Category: Research
Rembrandt in the Mauritshuis (ctd.)
November 10 2020
Picture: Mauritshuis
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I thought it worth pointing out the CODART (International Network of Dutch and Flemish Curators) has uploaded a recording of their recent online lecture 'Reassessing Rembrandt in the Mauritshuis Collection' onto the video sharing site Vimeo (follow the link to watch).
De Morgan Foundation Videos
November 9 2020
Picture: De Morgan Foundation
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The De Morgan Foundation, who celebrate and preserve the artistic legacy of artists William and Evelyn De Morgan, have been amassing an impressive collection of videos on their YouTube channel over the past few months. These range from short videos on individual objects, lasting a mere few minutes, to full-length lectures by specialists on nineteenth century art and ceramics. This is sort of free online content really makes lockdown a little bit easier indeed!
Update - I should have mentioned that the De Morgan Foundation also have a rather interesting programme of Zoom lectures in the upcoming months. They're incredibly good value too!
NGA Fellowships
November 7 2020
Picture: Nga.gov
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC have posted details of fellowships available in the upcoming year. Fellowships on offer span from senior professorships to travel grants for doctoral students who want to undertake research abroad.
The University of Hong Kong is Hiring!
November 7 2020
Picture: HKU.hk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The University of Hong Kong are looking for an Professor/Associate Professor in European and/or Mediterranean Medieval or Early Modern Art History in the School of Humanities (Art History).
As their job description explains:
The Department of Art History is one of the leading art history faculties in Asia, and our Faculty of Arts is highly ranked internationally (currently 16 in QS and 31 in THE global rankings by Arts and Humanities subjects). Humanities research is well-supported, with excellent library resources and numerous grant opportunities, including support for research travel and teaching relief. Teaching load is three courses per year and all instruction is in English. The Department of Art History graduates on average 35 undergraduate majors per year, 20 M.A. students, and a small number of M.Phil. and Ph.D. students.
The salary on offer is between HK$745,080 - HK$1,277,640 per annum depending on the level of seniority (approximately £73,000 - £125,000). The review of applications begin on 10th December 2020.
Good luck if you're applying!
Rijksmuseum Fellowships
November 3 2020
Video: Rijksmuseum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam are accepting applications for their fellowships programme. The museum has five available in total, the majority of which focus in on art historical research and conservation.
As the blurb on their website explains:
The purpose of the Fellowship Programme is to encourage and support scholarly investigation, and to contribute to academic discourses while strengthening bonds between the museum and universities. The programme enables highly talented candidates to base part of their research at the Rijksmuseum, and offers access to the museum’s expertise, collections, library and laboratories.
They've even made the snazzy video above to help drum up interest, which must be the first I've ever seen to promote a research programme.
William Hayley Conference
November 3 2020
Picture: Dulwich Picture Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is hosting an online conference next week on the writer, scholar and amateur doctor William Hayley (1745-1820).
One talk which might interest readers of this blog is the Romney Scholar Alex Kidson's on 12th November 2020 at 15.00pm. Kidson will be discussing Hayley's relationship with the Georgian artist George Romney. This was a friendship which resulted in many fine portraits (as above) and a few subject pictures.
The conference is free to attend but donations are welcomed.
Video: How we Look at Art: Frames and Framing
November 3 2020
Video: London Art Week
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I've spotted on Twitter (via. @TheFrameBlogMag) that London Art Week have posted a video recording of a recent online talk they hosted on the subject of How we Look at Art: Frames and Framing. The speakers for this discussion were Matthew Reeves, a Director at Sam Fogg, and Peter Schade, Head of the National Gallery's Framing Department.
Book Release: The Woman Who Stole Vermeer
October 30 2020
Picture: Simon & Schuster
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's a non-fiction book release that might interest some readers of AHN. Anthony M Amore's The Woman Who Stole Vermeer charts the life of the Irish Republican Rose Dugdale (b.1941). Dugdale was implicated in several terrorist acts including the theft of major art works from Russborough House in 1974.
As the publisher's blurb explains:
Dugdale ran head-first towards the action, spearheading the first aerial terrorist attack in British history and pulling off the biggest art theft of her time. In 1974, she led a gang into the opulent Russborough House in Ireland and made off with millions in prized paintings, including works by Goya, Gainsborough, and Rubens, as well as Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid by the mysterious master Johannes Vermeer. Dugdale thus became—to this day—the only woman to pull off a major art heist. And as Anthony Amore explores in The Woman Who Stole Vermeer, it’s likely that this was not her only such heist.
The book will be released next month by publishers Simon & Schuster.
Lecture: Anne Seymour Damer (1748-1828)
October 19 2020
Picture: MET
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
London Art Week are hosting a rather interesting lecture and panel discussion on the female sculptor Anne Seymour Damer (1748-1828). Damer exhibited at the Royal Academy and was admired by notable patrons. The above bust of the sculptor's mother, on loan to the MET, is remarkable.
The expert panel will include Silvia Davoli (Curator, Strawberry Hill House, and Research Associate, University of Oxford), Elyse Nelson (Assistant Curator, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), and Emanuela Tarizzo (Gallery Director, Tomasso Brothers Fine Art).
The lecture will be broadcast on 20th October 2020 at 4.30pm (London Time).
Free Lecture: Modern Portraits for Modern Women
October 14 2020
Picture: Royal Holloway
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Dr Imogen Tedbury is giving a free online lecture entitled Modern portraits for modern women: principals and pioneers in the Royal Holloway and Bedford New College art collection. As the title suggests, the talk will focus her research into the portraits female principals that remain in the college's collection. Earlier this summer Dr Tedbury reidentified a forgotten portrait of the suffragist Millicent Fawcett in the college's collection, I'm sure she might be discussing a little about that rediscovery too.
The lecture, organised by Royal Holloway, will be broadcast on 20th October at 1pm. It's free to attend but registration is required.
Vacancy: Curatorial Research Fellow
October 14 2020
Picture: Armagh Robinson Library
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
This looks like a fascinating opportunity. The Armagh Robinson Library in Northern Ireland are looking for a Curatorial Research Fellow (fixed term). This 15 month contract will be to work on the library's collection of 4,500 prints and engravings. I'm sure there will be many interesting things to be found! The position is being funded by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
The salary on offer is £25,481 and the closing date is 16th November 2020.
Lecture: The Fate of Art in Vienna during the Nazi Period
October 12 2020
Picture: MFA Boston
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's an interesting lecture. Dr Victoria S Reed, Curator of Provenance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, will be delivering a online lecture on Zoom entitled The Fate of Art in Vienna during the Nazi Period.
As the lecture's description explains:
Many works of art that were in Viennese private collections before World War II were displaced, looted, or forcibly sold during the National Socialist period. Recent attempts to recover lost and stolen masterworks by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and others have led to high-profile ownership disputes in the United States. This lecture will examine the fate of Austrian art collections during the Nazi era, and will take a close look at the journeys of highlights from the MFA’s collection as well as well-known paintings by Klimt and Schiele.
Attendance for non-members of the host society is $20 and the lecture will be broadcast on 15th October 2020 at 6pm (GMT -4).
'Jack the Indian' Re-identified (?)
October 9 2020
Picture: Warwick Castle via. Adam Busiakiewicz
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I thought it might be of interest to share this blog written by my friend and colleague Aaron Manning. Aaron is a fellow Warwick Castle enthusiast, although his day job is being Interpretation Manager at the Historic Royal Palaces.
Through some painstaking and diligent research into some seventeenth century account books, Aaron seems to have been able to give a possible name for the black servant that features within a family portrait at Warwick Castle.
This painting (pictured) has intrigued us for a long time. It shows Robert Greville (d.1677), 4th Baron Brooke, being attended to by a black servant who offers up a silver basket of oranges and lemons. The question has always been does the portrait depict a real black servant (or slave) who worked for the family, or was his inclusion in the picture a piece of artistic license.
Aaron's research into the many account books has identified an 'Indian Boy' who worked in the castle's kitchens during the 1640s. He is later referred to in the accounts as 'Jack the Indian'. The Greville family had established colonies in modern-day Connecticut and the Caribbean in the 1630s. Jack may have been an indigenous American from New England or the Caribbean who was brought back over the Atlantic to work for the family. Might it have been Jack who was featured in this family portrait?
Aaron and I had criticised the recent removal of the portrait from the castle's walls in the press last month. The current owners of the castle and portrait, Merlin Entertainments, had said they removed the painting to "conduct a full review into the subject matter portrayed in the painting discussed." We hope they will change their minds and have it redisplayed in due course.
Technological Revolutions and Art History at the Frick
October 8 2020
Picture: The Frick Collection
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Frick Collection in New York, in partnership with their Digital Art History Lab, are running a very interesting four part webinar series called Technological Revolutions and Art History.
As their blurb explains:
Historically, science and the humanities were not considered two discrete disciplines: the separation of these two branches of knowledge developed only in the modern era. For art historians in the twenty-first century, this divide is only widening as some scholars embrace technological advances while others remain unconvinced that computational techniques and tools can bring meaningful changes to the field. Like the previous symposium Searching Through Seeing: Optimizing Computer Vision Technology for the Arts hosted by the Library in 2018, this four-part event seeks to encourage art historians to connect with the computer sciences by exploring the role that technology has played in the development of the discipline of art history and providing an opportunity for conversation and the exchange of ideas.
The sessions are free to join, although registration is required, with the first part beginning on 15th October 2020.
Rembrandt in the Mauritshuis Lecture
October 7 2020
Picture: Mauritshuis
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The American Friends of the Mauritshuis are putting on a free online lecture entitled Reassessing Rembrandt in the Mauritshuis Collection. Special focus will be given to the most recent art historical assessments of the 11 pictures the collection owns by the Dutch Master and 7 others now attributed to his circle. The lecture will be delivered by Mauritshuis Executive Director, Martine Gosselink, and Senior Curator, Quentin Buvelot.
The lecutre will be broadcast on 28th October at 12pm (Eastern Time). It is free to attend via. Zoom although registration is required.
Mona Lisa's Pounce Marks Found
October 6 2020
Picture: ScienceDirect.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
French scientists examining the Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa have unveiled the results of recent research into this iconic painting. Multispectral cameras have revealed that Leonardo did not draw the famous portrait free-hand, but used pouncing instead (called spolvero in Italian). This involves using drawings, with holes pricked into the paper, and then black chalk is rubbed in to allow images to be transferred onto panel. This was a technique used widely during the Renaissance.
High resolution images and scans have been published (pictured) showing these marks. It's particularly obvious where her hands meet, for example.
It seems that this investigation was initially commissioned purely to find out what pigments and measurements of colour Leonardo had used. Once work began, however, it is clear that Lionel Simonot and the Pprime Institute had discovered something of equal if not of greater interest.
Online Journal: Elizabethan and Jacobean Miniatures
October 1 2020
Picture: British Art Studies
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Exciting news for lovers of miniatures. The journal British Art Studies, published by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Yale Centre for British Art, have published their recent journal online. This free edition is entitled Elizabethan and Jacobean Miniature Paintings in Context and is edited by Catharine MacLeod and Alexander Marr. The essays within look fascinating and are beautifully illustrated too. As per usual, old fashioned art history is mixed perfectly with technical analysis and makes for very interesting reading indeed.
Podcast: Gainsborough's Ignatius Sancho
September 29 2020
Picture: BP2
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Black Presence in British Portraiture Network have published a podcast focusing on Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of Ignatius Sancho (National Gallery of Canada).
The podcast is chaired by Gretchen Gerzina Paul Murray Kendall Professor of Biography at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and includes an interview with the actor and writer Paterson Joseph. Joseph has written a play on the sitter's life, which includes Sancho's career as a composer, actor, anti-slavery campaigner who became the first person of African descent to vote in a British General Election.
The podcast is free to listen to via. Spotify.
Update - Today (1st October 2020) Google have payed tribute to Ignatius Sancho in their header icon. The sad irony is that they have picked a portrait of him which many doubt shows Sancho. This painting, catalogued as a Portrait of an African, is by Allan Ramsay and held in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. Why didn't Google use the Gainsborough portrait?
Indian Queens Modelling Vaccine
September 22 2020
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The BBC have published an interesting piece of research regarding the above portrait by Thomas Hickey. Dr Nigel Chancellor of Cambridge University has been researching the picture ever since it was offered for sale at Sotheby's in 2007. Through his research into the sitters and the curious pose of the lady on the right, he claims the painting to been an attempt to publicise and promote a smallpox vaccine that had been introduced at the Royal Mysore Court in 1805.
As the article explains:
He identified the woman on the right in the painting as Devajammani, the younger queen. He said her sari would have typically covered her left arm, but it was left exposed so she could point to where she had been vaccinated "with a minimum loss of dignity".
The woman on the left, he believes, is the king's first wife, also named Devajammani. The marked discoloration under her nose and around her mouth is consistent with controlled exposure to the smallpox virus, Dr Chancellor said. Pustules from patients who had recovered would be extracted, ground to dust and blown up the nose of those who had not had the disease. It was a form of inoculation known as variolation, that was meant to induce a milder infection.
Update: Bendor here - for what it's worth, I've always suspected this painting to in fact be by Robert Home.
Lecture: Women Dealers and Collectors of Japanese Art
September 15 2020
Picture: Society of the History of Collecting
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's a fascinating sounding lecture. The Society for the History of Collecting are broadcasting a lecture by Professor Elizabeth Emery on the subject of Women Dealers and Collectors of Japanese Art in Nineteenth-Century Paris.
As their blurb explains:
Museums, libraries, and web sites celebrate the names of Philippe Sichel, Siegfried Bing, and Hayashi Tadamasa as “great dealers of Japanese art” and present them as the pioneers of the nascent Japan trade in France. In contrast, the names of Louise Chopin Desoye, Marie Antoinette Schlotterer Malinet, and Florine Ebstein Langweil have been largely lost to history, even when they informed and complemented the work of these better-known men. This lecture uses newly discovered archival material to emphasize the participation of women in the nineteenth-century Paris market for Japanese antiquities. It will raise questions about the socio-economic structures and stereotypes that have led to their disappearance and strategies for recovering their histories.
The lecture will be broadcast on Monday 21st September 2020 at 5.30pm (BST).
The society's website explains that 'all are welcome' to the lecture (registration required), but non-members will not be able to participate in the AGM afterwards.
