New Book | Robert Adam and Diocletian’s Palace in Split
From the ‘Grand Tour: Dalmatia’ project website:
Joško Belamarić and Ana Šverko, eds., Robert Adam and Diocletian’s Palace in Split (Zagreb: Školska knjiga, 2017), 608 pages, ISBN 978 9537875 381 / 978 9530 609754, $61.
When, on his Grand Tour, the Scottish architect Robert Adam travelled from Rome to Split in 1757 to study Diocletian’s Palace, he expected to find a monumental Roman villa. Instead, he came across an exceptional late antique structure that, in the Middle Ages, had been transformed into a city. Adam turned his study of this monument into an original architectural theory, and, in London in 1764, it was published in one of the most beautiful books of the eighteenth century: Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia.
The lessons Adam grasped in Split also inspired his own architectural projects in England and Scotland, influencing, in part, the ‘Adam Style’, a specific neoclassical style that had a significant impact on European and American architecture. We find the imprint of Diocletian’s Palace as a design model everywhere in Adam’s projects, from the scale of the ornamentation (a famous example is his interpretation of the capital from Diocletian’s Peristyle) to the application of the specificities of its spatial construction.
In 2014, a group of scholars gathered in Split to mark the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam’s book, and a series of essays developed out of their discussions. Their texts are illustrated with more than two hundred images, some of which are being published for the first time, from numerous archives and museums, from Sir John Soane’s Museum in London to the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
This book shows that the ancient stratum of Diocletian’s Palace, this extraordinary multi-layered urban fabric, has not changed notably since Adam’s visit to Split. Yet the book is more than just the story of Adam and Diocletian’s Palace; it is also a guide to the Palace’s spaces and monuments, and a witness to its changes and its continuity. All of these we would not have been able to understand, nor experience so well, without Adam’s tireless research. The book can be ordered at: izvoz@skolskaknjiga.hr.
Contributors
Josko Belamaric, Iain Gordon Brown, Stephen Caffey, Amanda Green, Heather Hyde Minor, Angelo Lorenzi, Krasanka Majer Jurišić, Ivan Mirnik, John A. Pinto, Ante Rendić-Miočević, Frances Sands, Valery Shevchenko, Ana Sverko, Colin Thom, Isabelle Warin, Elke Katharina Wittich
Conference | The Art of the Box
From the conference summary:
The Art of the Box
15th Annual National Trust / Waddesdon Manor Conference
Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, 3 October 2017
Late 19th-Century Box, for Seated Nymph, attributed to Étienne Maurice Falconet (Waddesdon / National Trust; acc. no. 5615; photo by Mike Fear © National Trust, Waddesdon Manor).
This year the National Trust/Waddesdon Manor conference explores boxes made for storing, packing, and transporting works of art. Speakers will consider what these boxes tell us about the perception, protection, and mobility of works of art (in times of peace and war), about the categorization, use, and sensory appreciation of the objects they were designed to contain.
The conference will begin with registration and coffee at 10.00 and end with a glass of wine at 6.00. Lunch and tea will be provided, and there will be an opportunity to look round Waddesdon Manor and the current exhibitions. To book a place, please email diane.bellis@nationaltrust.org.uk. There is a charge of £25, which covers all catering costs (please indicate any specific dietary requirements). This can be paid with a debit or credit card by telephoning the Waddesdon Booking Office 01296 820414.
P R O G R A M M E
10.00 Registration and coffee
10.30 Welcome and introduction by Pippa Shirley and Christopher Rowell
10.45 Juliet Carey (Senior Curator, Waddesdon Manor/The Rothschild Collection), Storing and Staging: Edmond de Rothschild’s Boxes for Porcelain and Sculpture
11.30 Olivia Fryman (Exhibition Assistant Curator, Royal Collection), Trunks, Cases, and Cabinets for Royal Furnishings and Household Goods, 1660–1714
12.15 James Rothwell (National Trust Adviser on Silver), Fit for the Cart, the Battleship, and the Palace: Boxes for Silver in Stuart and Georgian Britain
1.00 Lunch and opportunity to see Manor and exhibitions
2.30 Tessa Murdoch (Deputy Keeper, Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass), Framing Time: Cases for English and French Clocks, 1660–1760
3.15 Laura Langelüddecke (Assistant Curator, Wallace Collection), Mobile Make-up: Travelling Toilette Services in the Eighteenth Century
4.00 Tea
4.30 Anita Bools (National Trust Adviser on Photographic Materials), An Open and Shut Case: Cased 19th-Century Photographs from the National Trust
5.15 A display of boxes from the collection at Waddesdon, introduced by Mia Jackson (Curator of Decorative Arts, Waddesdon Manor/The Rothschild Collection), followed by closing discussion
6.00 Drinks
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Note (added 13 September 2017) — In the original posting, I misidentified the box as being for the Nymph Entering the Water. In fact, as indicated in the the French, it was created to hold the Seated Nymph. The updated posting also includes a full schedule with times. –CH
Exhibition | Whimsy and Reason
Now on view at Museo del Tessuto:
Whimsy and Reason: Elegance in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Museo del Tessuto, Prato, 14 May 2017 — 29 April 2018
Staged in the museum’s historical textiles room, the exhibition is a journey into the style and trends of eighteenth-century artistic culture through fashion, textiles, and the decorative arts. Over 100 exhibits—including textiles, men’s and women’s garments, porcelain, fashion accessories, paintings, and etchings—narrate the stylistic changes which unfolded during this historical period, from exoticism and compositional ‘whimsies’ in the first half of the century to the austere classical forms of neoclassical decoration. Textiles are juxtaposed with the most diverse types of artefacts and artistic techniques, offering an overview of styles throughout the century, with examples of eighteenth-century textile production such as bizarre, chinoiserie, dentelles, and revel, just to name a few, thus creating an ongoing dialogue between garments and fashion accessories, as well as with other furnishing elements.
The exhibition has been made possible thanks to the prestigious collaboration of the Uffizi Gallery’s Costume Gallery, the Stibbert Museum in Florence, and the Antonio Ratti Foundation’s Textile Studio Museum in Como, as well as other public and private institutions which have allowed for the organisation of a unique and innovative exhibition exploring the eighteenth century, a rich and complex period.
In addition to the textiles in our collections, the extraordinary garments from the Uffizi Gallery’s Costume Gallery and rare silk specimens from the Antonio Ratti Foundation’s Textile Studio Museum in Como converse with the precious waistcoats and fine porcelain from the treasure trove that is the Stibbert Museum in Florence. Volumes from the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence enrich the exhibition, as well as period footwear from Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, paintings from the Palazzo Pretorio Museum in Prato and from the antique Florentine galleries, Eredi Antonio Esposito – Antique Gallery, the Giovanni Pratesi Collection, and Tornabuoni Arte.
Exhibition | African Servants at Court in The Hague
From the press release for the upcoming exhibition:
African Servants at Court in The Hague / Afrikaanse Bedienden aan het Haagse hof
Haags Historisch Museum, Den Haag, 21 September 2017 — 28 January 2018
Curated by Esther Schreuder
With the exhibition African Servants at Court in The Hague, the Haags Historisch Museum will showcase the lives of two black men, Cupido and Sideron. Originally from Curaçao and Guinea, the two were, as enslaved boys, presented to Stadholder William V as gifts in the 1760s. They went on to spend much of their lives as well-paid servants at the court in The Hague. Whereas exhibitions about court life generally omit references to servants with a non-European background, this exhibition specifically focuses on servants of African descent to highlight an aspect of Dutch history that remains relatively unknown.
Hendrik Pothoven, William V Visiting the Fair at the Buitenhof in The Hague, 1781 (The Hague: Historisch Museum Den Haag).
The Museum places the story of Cupido and Sideron within the long tradition of African servants in European Royal courts and includes the story of Jean Rabo (ca. 1715–1769), valet to Stadholder William IV. Paintings, drawing, prints, and textual documents are used to relate the story of Cupido and Sideron. What do we know about these two African men? What role did they play as servants? Were there any other black servants? The exhibition features major loans from the British Royal Collection, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, and the Cultural Heritage Agency (Rijksdienst Cultureel Erfgoed). Writer and art historian Esther Schreuder is the guest curator, a role she previously held for the exhibition Black is Beautiful: Rubens to Dumas in the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam (2008).
In the words of Director Marco van Baalen, “The Netherlands’ history of slavery has featured increasingly in the news in recent years, but there has so far been little attention paid to black people in the Netherlands in the 17th and 18th centuries. Our aim with this exhibition is to highlight that shared history from a new perspective.”
In the exhibition and additional programming, the Museum explicitly intends to broach contemporary discussions about the history of slavery and racism. Especially for the exhibition, artist Tirzo Martha (b. 1965) from Curaçao will create an installation in which he gives his personal interpretation of the story of Cupido and Sideron. Also in connection with the exhibition, Balans Publishing House will issue the publication Cupido en Sideron: Twee Moren aan het hof van Oranje (Two Moors at the Court of Orange) by Esther Schreuder.
Hendrik Pothoven, William V Visiting the Fair at the Buitenhof in The Hague (detail showing Cupido and Sideron), 1781
(The Hague: Haags Historisch Museum)
Exhibition | The Challenge of White: Goya and Esteve
Press release for the exhibition now on view at the Prado:
The Challenge of White: Goya and Esteve, Portraitists to the Osuna Family
El desafío del blanco: Goya y Esteve, retratistas de la Casa de Osuna
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 20 June — 1 October 2017
Augustín Esteve y Marqués, Portrait of Manuela Isidra Téllez-Girón, future Duchess of Abrantes, 1797 (Madrid: Prado).
The recent addition to the Prado’s collection of Portrait of Manuela Isidra Téllez-Girón, future Duchess of Abrantes by Augustín Esteve y Marqués, acquired with funds from the Óscar Alzaga Villaamil donation, will allow for greater knowledge of this interesting painter who was in his day considered the finest court portraitist after Francisco de Goya. This work completes the Alzaga donation, which was accepted last March and comprises six important paintings plus funding for the acquisition of a seventh.
For the first time, the current exhibition brings together Esteve’s portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Osuna’s children, including outstanding works loaned by the Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli, the Duque del Infantado collection, and the Masaveu and Martínez Lanzas-de las Heras collections, with the aim of providing a context for the portrait of Manuela Isidra. Furthermore, with this exhibition the Prado is the first museum to focus on Esteve with the aim of rescuing him from the secondary role unjustifiably assigned to him by art history.
In addition, Esteve’s works are accompanied by various portraits of the Duke and Duchess and their children by other artists, including the miniaturist Guillermo Ducker (doc. between 1795 and 1830) and Francisco de Goya, whose outstanding portraits of the family dating from the same period demonstrate the influence of his work on Esteve’s. The treatment of light and the skillful depiction of the transparent materials of the sitters’ clothes are the focus of attention of this exhibition, revealing Esteve and Goya’s ability to meet the difficult artistic challenge of representing the colour white.
The number of portraits housed in the Museo del Prado of the Duke and Duchess of Osuna and their children, from their infancy to adulthood, means that the Museum offers the best representation of this prominent family.
The portrait of Manuela Isidra Téllez-Girón (1794–1838), future Duchess of Abrantes, has been acquired for the Museo del Prado’s collection with funds from the Óscar Alzaga Villaamil donation. Painted in 1797 by Agustín Esteve y Marqués (1753–after 1820), it is undoubtedly the best known work by the artist due to its skillful technique, refined elegance, and evident charm. Its presence in the Museum will firstly allow for greater knowledge of this interesting painter, considered in his day the finest court portraitist after Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) and on occasions confused with him. Secondly, Esteve’s portrait clearly relates to 17th-century Spanish painting, particularly works by Velázquez and Murillo, and adds a new dimension to the Prado’s 18th-century collections. Esteve had previously worked for the 9th Duke of Osuna and his wife, but with this portrait, he became a type of official painter to the family, sharing this role for almost four decades with Goya, whose influence would be fundamental for his approach to painting.
The marriage of Pedro de Alcántara Téllez-Girón (1755–1807), future 9th Duke of Osuna, to his cousin María Josefa de la Soledad Alonso Pimentel (1752–1834), Duchess of Benavente, produced a union between two of the oldest, largest and wealthiest noble houses in Spain and gave rise to a family unparalleled at the time in terms of social prestige and intellectual and artistic interests. The Duchess, known for her wit, decided character and distinction, was considered by contemporaries to be the true head and heart of the Osunas given the Duke’s frequent lengthy absences on military campaigns. A mother at a late age, proud of her five children and accustomed to luxury and ostentation, the Duchess commissioned successive portraits of them in order to record their growth, progress and abilities, largely deriving from the privileged and innovative education they received and a reflection of the Enlightenment ideal of producing individuals of use to their country. The result was a true iconographic gallery of the family, in which Goya and Esteve played a fundamental role.
The acquisition of Portrait of Manuela Isidra Téllez-Girón, future Duchess of Abrantes, completes the Alzaga donation and joins the six paintings that entered the Museum’s collection last March through that donation. They encompass a broad chronological span from the late 16th to the mid-19th century, painted by artists from Italy (Jacopo Ligozzi), Spain (Sánchez Cotán, Herrera the Elder, Antonio del Castillo, Agustin Esteve and Eugenio Lucas Velázquez), and Bohemia (Anton Raphael Mengs).
Exhibition | The Temple of Flora
Richard Earlom, after Philip Reinagle, Tulips, 1798; color mezzotint with hand coloring (Milwaukee Art Museum, M1973.99)
Now on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum:
The Temple of Flora
Milwaukee Art Museum, 4 August — 10 December 2017
Fifteen large-scale color prints from the illustrated book The Temple of Flora (1812) reflect the true passion of English doctor John Robert Thornton: botany. The plants pictured are dramatically rendered and set against romantic landscapes—as opposed to the plain backgrounds that were typical of botanical images at the time. In honor of the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), Thornton had hired eminent artists to produce the engravings, which later inspired American artist Jim Dine (b. 1935). Dine’s illustrated book from 1984 is featured alongside the prints.
New Book | Bernardo De Dominici e le vite degli artisti napoletani
From Officina Libraria:
Andrea Zezza, Bernardo De Dominici e le vite degli artisti napoletani: Geniale imbroglione o conoscitore rigoroso? (Milan: Officina Libraria, 2017), 112 pages, ISBN: 978 889976 5392, $30.
Bernardo De Dominici (Napoli, 1683–1759) è tra le personalità più controverse della storiografia artistica italiana. Modesto pittore di paesaggi, mercante di disegni ed aspirante letterato, pubblicò dopo una lunga elaborazione, tre tomi di Vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti napoletani (1742–45). Concepita nel momento di maggior successo della scuola napoletana di pittura, tra i clamori dei successi internazionali di Luca Giordano, Paolo De Matteis, Francesco Solimena, l’opera costituisce il primo e il più ambizioso tentativo di costruire una storia dell’arte napoletana.
Nonostante qualche perplessità suscitata già al tempo della prima pubblicazione, le Vite costituiscono da allora un punto di riferimento essenziale per chiunque sia interessato alla storia dell’arte in Italia meridionale. Costruite attraverso un uso estremamente disinvolto delle fonti, con largo ricorso a manoscritti ignoti e più che sospetti, le Vite non passarono il severo vaglio critico degli studiosi del secondo Ottocento, che dimostrarono l’inaffidabilità di larga parte del testo, soprattutto delle parti relative al Medioevo e al primo Rinascimento, e bollarono il loro autore come ‘Il falsario’ (così si intitolava un saggio di Benedetto Croce sul nostro autore). Nel corso del Novecento, a cominciare dai primi studi di Roberto Longhi, l’opera è stata largamente riabilitata, soprattutto per le sue parti sei e settecentesche.
Il libro, elaborato al termine di un lungo lavoro di edizione e commento dell’opera, condotto dall’autore in collaborazione con Fiorella Sricchia Santoro e con altri studiosi, offre per la prima volta una approfondita analisi della storia dell’opera, del contesto in cui fu concepita, dei metodi utilizzati dal biografo, della sua altalenante fortuna e del ruolo che ancora oggi può e deve svolgere per la conoscenza e la comprensione dell’arte napoletana.
Andrea Zezza è professore associato di Storia dell’Arte Moderna presso l’Università della Campania ‘Luigi Vanvitelli’. Si occupa prevalentemente di storia dell’arte in Italia meridionale tra Cinquecento e Settecento. Con Fiorella Sricchia Santoro ha curato l’edizione commentata delle Vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti napoletani (Napoli 2003–14). Tra i suoi scritti ricordiamo la monografia Marco Pino: L’opera completa (Napoli 2003).
New Book | De Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani
From ArtBooks.com:
Bernardo De Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, edited by Fiorella Sricchia Santoro and Andrea Zezza (Naples: Paparo, 2017), 5 vols., 3206 pages, ISBN: 9788899130336, $340.
‘Stomachevole’, ‘geniale imbroglione’, oppure scrittore ‘a cui siamo sempre disposti a concedere credito’; ‘la cui posizione e i cui meriti nei riguardi della storia artistica di Napoli non sono lontani da quelli Boschini per Venezia e di Malvasia per Bologna’: Bernardo De Dominici e la sua opera sono stati per due secoli e mezzo oggetto di feroci stroncature e di risolute riabilitazioni, restando sempre al centro dell’attenzione di chiunque si sia interessato alla storia dell’arte napoletana tra il Medioevo e l’età moderna. Nel 1950 Giuseppe Ceci, studioso di non comune rigore, invitò a fuggire dalle facili generalizzazioni e a intraprendere ‘l’umile ma indispensabile lavoro’ di una analisi completa delle Vite, un testo che rimane unico e insostituibile, pur con tutte le sue pecurialità e i suoi difetti. Da allora, mentre aumentava la consapevolezza della utilità dell’opera per gli studi, si è fatta sempre più presente la richiesta di una edizione commentata, che ne favorisse la lettura e insieme un uso cauto e criticamente avvertito: a questa esigenza vuole rispondere l’edizione commentata che, dopo un lavoro quindicennale, viene finalmente conclusa con questo tomo dedicato agli indici
Prima edizione moderna, commentata, di un’opera fondamentale per la storia dell’arte napoletana, stampata per la prima volta tra il 1742 e il 1745. L’opera si compone di due volumi: il primo dalle origini all’inizio del Seicento, il secondo (diviso in due tomi) dal Seicento al Settecento, il terzo dedicato agli indici.
Edizione a cura di Fiorella Sricchia Santoro e Andrea Zezza. Coordinatore al commento del primo tomo Francesco Aceto. Coordinatore al commento del secondo e terzo tomo Andrea Zezza. Testi a cura di Daria Di Bernardo, Marina Milella Consulenza filologica Nicola De Blasi. Autori delle introduzioni e delle note di commento delle singole vite Anna Bisceglia, Paola D’Agostino, Rosanna De Gennaro, Daniela del Pesco, Ippolita di Majo, Stefano D’Ovidio, Viviana Farina, Pierluigi Feliciano, Elena Fumagalli, Paolo Giannattasio, Fabiola Lagalla, Riccardo Naldi, Cristiana Pasqualetti, Maria Gabriella Pezone, Valter Pinto, Antonella Putaturo Murano, Concetta Restaino, Renato Ruotolo, Donato Salvatore, Fabio Speranza, Fiorella Sricchia Santoro, Andrea Zezza.
• Dalle Origini alla prima metà del Seicento
• Seicento (da J. de Ribera a L. Giordano)
• Seicento e Settecento (da G. Farelli a F. Solimena)
• Indici
Exhibition | Becoming a Woman in the Age of Enlightenment
Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine, Woman Standing in a Garden, 1783, black chalk and brush with gray wash on off-white laid paper; Antoine Vestier, Allegory of the Arts, 1788, oil on canvas; and Louis-Léopold Boilly, Conversation in a Park, oil on canvas. All on loan from The Horvitz Collection.
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From the Harn Museum of Art:
Becoming a Woman in the Age of Enlightenment: French Art from The Horvitz Collection
Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, 6 October — 31 December 2017
Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 26 January — 8 April 2018
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, 13 May — 19 August 2018
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA, dates TBA
Curated by Melissa Hyde and Mary D. Sheriff
Organized by Alvin Clark
Becoming a Woman in the Age of Enlightenment: French Art from the Horvitz Collection is primarily an exhibition of drawings but will include pastels, paintings, and sculptures selected from one of the world’s best private collections of French drawings. The exhibition will feature nearly 120 works by many of the most prominent artists of the eighteenth century, including Antoine Watteau, Nicolas Lancret, François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, as well as lesser-known artists both male and female, such as Anne Vallayer-Coster, Gabrielle Capet, François-André Vincent, Philibert-Louis Debucourt. Ranging from spirited, improvisational sketches and figural studies, to highly finished drawings of exquisite beauty, the works included in the exhibition vary in terms of style, genre, and period.
Becoming a Woman will be organized into thematic sections that address some of the most important and defining questions of women’s lives in the eighteenth century. These include: how the stages of a woman’s life were measured; what cultural attitudes and conditions in France shaped how women were defined; what significant relations women formed with men; what social and familial rituals gave order to their lives; what pleasures they pursued; and what work they accomplished. The aim is to bring new insights to the questions of what it meant to be a woman in this period, by offering the first exhibition to focus specifically on representations of women of a broad range of ages and conditions.
The exhibition will offer fresh perspectives on a subject that still has direct relevance to our times but that has not been the focus of a significant exhibition for decades. Through its conceptual framework, thematic organization, and its emphasis on historical context, the exhibition will provide viewers opportunities to consider what issues pertaining to women’s lives seem to have changed or persisted through time and across space. Although the circumstances and the specifics have changed, many issues remain with us today and can still provoke contentious debates. Pay equity, reproductive rights, gender-discrimination, violence against women, work-family balance, the ‘plight’ of the alpha-female, and the devaluation of the stay-at-home mom, are but a few of the women’s issues that are still hotly contested in the media, in cultural production of all kinds, in politics, and in public and private life.
Becoming a Woman is curated by Melissa Hyde, Professor of Art History, University of Florida Research Foundation Professor, University of Florida, and the late Mary D. Sheriff, W.R. Kenan J. Distinguished Professor of Art History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; the exhibition is organized by Alvin L. Clark, Jr, Curator, The Horvitz Collection and The J.E. Horvitz Research Curator, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg.
The catalogue is available from ArtBooks.com:
Melissa Hyde, Mary D. Sheriff, and Alvin Clark, Becoming a Woman in the Age of Enlightenment: French Art from The Horvitz Collection (Boston: The Horvitz Collection, 2017), 208 pages, ISBN: 978 099126 2526, $39.
François Boucher, Young Travelers, black chalk on cream antique laid paper, framing line in black ink, laid down on a decorated mount, 295 × 188 mm; Jacques-Louis David, Andromache Mourning the Death of Hector, pen with black ink and brush with gray wash over traces of black chalk on cream antique laid paper, 293 × 248 mm; Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Chestnut Vendor, brush with gray and brown wash on cream antique laid paper, 385 × 460 mm. All works on loan from The Horvitz Collection.
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From the Lecture and Symposium Schedule:
Thinking Women: Art and Representation in the Eighteenth Century
A Symposium in Honor of Mary D. Sheriff
Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, 20–22 October 2017
• Keynote Address: “The Woman Artist and the Uncovering of the Social World,” Lynn Hunt, Distinguished Research Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
Art, women, and society came together in surprising ways at the end of the eighteenth century. ‘Society’ only began to be conceptualized as an object for study at the end of the 1700s, in particular in reaction to the French Revolution. Art, especially engraving and painting, helped make society visible to itself. Women could join the art world but rarely as fully fledged members, and as a consequence they occupied a kind of in-between position that made them especially attuned to social relations. The life and work of Marie-Gabrielle Capet will be highlighted to show how the social world could be uncovered.
• “Fashion in Time: Visualizing Costume in the Eighteenth Century,” Susan Siegfried, Denise Riley Collegiate Professor of the History of Art and Women’s Studies, Department of Art History, University of Michigan
• “Beauty Is a Letter of Credit,” Nina Dubin, Associate Professor, Department of Art and Art History University of Illinois, Chicago
• “Chardin: Gender and Interiority,” Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
• “The Global Allure of the Porcelain Room,” Meredith Martin, Department of Art History, New York University
• “Pictured Together? Questions of Gender, Race, and Social Rank in the Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray,” Jennifer Germann, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Ithaca College
• “Becoming an Animal in the Age of Enlightenment,” Amy Freund, Associate Professor & Kleinheinz Family Endowed Chair in Art History, Southern Methodist University
• “Marguerite Lecomte’s Smile: Portrait of a Woman Engraver,” Mechthild Fend, Reader in the History of Art, Department of History of Art, University College London
• “Exceptional, but not Exceptions: Women Artists in the Age of Revolution,” Paris Spies Gans, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History, Princeton University
The final program, with times, is available here»
At the Ackland Art Museum at UNC, Chapel Hill, there will be a sister symposium in Mary’s honor entitled “Taking Exception: Women, Gender, Representation in the Eighteenth Century,” 1–3 February 2018.
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Note (added 14 October 2017) — The posting has been updated with additional information, including details on the catalogue, venues, and the conferences.
New Book | Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland
From I. B. Tauris:
Emile de Bruijn, Chinese Wallpaper in Britain and Ireland (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2017), 272 pages, ISBN: 978 17813 00541, £30 / $55.
Chinese wallpaper has been an important element of western interior decoration for three hundred years. As trade between Europe and China flourished in the seventeenth century, Europeans developed a strong taste for Chinese art and design. The stunningly beautiful wall coverings now known as ‘Chinese wallpaper’ were developed by Chinese painting workshops in response to western demand. In spite of their spectacular beauty, Chinese wallpapers have not been studied in any depth until relatively recently. This book provides an overview of some of the most significant Chinese wallpapers surviving in the British Isles. Sumptuously illustrated, it shows how these wallpapers became a staple ingredient of high-end interiors while always retaining a touch of the exotic.
Emile de Bruijn studied Japanese and museology at the universities of Leiden and Essex. He worked in the Japanese and Chinese departments of the auctioneers Sotheby’s in London before joining the National Trust, where he is now a member of the central collections management team. Emile has lectured and published on many different aspects of chinoiserie in historic houses and gardens. He was co-author (with Andrew Bush and Helen Clifford) of the catalogue Chinese Wallpaper in National Trust Houses (National Trust, 2014)
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