Exhibition | Jean-Antoine Houdon’s Portraits of Americans
Now on view at the DIA:
Jean-Antoine Houdon’s Portraits of Americans in the Age of Enlightenment
Detroit Institute of Arts, 6 October 2019 — 3 May 2020
Jean-Antoine Houdon, Busts of Benjamin Franklin (left), 1778, and George Washington (right), 1786, terracotta (Paris: Musée du Louvre).
The Detroit Institute of Arts presents a dossier exhibition featuring two masterworks of French eighteenth-century portrait sculpture lent from the Musée du Louvre. Created by the greatest sculptor of the Enlightenment, Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741–1828), the portraits depict two of America’s most iconic founders, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. As ‘Guests of Honor’, the busts are displayed in the company of selected works that similarly depict Franklin, Washington, and Robert Fulton, another early American icon, as among the first to reach celebrity status as enlightened leaders of a new nation. Drawing from the DIA’s own holdings and the important loans from the Louvre, the exhibition gives audiences a unique opportunity to explore and compare images of these very familiar personae through art in a variety of media. Presented in our gallery dedicated to the early American republic, the exhibition sets Houdon’s masterful terracotta portraits alongside painting, sculpture, textile, and work on paper, with significant examples of furniture and decorative arts already on view in the gallery providing a greater context of visual culture in the early American republic.
At Christie’s | Americana Week 2020
Joshua Johnson (ca.1763–after 1824), A Pair of Portraits: Boy with Squirrel and Girl with Dog, oil on canvas, 30 × 24 inches. Lot 219: estimate, 100,000–150,000. Related paintings by Johnson date from around 1800 to 1805.
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From the press release, via Art Daily (22 December 2019) . . .
Christie’s announces Americana Week 2020, a series of auctions, viewings, and events, to be held January 11–24. The week of sales is comprised of Outsider Art on January 17; Chinese Export Art Featuring the Tibor Collection, Part II on January 23; and Important American Furniture, Folk Art, and Silver on January 24.
Object highlights across the week include a majestic composition by Edward Hicks Peaceable Kingdom ($1,500,000–3,500,000), The Gould Family Queen Anne Carved Walnut High Chest-of-Drawers, Newport, 1750–70 ($300,000–400,000), Bill Traylor’s Man on White, Woman on Red / Man with Black Dog (double-sided) ($200,000–400,000) from the Collection of Alice Walker, a double-sided work by Henry Darger Untitled (188/189), double sided ($400,000–600,000), and notable Outsider Art works from The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation. Works of rarity and fine craftsmanship include a pair of Chinese export porcelain ‘soldier’ vases and covers, early Qianlong Period, ca. 1740 ($100,000–150,000) and an important American silver, gold, and enamel vase by Louis Comfort Tiffany from 1915 ($100,000–150,000).
Americana Week 2020 will offer over a curation of more than 560 lots across the three live auctions. Viewings begin with the Outsider Art sale opening on 11 January at our Rockefeller Center galleries with the remaining two auctions, Chinese Export Art and Important American Furniture, Folk Art, and Silver opening on 15 January. In conjunction with the sales, Christie’s will host the annual Eric M. Wunsch Award for Excellence in the American Arts on Wednesday, January 22 at 6pm honoring Laura Beach, Lita Solis-Cohen, and Mira Nakashima, as well as a Christie’s Lates event on Wednesday, January 15 combining a preview of the auctions, music, and specialist talks.
Outsider Art (Sale 17860)
Christie’s New York, 17 January 2020
On January 17 Christie’s will offer 130 lots of Outsider Art featuring rare and important masterpieces from the category’s top artists, including Bill Traylor, William Edmonson, Henry Darger, Thornton Dial and Martin Ramirez, among others.
Chinese Export Art Featuring the Tibor Collection, Part II, (Sale 18087)
Christie’s New York, 23 January 2020
Chinese Export Art Featuring the Tibor Collection, Part II, taking place in New York on January 24th, presents 166 lots of porcelain and paintings made for the great commerce between China and the West in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The variety on offer includes blue and white, famille verte, famille rose, armorial pieces, and rare European subjects. The sale is led by a rich assortment from the Tibor Collection, which encompasses every category of Chinese export porcelain—from small, charming teawares to massive pairs of important jars—gathered from Latin America, Europe, and the U.S. The collector was drawn to figure and animal models, including lifelike Chinese porcelain birds, pairs of pups to mythical beasts, and amusing packs of blanc de chine foo lions.
Important American Furniture, Folk Art, and Silver (Sale 17810)
Christie’s New York, 24 January 2020
The Important American Furniture, Folk Art, and Silver sale on January 24 includes an exceptional selection of 267 lots. The top lot of American Week is a magnificent Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks ($1,500,000–3,500,000), a ‘Late Kingdom’ masterpiece made at the height of the artist’s career and one of the most successful examples of his famous subject. This example differs in minor details to an example now at Colonial Williamsburg and was described by Hicks as “one of the best I ever done.” The significant selection of Folk Art includes a pair of vividly colored and exquisitely detailed portraits by Joshua Johnson: Boy with Squirrel and Girl with Dog (Lot 219, $100,000–150,000); an exquisite painting of two steamers by James Bard, The San Rafael ($50,000–80,000); and an iconic portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart (Lot 291, $200,000–300,000). A group of 11 cigar store figures from the collection of Gary Herman Dubnoff is led by a carved and polychrome paint-decorated Cigar Store Figure Of ‘Punch’ possibly from the workshop of Samuel Anderson Robb (1851–1928), New York, late 19th century ($70,000–90,000).
Important furniture highlights from distinguished collections include the Gould Family Queen Anne Carved Walnut Chest-of Drawers, Newport, 1750–70, from The Wunsch Americana Foundation, Inc. (Lot 296, $300,000–400,000); and from the collection of Ralph E. Carpenter, Jr. is a Queen Anne Walnut Tall-Case Clock, ca. 1740, with a dial signed by William Claggett ($30,000–50,000), and the Tillinghast Family Pair of Queen Anne Walnut Side Chairs, possibly by John Goddard, Newport, 1760–70 (two pairs presented in two lots, each estimated at $15,000–$25,000).
The sale features an impressive group of American silver with early works by Paul Revere II and iconic creations by Tiffany & Co. including a silver, gold, and enamel vase by Louis Comfort Tiffany, which was exhibited at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco ($100,000–150,000), and parcel-gilt silver and enamel musical carousel designed by Gene Moore, ca. 1990 ($50,000–80,000). Additional highlights include a pair of Martele silver vases by Gorham Mfg. Co. for the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle ($10,000–15,000) and an important silver caudle cup, by Jurian Blanck Jr., New York, ca. 1680 ($20,000–30,000).
Exhibition | Divine Illusions: Statue Paintings
Opening next month at the Snite:
Divine Illusions: Statue Paintings from Colonial South America
Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, 18 January — 16 May 2020
Curated by Michael Schreffler
Unidentified artist, Our Lady of the Rosary of Pomata, 1669, oil on canvas (Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, photo by Jamie Stukenberg).
In eighteenth-century Spanish America, sculpted images of the Virgin Mary were frequent subjects of paintings. Some of these ‘statue paintings’ depicted sculptures famed for miraculous intercession in medieval Spain. Others captured the likenesses of statues originating in the Americas and similarly celebrated for their divine intervention. Like the statues they portrayed, the paintings, too, were understood to be imbued with sacredness and were objects of devotion in their own right.
Drawn from the extraordinary holdings of the internationally renowned Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation, this exhibition focuses on statue paintings of the Virgin from the Viceroyalty of Peru, a part of the Spanish Empire encompassing much of Andean South America. It centers particularly on works produced in Cuzco (Peru) and artistic centers in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca and explores the European and American dimensions of the phenomenon, iconographic variations in the genre, and what these works of art reveal about sacred imagery and its operation in Spanish colonial South America. The identities of the painters and patrons of these works remain largely unknown, but certainly some of them were native Andeans.
The paintings in the exhibition cohere not only in their subject matter and place of production, but also in the painters’ meticulous treatment of the lavish dresses, mantles, jewels, and crowns that adorned the sculpted images. These details enhance their illusionistic effects, simulating the presence of the dressed statue itself. By making divine images from distant places present in colonial Peru and positioning them—through painting—in the company of sacred sculptures from the Americas, works in this genre traced a transatlantic spiritual geography conceived in eighteenth-century Spanish America and extending from the Andes to the Pyrenees and beyond.
In addition to the paintings on display, this exhibition will be supplemented with carefully selected archival and didactic materials. This landmark exhibition is curated by Michael Schreffler, Ph.D., of the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Art, Art History and Design.
Call for Panels | NEASECS 2020, New York — Traffic
From the Northeast American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies:
NEASECS 2020 — Traffic in the Global Eighteenth Century
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, New York, 25–27 September 2020
Panel and roundtable proposals are due 30 January 2020 (the call for papers will be posted by 15 February 2020, with a March 30 due date).
It would be difficult to imagine New York City without traffic, but traffic should not be understood merely as the polluting congestion of its highly frequented streets and waterways, an issue already present in New Amsterdam. Traffic also underlines the commerce, or the passing through different hands as the Encyclopédie’s “Trafiqué” underlines, both legal and illicit, of goods, bodies, books, artworks, monies, services, and ideas that is as central to New York City today as it was to the global eighteenth century.
For this 43 edition of NEASECS, we invite panels, papers, and other interventions on the topic of traffic in the global eighteenth century: be it book smuggling, human trafficking, drugs & arms smuggling, import/export, transnational and/or colonial exchanges, or money traders and currency converters; the traffic of ideas as well as objects of knowledge and aesthetic beauty (art objects, fashion…); the infrastructure (or lack there of) that facilitated the movements of such a global and local traffic; and/or the effects and affects of traffic/trafficking including the sonic. All disciplines from the history of science, history of the book, history of religion, architecture, art history, music history, and history, to literary studies, anthropology, and sociology are encouraged to participate. Round tables are also highly encouraged.
Of course, in the long tradition of NEASECS, panels on topics different from the theme of the conference are also welcome.
Panels will be 1 hour and 30 minutes. Panels should not have more than 4 presenters and should allow for at least 20 minutes of discussion.
For the very first time, and perhaps inspired by the controlled chaos of traffic itself and the vibrant, diverse democracy of New York City, we will also be hosting an open forum or town hall on human trafficking in the global eighteenth century. Anyone who wishes to participate can, and this can be in lieu of a paper. Although if you wish to participate in this session in addition to a panel or roundtable that is also welcome. The two-hour session will have parliamentary style format with lively free interventions to any individual who stands up to speak. Those with disabilities that prevent them from standing will be given a flag to raise. All you must do is register. All those who register for this event will be listed as participants in the session in the program.
Proposals for panels and roundtables are due 30 January 2020.
The call for papers will be posted by 15 February 2020.
Submission to panels and roundtables (individual contributions) will be due 30 March 2020.
Early registration at a discounted price must be completed by 30 May 2020.
Registration at the full price must be completed by 1 August 2020.
Please submit your proposals directly to neasecs@gmail.com. Thank you.
Click here to register and submit your proposals.
Call for Papers | Beyond the Academy: Architectural History
From the Call for Papers:
The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain Architectural History Workshop
Beyond the Academy: Architectural History in Heritage, Conservation, and Curating
The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street, London, 21 March 2020
Proposals due by 17 January 2020
The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB) invites presentation proposals for the Architectural History Workshop in 2020. This is our annual event for postgraduate students and early career professionals to share and develop their ideas; it aims to provide an informal and supportive space away from your own institution where you can discuss, debate, practice and enjoy the company of like-minded researchers and scholars working within the history of the built environment, broadly conceived. The theme of this year’s Workshop is Beyond the Academy: Architectural History in Heritage, Conservation, and Curating. Architectural history is practised in a number of fora: in academia, heritage, museums and collections. Academic research and skills have uses beyond the academy and in a competitive and precarious job market, architectural historians need to be open to a wide set of potential career paths.
We welcome doctoral students and early career professionals in architectural history, heritage, conservation, etc. The event is limited to postgraduate students (full-time or part-time) and early career professionals (those who have completed their postgraduate qualification within the last 5 years). Sessions will be structured to reflect the diversity of presentation styles needed for contemporary practice in architectural history, rather than in themes. Break-out sessions will be facilitated by a panel of invited professionals and scholars to be announced in due course.
This year we are encouraging scholars to present their research in ways that encourage discursive engagement. Research may be at any stage, from a proposal, final work as you write-up, post- doctoral reflections, or anything in-between.
We invite participation in a number of presentation styles including:
• Object-based and/or single-image presentations
• Reports or heritage statements
• Methodological reflections
Proposals can be for either
• 10-minute presentations
• Conference posters (A3 sheet in a standard format)
We welcome research on all periods and all places relating to the study of buildings, the built environment and associated histories that address a full range of methodological approaches to architectural history. All disciplinary approaches are welcome, including but by no means limited to:
• Architecture and Theory
• Urban History, Histories of Architectural Ecologies
• Art History, Material and Visual Culture
• History, Social and Cultural History
• Archaeology, Anthropology, Geography
• Heritage and Conservation of the Built Environment
Proposals should be no longer than 250 words, and indicate whether they are for posters or presentations. If you are interested in making a contribution, please complete the submission form on our website. The closing date for applications is Friday 17 January 2019. The result of all applications will be communicated by Friday, 1 February, with confirmation from the speakers requested by the second week of February. The Workshop will take place on Saturday, 21 March at The Gallery, 70, Cowcross Street, London, EC1M 6EL. No funding is available and a contribution of £10 is requested from all attendees to cover costs (inclusive of all catering). For further information or clarification of any sort please contact the conference organizers at ahw@sahgb.org.uk.
The Burlington Magazine, December 2019
The eighteenth century in The Burlington:
The Burlington Magazine 161 (December 2019)
A R T I C L E S
• François Marandet, “A Modello by James Thornhill for Addiscombe House, Surrey,” pp. 1028–33. An oil sketch in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, is here identified as James Thornhill’s modello for the ceiling painting of the staircse hall at Addiscombe House, near Croyden, begun c.1702 and demolished in the 1860s. It depicts the classical gods as an allegory of the days of the week.
R E V I E W S
• Charles Avery, Review of the exhibition Forged in Fire: Bronze Sculpture in Florence under the Last Medici (Palazzo Pitti, 2019–20), pp. 1044–47.
• David Bindman, Review of the exhibition, Hogarth: Cruelty and Humor (Morgan Library and Museum, 2019), pp. 1047–48.
• Brian Allen, Review of the exhibition Hogarth: Place and Progress (Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2019–20), pp. 1048–51.
• Emily M. Weeks, Review of the exhibition Inspired by the East: How the Islamic World Influenced Western Art (British Museum, 2019–20), pp. 1051–53.
• Xavier F. Salomon, Review of the exhibition Luigi Valadier: Splendour in Eighteenth-Century Rome (Galleria Borghese, 2019–20), pp. 1053–55.
• Clare Hornsby, Review of Robin Simon and MaryAnne Stevens, eds., The Royal Academy of Arts: History and Collections (Yale University Press, 2018) and Nicholas Savage, Burlington House: Home of the Royal Academy of Arts (Royal Academy of Arts, 2018), pp. 1060–61.
• Jörg Zutter, Review of Chris Fischer, Venetian Drawings: Italian Drawings in the Royal Collection of Graphic Art (Statens Museum fur Kunst, National Gallery of Denmark, 2018), p. 1064.
• Thomas Stammers, Review of Charlotte Guichard, La griffe du peintre: La valeur de l’art, 1730–1820 (Seuil, 2018), pp. 1066–67.
• Richard Stephens, Review of Wayne Franits, Godefridus Schalcken: A Dutch Painter in Late Seventeenth-Century London (Amsterdam University Press, 2018), p. 1074.
O B I T U A R Y
• Anthony Geraghty, Kerry Downes (1930–2019), p. 1075.
Exhibition | Luigi Valadier: Splendour in Eighteenth-Century Rome
Now on view at the Galleria Borghese . . . Of the 72 objects included, only 22 were included in the related Frick exhibition, as noted by Xavier Salomon in his review for The Burlington (December 2019), p. 1053.
Luigi Valadier: Splendour in Eighteenth-Century Rome
Galleria Borghese, Rome, 30 October 2019 — 2 February 2020
Curated by Anna Coliva
Ma ciò che la mostra vuole esaltare è la possibilità davvero unica di ammirare le opere del grande artefice all’interno di un contesto decorativo, quale quello della Villa Borghese, capace di restituire, di per sé, quella particolare compresenza di pittori, scultori e artigiani che l’architetto Antonio Asprucci aveva diretto nel rinnovamento del Palazzo di città e della Villa voluto dal principe Marcantonio IV Borghese; artisti che, nei medesimi anni, non solo avevano condiviso molte delle principali imprese artistiche romane ma i cui rapporti diretti con Luigi Valadier sono ampiamente documentati: è il caso, solo per fare un esempio, dell’intagliatore di marmi Lorenzo Cardelli, già nella bottega di Piranesi, che con il grande orafo collaborerà tanto nell’esecuzione del camino della Sala XVI, decorato con applicazioni in bronzo di Valadier, quanto nella realizzazione di manufatti destinati alla committenza anglosassone.
La Villa, che custodisce alcuni dei capolavori, come l’Erma di Bacco e la coppia di Tavoli dodecagonali, sintetizza così il gusto dominante a Roma intorno alla metà del secolo, dove i raffinati apparati decorativi risplendono di un declinante rococò che coesiste con le nuove tendenze stilistiche ispirate all’antico. Di questo particolare contesto culturale, nel senso più ampio, Valadier è protagonista assoluto.
Se la committenza Borghese costituì il filo conduttore dell’attività di Valadier, il rango e il numero dei committenti rivelano lo straordinario successo della sua carriera di orafo e argentiere, esaltando la vastità di campo, l’originalità e l’impronta internazionale della sua produzione, che la mostra intende rappresentare con importanti testimonianze. I prestiti spaziano dalle grandi lampade d’argento per il santuario di Santiago di Compostela, al San Giovanni Battista del Battistero Lateranense, per la prima volta visibili fuori della loro collocazione originale; dal servizio per pontificale della cattedrale di Muro Lucano alle sculture della cattedrale di Monreale; e, ancora, saranno esposte le riproduzioni in bronzo di celebri statue antiche per re Gustavo III di Svezia, Madame du Barry e il conte d’Orsay; il mirabile sostegno del cammeo di Augusto, realizzato su commissione di Pio VI per il Museo Sacro e Profano in Vaticano, oltre alle straordinarie invenzioni dei superbi desert, come quello commissionato dal Balì di Breteuil e poi venduto a Caterina II di Russia, oggi a San Pietroburgo, e la ricostruzione del tempio di Iside a Pompei per Maria Carolina d’Austria.
Una importante sezione sarà dedicata ai disegni, strumento fondamentale per comprendere l’evolversi del procedimento creativo di Valadier e la sua traduzione attraverso l’attività della grande e articolata bottega. Il prezioso volume della Pinacoteca Comunale di Faenza, per la prima volta interamente catalogato in occasione della mostra, ne offre una rassegna variegata, che sarà apprezzabile anche attraverso riproduzioni digitali. I disegni offrono inoltre la testimonianza di opere oggi disperse, come il sontuoso servizio in argento dorato realizzato per i Borghese, i cui pochi oggetti giunti fino a noi saranno riuniti in questa occasione.
In mostra saranno presenti alcuni totem multimediali dedicati ai Luoghi di Luigi Valadier a Roma: siti, chiese, palazzi e ambienti che conservano le sue opere o comunque significativi, come la casa-studio in via del Babuino. Un invito a trasferire questo percorso virtuale nella realtà, per comprendere meglio quel Valadier “romano”, decoratore nella più splendida e “moderna” Villa di delizie della città eterna, ma espressione di quel gusto internazionale che da Roma partiva per diffondere un gusto ricercato e imitato in tutta Europa.
Geraldine Leardi, ed., Valadier: Splendore nella Roma del Settecento (Milan: Officina Libraria, 2019), 376 pages, 978-8833670638, 48€.
New Book | Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion
From Yale UP:
Hilary Davidson, Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 336 pages, ISBN: 978-0300218725, $40.
A comprehensive and beautifully illustrated examination of dress, clothing, fashion, and sewing in the Regency seen through the lens of Jane Austen’s life and writings
This lively book reveals the clothing and fashion of the world depicted in Jane Austen’s beloved books, focusing on the long Regency between the years 1795 and 1825. During this period, accelerated change saw Britain’s turbulent entry into the modern age, and clothing reflected these transformations. Starting with the intimate perspective of clothing the self, Dress in the Age of Jane Austen moves outward through the social and cultural spheres of home, village, countryside, and cities, and into the wider national and global realms, exploring the varied ways people dressed to inhabit these environments. Jane Austen’s famously observant fictional writings, as well as her letters, provide the entry point for examining the Regency age’s rich complexity of fashion, dress, and textiles for men and women in their contemporary contexts. Lavishly illustrated with paintings, drawings, historic garments, and fashion plates—including many previously unpublished images—this authoritative yet accessible book will help readers visualize the external selves of Austen’s immortal characters as clearly as she wrote of their internal ones. The result is an enhanced understanding of Austen’s work and time, and also of the history of one of Britain’s most distinctive fashion eras.
Hilary Davidson is a dress and textile historian based between Britain and Australia, and an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney. She has curated, lectured, broadcast, and published extensively in her field.
Attingham Offerings for 2020
Francis Wheatley, The Earl of Aldborough Reviewing Volunteers at Belan House, County Kildare, 1782 (later changes ca.1787 and extended ca.1810), oil on canvas, 155 × 265 cm (National Trust, Waddesdon Manor, bequeathed by James de Rothschild, 1957).
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Next year’s Attingham offerings:
The Attingham Study Programme: The Historic House in Ireland, 3–11 June 2020
Applications due by 27 January 2020
This intensive nine-day study programme will examine the Irish country house and its wider estate, in the context of its changing ownership and presentation. Some visits will focus on houses with original decorative schemes and collections, allowing members to study the unique features of Irish design, while others will look at houses as the setting for outdoor and leisure pursuits.
The programme’s first base will be the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates at the University of Maynooth, from where it is planned to visit Carton House and Castletown House, both significant Palladian villas, whose interior decoration was conceived by the Lennox sisters; the latter complemented by a series of rare estate buildings and monuments. We will also explore the Casino at Marino, Newbridge House, and Leixlip Castle, Co. Kildare, bought by the Hon. Desmond Guinness in 1958, and from where the Irish Georgian Society was founded.
The course will travel south to Cork through Waterford via Monksgrange House in Co. Wexford, where Irish Arts and Crafts furniture was made in the 1920s and which has a delightful ‘Lutyenesque’ garden. There will also be a short visit to the Dunbrody Famine Ship at New Ross which carried thousands of emigrants to North America in the 1840s. From Cork the Neo-Classical interiors at Fota House will be explored, as well as the romantic waterside retreat of Bantry House on the south-west coast. We also plan to visit Curraghmore, home of the Marquess of Waterford, whose ancestors arrived in 1170, and Lismore Castle, the seat of the Devonshires in Ireland.
The study programme will be directed by Elizabeth Jamieson and will include visits to other privately-owned houses as well those listed. It will be supported by a series of lectures and seminars delivered by expert speakers. The course will start and finish in the historic city of Dublin.
69th Attingham Summer School, 2–19 July 2020
Applications due by 27 January 2020
The 69th Attingham Summer School, an 18-day residential course directed by David Adshead and Tessa Wild, will visit country houses in Sussex, Oxfordshire, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, and Norfolk. From West Dean, our first base, we will study, among other houses and gardens: the complex overlays of Arundel Castle, the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Norfolk; Petworth House, where the patronage of great British artists such as Turner and Flaxman enrich its Baroque interiors; Uppark, a Grand Tour house; Standen, an Arts and Crafts reinterpretation of the country house.
In the Midlands a series of related houses will be examined: Hardwick Hall, unique among Elizabethan houses for its survival of late 16th-century decoration and contents; Bolsover Castle, a Jacobean masque setting frozen in stone; and Chatsworth, where the collections and gardens of the Dukes of Devonshire span more than four centuries. Other highlights include the superb collections and landscaped gardens at Boughton House, ‘the English Versailles’; Calke Abbey, with its left ‘as found’ interiors; and the crisp neo-Classical Kedleston Hall.
Based in Norwich, the final part of the course will explore the estates and collections of Norfolk, a coastal county of rich contrasts and exceptional houses. Our itinerary will include Blickling, the fine Jacobean house of Sir Henry Hobart and later of the Earls of Buckingham, renowned for its Long Gallery and superb book collection; Felbrigg Hall, a 17th-century house with important Grand Tour collections and mid 18th-century interiors by James Paine; Houghton Hall, the great Palladian country seat of Sir Robert Walpole the first ‘Prime Minister’, with its unrivaled work by William Kent; and Sheringham Park, a favorite work of Humphry Repton, for which he produced one of his famous Red Books.
Throughout the course, lectures, seminars, and discussions will be held on all aspects of the country house including conservation and restoration, display and interpretation. Several private houses and collections will also be visited.
Royal Collection Studies, 6–15 September 2020
Applications due by 7 February 2020
Directed by Rebecca Lyons and run on behalf of Royal Collection Trust, this strenuous 10-day course is based near Windsor and will visit royal palaces in and around London with specialist tutors (many from the Royal Collection Trust) and study the patronage and collecting of the Royal Family.
From College Library to Country House, 14–18 September 2020
Applications due by 12 February 2020
From College Library to Country House is conceived from the perspective of the British aristocracy and gentry whose education centered upon preparing to run the country estate, including house and collections, and will argue for the importance of the library and the book collection in this process. This intensive residential course is based in the exceptional surroundings of Clare College in the center of the University of Cambridge. Directed by Andrew Moore, the programme focuses upon a series of iconic libraries including those at Houghton Hall and Holkham Hall.
French Eighteenth-Century Studies at the Wallace Collection, 5–9 October 2020
Applications due by 25 February 2020
Directed by Helen Jacobsen, this 5-day non-residential program aims to foster a deeper knowledge and understanding of French 18th-century fine and decorative art. Based at the Wallace Collection with one full study day at Waddesdon Manor this course is intended primarily to aid professional development with object-based study.
The Wallace’s History of Collecting Seminars, 2020
Next year at The Wallace:
History of Collecting Seminars
The Wallace Collection, London, 2020
The History of Collecting seminar series was established as part of the Wallace Collection’s commitment to the research and study of the history of collections and collecting, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Paris and London. The seminars are free, no bookings required; each begins at 5.30pm. To join the History of Collecting mailing list and receive updates on the future programme, please email your interest to collection@wallacecollection.org.
Monday, 27 January
Camilla Pietrabissa (Associate Lecturer, Bocconi University, Milan), From Nature: Jean-Baptiste Oudry and the Taste for Landscape Paintings under Louis XV
Monday, 24 February
Errol Manners (Dealer in Historic Ceramics), The Mystery of Redwares in Princely Collections
Monday, 30 March
Janet M. Brooke (Independent Scholar, Montreal), The Gilded Age in Canada: Reconstructing the Life and Afterlife of the Sir William Van Horne Collection
Monday, 27 April
Ellinoor Bergvelt (Guest Researcher University of Amsterdam / Research Fellow, Dulwich Picture Gallery), The Dutch King Willem II (1792–1849) as Collector and Source of Some Important Pictures in the Wallace Collection
Monday, 18 May
Arthur Bijl (Assistant Curator of Ottoman, Middle Eastern and Asian Arms and Armour, The Wallace Collection), Marvels in Lucknow: ‘Ajab and Asaf al-Dawla’s Collection of Curiosities
Monday, 29 June
Krystle Attard Trevisan (PhD Candidate, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London), The ‘Primo Costo’ Inventory of Count Saverio Marchese (1757–1833): Mapping the Print Market in Malta and its European Connections
Monday, 27 July
Sara Ayres (Independent Scholar, London), Descriptions of Collections and Their Display at the Stuart Court in 1669 in a Manuscript Account of Prince George of Denmark’s Grand Tour, 1668–1670
Monday, 28 September
Heike Zech (Head of Decorative Arts before 1800 and History of Craft, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg), Germanic and Gentle? The Foundation and Early Collections of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg
Monday, 26 October
Valérie M. C. Bajou (Chief Curator, Versailles Palace), The Paintings by Horace Vernet in Louis-Philippe’s Private Collection: Commission, Purpose, Display, and Destination
Monday, 30 November
Helen Jacobsen (Senior Curator, The Wallace Collection), Creating a Market: Dealers, Auctioneers, and the Passion for Riesener Furniture, 1800–1882
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