Exhibition | Adèle de Romance (1769–1846)
Now on view at the Fragonard Museum in Grasse (with more information available here, pp. 124–27):
Adèle de Romance: A Liberated Painter / Peintre Libre
Musée Fragonard, Grasse, 14 June — 12 October 2025
Curated by Carole Blumenfeld
After dedicating the summer 2023 exhibition to the Lemoine sisters and their cousin Jeanne Élisabeth Chaudet, the Jean-Honoré Fragonard Museum will celebrate Adèle de Romance in 2025. This painter, whose life was as brilliant as it was tumultuous, embodies all the opportunities that the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century offered to talented artists.
Born from an illegitimate union between the Marquis Godefroy de Romance, Adèle de Romance (1769–1846) was eventually recognized and adopted by her father at the age of 8. Her younger half-sister, whose personal life perfectly met their father’s expectations, received many signs of trust from him. Despite this, Adèle de Romance now had a name and enjoyed one of the largest collections of Nordic and French paintings, including many works by Fragonard. Concerned with her education, the Marquis de Romance guided all her personal choices, from her passion for painting to the birth of her first child at the age of 18. Adèle then married the miniaturist François Antoine Romany, a mismatched union whose sole purpose was to give her a status. When her father left France in August 1791 to defend the counter-revolutionary ideas that mattered to him, Adèle de Romance was forced to conceal her partly aristocratic origins and to live… by her brushes.
After a divorce, which she willingly kept her married name, she began a series of small portraits of prominent figures. She took advantage of the fame of her subjects and, for four decades, played with a multitude of surnames, embracing public exposure and presenting dozens of works. Witnessing the upheavals of her time, she made the most of the political and social context that favored portraiture. Better than many other artists, she succeeded in capturing the desire for reinvention of the personalities she painted, presenting a gallery of portraits that reflected France. Adèle de Romance participated in a time when images were about to play an unprecedented role. Portraits, a rather insignificant genre in a monarchy—where only one person matters and everyone else is nothing—acquired a new level of interest in a Republic. It then became a vector of virtues, talents, services, and memories.
Adèle de Romance did not have the privilege of joining the royal collections, the birthplace of today’s national collections. Paying tribute to this painter who managed to live from her art first required finding her works. Thus, with the exception of the rich corpus preserved in the collections of the Comédie-Française, the paintings of Adèle de Romance held in French public collections are not only rare but rarely exhibited. Many of her portraits remained with the descendants of the sitters, who kindly allowed them to be displayed for the Grasse exhibition, thus honoring this woman who, very early on, understood that culture and artistic talents were a remarkable passport to being accepted, regardless of her origins, and having a voice in a world dominated by men.
From Silvana:
Carole Blumenfeld, Adèle de Romance, dite Romany, 1769–1846 (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2025), 232 pages, ISBN: 978-8836661121, €35.
Adèle de Romance appartient à cette caste ténue de femmes qui, sans jamais se poser en séditieuses, surent hanter les lisières du monde établi et frayer, dans les anfractuosités d’un ordre contraignant, un sentier d’autonomie patiemment conquis. Douée d’un discernement affûté et d’un sens exquis de la conjoncture, la portraitiste sut, avec adresse et aplomb, tirer parti des ondulations du temps et des vents favorables, pour jouer des équivoques de sa propre identité et en faire un atout, pour ses modèles et pour elle-même. Adèle de Romance devint pleinement maîtresse de son destin en peignant les visages d’autrui, qu’elle signait parfois de son nom de naissance, « de Romance », mais le plus souvent : « Romany », « Rom… », « Romanée », « de Romany » ou « DR »… Ces jeux de recomposition nominale, souples et ductiles, savamment dosés, relèvent d’une poétique du nom propre, où l’identité se dit autant par esquive que par assertion.
c o n t e n t s
Philippe Costamagna — Preface
Carole Blumenfeld — Peindre pour s’appartenir: Marie Jeanne de Romance, Adèle de Romance, dite Romany, Adèle Romanée, Adèle Romany-de-Romance, AR
Carole Blumenfeld — Catalogue des Oeuvres Exposées
Arbre généalogique d’Adèle de Romance
Chronobiographie
Liste des œuvres présentées aux Salons
Annexes
Index
Bibliographie
Exhibition | Traits of Genius
Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard, Pastorale / Homère et les Bergers, 1810; graphite, brown wash, black ink, and white highlights on beige paper; 55 × 88 cm (Louvre, INV 26657).
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The exhibition presents some sixty drawings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, his wife Marguerite Gérard, and their son Alexandre-Évariste from the collections of the Louvre:
Les Traits du Génie: Dessins du Louvre par Jean-Honoré Fragonard,
Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard, et Marguerite Gérard
Musée International de la Parfumerie, Grasse, 27 June — 26 October 2025
Cet été, le Musée International de la Parfumerie vous invité à découvrir l’œuvre de Jean-Honoré Fragonard, l’un des plus grands peintres du XVIIIe siècle, à travers une exposition exceptionnelle. Né à Grasse en 1732, Fragonard a marqué son époque par son talent unique, tout en restant profondément attaché à sa ville natale. Bien que Paris ait été son principal lieu de vie, son mariage avec Marie-Anne Gérard, issue d’une famille de parfumeurs grassois, ainsi que ses séjours réguliers à Grasse, témoignent de l’attachement de l’artiste à sa ville d’origine.
L’exposition propose une sélection de plus de soixante dessins de Fragonard, jamais exposés à Grasse et rarement montrés ailleurs. Ces œuvres, provenant des collections du département des Arts Graphiques du musée du Louvre, offrent un regard privilégié sur le processus créatif de Fragonard. Que ce soit des autoportraits, des souvenirs de voyages, des études de figures ou des projets d’illustration, les dessins de Fragonard nous donnent un aperçu de l’étendue du génie de l’artiste et offrent au visiteur grassois une proximité inédite avec l’essence de son œuvre.
Fragonard n’a pas seulement marqué l’histoire de la peinture. Son influence s’étend également aux arts décoratifs, et notamment à l’univers de la parfumerie, un domaine dans lequel Grasse occupe une place centrale. Pour illustrer ce lien, l’exposition présente une série de flacons de parfum en porcelaine du XVIIIe siècle, prêtés par la société Givaudan. Que vous soyez passionné d’art, d’histoire ou simplement curieux, cette exposition est une occasion unique de plonger dans l’univers de Jean-Honoré Fragonard, de découvrir ses œuvres et d’explorer les liens entre son art et l’univers du parfum.
From Silvana:
Laure Decomble, Olivier Quiquempois, Xavier Salmon, and Martine Uzan, Les Traits du Génie: Dessins de Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard et Marguerite Gérard (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2025), 200 pages, ISBN: 978-8836661534, €29.
c o n t e n t s
• Grasse et Jean-Honoré Fragonard — Olivier Quiquempois
• Crayonnages et lavis de Fragonard: Quelques considérations sur certains amateurs et collectionneurs — Xavier Salmon
Oeuvres
• Les Fragonard, une famille d’artistes — Laure Decomble
• Voyager et apprendre — Laure Decomble
• Regarder et inventer — Xavier Salmon
• Fragonard, illustrateur — Olivier Quiquempois
• Les Flacons de la Séduction — Martine Uzan
English Texts
Bibliographie
New Book | Les Pierres de la Nation
From Mare et Martin:
Maddalena Napolitani, Les pierres de la Nation: Les collections minéralogiques de l’Ecole des mines de Paris, 1760–1860 (Paris: Les Éditions Mare et Martin, 2025), 362 pages,
ISBN: 978-2362220838, €48.
Les pierres de la Nation raconte l’histoire des collections de minéralogie de l’Ecole des mines de Paris, les considérant surtout sous le point de vue de leurs caractéristiques esthétiques et artistiques, à un moment clé pour l’histoire du collectionnisme : celui de la naissance des musées et du patrimoine. De leur constitution pendant les années 1760, à la création du musée de minéralogie dans les années 1850–1860, passant par les bouleversements révolutionnaires, ces collections contribuent à bâtir de nouveaux récits historiques au fil des changements socio-politiques, et se lient au territoire national et à la création de ses monuments et musées.
Maddalena Napolitani | Docteure histoire de l’art, ses recherches, à la croisée avec l’histoire des sciences concernent l’histoire des collections, des musées et du patrimoine scientifique, ainsi que les rapports entre esthétique et sciences de la Terre à l’âge moderne (XVIIIe–XIXe siècles). Italienne, elle travaille à présent au Musée Galileo (Florence) et a travaillé en France (ENS de Paris, Université de Grenoble), participant aussi à des expositions sur les collections mixtes des cabinets de curiosités.
New Book | Les Peintures italiennes du musée Napoléon, 1810–1815
As noted at the Art History News blog; from the publisher:
Stéphane Loire, Les Peintures italiennes du musée Napoléon, 1810–1815: Édition illustrée et commentée du volume I de l’inventaire Napoléon (Paris: Les Éditions Mare et Martin, 2025), 760 pages, ISBN: 978-2362221026, €149.
Ce volume est l’édition illustrée du premier des dix-sept registres manuscrits formant l’Inventaire Napoléon (1810–1815), dont quatre se rapportent aux quelque six mille peintures figurant dans cet inventaire. L’Inventaire Napoléon est le premier inventaire des collections du musée du Louvre après sa création en 1793 sous le nom de Muséum français, devenu en 1803 Musée Napoléon. Comprenant notamment les oeuvres issues des saisies révolutionnaires et napoléoniennes, en France comme à l’étranger, et donnant pour la plupart des estimations financières, il est essentiel pour l’histoire du patrimoine artistique que le Louvre a abrité à l’époque de la Révolution et du Premier Empire. Mais il enregistre aussi la dispersion d’une partie de ce patrimoine dans d’autres institutions publiques françaises à partir de 1798, ainsi que sa restitution partielle à divers pays à partir de 1814 : c’est un document de première importance pour l’histoire de nombreux musées, en France et en Europe.
Stéphane Loire est conservateur général, adjoint au directeur du département des Peintures du musée du Louvre.
Newly Designed Galleries for Applied Arts of Europe Open in Chicago
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The new AIC galleries were designed by Barcelona-based architects Barozzi Veiga, who were hired in 2019 to produce a master plan for the museum campus, with future work funded in part by a $75million donation made in 2024 by Aaron Fleischman and Lin Lougheed. The new galleries are named for Eloise Wright Martin (1914–2008), a Life Trustee of the museum who endowed both the Museum Director and Curator of European Decorative Arts positions. From the press release:
Eloise W. Martin Galleries for the Applied Arts of Europe
Art Institute of Chicago, new installation open from 11 July 2025
Curated by Ellenor Alcorn, Christopher Maxwell, and Jonathan Tavares, with the assistance of Mairead Horton
The Art Institute of Chicago is pleased to open the newly designed Eloise W. Martin Galleries for the Applied Arts of Europe on 11 July 2025. The elegant space will present more than 300 objects from the Art Institute’s distinguished collections of furniture, silver, ceramics, and glass made between 1600 and 1900. The expanded presentation will allow 40% more objects to be on view than our previously installed galleries, and offer visitors a deeper and more nuanced exploration of European design during a period of extraordinary transformation.
This 4,500-square-foot space follows a chronological narrative and examines the dynamic intersection of design, craftsmanship, and commerce against a backdrop of geopolitical shifts, colonialism, and innovation. This setting provided fertile ground for designers, craftspeople, and consumers to embrace new technologies and respond to the allure of newly imported materials, such as Asian porcelain and lacquer and tropical hardwoods. Iconic works from the Art Institute’s collection as well as rarely seen pieces appear alongside new acquisitions and select loans from private collections, all presented with interpretive materials that emphasize the ingenuity of European makers working in increasingly global markets.
“We hope that this ambitious reinstallation allows visitors to consider the daring innovations of European designers during this vibrant period,” said Ellenor Alcorn, chair and Eloise W. Martin Curator of Applied Arts of Europe. “We are thrilled to present these objects in a space that invites close looking, deep reflection, and renewed appreciation for the craftsmanship and global influence that shaped design from the 17th through the 19th centuries.”
Pair of Chinese porcelain vases, with mounts attributed to Jean-Claude Duplessis, ca. 1750, hard paste porcelain and gilt bronze, 14 inches high
(Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by the Antiquarian Society, 2021.135.1-2)
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Highlights of the collection on view include a finely carved chair crafted by Indian artisans for a European merchant in Madras (present day Chennai) in the late 1600s, a pair of rare red-glazed Chinese porcelain vases imported to Paris in the mid-1700s where they were mounted in exuberant gilded bronze, and a striking English neo-Gothic sideboard designed by William Burges in the mid-1800s, painted with witty wine-themed references. A dramatic new room is also dedicated to the Art Institute’s outstanding collection of European ceramics, including one of the country’s finest groupings of Meissen and Du Paquier porcelain.
The renowned Barcelona-based architects Barozzi Veiga have designed a striking contemporary space integrating state-of-the-art casework and lighting. The galleries offer a stunning setting for the creativity and innovation that defined European design during this dynamic period.
The reinstallation is curated by the department of Applied Arts of Europe: Ellenor Alcorn, chair and Eloise W. Martin Curator; Christopher Maxwell, Samuel and M. Patricia Grober Curator; and Jonathan Tavares, Amy and Paul Carbone Curator, with the assistance of Mairead Horton, research associate.
Call for Papers | Design Collection Displays
From ArtHist.net and ICOM Design:
Design Collection Displays Reassessed
International Committee for Decorative Arts and Design Symposium
National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design, Oslo, 28 October — 1 November 2025
Proposals due by 29 July 2025
The Design Collection Displays Reassessed symposium will discuss collection displays as sites of knowledge exchange and active engagement. From a traditionally linear, encyclopedic display, to today’s more narrative approaches, in the last decades, historical and contemporary displays of decorative arts and design have changed dramatically, in response to a variety of forces, including reassessments of institutional priorities, foregrounding of audiences, and the inclusion of different voices. The symposium will interrogate how design objects and interiors are displayed, discussed, and interpreted, and for whom. What does curating these kinds of collection displays represent and mean today? And how might this practice look in the future? What new museological approaches are needed?
The new National Museum of Art, Architecture, and Design, Oslo—a merger of four previously independent museums—is a fitting venue for a symposium with this theme. It opened its new, large-scale collection display in 2022, including decorative arts, design, interiors, fashion, and studio crafts from the 1100s to the present. This permanent collection reinstallation, the first since 2005, provided an opportunity to re-think the curation of the design and decorative arts display.
Some of the questions raised in the curatorial process at the National Museum have inspired and will inform this symposium, including
• How might we curate critically meaningful displays that communicate the distinctiveness of design objects and which reach beyond heroization of the maker?
• What are the specific challenges of exhibiting historic decorative arts for contemporary audiences and how might we meet those challenges?
• How do historic and contemporary objects interact in collection displays, if at all?
• Museum collections have traditionally often reinforced hegemonic and dominant histories. How might collection displays instead convey more inclusive and nuanced narratives?
• How might collection displays be more accessible to new and diverse audiences?
• How might we use the collection display to address societal and global issues?
• How might a design object that is interactive—physically and digitally—have its own presence and be successfully displayed within a collection installation?
• How do collection displays change within house museums?
We welcome submissions that touch on any of the questions above, as well as explorations that go beyond these topics. We also invite contributions that look towards possible futures of collection displays. We look forward to meeting in person to discuss and debate an ever-changing field—a conversation between scholars and practitioners across borders, institutions, and disciplines. An international anthology based on the conference presentations is planned.
Keynote Speakers
• Corinna Gardner (Senior Curator, Design and Digital, Victoria and Albert Museum, London)
• Sebastian Hackenschmidt (Curator of Furniture and Woodwork, MAK – Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna)
• Marco Magni (founder and chief architect, and Maria Cristina Rizzello, architect and partner, Guicciardini & Magni Architetti, Florence)
• Leena Svinhufvud (Leading Researcher, Architecture & Design Museum, Helsinki)
Please submit an abstract of 300–400 words for a 20-minute presentation, including a title and a 50-word biography, to denise.hagstroemer@nasjonalmuseet.no. All selected speakers must be ICOM members at the time of the symposium.
Symposium Convener
Dr Denise Hagströmer (Senior Curator, National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo), denise.hagstroemer@nasjonalmuseet.no
Berger Prize 2025 Longlist Announced
From The Walpole Society:
Berger Prize 2025 Longlist
The longlist of eighteen titles for the 2025 Berger Prize was announced on July 9 at the Walpole Society Summer Party, held at the Warburg Institute. The chair of the judging panel, Dr Jonny Yarker, noted that this year’s prize received its highest ever number of submissions, from a wide range of publishers. The shortlist is scheduled to be announced September 16. The winner and prize ceremony is scheduled for November 12. The overall winner will receive £5000, while the five other shortlisted books will each receive £500.
• Fay Blanchard and Anthony Spira, eds., Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour (Philip Wilson Publishers).
• Rosie Broadley, ed., Francis Bacon: Human Presence (National Portrait Gallery).
• Bruce Boucher, John Soane’s Cabinet of Curiosities: Reflections on an Architect and his Collection (Yale University Press).
• Esther Chadwick, The Radical Print: Art and Politics in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain (Paul Mellon Centre).
• Bryony Coombs, Visual Arts and the Auld Alliance: Scotland, France and National Identity c.1420–1550 (Edinburgh University Press).
• Paul Gough, Gilbert Spencer: The Life and Work of a Very English Artist (Yale University Press).
• Bendor Grosvenor, The Invention of British Art (Elliott & Thompson).
• Elain Harwood and Alan Powers, eds., Ernö Goldfinger (Liverpool University Press).
• Mark Laird, The Dominion of Flowers: Botanical Art & Global Plant Relations (Paul Mellon Centre).
• Cristina S. Martinez and Cynthia E. Roman, eds., Female Printmakers, Printsellers and Publishers in the Eighteenth Century: The Imprint of Women 1735–1830 (Cambridge University Press).
• Nicholas Olsberg, The Master Builder: William Butterfield and His Times (Lund Humphries).
• Madeleine Pelling, Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and Rebellion in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Profile Books).
• Eleonora Pistis, Architecture of Knowledge: Hawksmoor and Oxford (Brepols).
• Dorothy Price, Esther Chadwick, Cora Gilroy-Ware, and Sarah Lea, Entangled Pasts, 1768–Now: Art, Colonialism and Change (Royal Academy of Arts).
• Natalie Prizel, Victorian Ethical Optics: Innocent Eyes and Aberrant Bodies (Oxford University Press).
• Jeff Rosen, Julia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography (Paul Mellon Centre).
• Fiona Smyth, Pistols in St Paul’s: Science, Music, and Architecture in the Twentieth Century (Manchester University Press).
• Gavin Stamp, Interwar British Architecture 1919–39 (Profile Books).
New Book | Canova: La Riconoscenza
From Hirmer, with distribution by The University of Chicago Press:
Fernando Mazzocca, Canova: La Riconoscenza (Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2025), 200 pages, ISBN: 978-3777443034, $52.
Antonio Canova (1757–1822) invented a new genre with his ‘ideal heads’. They were intended as gifts for close friends and persons he admired as an expression of his affection and gratitude. Starting with his famous bust, La Riconoscenza, this magnificent large-format volume offers an impressive survey of his unique expressions of friendship. La Riconoscenza, Canova’s masterpiece, was long thought to have been lost. Created as a tribute to his most important critic, the cultural theorist Quatremère de Quincy, the sculpture was commissioned by the artist Marquise de Grollier as a gift for their mutual friend. Together, these three distinguished individuals left their mark on the cultural life of their time. Here, Fernando Mazzocca traces the history of the genesis of La Riconocenza through the remarkable correspondence of Canova, de Grollier, and de Quincy.
Fernando Mazzocca is a leading Canova specialist and a former professor at the Università Ca’ Foscari in Venice and La Statale in Milan.
Workshop | Art and Conflict in Times of Climate Change
From the conference programme:
Art and Conflict in Times of Climate Change
Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin, 17–18 July 2025
Organized by Emily McGiffin, Feng Schöneweiß, T Pritchard, and Antonio Montañes Jimenez
A British Academy SHAPE Research Project in collaboration with the 4A_Lab (KHI in cooperation with Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz) and the Forum Transregionale Studien.
Climate change has happened more than once in the histories of planet Earth and those of human beings. Notably more recent, and historically documented, occurrences include the so-called Medieval Climate Anomaly (ca. 950–1250 CE), the Little Ice Age (ca. 1300–1850) and indeed the contemporary Anthropogenic climate crisis in times of the Anthropocene. From the Russian famine at the beginning of the 17th century following severe winters triggered by volcanic eruptions in Peru, to severe flooding in Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi displacing almost a million people, such climatic shifts have affected and are affecting enormous numbers of people around the planet.
Unsurprisingly, endemic to the periods of climate changes are conflicts. These conflicts drastically affect human lives, thus we find both conflicts and the climatic shifts that precipitated them reflected in and entangled with cultural productions. One example is the paintings created by Dutch masters of people ice-skating and revelling on frozen rivers and enjoying the curious prosperity brought by conflict with Spain. Another is from Song-dynasty China: Facing deforestation and military conflicts with northern Jurchen powers, metropolitan regions of the Song increasingly shifted from firewood to coal as energy source, which corelated with producing some of the finest porcelain glazes in Chinese history. These historical instances resonate strongly with the contemporary music of Syrian activists, who are grappling with the effects of drought and Civil war. In multifaceted ways, the making of arts, broadly defined as the cultural expression of human lived experience, has been entangled with both the violent forces of climatic change, conflicts, and crises.
To examine the complex connections and correlations between art and conflict in times of climate change, this workshop focuses on (1) how cultures have been shaped by the concurrent forces of war and changing environments, and (2) how these lived experiences are expressed through art and literature. Researchers will contribute works-in-progress across disciplinary boundaries, including anthropology, art and cultural history, environmental and digital humanities, postcolonial literature, besides film and media studies. Taking a necessarily planetary perspective, the workshop will interrogate and explore artistic creation and armed conflicts in historical and contemporary climate changes, and will explore pertinent and indeed timely topics across historical and geographical boundaries.
Core questions
• How was/is artistic creation, and cultural expression in general, conditioned and/or oriented by non-human beings and beyond-human factors, such as deforestation, ocean currents, monsoon, El Niño, orbital facing, and volcanic activities?
• How have these factors been represented, and what are the complexities of representing and recording such profound cultural memories?
• How were/are violence and environmental disruption intertwined within cultural memories, and constituted in material, oral, visual and textual cultures?
• What methodologies could contemporary researchers use and develop to address the aforementioned questions from interdisciplinary perspectives?
• How could formats of interdisciplinary collaboration, such as this workshop, enhance academic research on common questions, further knowledge transfer across sectors, and enable actions for positive changes?
Contacts
Feng Schöneweiß, 4A_Lab Postdoctoral Fellow, feng.schoeneweiss@khi.fi.it
Antje Paul, 4A_Lab Program Coordinator, antje.paul@khi.fi.it
t h u r s d a y , 1 7 j u l y
9.30 Welcome by Georges Khalil (Forum Transregionale Studien) and Hannah Baader (4A_Lab / Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut)
9.50 Welcome by Feng Schöneweiß (4A_Lab)
10.00 Concept Note by T Pritchard (The University of Edinburgh)
10.20 Keynote
• Katrin Kleemann (German Maritime Museum – Leibniz Institute for Maritime History) — Climate History Perspectives: Echoes of Conflict and Culture
11.00 Coffee Break
11.30 Panel 1 | Extraction, Transition, and Repair
Chair: T Pritchard (The University of Edinburgh)
• Rebecca Macklin (University of Aberdeen) — Visualising Relations in the Tar Sands: Extraction, Aesthetics, and Repair
• Emily McGiffin (The University of Warwick) — ‘God has riches, I have cows’: Field Notes on Cultural Heritage in the Bauxite Zone
12.30 Lunch
13.30 Panel 2 | Anthropologies of Collaboration and Conflicts
Chair: Christopher Williams-Wynn (Freie Universität Berlin)
• Antonio Montañes Jimenez (University of Oxford) — Scarcity, Family Memories, and Conflict: Methodological Notes and Collaborative Insights
• Freya Hope (University of Oxford) — Anarchy, Art, and Alternative Worldmaking: New Travellers’ Historicity of Resistance
14.30 Coffee Break
15.00 Film Screening (work in progress) and Discussion (hybrid)
Film and presentation: Matthias De Groof, University of Antwerp / University of Amsterdam
Discussants: Antonio Montañes Jimenez, Rebecca Macklin, Emily McGiffin, and Feng Schöneweiß
16.30 Coffee Break
17.00 Lecture (online and in-person)
Chair: Hannah Baader (4A_Lab / KHI)
• Sugata Ray (UC Berkeley) — Das Paradies: The Anthropocene Extinction in the Early Modern World
f r i d a y , 1 8 j u l y
9.30 Panel 3 | Climate and the Arts of Change
Chair: Parul Singh (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut)
• Tenaya Jorgensen (Trinity College Dublin) — Climatic Stress and Political Fragmentation: Environmental ‘Pull Factors’ in Viking Raiding Strategies in Ninth-Century Francia
• Feng Schöneweiß (4A_Lab) — Celadon Aesthetics, Gunpowder, and Energy Transition in Song-dynasty China
• T Pritchard (The University of Edinburgh) — ‘As if the world should straight be turn’d to ashes’: Comprehending Climate Change and Conflict in the Early 17th Century
11.00 Coffee Break
11.30 Panel 4 | Resilience and Memories (hybrid)
Chair: Mahroo Moosavi (4A_Lab)
• Ammar Azzouz (University of Oxford) — A Revolution of Art
• Rebecca Hanna John (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte) — Preservation and Extinction: On the Entanglement of Ecological and Decolonial Perspectives in Jumana Manna’s Artistic Practice
12.30 Lunch
13.30 Roundtable Discussion
15.00 Concluding Remarks by Emily McGiffin and Feng Schöneweiß
Symposium | Culture and Heritage in Napoleonic Spain
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Así sucedió (This is How It Happened), from Los desastres de la guerra (The Disasters of War), 1810–14
(Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado)
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From The Prado:
Cultura y Patrimonio en la España napoleónica:
Expolio, protección y transformación
In-person and online, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 22–23 September 2025
En los últimos años han sido numerosos los estudios que han valorado con mayor perspectiva el gobierno de José I (1808–1813) y la España napoleónica, entendiéndola como un periodo de plena correspondencia con la crisis general del entorno europeo. Se trataría no tanto de un periodo de ‘gobierno intruso’, sino del reflejo del orden napoleónico que trataba de imponerse en Europa y que suponía, también para nuestro país, una iniciativa reformadora que acababa definitivamente con el Antiguo Régimen, lo que motivó que contara con firmes defensores. Sus iniciativas culturales y artísticas tuvieron igualmente gran repercusión, por más que el desarrollo de la guerra dificultara su realización. La eliminación de las órdenes religiosas liberalizó un gran patrimonio artístico que, aunque se trató de vehicular en iniciativas tan novedosas como el llamado Museo Josefino, en ocasiones terminó siendo motivo de expolios y destrucciones. En este simposio se estudiarán estos fenómenos complejos y su repercusión, contemplándolos en relación al entorno europeo contemporáneo. El simposio se vincula temáticamente a la Cátedra del Prado 2024, que impartió la profesora Bénédicte Savoy, si bien atiende prioritariamente al específico caso de lo ocurrido en España con las políticas napoleónicas que afectaron al patrimonio cultural.
Es posible la asistencia presencial a las sesiones hasta completar el aforo, así como la asistencia en línea, mediante el enlace a la plataforma Zoom que se facilitará a los inscritos. Al realizar la inscripción es necesario escoger una modalidad de asistencia. Las ponencias se impartirán en la lengua en la que aparecen enunciados sus títulos. Habrá traducción simultánea. Contacto: centro.estudios@museodelprado.es.
Actividad realizada en colaboración con el proyecto de I D I Bellas artes, cultura e identidad nacional. La construcción del relato artístico entre la Ilustración y el Liberalismo. Textos e imágenes (PID20222-136475OB-I00), financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación y de la Fundación Séneca, proyecto 21936/PI/22, titulado Cultura y nación. Las bellas artes entre la Ilustración y el Liberalismo.
m o n d a y , 2 2 s e p t e m b e r
9.00 Acreditación de asistentes
9.30 Inauguración y Presentación
• Javier Arnaldo (Museo Nacional del Prado)
• David García López (Universidad de Murcia)
10.00 Sección 1 | Expoliaciones artísticas en la época napoleónica
Modera David García López
• Pillage et appropiations d’art à l’époque napoléonienne en Allemagne et en Autriche (Expolios y apropiaciones de arte durante la época napoleónica en Alemania y Austria) — Bénédicte Savoy (Technische Universität Berlin)
• La ocupación napoleónica y la usurpación de los bienes artísticos — Manuel Moreno Alonso (Universidad de Sevilla)
• El expolio artístico del Mariscal Soult en España y el saqueo sevillano — Ignacio Cano Rivero (Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla)
• Las colecciones reales durante el periodo napoleónico — Virginia Albarrán Martín (Patrimonio Nacional)
13.00 Debate
16.00 Sección 2 | Espacios para la protección de las artes
Modera: Joaquín Álvarez Barrientos
• El Museo Josefino: una institución cultural en su contexto nacional y europeo — Pierre Géal (Université Stendhal)
• El museo napoleónico en el Real Alcázar de Sevilla — Rocío Ferrín Paramio (Patrimonio Nacional, Reales Alcázares de Sevilla)
• La Academia de San Fernando como instrumento del poder napoleónico en las políticas culturales — Itziar Arana (Museo Nacional del Prado)
• El tráfico de pinturas en el Madrid josefino — David García López (Universidad de Murcia)
18.30 Debate y fin de la jornada
t u e s d a y , 2 3 s e p t e m b e r
10.00 Sección 3 | Transformaciones y nuevos horizontes de las políticas relativas a los bienes culturales
Modera: Javier Arnaldo
• Le Musée Napoléon, aux sources du mythe du musée universel (El Museo Napoleón, los orígenes del mito del museo universal) — Philippe Malgouyres (Musée du Louvre)
• Debates artísticos y sus consecuencias en la restauración de las obras requisadas durante las campañas napoleónicas — Ana González Mozo (Museo Nacional del Prado)
• La política cultural de José I, proyectos y consecuencias — Joaquín Álvarez Barrientos (CSIC)
• Le Gallerie private romane all’inizio dell’Ottocento: dispersioni, riorganizzazioni, riallestimenti (Las galerías privadas en Roma al inicio del siglo XIX: dispersiones, reorganizacines y reordenamientos) — Giovanna Capitelli (Università Roma Tre)
• La nascita delle Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia negli anni del Regno d’Italia, 1805–1814 (El nacimiento de la Galería de la Academia de Venecia durante los años del Reino de Italia, 1805–1814) — Giulio Manieri Elia (Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia)
13.30 Debate y conclusiones finales
Enfilade
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