Enfilade

José Manuel de la Cerda, Desk-on-stand (detail), Pátzcuaro, Mexico, 18th century. Lacquered and polychromed wood with gilt decoration. On loan from The Hispanic Society of America, New York.

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From the MFA:

Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 18 August 2015 — 15 February 2016
Winterthur, Wilmington, Delaware, 26 March 2016 — 8 January 2017

Exquisite objects tell the story of the influence of Asia on the arts of colonial America.

Within decades of the ‘discovery’ of America by Spain in 1492, goods from Asia traversed the globe via Spanish and Portuguese traders. The Americas became a major destination for Asian objects and Mexico became an international hub of commerce. The impact of the importation of these goods was immediate and widespread, both among the European colonizers and the indigenous populations, who readily adapted their own artistic traditions to the new fashion for Asian imports.

Made in the Americas is the first large-scale, Pan-American exhibition to examine the profound influence of Asia on the arts of the colonial Americas. Featuring nearly 100 of the most extraordinary objects produced in the colonies, this exhibition explores the rich, complex story of how craftsmen throughout the hemisphere adapted Asian styles in a range of materials—from furniture to silverwork, textiles, ceramics, and painting. Exquisite objects from Mexico City, Lima, Quito, Quebec City, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, dating from the 17th to the early 19th centuries, include folding screens made in Mexico in imitation of imported Japanese and Chinese screens, blue-and-white talavera ceramics copied from imported Chinese porcelains, and luxuriously woven textiles made to replicate fine silks and cottons imported from China and India.

The timing of the exhibition marks the 450th anniversary of the beginning of the Manila-Acapulco Galleon trade between the Philippines and Mexico, which was inaugurated in 1565 and ended in 1815, two and a half centuries later.

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From the MFA:

Dennis Carr, with contributions by Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Timothy Brook, Mitchell Codding, Karina H. Corrigan, and Donna Pierce, Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 2015), 160 pages, ISBN: 978-0878468126, $50.

Made in the Americas reveals the largely overlooked history of the profound influence of Asia on the arts of the colonial Americas. Beginning in the sixteenth century, European outposts in the New World, especially those in New Spain, became a major nexus of the Asia export trade. Craftsmen from Canada to Peru, inspired by the sophisticated designs and advanced techniques of these imported goods, combined Asian styles with local traditions to produce unparalleled furniture, silverwork, textiles, ceramics, lacquer, painting, and architectural ornaments.

Among the exquisite objects featured in this book, from across the hemisphere and spanning the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, are folding screens made in Mexico, in imitation of imported Japanese and Chinese screens; blue-and-white talavera ceramics copied from Chinese porcelains; luxuriously woven textiles, made to replicate fine silks and cottons from China and India; devotional statues that adapt Buddhist gods into Christian saints; and japanned furniture produced in colonial Boston that simulates Asian lacquer finishes. The stories these objects tell, compellingly related by leading scholars, bring to life the rich cultural interchange and the spectacular arts of the first global age.

Dennis Carr is Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Gauvin Alexander Bailey is Professor and Alfred and Isabel Bader Chair in Southern Baroque, Department of Art History and Art Conservation, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.
Timothy Brook holds the Republic of China Chair in the Department of History and Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Mitchell Codding is Executive Director, The Hispanic Society of America, New York.
Karina H. Corrigan is H. A. Crosby Forbes Curator of Asian Export Art, Peabody Essex Museum.
Donna Pierce is Frederick & Jan Mayer Curator of Spanish Colonial Art, Denver Art Museum.

Press release for the exhibition now on view at Salisbury:

Turner’s Wessex: Architecture and Ambition
The Salisbury Museum, 22 May — 27 September 2015

Curated by Ian Warrell

J.M.W. Turner, The Choir of Salisbury Cathedral, 1797, watercolour, 65 x 51 cm (The Salisbury Museum)

Visitors to The Salisbury Museum this summer will be treated to a highly original and fascinating exhibition on J.M.W. Turner. Newly discovered facts and a wealth of material never previously assembled together revises the traditional outline of Turner’s formative years. Turner’s Wessex: Architecture and Ambition reveals new insights into Turner’s ambitious and innovative work as a very young man and his complex relationships with extremely wealthy patrons. “We are astonished to discover that Turner began his career here in Salisbury, painting the town, its magnificent cathedral and the extraordinary Fonthill Abbey nearby,” said Adrian Green, Director of The Salisbury Museum.

Building on recent successes with Constable and Cecil Beaton exhibitions, The Salisbury Museum showcases J.M.W. Turner’s meteoric rise at the turn of the nineteenth century, working for two of England’s wealthiest men as they embarked on extravagant building projects and historical research on a very grand scale in the Wessex region.

Salisbury is likely to be a magnet for visitors throughout 2015, as across the green from the museum at Salisbury Cathedral the Magna Carta celebrates its 800th anniversary. Exceptional National Trust properties such as Stourhead will be open to visitors nearby, and 20 minutes away the ancient monument of Stonehenge continues to cast its mysterious spell.

Turner first visited Salisbury in 1795 when he was 20 years old. As his career developed, he returned to paint Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape. Set in the vast Wessex plains, his depictions of the ancient stones proves to be among his most hauntingly atmospheric works.

The first of Turner’s patrons in the Salisbury area was Sir Richard Colt Hoare, a gentleman-antiquarian who inherited the Stourhead estate in 1784. In the late 1790s when Turner was barely out of his teens, Sir Richard commissioned him to paint a series of watercolours of Salisbury and its newly restored cathedral, which was then the subject of much controversy. Wiltshire owes much to Colt Hoare for his involvement in the first archaeological survey of the landscape around Salisbury and the books he published on the history of Ancient and Modern Wiltshire.

But it was another local patron, William Beckford, described by Byron as “England’s wealthiest son,” who from 1798 gave Turner his most valuable early commissions, and engaged him to paint the gothic folly he was building at Fonthill Abbey. With characteristic bravado, Turner worked on the largest sheets of paper available, bringing all his daring experimental skill to bear, always pushing at the boundaries of technical achievement. His depictions of Beckford’s legendary tower—part of which fell down in 1800—provide a unique record of its construction. The exhibition includes a series of sketches Turner made on site, usually held in the Tate archive.

The third part of the exhibition charts Turner’s delightful work in the wider Wessex region—spanning Wiltshire, the Dorset coast, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. It includes surprising images such as his exquisite watercolours of fish, and witty caricatures made along with other members of the Houghton Club. Many of the waterolours relate to Turner’s popular topographical views, which reached a wide audience as engraved prints and continue to do so today. The exhibition culminates in a record of the historic visit made by the French King Louis Philippe to Queen Victoria in 1844—the first visit by a French King to England in roughly 500 years.

The exhibition has been selected by the distinguished Turner scholar Ian Warrell, working in collaboration with the team at Salisbury Museum, and builds a vibrant and dramatic picture of the brilliant young artist, driven by self-belief and limitless ambition, grafting his way in a complex world. The Salisbury Museum is proud that the unmatched collection of Turner watercolours of Salisbury cathedral at the heart of the exhibition is being seen together for the first time since 1883. The exhibition offers a unique view into how Wiltshire’s great patrons provided a crucial springboard to the career of one of England’s best-loved artists.

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From Scala:

Ian Warrell, Turner’s Wessex: Architecture and Ambition (London: Scala, 2015), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-1857599305, £25/ $40.

Turner was only 20 in 1795 when he first visited Salisbury. This book focuses on the important commissions that resulted from his contact with the region, which provided the foundations for his success. Reunited here are his inventive watercolours of Salisbury Cathedral painted for Sir Richard Colt Hoare, widely dispersed since 1883. Turner’s matchless ability to depict architecture also attracted the attention of the eccentric art lover and writer, William Beckford. The problematic construction of Beckford’s legendary but short-lived neo-gothic abbey at Fonthill was uniquely recorded in Turner’s sketches and watercolours.

As his career developed, Turner repeatedly revisited an area that captivated him. His depictions of Stonehenge, in particular, proved to be among his most hauntingly atmospheric works. In this beautifully illustrated book many rarely seen works are brought together, illuminating this formative and fascinating period in Turner’s output.

Ian Warrell is an independent curator, specialising in British art of the nineteenth century. He is the author of many books on Turner, most recently Turner’s Sketchbooks.

On view in Sèvres:

Corée Mania: Roman d’un Voyageur
Cité de la Céramique, Sèvres, 21 January — 20 July 2015

Curated by Stéphanie Brouillet

Dragon Jar, Korean, 18th century (MNC28154 Sèvres – Cité de la céramique / RMN)

Cité de la céramique célébre en 2015 les Années croisées France-Corée, en organisant deux expositions: l’une patrimoniale avec Roman d’un voyageur, l’autre contemporaine à travers la présentation des œuvres de Yik-Yung Kim et Yeun-Kyung Kim.

Du 21 janvier au 20 juillet, l’exposition Roman d’un voyageur s’articule autour de la figure emblématique du diplomate Victor Collin de Plancy (1853–1922), premier consul de France en Corée qui collecta de nombreux objets et œuvres d’art coréens. L’exposition invite à un double voyage : celui vers la péninsule coréenne, au cœur de l’Extrême-Orient, à la découverte d’une culture ancienne et raffinée, et l’autre sous la forme d’une plongée dans le temps, vers le « royaume ermite » de la fin de l’époque Choson, à la fin du XIXe siècle.

De nombreuses céramiques dont certaines exceptionnelles du 1er siècle de notre ère à nos jours, dont la grande jarre à décor de dragon du XVIIIe siècle, considérée comme un chef-d’oeuvre des collections nationales conservées par l’établissement, sont présentées ainsi que du mobilier, des instruments de musique, des objets quotidiens, des photographies, des peintures, des documents d’archives qui évoquent le pays et son art de vivre.

Une journée d’étude sur le céladon, à la fois sous l’angle historique mais aussi scientifique, prévue à l’automne, viendra ponctuer cette saison coréenne à la Cité de la céramique.

Le commissariat est assuré par Stéphanie Brouillet, conservatrice du patrimoine chargée des céramiques asiatiques à Sèvres. La scénographie est confiée au designer Vincent Dupont-Rougier.

A summary in English is available from the Asia Europe Museum Network (ASEMUS):

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The catalogue is published by Loubatières:

Roman d’un Voyageur, Victor Collin de Plancy: L’histoire des Collections Coréennes en France (Carbonne: Loubatières, 2015), 263 pages, ISBN: 978-2862667195, 39€.

Victor Collin de Plancy fut le premier représentant de la France en Corée entre 1888 et 1906. Interprète puis diplomate, il se passionna pour l’histoire et l’art de ce pays resté longtemps fermé pour les Occidentaux. Désireux de le faire connaître en France, il rassembla un grand nombre d’objets—céramiques, manuscrits, livres, meubles ou costumes—dont il fit don à des institutions françaises au rang desquelles figure le Musée national de la céramique. Il fut également au cœur d’un petit groupe de voyageurs passionnés par la Corée qui, à leur tour, enrichirent les collections françaises.

A preview of the catalogue is available here»