Call for Papers | Un-Fair Trades
From the Call for Papers:
Un-Fair Trades: Artistic Intersections with Social and Environmental Injustices in the Atlantic World, 1500–Present
The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, 10–11 October 2019
Hosted by the Art History Department, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Proposals due by 15 May 2019
Artists have engaged with issues of oppression and exploitation—byproducts of colonialist and capitalist systems—throughout the history of transatlantic encounters: from slavery and resource extraction; to exploitative labor practices and the environmental consequences of industrialization; and human rights movements and climate change anxieties of the past century. This conference will examine a multitude of artistic responses to increasing global connections, which could include plantation scenes, images of the Middle Passage, social reform photography, industrialized cityscapes, and images of workers and employment. When examined through the lens of our contemporary social and environmental concerns, artworks whose motifs intersect with these imbalances of power compel us to analyze the visualizations of oppression and environmental degradation from a new perspective. Amid the 21st-century activist revival (with movements like Occupy Wall Street, #BlackLivesMatter, #NODAPL, and #MeToo) it is more prescient than ever to acknowledge, examine, and reflect upon both historic and perpetuating inequalities.
Un-Fair Trades seeks to establish a forum for intersectionality, Pan-American approaches, and transnational perspectives. We welcome paper abstracts that utilize an array of theoretical approaches to the visual culture of the Americas, Europe, and Africa and intersect with the issues of equity, equality, and environmentalism. We invite proposals for papers that critically engage with, but are not limited to, depictions of
• Native artists and indigenous populations amid forced migration and assimilation
• Harvested land and the plantation economy.
• Forced labor, the Middle Passage, and the Triangle trade
• The visual, economic, and social treatment of minority populations
• Scientific expeditions, expansionism, and extractive industries in the American West
• Exploitative labor practices, trades, and environmental damage caused by the Industrial Revolution
• Women’s work, expanding economic independence, and the suffrage movement
• Immigration, xenophobia, and the ‘melting pot’
• African Diaspora, the Harlem Renaissance, and Pan-Africanism
• Social Reform initiatives
Keynote Speakers: Dr. Alan C. Braddock and Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson
Proposals should be submitted to Caroline L. Gillaspie and Alice J. Walkiewicz at unfairtradesconference@gmail.com by 15 May 2019. Please include a 300-word abstract and a current CV. Applicants will be notified of acceptance by mid-June.
Call for Papers | Goldsmiths and Bankers as Collectors
From the Call for Papers:
Goldsmiths and Bankers as Collectors
Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, 28 October 2019
Proposals due by 10 May 2019
Francis Harding and Michael Dahl, Portrait of Henry Hoare I (1677–1725), oil on canvas (National Trust, Stourhead).
2019 will see the return to Osterley Park of one of the many remarkable Old Master paintings acquired by the Child family in the throes of Britain’s late 17th-century financial revolution. The Childs are part of a long line of goldsmiths and bankers who have collected and patronised the fine and decorative arts, from the Medici in Florence to the present-day Rothschilds who continue to be highly active across the cultural sphere. As these financial dynasties interacted and integrated with ruling elites, collecting and associated displays of taste, sophistication and magnificence became a much favoured and often extremely effective route to social and cultural distinction. Financiers may be most obviously associated with an urban context, from the medieval livery company to the modern hedge fund, but the country house was and is an important venue for the display of their patronage and collecting. Among the holdings of the National Trust alone examples of estates with connections to goldsmithing and banking abound including, in addition to Osterley, Chirk Castle, Erddig, Trelissick, Stourhead, Mottisfont, Studley Royal, Waddesdon, and Ascott.
This conference will bring together academics and curators to seek patterns of patronage across this influential and diverse social grouping. It will identify the range of social, economic and political motivations for their participation in high material culture and explore case studies of particular individuals, objects and places to illustrate the sheer variety of manifestations of the goldsmith and banker as collector and patron. Papers are invited on, but by no means limited to, the following topics:
• Goldsmiths and bankers as collectors and their collections from medieval to modern
• Trends in collecting and patronage amongst goldsmiths and bankers
• Case studies of individual patrons, collectors, makers, or suppliers
• Case studies of individual objects or places
• Comparisons with collectors from other social or economic groupings
• Consumption and social mobility in banking and goldsmithing dynasties
• Perspectives of modern collectors
The conference programme will be comprised of a keynote address and a series of 20-minute papers. Proposals for panels will be accepted. We hope to publish a selection of revised conference papers in a peer-reviewed journal or as an edited collection after the conference. Please send abstracts of between 200 and 300 words along with short biographies to richard.ashbourne@nationaltrust.org.uk by Friday, 10th May 2019.
This conference is organised by the National Trust with support from the Goldsmiths’ Company. Conference convenors: James Rothwell, NT Adviser on Silver; Lucy Porten, NT Curator for Osterley; John Chu, NT Assistant Curator of Pictures & Sculpture; Pippa Shirley, Head of Collections, Waddesdon Manor (Rothschild Foundation).
Find out more about the National Trust’s research strategy here. Click here for more information about Osterley Park.
New Book | Livery Halls of the City of London
Published by Merrell in association with the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects:
Anya Lucas and Henry Russell, with photographs by Andreas von Einsiedel, Livery Halls of the City of London (London: Merrell, 2018), 280 pages, ISBN: 978-1858946702, £45 / $80.
For some 800 years, Livery Companies have played a leading role in commercial activities and social and political life in the City of London. These trade associations, each representing a particular craft or profession, were originally responsible for controlling, for example, wages and working conditions. Their headquarters—the Livery Halls—evolved from large medieval town houses to become an identifiable building type paralleled only by the guild houses of northern European mercantile cities and the Venetian scuole. This beautiful book is the first major exploration of these architecturally significant buildings. Dr Anya Lucas, who has studied the Halls in depth, provides an introduction and an illustrated history of the buildings that have been lost over the centuries, while Henry Russell surveys each of the 40 present-day Halls, from HQS Wellington, the headquarters of the Master Mariners, in the west to the Proof House, the home of the Gunmakers’ Company, in the east. The existing Livery Halls have been photographed especially for the project by the renowned interiors photographer Andreas von Einsiedel, making this a truly outstanding publication.
Anya Lucas (née Matthews) is an art and architectural historian specializing in 17th- and 18th-century Britain. Her PhD (2015) at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, examined the architecture and political uses of London’s Livery Halls in the early modern period. She has written about the Livery Halls for Country Life magazine and the Georgian Group Journal, and contributed a chapter on the subject to the book Court, Country, City: British Art and Architecture, 1660–1735 (Yale University Press, 2016). She currently works as Research Curator for the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London, where a major conservation project on Sir James Thornhill’s vast baroque scheme is under way.
Call for Papers | At CAA 2020, Historic Libraries & Art Historiography
Dr. Musto plans to submit this proposal to CAA as a fully-formed, ‘complete session’, and she welcomes eighteenth-century submissions:
Historic Libraries and Art Historiography
College Art Association Conference, Hilton Chicago, 12–15 February 2020
Organized by Jeanne-Marie Musto
Proposals due by 22 April 2019
Currently seeking papers for a session exploring the potential of historic libraries to deepen and broaden our understanding of art historiography and its relationship to social, intellectual and geo-political currents. Such libraries include those not specifically intended for the study of art. This session will build on a theme introduced at CAA 2019, where a wide range of art-historical themes emerged from diverse libraries. These libraries range from early modern through twentieth century, across several continents, and survive intact or through inventories. Xu Bo’s library inventory, for example, offers a view into the role of art history in Ming dynasty regionalism, while the history of an individual Mexican codex within the National Library of Spain tells of the shifting winds of colonial and post-colonial cultural authority. But these libraries also tell of more than geopolitical concerns. They underline efforts to define the inchoate discipline of art history through a wide spectrum of materials. At the same time, they demonstrate active participation in art historical debates, and connections with artists and arts administrators. Papers that examine any aspect of the historiography of art emerging from the analysis of historic libraries will be welcomed. Please send proposals for a paper including title, abstract (250 words) and CV to Dr. Jeanne-Marie Musto, musto.jeannemarie@gmail.com. Additional information concerning the 2020 conference is available here.
Exhibition | Éloge du sentiment et de la sensibilité
From the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes:
Éloge du sentiment et de la sensibilité: Peintures françaises du xviiie siècle des collections de Bretagne
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes et le Musée d’Arts de Nantes, 15 February — 12 May 2019
Dans le cadre des collaborations entre musées du Grand-Ouest, le Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes et le Musée d’Arts de Nantes présentent de février à mai 2019 une exposition en coproduction intitulée Éloge du sentiment et de la sensibilité: Peintures françaises du xviiie siècle des collections de Bretagne. Cet événement présente l’originalité de se dérouler simultanément dans les deux institutions avec un catalogue commun.
Le propos général de l’exposition est une découverte de l’ensemble de la production picturale du Siècle des Lumières à travers le prisme du sentiment et de la sensibilité. Dans la seconde moitié de ce siècle, littérature et peinture reflètent une nouvelle vision de l’Homme et de son environnement. Sentiment et sensibilité deviennent de nouvelles qualités de l’âme, donnant une liberté inédite de ressentir le monde. Diderot s’interroge sur le sentiment dans la peinture et au théâtre, Rousseau porte aux nues la sensibilité dans la Nouvelle Héloïse et théorise une nouvelle forme d’éducation dans l’Émile, Voltaire s’émerveille de l’impact de la nature sur ses sens et son âme… La peinture offre un écho enthousiaste et inspiré à ces préoccupations inédites.
Le choix des oeuvres a été réalisé essentiellement dans les riches collections conservées aux musées de Brest, Nantes, Quimper et Rennes avec des compléments apportés par les collections publiques (musées, églises, bâtiments municipaux) de Morlaix et de Lamballe. La réunion de ces collections permet de représenter l’ensemble des grands artistes du siècle tels qu’Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Carle Vanloo, Charles Joseph Natoire, Jean Siméon Chardin, Hubert Robert, Jean-Baptiste Greuze ou Jean Honoré Fragonard.
L’exposition en deux parties organisée à Rennes et à Nantes, Éloge du sentiment et Éloge de la sensibilité, permet d’embrasser l’évolution de la peinture française sur un siècle, depuis Antoine Watteau jusqu’au début du xixe siècle. À Rennes s’expose la grande histoire, antique, religieuse et mythologique. Nantes met à l’honneur les différents genres, du grand portrait d’apparat aux sensibles natures mortes. Ce partage des oeuvres s’appuie sur une division ancienne bien connue, que les hasards des collections semblent avoir reproduite dans nos musées : Rennes conserve davantage de peintures d’histoire que Nantes, qui s’illustre plus dans la peinture de genres.
Un premier ensemble d’environ 70 tableaux, réuni à Rennes autour de la notion de sentiment, évoquera en quatre sections l’évolution de la peinture à sujet historique (biblique, mythologique, antique et contemporaine).
Un second ensemble d’environ 70 oeuvres présente en six sections au Musée d’arts de Nantes un parcours autour de la notion de sensibilité à travers la peinture de genre (portraits, scènes galantes, paysage, natures mortes…).
Cet événement inédit fait suite à l’organisation en 2013, par les musées de Quimper et de Rennes, de l’exposition De Véronèse à Casanova, qui, selon le même principe faisait le bilan des richesses des musées bretons dans le domaine de la peinture italienne. Les restaurations et les recherches menées à l’occasion de cet événement ont permis d’apporter un éclairage nouveau sur de nombreuses oeuvres et quelques découvertes importantes dans les réserves de certains musées.
Guillaume Kazerouni and Adeline Collange-Perugi, Éloge du sentiment et de la sensibilité: Peintures françaises du xviiie siècle des collections de Bretagne (Paris: Snoeck, 2019), 367 pages, ISBN: 978-9461615138, 35€.
Exhibition | Bernard Picart (1673–1723)
Now on view at the Musée National de Port-Royal des Champs, near Versailles:
Bernard Picart (1673–1723), Dessinateur, de Paris à Amsterdam
Musée National de Port-Royal des Champs, Magny-les-Hameaux, 21 March — 23 June 2019
Curated by Corentin Dury and Philippe Luez
Bernard Picart (1673–1723), issu d’une famille janséniste, s’installe à Amsterdam en 1710 et y occupe une place majeure dans l’édition hollandaise illustrée. Mais on le connaît moins comme dessinateur. La présente exposition permet de découvrir ce pan inconnu de son activité et lui rend sa place parmi les grands dessinateurs des débuts du règne de Louis XV.
En collaboration avec le Salon international du dessin de Paris et avec la participation du Rijksmuseum d’Amsterdam
Commissaires
Corentin Dury, conservateur du patrimoine, musée des Beaux-arts d’Orléan, et Philippe Luez, conservateur général du patrimoine, directeur du musée national de Port-Royal des Champs
Corentin Dury and Philippe Luez, Bernard Picart (1673–1723), Dessinateur, de Paris à Amsterdam (Paris: Snoeck, 2019), 175 pages, ISBN: 978-9461615459, €25.
Williamsburg Acquires Its First Judaica Objects
Torah Pointer (Yad), Birmingham, England, 1843–44, silver and gold (gilding) (Courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Museum Purchase and Hugh Trumbull Adams Fund, 2018-326).
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Press release (2 April 2019) from Colonial Williamsburg:
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has recently added several important objects of Judaica to its collections: a sterling silver and gold Kiddush cup and a silver and gold yad (or Torah pointer). These mark the first such objects in the Foundation’s holdings and exemplify the concerted efforts in recent years by the curators to acquire objects and address the stories of all early Americans while remaining true to their long-standing strength in British and American decorative arts. Additionally, objects that represent the early Anglo-American experience have also been acquired. These include an alphabet sampler created by a Jewish schoolgirl that is unique both for who made it and where it was created, as well as Chinese porcelain pieces that were owned by prominent London Jewish families.
“The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation sees the objects in its collections as documents of the people, places, and events of the past,” said Ronald L. Hurst, the Foundation’s Carlisle Humelsine Chief Curator and Vice President for Collections, Conservation, and Museums. “Because we use these objects to tell the compelling stories of early Americans, we seek to acquire things that speak to the full range of their experiences, whatever their race, religion, gender, age, or cultural ethnicity may have been. These latest acquisitions mark important steps toward that goal.”
The silver objects are noteworthy additions to the collections as they represent a faith that was more prevalent in early America than most people realize today. They also span the realms of public and private worship in the Jewish religion. Kiddush cups are used both as part of family worship at home and as part of congregational worship, while the yad is used in congregational worship in a synagogue. The Colonial Williamsburg curators know that these specific examples are representative of what was owned and used in early America.
Kiddush Cup, probably by William Harrison I (active ca. 1758–81), London, ca. 1775, silver (sterling) and gold (Courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Museum Purchase, The Antique Collectors’ Guild, 2016-1).
The Kiddush cup, which is used while reciting the blessing over wine (the Kiddush), is part of the commandment from the Torah to sanctify the Sabbath (Shabbat). Before the Friday night meal on the eve of Shabbat, the tradition dictates that a family’s Kiddush cup is filled with wine and held as the blessing is spoken, usually by the head of the household. Few ceremonial Jewish objects from the early Anglo-American world are known today. This Kiddush cup, probably made by William Harrison I (active ca. 1758–1781) in London about 1775, was the first piece of silver Judaica to be added to the Colonial Williamsburg collection. It is an elegant example with a circular stepped foot and a tapered stem that supports an egg-shaped cup with a gilded interior. It is engraved with three lines of Hebrew, “Remember the Sabbath day, and sanctify it,” within a shield suspended from a bow-knot and flanked by slender foliate sprays.
The yad, which literally means “hand,” can be interpreted as a representation of the hand of God and is used as a pointer during Torah readings, which allows the rabbi to follow the text without physically touching the sacred scrolls. The chain on the yad was used to suspend it from the Torah scrolls when not in use. This example, made in Birmingham, England, between 1843 and 1844, is made of silver with gilding, which was the predominant material used to make yads since the early 1600s. It features a long wand of quadrangular shape that is engine-turned and engraved with foliage and has a media band also flanked by foliage. One end of the yad has a foliate-engraved knop with a suspension ring and hanging chain. The other end has an applied cast hand with an extended index finger wearing a ring. There are traces of gilding on the hand.
Also providing a glimpse into the Jewish experience in the early Anglo-American world, are a recently acquired schoolgirl sampler and Chinese porcelain objects:
Stand, Jingdezhen, ca. 1795, hard-paste porcelain (Courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Museum Purchase, The Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach Directors, 2016-116).
The alphabet sampler by Rachel Cole (1854–1922) is an important addition to the textile collections. The most significant facet of this unique object’s story is its maker. Rachel Cole, who was born on August 18, 1854, in Chicago, was the daughter of one of the city’s earliest Jewish families. Her mother, Sarah Frank, was an immigrant from Germany, her father, Samuel Cole, was an immigrant from Austria who was a co-founder of the Kehilath Anshe Ma’ariv (K.A.M.) congregation, which became Chicago’s first Jewish synagogue. Samuel Cole was also the president of the congregation for approximately one year. The sampler, which Rachel may have made at the K.A.M. school where she studied after graduating from one of Chicago’s public schools, is also unique as it is the only identified sampler marked “Chicago,” and one of just a handful of known samplers created by Jewish schoolgirls. The colorful sampler is marked with the place name of Chicago, Illinois, and with the date 1868. Few, if any, samplers from Chicago are known to survive, probably because of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed much of the city. Ms. Cole lived within just blocks of the approximately 3.3 miles of area consumed by the conflagration.
The prominent Sephardic Jewish D’Aguilar family were London merchants and sugar planters in the eighteenth century. This hard-paste porcelain stand, made in Jingdezhen, China, around 1795, is decorated with the family’s crest and is from just one of several armorial services that was ordered by the family. Most likely it was owned by Solomon, the fifth son of Don Diego D’Aguilar.
Cup and Saucer, Jingdezhen, ca. 1805, hard-paste porcelain (Courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Museum Purchase, The Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach Directors, 2016-117, A&B).
Also made in Jingdezhen, China, around 1805, is this hard-paste porcelain cup and saucer, decorated with the coat of arms of Neilson impaling Goldsmid. Aaron Goldsmid was a merchant in Hamburg and left there in 1765 to settle in London and establish the firm of Aaron Goldsmid & Son. Aaron’s second son, Asher, helped establish Mocatta & Goldsmid, which was a bullion-brokerage firm to the Bank of England. The Goldsmid family was known for its philanthropy and financier endeavors throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is most likely that this cup and saucer were made for a daughter or niece of Asher Goldsmid.
The Kiddush cup was purchased with funds from The Antique Collectors’ Guild. The yad was purchased through the generosity of the Hugh Trumbull Adams Fund. The Chinese porcelain objects were acquired with funds from The Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach Directors.
Call for Panel Chair(s) | HECAA at ASECS, 2020
HECAA New Scholars Session at ASECS 2020
American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference, St. Louis, 24–28 March 2020
Chair nominations due by 20 April 2019
As part of its long-standing commitment to supporting the work of graduate students and younger scholars, HECAA has for many years used its panel at ASECS as a New Scholars Session. Since 2013, the session has been named in honor of Anne Schroder (1954–2010), a former HECAA president who was especially known for the interest she took in graduate students’ research. As we continue the tradition into 2020, the HECAA panel committee invites nominations (including self-nominations) for someone to chair the session (co-chairs are welcome). Please send a note of interest and a CV to Michael Yonan, convener of the HECAA panel committee, at yonanm@missouri.edu, by 20 April 2019. Questions may be directed to either Michael or Amelia Rauser at arauser@fandm.edu.
Call for Panel Proposals | HECAA at CAA, 2020
HECAA Panel and ASECS Panel at College Art Association, 2020
College Art Association Conference, Chicago, 12–15 February 2020
Proposals due by 10 April 2019
HECAA will submit two panels for the annual meeting of the College Art Association in 2020 (one panel belongs to ASECS but is delegated to us), and the panel committee now welcomes your proposals. Please send the title, a brief description (150–200 words), and a CV to Michael Yonan, convener of the HECAA panel committee, at yonanm@missouri.edu, by 10 April 2019. Please note if you have a preference for whether the session is assigned to HECAA or ASECS (in terms of the affiliate label); the ASECS session should—in keeping with the organization’s mission—open up broad, interdisciplinary possibilities. Questions may be directed to either Michael or Amelia Rauser at arauser@fandm.edu.
Details for submitting panel proposals for CAA 2020 as individuals (rather than with the support of an affiliate society) are available here; the due date is 30 April 2019.
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Note (added 1 April 2019) — The original posting did not include the note regarding the interdisciplinary scope of the ASECS panel.
Exhibition | Tiepolo in Milan
Press release from The Frick:
Tiepolo in Milan: The Lost Frescoes of Palazzo Archinto
The Frick Collection, New York, 16 April — 14 July 2019
Curated by Xavier Salomon, with Andrea Tomezzoli and Denis Ton
This spring and summer, The Frick Collection presents paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs related to Giambattista Tiepolo’s (1696–1770) first significant project outside of Venice, a series of ceiling frescoes painted in 1730–31 for Palazzo Archinto in Milan. Commissioned by Count Carlo Archinto, one of the city’s most influential patrons and intellectuals, the frescoes were tragically destroyed when the palazzo was bombed by the Allies during World War II. Tiepolo in Milan: The Lost Frescoes of Palazzo Archinto brings together more than fifty works from collections in the United States and Europe to tell the story of this important commission. Five preparatory paintings and drawings are featured, among them the oil sketch Perseus and Andromeda, acquired by Henry Clay Frick in 1916. As the Frick does not loan objects purchased by the institution’s founder, the New York museum is the only place where these works can be displayed together. Several complementary drawings and books illustrated by Tiepolo are included, alongside documentary photographs, taken between 1897 and the early 1940s, which are the only surviving records of the finished frescoes. The exhibition is organized by The Frick Collection in collaboration with the Azienda di Servizi alla Persona Golgi-Redaelli, Milan, and curated by Xavier F. Salomon, the Frick’s Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, with Andrea Tomezzoli, Professor at the University of Padua, and Denis Ton, Curator of the Musei Civici in Belluno.
Comments Salomon, “At a moment in history when wars are destroying art and culture in many parts of the world, it is worth pausing to consider, through an exhibition like this, the tragic, irreparable effects caused by violence throughout the centuries on great works of human creativity.”
Tiepolo and the Archinto Family
Palazzo Archinto belonged to one of Milan’s most prominent aristocratic families, documented in the city since at least the twelfth century. In the eighteenth century, the Archinto were described as one of those Milanese families who had always owned “highly admired treasures.” In addition to Tiepolo’s frescoes, the palazzo contained extensive collections of artworks and a renowned library. Carlo Archinto (1670–1732), Tiepolo’s patron, was at the center of Milan’s intellectual circles and was especially recognized for his interest in philosophy, mathematics, and science. During the mid-eighteenth century, he lived in the family palazzo, located on Via Olmetto, near Porta Ticinese, in one of the oldest parts of the city.
The palazzo’s library, overseen by librarian Filippo Argelati, filled five rooms and was open to scholars. Together with Carlo Archinto and other patrons, Argelati founded the Società Palatina, a publishing enterprise. Between 1723 and 1751, the Società published Ludovico Antonio Muratori’s Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Archinto financed the project and contributed notes to one of the volumes. Tiepolo provided a number of designs for books published by the Società Palatina (five are included in the exhibition) and thus became acquainted with the aristocratic family. About 1730, when Archinto decided to redecorate his palazzo, he commissioned eight frescoed ceilings: five from Tiepolo and three from the Bolognese painter Vittorio Maria Bigari (1692–1776).
The Commission
The substantial commission was Tiepolo’s first outside the Veneto, and it marked the beginning of his international career. According to the Tiepolo scholar, Michael Levey, the frescoes at Palazzo Archinto “must have been sumptuously rich and impressive. Tiepolo never received a commission for a private palace of comparable extent and rarely of such splendour.” The ceilings, in part to celebrate the wedding of Carlo’s son Filippo to Giulia Borromeo, were meant to underscore the status of the Archinto family and were Carlo’s spiritual and visual testament, blending allegorical and mythological scenes.
Of the preparatory works that survive from the commission, three painted sketches on canvas provide the most important visual record of the lost frescoes: Triumph of Arts and Sciences (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon), Perseus and Andromeda (The Frick Collection), and Apollo and Phaëton (Los Angeles County Museum of Art).
The largest and most elaborate fresco at Palazzo Archinto was the Triumph of the Arts and Sciences, which decorated one of the main rooms on the palace’s principal floor, or piano nobile. In it, Tiepolo depicted a resplendent sky with an assembly of allegorical figures, including Architecture, Painting, Sculpture, Music, and Mathematics, under the aegis of Apollo and Minerva. The ceiling’s decoration surely related to Carlo’s intellectual pursuits and to his library. When Tiepolo created the sketch (modello) for the ceiling, the fictive architectural scheme (quadratura) that was to frame the fresco had not yet be finalized; he therefore depicted his figures hovering in a cloudy sky, surrounded only by an area of brown ocher. In preparation for his fresco cycles, Tiepolo executed numerous drawings. Two surviving drawings related to Triumph of the Arts and Sciences are included in the exhibition, together with the related Lisbon modello and black-and-white photographs of the finished fresco in situ.
Giambattista Tiepolo, Perseus and Andromeda, ca. 1730–31, oil on canvas (New York: The Frick Collection).
The fresco of Perseus and Andromeda was likely envisioned as a celebration of the wedding of Filippo Archinto and Giulia Borromeo. Book IV of Ovid’s Metamorphoses recounts the tale of the young and beautiful Andromeda, daughter of the Aethiopian king Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Boasting that Andromeda is more beautiful than the Nereids, Cassiopeia angers Neptune, who, in revenge, sends a monster to ravage the cost of Aethiopia. Told that the only way to save their country is to sacrifice their daughter to the monster, Andromeda’s parents chain her to a rock by the sea. The hero Perseus, son of Jupiter and Danaë, sees Andromeda while flying over Aethiopia and falls in love with her. He asks her parents for permission to marry her if he is able to save her; he subsequently kills the sea monster and rescues Andromeda. Tiepolo took liberties with Ovid’s Metamorphoses in showing Perseus riding the winged horse Pegasus instead of flying by way of a pair of winged sandals. As evidenced in the archival photographs, the overall configuration of the Perseus and Andromeda fresco in Palazzo Archinto was almost identical to the one visible in the oil sketch (page one), which was likely presented to Carlo Archinto for approval.
Tiepolo faithfully followed another passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the fresco depicting Phaëton, the son of Apollo and Clymene. Uncertain about his divine origins, the youth questions Clymene about the identity of his father, and Clymene encourages him to visit Apollo in his heavenly palace. To prove his paternity, Apollo grants Phaëton a single wish, which is to drive the sun god’s chariot for a day. Apollo provides the exact course he should take across the sky and warns his son about the dangers of such a trip, particularly from specific constellations such as Scorpio. Once guiding the chariot, however, Phaëton is terrified by Scorpio and quickly loses control. Despite Apollo’s instructions and warnings, Phaëton flies too close to earth and scorches it. Incensed, Jupiter hits him with a thunderbolt, hurling him out of the chariot and to his death in the river Po. In the modello for the fresco, the artist set the scene in the dwelling of the Sun, described by Ovid as decorated with columns and bathed in golden light. Carlo’s choice of this father-son myth as the fresco’s subject may have been meant to serve as a warning to his children—Filippo especially—about life’s dangers. The exhibition provides a unique opportunity to compare the Los Angeles modello and related archival photographs of the original fresco with three other works previously associated with Palazzo Archinto: two paintings by Tiepolo (now at the Akademie in Vienna and the Bowes Museum) and a drawing from the British Museum, all of which depict Apollo and Phaëton.
Tiepolo’s other two ceilings in the palazzo represented Juno, Venus, and Fortune, probably painted for Giulia Borromeo’s private apartments, and an allegory of Nobility, which most likely decorated the ceiling of a relatively small room. Unfortunately, no related preparatory drawings or modelli have been identified. The two frescoes are represented in the exhibition by archival photographs.
The Fate of Palazzo Archinto
The palazzo belonged to the Archinto family for more than a century, until 1825, when the family sold it. In 1853, it was purchased by the current owner, Luoghi Pii Elemosinieri, a charitable institution (now called the Azienda di Servizi alla Persona Golgi-Redaelli). On the night of August 13, 1943, Allied bombs hit Palazzo Archinto, destroying its interior, including Tiepolo’s frescoes. (The interior was rebuilt between 1955 and 1967, following the general structure of its previous architectural form.) During World War II, sixty-five percent of Milan’s historic monuments were damaged or destroyed. Tiepolo’s frescoes at Palazzo Archinto were among the most tragic losses.
Fortunately, a number of black-and-white photographs were taken in Palazzo Archinto at different points before 1943. In 1897, Attilio Centelli and Gerardo Molfese published a large volume dedicated to Tiepolo’s frescoes in Lombardy. The book includes a series of fifty photographs of frescoes by—or attributed at the time to—Tiepolo. These photographs are the oldest surviving images of the Palazzo Archinto frescoes and remain vital documents of their original appearance. Only three copies of the book survive (one in Milan, one in Rome, and one in Venice). The Milan copy is preserved, unbound, in the archive of the Azienda di Servizi alla Persona Golgi-Redaelli. The exhibition includes ten plates from this copy, as well as twenty photographs documenting the palace before the war, Tiepolo’s finished frescoes, and the ruins of the palace after 1943.
Major support for the exhibition is provided by an anonymous gift in memory of Melvin R. Seiden and by Margot and Jerry Bogert. Additional funding is generously provided by the David L. Klein, Jr. Foundation, Julie and David Tobey, an anonymous gift in memory of Charles Ryskamp, Dr. Tai-Heng Cheng and Cole Harrell, Mr. and Mrs. Hubert L. Goldschmidt, and The Krugman Family Foundation.
Xavier Salomon, Andrea Tomezzoli, and Denis Ton with Alessandra Kluzer, Tiepolo in Milan: The Lost Frescoes of Palazzo Archinto (London: Paul Holberton, 2019), 224 pages, ISBN: 978-1911300526, £45 / $50.
The Frick Collection, in association with Paul Holberton Publishing, has produced a fully illustrated catalogue to accompany the exhibition. Included are essays about Tiepolo’s work in Palazzo Archinto (Xavier F. Salomon), the architectural history of the palace (Alessandra Kluzer), the role of the Archinto frescoes in Tiepolo’s career (Andrea Tomezzoli), and the intellectual world of the Archinto family (Denis Ton).
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