Call for Papers | 2014 Society of Architectural Historians, Austin
From SAH:
Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians
Austin, Texas, 9-13 April 2014
Proposals due by 1 June 2013
The Society of Architectural Historians is now accepting abstracts for its 67th Annual Conference in Austin, TX, April 9-13, 2014. Please submit abstracts no later than June 1st for one of the 30 thematic sessions or open sessions. Sessions have been selected to cover topics across all time periods and architectural styles. SAH encourages submissions from architectural, landscape, and urban historians; museum curators; preservationists; independent scholars; architects; and members of partner organizations. (more…)
Symposium | Georges Hoentschel in Context
Although I noted back in February this BGC exhibition, Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts, I didn’t include any programming details. My apologies for the short notice; it’s an exciting slate of talks! -CH
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From the BGC:
Symposium: Georges Hoentschel in Context
Bard Graduate Center, New York, 18-19 April 2013
Panel from the shutters formerly in the Chapel at Versailles, carved by Jules Degoullons and associates after designs by Robert de Cotte, ca. 1710
Carved oak, originally painted and gilded
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1906 (07.225.145b)
Organized in conjunction with the exhibition Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on view at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery from April 4 through August 11, 2013, this international symposium brings together scholars and conservators to examine the Hoentschel collection in the context of the history of collecting in France and America. In April 1906, the celebrated Parisian decorator Georges Hoentschel (1855-1915) sold his French eighteenth-century panelling, seat furniture, painted overdoors, assorted objects, and medieval art to the powerful New York financier and collector J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913). Morgan, then president of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, presented the eighteenth-century objects immediately to the Museum but initially only offered to lend the earlier artworks. These were later donated by his son Jack Morgan in 1916. Hoentschel was also involved in the contemporary art world of his day, designing an Art Nouveau pavilion for the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1900, as well as intriguing stoneware vessels. The Hoentschel material constitutes one of the most significant collections from the early period of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center presents an unprecedented opportunity to explore its important role in disseminating the taste for eighteenth-century and Medieval French art in the United States.
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T H U R S D A Y , 1 8 A P R I L 2 0 1 3
Flaminia Gennari-Santori (Consulting Curator, Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami, Florida) — ’There Was Money in the Air’: John Pierpont Morgan and the European Collecting Tradition
Light refreshments will be served at 5:45 pm. The presentation will begin at 6:00 pm. RSVP is required. To reserve you place at Thursday’s evening session, please click on the registration link at the bottom of this page or contact academicevents@bgc.bard.edu. Please note that a separate RSVP is required for the all-day session on Friday, April 19, 2013. Also note that our Lecture Hall can only accommodate a limited number of people, so please come early if you would like to have a seat in the main room. Registrants who arrive late will be seated in an overflow viewing area.
F R I D A Y , 1 9 A P R I L 2 0 1 3
9:30-5:00
Thomas Stammers (Lecturer in the Cultural History of Modern Europe, University of Durham), “Reinventing the Old Regime: Collectors and Scavengers in Nineteenth-Century Paris”
Anne Forray-Carlier (Chief Curator, Department of 17th and 18th Centuries, Musée des Arts Décoratifs), “Émile Peyre: The Unknown Collector”
Evelyne Possémé (Chief Curator, Department of Art Nouveau, Art Déco, and Jewelry, Musée des Arts Décoratifs), “Hoentschel’s Pavilion for the Exposition Universelle of 1900, Then and Now”
Charlotte Vignon (Associate Curator of Decorative Arts, The Frick Collection), “French Style in Early Twentieth-Century America: The Roles of Art Dealers and Interior Decorators”
Vincent Bouvet (Head of the Publication Department, École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris), “Hoentschel and his Contemporaries: Parisian Interior Design Firms (1880-1920)”
Christina Hagelskamp, Mecka Baumeister, Nancy Britton, Beth Edelstein, and Pascale Patris (Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), “The Conservator’s Perspective: Case Studies from the Furniture and Furnishings in the Hoentschel Collection”
Moderator of Morning Session, Deborah L. Krohn (Bard Graduate Center)
Moderator of Afternoon Session, Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide (Curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Friday’s Afternoon Session will end with a panel discussion featuring the speakers and moderators.
RSVP is required. To reserve you place at Friday’s all-day session, please click on the registration link or contact academicevents@bgc.bard.edu. Please note that our Lecture Hall can only accommodate a limited number of people, so please come early if you would like to have a seat in the main room. Registrants who arrive late will be seated in an overflow viewing area.
Visiting the Anna Maria Garthwaite House, Spitalfields
I earlier noted the Huguenots of Spitalfields Festival taking place now in London (8-21 April), but Alicia Weisberg-Roberts usefully draws our attention to this gem, the Anna Maria Garthwaite House, by Christ Church, which will be open for visits on Tuesday, 16 April, in conjunction with the festival (the celebration is occasioned by the 250th anniversary of Garthwaite’s death). Photographs of the interior are available at Spitalfields Life, an amazing blog generally. For details and tickets see the Huguenots of Spitalfields Festival.
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From Spitalfields Life:
Anna Maria Garthwaite, the most celebrated texile designer of the eighteenth century, bought this house in Spitalfields when she was forty years old in 1728, just five years after it was built. Its purchase reflected the success she had already achieved but, living here at the very heart of the silk industry, she produced over one thousand patterns for damasks and brocades during the next thirty-five years.
The first owner of the house was a glover who used the ground floor as a shop with customers entering through the door upon the right, while the door on the left gave access to the rooms above where the family lived. For Anna Maria Garthwaite, the ground floor may also have been used to receive clients who would be led up to the first floor where commissions could be discussed and deals done. The corner room on the second floor receives the best light, uninterrupted by the surrounding buildings, and this is likely to have been the workroom, most suited to the creation of her superlative designs painted in watercolours – of which nearly nine hundred
are preserved today at the Victoria & Albert Museum. . . .
Keep reading here»
Conference | Lust und Last der Antike: Antikenrezeption in der Skulptur
Lust und Last der Antike: Antikenrezeption in der Skulptur von Bernini bis Canova
Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome, 3-4 May 2013
Programm und Organisation: Carina Bauriegel und Anna Sophie Rath
Villino Stroganoff, Via Gregoriana 22
In der Frührenaissance wird das Interesse der Bildhauer für die römischen Antiken neu geweckt. Durch Nachzeichnungen und Stichwerke wird das antike Erbe sukzessive erschlossen und konstituiert einen Kanon, der die Entwicklung der Skulptur nachhaltig prägt. Noch 1730 verweist Lione Pascoli in der Vita des Camillo Rusconi auf die Korrektivfunktion der antiken Vorbilder, deren Aufgabe es sei, die »vivezza, l’espressività, e la bizzaria de’ moderni« zu filtern und zu strukturieren.
Seit Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts grenzen sich die Bildhauer bewusst von ihren Vorgängern und deren Umgang mit dem antiken Erbe ab. Kritik üben Johann Joachim Winckelmann mit seinem Urteil über Gianlorenzo Berninis Stil als »verderbten Geschmack« sowie Quatremère de Quincy in seiner Warnung an Antonio Canova, falschen Vorbildern zu folgen und ein »Bernini à l‘antique« zu werden.
Dennoch ist die Skulptur beider Epochen untrennbar durch die Rezeption der Antike miteinander verbunden. Bis Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bleibt der im Seicento aufgestellte Kanon von Laokoon, Antinoos, Apoll von Belvedere über die Venus Medici bis zu den Philosophen- und Kaiserbildnissen gültig. Lediglich die ästhetischen und wissenschaftlichen Ansprüche an die Skulptur verändern sich, wie exemplarisch an der Rezeption des Apoll von Belvedere bei Bernini, Rusconi und Canova deutlich wird.
Einen kritischen Gegenpart zu den Künstlern bilden Autoren wie Gian Pietro Bellori, Giovanni Battista Passeri, Winckelmann und Carl Ludwig Fernow. Diese beurteilen unter anderem, wie nah die Bildhauer dem antiken Ideal hinsichtlich Invention, Komposition und Originalität kommen oder dieses sogar übertreffen. Dabei werden bewusst Dichotomien mit Blick auf die Qualität der Antikenrezeption einzelner Künstler eingeführt, wie Bernini/Algardi oder Canova/Thorvaldsen. Dies spiegelt sich auch in der Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes wider, die durch den gleichnamigen Vortrag Charles Perraults an der Académie Royale in Paris 1687 erneut aufflammt und bis Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts im Zentrum der Kunstgeschichtsschreibung steht. Im Rahmen eines Studientages soll epochenübergreifend über den Umgang mit der Antike in der italienischen Skulptur und deren Rezeption in der zeitgenössischen Kunstliteratur reflektiert werden.
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F R E I T A G , 3 M A I 2 0 1 3
10:00 Museo Gregoriano Profano (Viale Vaticano) — Besichtigung (fakultativ)
14:00 ELISABETH KIEVEN (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom), Begrüßung
14:10 ANNA SOPHIE RATH und CARINA BAURIEGEL (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom), Einführung
TRANSFORMATION, Moderation: ELISABETH KIEVEN
14:30 BJÖRN STATNIK (Universität Würzburg), Winckelmanns „großer Bernini“. Die griechisch-antikischen Kunstideale Winckelmanns und Berninis bildhauerisches Frühwerk
15:10 CARINA BAURIEGEL (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom), „A perfezione come gl’originali“. Antikenkopie bei Massimiliano Soldani Benzi
Kaffeepause
16:30 REGINA DECKERS (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom), Venezianità, Spätbarock oder Früh-klassizismus? Stilbildung in der venezianischen Skulptur des Settecento
17:10 FABIEN BENUZZI (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venedig), Alle radici di Canova. Il recupero dell’antico nella scultura Veneziana del Settecento
17:50 JOHANNES MYSSOK (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf), „Un Bernin antique“. L’imitazione paradossale dell’antico di Antonio Canova
FESTVORTRAG
19:00 SEBASTIAN SCHÜTZE (Universität Wien), Gli scultori e il discorso di antichi e moderni. Testimonianze letterarie, argomenti visivi e qualche osserva-zione di metodo
S A M S T A G , 4 M A I 2 0 1 3
INSTRUKTION UND EXPOSITION, Moderation: GIOVANNA CAPITELLI (Università della Calabria)
9:00 ANGELA CIPRIANI (Accademia di San Luca, Roma), Dalla citazione all’invenzione. Il mutare della percezione dell’antico nei bassorilievi dei concorsi accademici
9:40 CHIARA GAUNA (Università di Torino), La difficile libertà dell’antico all’Accademie de France
10:20 CRISTIANO GIOMETTI (Università di Firenze), Nel solco dell’Accademia. Studio e pratica dell’antico nella scultura romana di primo Settecento
Kaffeepause
11:30 MARIO GUDERZO (Gipsoteca Canoviana, Possagno), Dal Fauno Barberini all’Endimione dormiente. Canova e l’antico
12:10 ELENA GRANUZZO (Università di Verona), Antonio Canova – Leopoldo Cicognara. Dialogo sull’antico
Mittagspause
INSPIRATION Moderation: SEBASTIAN SCHÜTZE
15:00 MALCOM BAKER (University of California, Riverside), Both British and Antique? Perceiving Difference in Portrait Busts by British Sculptors Working in Italy around 1760
15:40 STEFANO GRANDESSO (Rom), L’antico e i soggetti di genere nella scultura classicista. Da Ridolfo Schadow e Thorvaldsen ai pensionnaires francesi
16:20 ANNA SOPHIE RATH (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rom), Vice and Virtue. La visione dell’antico di John Gibson
17:00 Zusammenfassung und Schlussdiskussion
New Book | Paris 1650-1900: Decorative Arts in the Rijksmuseum
With the Rijksmuseum open once again, this book is especially timely. It’s due out in May from Yale UP:
Reinier Baarsen, Paris 1650-1900: Decorative Arts in the Rijksmuseum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 608 pages, ISBN: 978-0300191295, $275.
From 1650 to 1900 Paris was the undisputed center of fashion and taste in Europe. Home to a unique concentration of artists, designers, patrons, critics, and a keen buying public, Paris was the city where trends were made and where novel types of objects, devised for new ways of life, were invented. This book traces the wonderful story of Parisian decorative arts from the reign of Louis XIV to the triumph of art nouveau, through a selection of 150 breathtaking, and often little-known, masterpieces from the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It features an exhilarating mixture of furniture, gilt bronze, tapestries, silver, watches, snuff-boxes, jewellery, Sèvres porcelain, and other ceramics, as well as some design drawings and engravings. Specially taken photographs reveal the daring design and beautiful execution of the work of some of the greatest artists and craftsmen of their time. Reinier Baarsen discusses the history and significance of each object, presenting the findings of much new research.
Reinier Baarsen is senior curator of furniture at the
Rijksmuseum.
Christie’s Object Lessons: Flower Holders of the 18th Century
As we transition from still to moving images, it’s interesting to see people (and institutions) exploring possibilities — in this case for educational and marketing purposes. Note the inclusion of music behind the narration of Jody Wilkie, a ceramics specialist at Christie’s and a regular appraiser on Antiques Roadshow. Does the music enhance or detract? I can report, from first-hand experience, that art historians working on similar projects are debating precisely this question. Do your lectures and articles come with soundtracks — either real or imagined? -CH
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From Christie’s Object Lessons series:
Non-Stipendiary Research Fellowships at BGC
Non-Stipendiary Research Fellowships, 2013-14
The Bard Graduate Center, New York
Applications due by 15 May 2013
The Bard Graduate Center invites applications for up to four non-stipendiary research fellowships lasting from 3 to 9 months. Since its founding in 1993, the Bard Graduate Center has aimed to become the leading institute for study of the cultural history of the material world through its MA and PhD programs, scholarly exhibitions, and publications, seminars, and symposia. Its activities draw on methodologies and approaches from art, architecture and design history, economic and cultural history, history of technology, philosophy, anthropology, and archaeology. Fellowships are for researchers working in these and allied areas. We provide office space, and rental accommodation may be available at Bard Hall. Visiting scholars are expected to participate in the public intellectual life of the BGC, and to give one more talks on their current work The Research Fellow may take up residence at any point after 15 August 2013.
Applications should include a statement of interest, curriculum vitae, sample publication (SASE), and a list of three references, and should be sent by 15 May 2013 to Dean Elena Pinto Simon/Visiting Scholar Search Committee, Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, 38 W. 86th Street, New York, NY 10024. No electronic applications. The BGC is an AA/EOE employer.
Exhibition | Close to the Heart: British Miniatures
Press release from the The Barber Institute:
Close to the Heart: 17th- 19th-Century British Miniatures from UK Private Collections
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, 1 February — 5 May 2013
Curated by Robert Wenley
A tiny, exquisite portrait of 18th-century British actor, playwright and impresario David Garrick – set in one of the actor’s favourite rings – has gone on display at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, this weekend, as part of a new exhibition of portrait miniatures. Believed never to have been displayed in public before, the oval portrait – barely 1cm tall and painted in the traditional sepia favoured for posthumous portraits – was commissioned following Garrick’s death in 1779 by his wife, the German singer Eva Marie Viegel, and then set in one of his rings, fashioned in a pink alloy. The item remained in Garrick’s family, passing from Mrs Garrick to the actor’s grandniece initially – until it was given, in 1897, to the unnamed private family collection in which it remains today.
Peter Cross, The Actress Anne Oldfield as Fame, ca. 1710
(Daphne Foskett Collection)
The miniature is one of 50 masterpieces of British portraiture from two outstanding private art collections on display at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in the exhibition Close to the Heart: 17th- to 19th–century British Portraits from UK Private Collections. The long-term loan of the two collections – the Daphne Foskett collection and an unnamed private cache well known to experts – to the Barber Institute forms one of the finest, and largest, displays of miniatures in the UK outside of London.
Close to the Heart features miniatures ranging in date from around 1600 to 1850, include exquisite examples by leading names in the field such as Peter Oliver, George Engleheart, Richard Cosway, Sir William Ross and Richard Crosse. The exhibition, supported by auction house Bonhams, forms part of the year-long celebratory programme marking the 80th anniversary of the foundation of the Barber, the art gallery and original concert hall for the University of Birmingham.
Richard Crosse, Two Unknown Boys, possibly a self-portrait of the artist and one of his brothers (Daphne Foskett Collection)
Another gem is Richard Crosse’s tender and unusual watercolour on ivory, Portrait of Two Boys – thought to be a self-portrait with a brother – of 1759. Crosse was born a deaf-mute, and for many years relied on his older brother, James, to communicate with clients. It is believed that either James or a younger brother, Edward, is depicted here with Crosse.
Portrait miniatures were given as presents to close friends and family, exchanged during courtship and used to commemorate important events, such as an engagement, marriage or a long separation. They were often set in a gold pendant locket or frame, and worn on a chain or as a brooch pinned to the chest – symbolically close to the heart – or hanging from the waist. The reverse might feature the sitter’s initials in seed pearls or a lock of their hair arranged in a fancy design. If not worn, miniatures were kept in leather cases and stored in drawers. Larger ‘cabinet’ miniatures, sometimes with biblical or other ‘history’ subjects, were hung on walls like small-scale paintings.
Close to the Heart includes works ranging from the first few decades of the 17th century, by which time the form was well established, through its golden age from around 1760, when exhibiting societies were established, to later examples from t he 1840s – just before the emergence of photography, which all but killed off the form. The display also includes a handful of beautiful and fascinating foreign examples.
Exhibition curator Robert Wenley, the Barber’s Head of Collections and Learning, said: ‘The lenders have most generously placed their collections on long-term loan here, so, in future, we shall also be able to have differently themed annual displays of this fascinating form of painting, combining them with examples from the Barber’s own small collection of miniatures and other related paintings. We are also hoping to show these historical miniatures alongside a contemporary artist’s response to this traditional format, which should make for a very exciting intervention.’
Conference | Baroque Art and Culture of the Danube
From the conference program, which includes speakers and presentation titles:
Barocke Kunst und Kultur im Donauraum
Passau und Linz, 9-13 April 2013
Im Jahr 1662 zerstörte ein verheerender Stadtbrand die mittelalterliche Passauer Bischofskirche. Der anschließende Wiederaufbau in barocken Bauformen vor nunmehr 350 Jahren gehört zu den wichtigsten Großbauprojekten dieser Epoche im gesamten Donauraum. Dies bildet den Anlass zur Veranstaltung eines Wissenschaftskongresses, der über das lokale Geschehen hinaus „Barocke Kunst und Kultur im Donauraum“ ganz allgemein in den Blick nimmt.
Dabei gilt es zunächst der Frage nach der „Konstituierung des ‚Donauraums‘ in der Barockzeit als Kunst- und Kulturlandschaft“ nachzugehen – Thema der ersten Sektion des Kongress. Die Entstehung des Donauraumes ist in geographischer, geschichtlicher, kultureller und religiöser Hinsicht von der Vielfalt nationaler Identitäten und Zugehörigkeiten bestimmt. Sie verkörpern als differenzierte Einheit den Reichtum dieser Kulturlandschaft. Zudem ist in der Vielfalt eine Gegensätzlichkeit begründet, die eine bis heute wirksame Abgrenzung von Okzident und Orient bestimmt und in einer entsprechenden kulturgeographischen Differenzierung zum Ausdruck kommt. Der gesamte Flusslauf, von der Quelle bis zur Mündung , ist hier Gegenstand der Überlegungen. Im Mittelpunkt stehen die Territorien Bayerns und Österreichs sowie die eng mit dem habsburgischen Kaiserhaus verbundenen landesherrlichen Gebiete des Königreichs Böhmen, der Markgrafschaft Mähren, Schlesiens und des Königreichs
Ungarn. Das einst von Passau aus gelenkte „Donaubistum“ bildete einen wichtigen Ankerpunkt gemeinsamer kultureller und religiöser Identität in diesem Raum. (more…)
New Title | Venetian Engravers of the Eighteenth Century
From Fondazione Giorgio Cini:
Rodolfo Pallacchini, Gli incisori veneti del Settecento: Venezia 1941 (Verona: Scripta Edizioni, 2012), 403 pages, ISBN: 9788896162514, $47.50. available from ArtBooks.com
Il volume ripresenta, in edizione anastatica, il catalogo della mostra Gli incisori veneti del Settecento, organizzata da Rodolfo Pallucchini a Venezia, al teatro del “Ridotto” nel 1941. Solo 94 erano tuttavia le illustrazioni, a fronte di 613 opere esposte. Al fine di poter offrire uno strumento di lavoro adeguato sia per gli studiosi sia per i collezionisti dell’incisione veneta del Settecento, si è deciso di riprodurre qui integralmente tutte le incisioni presentate a quella mostra memorabile, incentrata su un aspetto eccezionale di creatività in ambito europeo, indagato da Pallucchini con l’abituale intelligenza critica in questo studio pionieristico.
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