Enfilade

The exhibition opens today, 226 years after Marie-Antoinette was executed (the press release is available here). . .

Marie-Antoinette: Métamorphoses d’une Image
Conciergerie, Paris, 16 October 2019 — 26 January 2020

Only a handful of historic figures have been the subject of such an abundance of representations: Marie-Antoinette is one of these, both during her lifetime and more notably after her death on 16 October 1793. Even today, this queen-turned-icon is still a key emblem in popular culture. The exhibition illustrates the many representations of Marie-Antoinette through almost 200 works, artefacts, heritage and contemporary archives, never-before-seen interviews, film extracts, and fashion accessories—shining a light on this worldwide phenomenon of media overkill through both a historic approach and a critical and comparative examination of forms.

Marie-Antoinette at the Conciergerie

This section illustrates the final ten weeks that saw the most dramatic moments experienced by the queen in the ‘corridor of death’, during her trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal. A number of memorial fetishes testify to this: shirt, shoe, belt, and archival documents from the trial and execution of the Queen

The Histories

Marie-Antoinette’s life has been transformed since her death through numerous accounts and biographies, as well as testimonies and memories, from the Restoration to the present day, and from all points of view. The exhibition illustrates twenty events, both public and private, in Marie-Antoinette’s life, from her birth to her death, and including her official funeral in 1814.

The Image of the Queen

The figure of Marie-Antoinette is a veritable ‘expanse of images’, which can quickly be packaged to suit an event, a commemoration, the latest cultural trend or fashionable motif. Thus, according to the era, this proliferation affected the official image of the queen, particularly the portraits of her by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, the political images of the ‘martyred’ queen, the historical imagery, the character portrayed on-screen, and in Japanese manga.

Fetishes of the Queen

The relationship with Marie-Antoinette has often been passionate, creating cults, tributes, or, on the contrary, provoking violent attacks. Furthermore, it has often been subject to fantasy and imagination, on a level where intimacy can overlap with mythology. The exhibition here displays a selection of images and objects, based on three motifs, symbolising Marie-Antoinette throughout history and the world.
• The Hair
• The Body
• The Severed Head

The Return of the Queen

Marie-Antoinette is experiencing a surprising revival, due to the modernization of the character, who has become a young woman of hers, and our time. The revival is illustrated by Japanese manga, which reinvented Marie-Antoinette in Riyoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles; the biography of the English writer Antonia Fraser, Marie-Antoinette: The Journey; and its Hollywood adaptation by Sofia Coppola. Fashion has also appropriated the phenomenon associating the queen with several contemporary supermodels. A fan cult has appropriated the figure of Marie-Antoinette, a phenomenon of globalised post-modernism, as commercial as it is cultural and ideological. The overriding style of this onslaught is a popularised form of pop art, and its diffusion affects all genres, every type of consumerism and every country. The exhibition highlights this great blend of genres and objects, while revealing its commercial aspect.

A cycle of Marie-Antoinette films will be screened at the Le Champo cinema from 5 November to 3 December.

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The catalogue is published by Éditions du Patrimoine:

Antoine de Baecque, ed., Marie-Antoinette: Métamorphoses d’une image (Paris: Éditions du Patrimoine, 2019), 215 pages, ISBN: 978-2757706817, 39€.

Un très beau livre qui donne à voir et à comprendre les multiples visages de la figure historique française la plus connue à travers le monde. De la princesse idéale à la ‘reine scélérate’, de la traîtresse étrangère à la figure martyre, de l’héroïne adolescente à la mère bigote, de la femme de culture à l’icône de mode, l’image de la reine Marie-Antoinette, tour à tour adorée ou honnie, n’a cessé d’évoluer au cours des siècles.

En suivant le fil de l’exposition qui se tiendra à la Conciergerie du 16 octobre 2019 au 26 janvier 2020, cet ouvrage, à travers 14 essais et 16 notices, commentera les multiples représentations de la reine et montrera comment le rapport à Marie-Antoinette a souvent été passionnel, déterminant des cultes, des hommages, ou au contraire de violentes attaques.

Historien, spécialiste de la culture des Lumières et de la Révolution française, Antoine de Baecque a entre autres publié Le Corps de l’histoire. Métaphores et politique 1770–1800 (Calmann-Lévy, 1993), La Gloire et l’effroi (Grasset, 1996) sur la Terreur, puis Les Eclats du rire (Calmann-Lévy, 2000), sur la culture des rieurs au XVIIIe siècle. Il a également écrit le volume sur les Lumières de l’Histoire culturelle de la France en 1998 aux éditions du Seuil, et participé aux volumes collectifs, Histoire du corps, Histoire de la virilité, Histoire des émotions. Antoine de Baecque est également commissaire de nombreuses expositions, membre du comité de rédaction de la revue L’Histoire, du conseil scientifique de la BNF, président de la commission d’aide à l’écriture documentaire au CNC et professeur d’histoire du cinéma à l’École normale supérieure de la rue d’Ulm.

S O M M A I R E

La tradition royale
• Marie-Antoinette, reine de France, Fanny Cosandey
• Marie-Antoinette et ses soeurs : portrait de groupe, Mélanie Traversier
• La fabrique de la célébrité, Antoine Lilti
• La reine des modes, du chic au kitsch, Catriona Seth
> Notices : Les colliers de la reine. Gravures de mode royale

Face à la Révolution
• Une reine traînée dans la boue : les caricatures contre Marie-Antoinette, Annie Duprat
• Un fantasme de reine, entretien avec Chantal Thomas
> Notices : Une Autrichienne en goguette. Archives du procès et dernière lettre de Marie-Antoinette. La chemise de Marie-Antoinette. Soulier « à la Saint-Huberty » dit de Marie-Antoinette. Marie-Antoinette conduite à son exécution. Le peintre David dessinant Marie-Antoinette conduite au supplice.

Le culte de Marie-Antoinette
• « C’était là »… », l’ombre tutélaire de la Conciergerie, Guillaume Mazeau
• L’impératrice Eugénie et le culte visuel de Marie-Antoinette, Clémence Poupin
• Pierre de Nolhac, le chevalier servant des images, Baptiste Roger-Lacan
• Deux clés biographiques : des Goncourt à Stefan Zweig, Cécile Berly
> Notices : la cellule de la reine, oratoire de la Conciergerie. La châtelaine-reliquaire de la duchesse de Tourzel. La Chapelle expiatoire. Marie-Antoinette à la basilique-cathédrale de Saint-Denis.

Métamorphoses et revival
• Marie-Antoinette à l’écran, François Huzar
• Marie-Antoinette, héroïne manga-pop, fille d’Ikeda, Cyril Triolaire
• Effigie en série, trajectoire iconique d’une reine de France dans la pop culture internationale, Martial Poirson
• Marie-Antoinette en quelques clics…, Cécile Berly
> Notices : Les collections de la Cinémathèque française. Anne Seibel, chef décoratrice. Œuvres contemporaines. Michèle Lorin, collectionneuse passionnée.

Biographie des auteurs

From the press release (21 May 2019) for the exhibition:

Making Marvels: Science & Splendor at the Courts of Europe
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 25 November 2019 — 1 March 2020

Curated by Wolfram Koeppe

Between 1550 and 1750, nearly every royal family in Europe assembled vast collections of exquisite and entertaining objects. Lavish public spending and the display of precious metals were important expressions of power, and possessing artistic and technological innovations conveyed status. In fact, advancements in art, science, and technology were often prominently showcased in elaborate court entertainments that were characteristic of the period. Opening November 25, Making Marvels: Science and Splendor at the Courts of Europe will explore the complex ways in which the wondrous objects collected and displayed by early modern European monarchs expressed these rulers’ ability to govern.

The exhibition will feature approximately 170 objects—including clocks, automata, furniture, scientific instruments, jewelry, paintings, sculptures, print media, and more—from The Met collection and over 50 lenders. A number of these works have never been displayed in the United States. Among the many exceptional loans will be silver furniture from the Esterházy Treasury; the largest flawless natural green diamond in the world, weighing 41 carats and in its original 18th-century setting; the alchemistic table bell of Emperor Rudolf II; a large wire-drawing bench made for Elector Augustus of Saxony; a rare example of an early equation clock by Jost Bürgi; and a reconstruction of a late 18th-century semi-automaton chess player, known as The Turk, that once famously caught Napoleon Bonaparte cheating.

Making Marvels is the first exhibition in North America to highlight the important conjunction of art, science, and technology with entertainment and display that was essential to court culture. The exhibition will be divided into four sections dedicated to the main object types featured in these displays: precious metalwork, Kunstkammer objects, princely tools, and self-moving clockworks or automata.

In order to emphasize the scientific and technological content of these objects, the exhibition will begin by establishing the high level of material value and artisanal quality that princes had to meet in these displays of wealth and power. Visitors will encounter a set of superbly fashioned silver furniture that was considered the ultimate symbol of power, status, and money during the early modern period. The second section will be dedicated to the unusual objects of the Kunstkammer, as these collections were known in German-speaking provinces. These pieces were typically composed of newly discovered natural materials set in finely crafted mounts of silver or gold, whose highly inventive designs often embodied the most up-to-date knowledge of the natural world. Reflective of the multi-layered objects they housed, Kunstkammern functioned simultaneously as places of amusement, research retreats for the investigation of nature, and political showcases for magnificence.

Knowledge of subjects such as natural philosophy, artisanal craftsmanship, and technology was considered tantamount to the practical wisdom, self-mastery, and moral virtue integral to successful governance. Pursuits such as metalsmithing, surveying, horology, astronomy, and turning at the lathe were part of the education and entertainment of princes in courts across Europe. The exhibition’s third section will present the scientific instruments, artisanal tools, and experimental apparatus used by rulers as they developed the technical skills so important to their princely identity.

The exhibition will conclude with innovations in mechanical technology. Self-moving clockwork machines—perhaps the most well-known technological display objects—were also a rich source for allegories of rulership. Additionally, as courts competed for technical supremacy, many innovations in mechanical technology were developed at the urging of princely patrons. Automata represented the ultimate attempt to use mechanics to create life-like movement, and were extremely popular additions to princely collections from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. One highlight will be The Draughtsman Writer, a late 18th-century writing automaton that inspired the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret and its movie adaptation. The advanced mechanism of this piece, which stored more information than any machines that came before it, was the forerunner of the computer, the most common technology used today.

Throughout each gallery, videos and digital models will vividly evoke the historical reality of the objects on view and emphasize the similarities between early modern objects and contemporary technological entertainments. Exhibition visitors will discover innovative marvels that engaged and delighted the senses of the past much like 21st-century technology holds our attention today—through suspense, surprise, and dramatic transformations.

Making Marvels is organized by Wolfram Koeppe, Marina Kellen French Curator in The Met’s Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue, distributed by Yale University Press, are made possible by the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.

Wolfram Koeppe, ed., Making Marvels: Science and Splendor at the Courts of Europe (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-1588396778, $65.

Above Image: Gerhard Emmoser, Celestial Globe with Clockwork, 1579; partially gilded silver, gilded brass (case); brass, steel (movement); diameter of globe: 14 cm (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917).

Press release (via Art Daily) for the exhibition:

Hogarth: Place and Progress
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, 9 October 2019 — 5 January 2020

Hogarth: Place and Progress unites all of the paintings and engravings in Hogarth’s series for the first time, displayed across the Georgian backdrop of Sir John Soane’s Museum. Through these works the exhibition will explore the artist’s complex stance on morality, society, and the city, and the enduring appeal of his satires.

• The concept of progress has positive connotations in the twenty-first century but was often construed negatively in Hogarth’s time. Hogarth’s complex and often darkly satirical narrative progresses move from moral abandon and social ostracism, to poverty, madness and death.

• New research pinpoints precise locations in London depicted in Hogarth’s works and examines the key role they play in a moral reading of Hogarth’s paintings.

• Hogarth’s ability to see beyond social conventions continues to resonate with 21st-century audiences, as he presented with wit and empathy the depictions of immorality and vice that he perceived in all classes of society.

The Soane Museum’s own Rake’s Progress and An Election will be joined by Marriage A-la-Mode from the National Gallery, The Four Times of Day from the National Trust and The Trustees of the Grimsthorpe and Drummond Castle Trust, as well as the three surviving paintings of The Happy Marriage from Tate and the Royal Cornwall Museum. The exhibition also includes engraved series of prints, lent by Andrew Edmunds, such as The Four Stages of Cruelty, Industry and Idleness, and Gin Lane and Beer Street. The works span Hogarth’s career as an engraver and painter and the exhibition will explore Hogarth’s increasing skill—or progress—in both fields, culminating in the masterly execution of An Election.

Hogarth’s concept of ‘progress’ was influenced by John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, where the word described a journey towards moral and spiritual redemption through dismal places: from the City of Destruction to the Slough of Despond and Valley of Humiliation. Hogarth: Place and Progress explores how Hogarth’s series depict this idea. Hogarth’s narratives move from moral abandon and social ostracism, to poverty, madness and death and are often presented as highlighting the follies of the upper classes.

The exhibition also examines the idea that Hogarth was not simply ‘the people’s champion,’ but increasingly his narrative series perceived immorality and impropriety at all levels of society. Those most likely to be safe from Hogarth’s satirical wit were those who knew their ‘place’ in the social order and lived up to the positive ideals of their class, high and low alike.

Hogarth’s self-titled ‘Modern Moral Subjects’ present detailed characters, plots and changes of scene, set in specific and recognisable locations. The idea of spiritual progress is shown through visible representations of London life. The key geographic contrast is between the City of London, with its winding alleys and crumbling houses, livery guilds, the Mansion House and Monument, associated with merchants, and the West End where the landed aristocracy live in spacious and orderly squares, physically nearer to the royal place of St James. Between the two, the area around Covent Garden is repeatedly presented as a hotbed of immorality. In A Rake’s Progress, the Rake moves from the City of London to an extravagant property in the West End, then a brothel in Covent Garden, and ultimately travels outside the City walls, ending up in Bedlam, where his dissolute life has led him to insanity and death. The exhibition demonstrates how Hogarth’s ‘Modern Moral Subjects’ married the idea of progress with the moral geography of London, in a dynamic and evolving way throughout his own progress as an artist.

Bruce Boucher, David Bindman, Frederic Ogee, and Jacqueline Riding, Hogarth: Place and Progress (London: Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2019), 144 pages, ISBN: 978-1999693213, £25.