Shakespeare in the Royal Collection’ is a three-year AHRC funded project, focusing primarily on the period 1714–1945. From the project website:
Finding Shakespeare in the Royal Collection
Online, 17–19 June 2021
The Royal Collection contains Shakespeare-related items collected by generations of British monarchs, stretching back as far as Charles I, though principally concentrated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Including paintings, rare books, prints, watercolours, furniture, decorative objects, and photographs, these items tell a fascinating and overlapping set of stories about Shakespeare’s afterlife, the history of collecting, the histories of royalty and empire, and the histories of elite and popular culture. This conference brings together an international group of experts from fields including Shakespeare studies, history of art, collection studies, Romantic literature, and royal history.
Participants are invited to attend live online panels, or to view recorded panels for a limited time afterwards. We have speakers from Singapore to Texas, and the panels are timed across the day to maximise the possibility of attendance worldwide. A full conference programme, including abstracts and speaker bios, can be downloaded here.
The online conference platform is Zoom webinar, registered attendees will be emailed details of how to join the day before the event. To join, simply click on the join link in the email, your web browser will open up and you may be prompted to open Zoom. For further details of how to join Zoom meetings, see the company’s webpage. Live panels will be recorded, by attending you consent to the filming of the event and to being filmed yourself should you ask questions and in any other way participate live.
The conference is free to attend, but registration is essential. Tickets are available from Eventbrite. By registering, you agree to abide by the conference’s Code of Conduct. Participants violating the Code of Conduct will be removed from the event and will not be able to rejoin. For further information please email sharc@kcl.ac.uk.
All times are BST/ UTC+1 and subject to confirmation
T H U R S D A Y , 1 7 J U N E 2 0 2 1
Panel 1 | Exhibiting Shakespeare 10.00–11.30am
Chair: Gordon McMullan
• Michael Dobson (Shakespeare Institute), Hamlet Disowned: Kemble, Lawrence, and Royal Legitimacy
• Kate Retford (Birkbeck University of London), ‘A Wild and Unruly Youth’: Princes of Wales and The Harry the Fifth Club
• Shormishtha Panja (University of Delhi), ‘Moral Painting’: Nathaniel Dance Holland’s Timon of Athens, c. 1765–70
• Rosie Dias (University of Warwick), Personalising Public Art: Royal Narratives in Boydell’s Shakespeare Prints
Panel 2 | Shakespearean Relics 1.00–2.30pm
Chair: Kirsten Tambling
• Anna Myers (University of Edinburgh), David Garrick and the President’s Chair: Embodying Shakespeare through Intermedial Adaptation
• Mark Westgarth (University of Leeds), ‘Well-authenticated Blocks’: Materiality and the Market for Shakespearean ‘Mulberry Tree’ Relics in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
• Simon Spier (University of Leeds), For Leisure or Learning?: An As You Like It Make-up Box by Hester Marian Wagstaff
Panel 3 | Shakespearean Reputations 4.00–5.30pm
Chair: Elizabeth Eger
• Kate Heard (Royal Collection Trust), ‘Pistol’s a Cuckold – or Adultery in Fashion’: Following a Print from Performance to Portfolio
• Arthur Burns (King’s College London), George III and the Other ‘Mad King’
• Essaka Joshua (University of Notre Dame), ‘I Only Change When I Die’: Gainsborough’s Portrait of Mary Robinson and Mutable Spectatorship
• Fiona Ritchie (McGill University), Fake and Authentic Shakespeare in the Diaries of Joseph Farington
F R I D A Y , 1 8 J U N E 2 0 2 1
Panel 4 | Shakespearean Books 10.00–11.30am
Chair: Sally Barnden
• Emma Stuart (Royal Collection Trust), Why did George IV Own a First Folio?
• Gordon McMullan (King’s College London), The ‘Disappointment’ of Charles I’s Second Folio
• Eleine Ng-Gagneux (National University of Singapore), Crossing Straits with Shakespeare Translation
‘Shakespeare in the Royal Collection’ Project Overview 12.00–1.00pm
Gordon McMullan, Kate Retford, Kirsten Tambling, Sally Barnden, and Felicity Roberts
Panel 5 | Shakespearean Interiors 2.00–3.30pm
Chair: Gail Marshall
• Elizabeth Clark Ashby (Royal Collection Trust), Shakespeare in Miniature: Shakespeare, Queen Mary, and Books for Dolls
• Kirsten Tambling (King’s College London), ‘All England in Warm Sepia’: Queen Mary and the Church of the Holy Trinity
• Morna O’Neill (Wake Forest University), Much Ado about Tapestry: Shakespeare, the Royal Family, and National Identity
S A T U R D A Y , 1 9 J U N E 2 0 2 1
Panel 6 | Mementoes of Performance 3.00–4.30pm
Chair: Richard Schoch
• Karen Harker (Shakespeare Institute), Remediation and Memory: Egron Sellif Lundgren’s Watercolours of The Winter’s Tale in Queen Victoria’s Theatrical Album
• Sally Barnden (King’s College London), Monument and Montage: Horatio Saker’s Visual History of the Stage
• Éilís Smyth (King’s College London), The Politics of Shakespeare at Windsor Castle in Louis Haghe’s The Performance of Macbeth in the Rubens Room
• Martin Blazeby (Blazebuild), Visualising Shakespearean Spaces and Stages of Performance at Windsor Castle
Panel 7 | Education and Performance 6.00–7.30pm
Chair: Kate Retford
• Lynne Vallone (Rutgers University), Princess Victoria and the Cult of Celebrity
• Gail Marshall (University of Reading), Puck and the Prince of Wales
• Vijeta Saini (Northeastern University), Disappearances and the Durbar: The Hidden Colonial Legacy of Queen Victoria’s Shakespearean Tableaux Vivants
• Kathryn Vomero Santos (Trinity University), ‘In Shakespeare’s Land’: Education, Cultural (Dis)inheritance, and the Decline of Empire in and around The Prince’s Choice
Call for Papers | New Approaches to Piranesi
The first installment of HECAA’s Zoom Event Series will feature a roundtable on Piranesi studies, moderated by Jeanne Britton and Zoe Langer, both affiliated with the Digital Piranesi Project at the University of South Carolina.
New Approaches to Piranesi: A Virtual Roundtable
Online, 16 July 2021
Organized by Jeanne Britton and Zoe Langer
Proposals due by 16 June 2021
We are seeking proposals for a virtual roundtable of lightning talks on interdisciplinary approaches to the works of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778). Recent scholarship by Heather Hyde Minor, Carolyn Yerkes, and Susan Dixon, as well as the current bestselling novel Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, have started to open the field of Piranesi Studies to new avenues of research and potentially wider audiences. This roundtable will consist of short presentations of 5–7 minutes followed by ample time for discussion. We hope the proposed format will encourage lively conversation and prompt new critical perspectives that will continue to broaden the interpretation of Piranesi’s works. We welcome topics that include but are not limited to eclecticism, globalism, reception, book history, biographical studies, cartography, collecting, translation, digital humanities, theater, fashion, music, archaeology, and the history of science. We are especially interested in hearing from graduate students, early-career scholars, and professionals engaged in a wide range of disciplinary fields and methods.
Please send an abstract of 150 words, a brief biography, and current contact information. Submissions should be sent to digitalpiranesi@gmail.com by Wednesday, 16 June 2021. Decisions will be sent on Friday, 18 June.
Sponsored by HECAA (Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art & Architecture)
Story of Yanxi Palace
Still from Story of Yanxi Palace (2018), with the empress wearing a replica of a fengguan (phoenix crown) now in the Palace Museum, Beijing.
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I’m at least two years overdue with this posting—the series appeared in 2018—but I learned of it only recently thanks to Isabella Smith’s essay in the May issue of Apollo. I’m just three episodes in, but totally entranced. –CH
Isabella Smith, “An Audience with the Qianlong Emperor, via the Small Screen,” Apollo Magazine (May 2021).
It’s like Game of Thrones, but with art instead of sex. I’ve found myself repeating that summary frequently while evangelising about Story of Yanxi Palace (2018), a Chinese period drama loosely based on historic figures in the Qing dynasty court of the Qianlong Emperor (1711–1799)—and one of my lockdown obsessions. The tale begins in 1741, when our Cinderella-like heroine Wei Yingluo (Wu Jinyan) enters the Forbidden City, ostensibly to work as an embroidery maid at the palaces, but with a secret mission: to uncover the perpetrator behind her beloved sister’s rape and murder. It’s a suitably knotty start to a narrative as labyrinthine as it is long; the series comprises 70 episodes at 45 minutes apiece.
Besides the intricacies of its intrigues, what has kept me enthralled is the sheer spectacle of the thing. From its heavily embroidered robes and carved jade to lavish lacquerwork and pottery, Story of Yanxi Palace is a feast for the eyes. In 2018, the show was streamed more than 15 billion times on the Chinese video platform iQiyi, before falling foul of government censors and being pulled from TV screens. The charge? Its ‘negative influence on society’, promoting admiration for imperial China and its luxurious lifestyles, an argument initially set out in Theory Weekly (a magazine affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper, the Beijing Daily).
What sets Story of Yanxi Palace apart from similar historical dramas—and China boasts a rich roster of such shows—is its devotion to the decorative arts. . . .
The full essay is available here»
For the wider media context of the series in China, see Jiayang Fan’s essay, “In China, Shows Like ‘Story of Yanxi Palace’ Go Viral, and the Party Is Not Amused,” The New Yorker (23 April 2019).
New Book | Dandy Style
The related exhibition is scheduled to open later at the Manchester Art Gallery, but the publication, from Yale UP, is available now:
Shaun Cole and Miles Lambert, Dandy Style: 250 Years of British Men’s Fashion (New Have: Yale University Press, 2021), 168 pages, ISBN: 978-0300254136, $35.
Celebrating 250 years of male self-expression, investigating the portraiture and wardrobe of the fashionable British man
The style of the dandy is elegant but bold—dedicated to the perfection of taste. This meticulously choreographed look has a vibrant history; the legacy of Beau Brummell, the original dandy of Regency England, can be traced in the clothing of urban dandies today. Dandy Style celebrates 250 years of male self-expression, investigating the portraiture and wardrobe of the fashionable British man. Combining fashion, art, and photography, the historic and the contemporary, the provocative and the respectable, it considers key themes in the development of male style and identity, including elegance, uniformity, and spectacle. Various types of dandy are represented by iconic figures such as Oscar Wilde, Edward VIII as Prince of Wales, and Gilbert & George. They appear alongside the seminal designs of Vivienne Westwood, Ozwald Boateng, and Alexander McQueen; and portraits by Thomas Gainsborough and David Hockney.
Shaun Cole is associate professor in fashion at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. Miles Lambert is curator of costume at Manchester Art Gallery.
C O N T E N T S
Christopher Breward — Foreword: Dandy Style
Alistair Hudson — Director’s Preface
Shaun Cole and Miles Lambert — Introduction
1 Miles Lambert — Creative Collecting: How Museums Acquire Men’s Fashion
2 Ben Whyman — The Life Stories of Men’s Clothes
3 Joshua M. Bluteau — The Devil Is in the Detail: Why Men Still Wear Suits
4 Shaun Cole, Miles Lambert, and Rebecca Milner — Painting Men’s Style: Portraying an Image
5 Kate Dorney — Performing the Dandy
6 Miles Lambert — Extravagance and Flamboyance: Decorated Men’s Fashion
7 Shaun Cole — Casual Subversion
8 Jay McCauley Bowstead — Contemporary British Menswear: Hybridity, Flux, and Globalisation
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
List of Contributors
Enfilade
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