Tag Archives: 18th Century

Archaeology, History, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Preview: Archaeology Magazine – Sept/Oct 2024

August 9, 2024 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

September/October 2024 - Archaeology Magazine

Archaeology Magazine (August 9, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Egypt’s Island of Many Gods’….

Ancient DNA Revolution

How the rapidly evolving field of archaeogenetics is unlocking secrets of the past

Hunting for the Lost Temple of Artemis

After a century of searching, a chance discovery led archaeologists to one of the most important sanctuaries in the ancient Greek worldRead Article

Trees of the Sky World

Why Australia’s Indigenous Wiradjuri people carved sacred symbols into trees to mark burials of their honored dead

Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Museums, Reviews, Videos

Art: Spirit and Invention – Drawings by Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo

Video November 27, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

The Morgan Library & Museum (November 27, 2023) – The Morgan is home to one of the world’s largest and most important collections of drawings by Giambattista Tiepolo (1696–1770) and his eldest son Domenico (1727–1804), with more than 300 representative examples of their lively invention and masterful techniques.

Spirit and Invention: Drawings by Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo

October 27, 2023 through January 28, 2024

Combining highlights from the Morgan’s collection with carefully selected loans, this exhibition will provide a comprehensive look at the Tiepolos’ work as draftsmen, focusing on the role of drawing in their creative process and the distinct physical and stylistic properties of their graphic work. At the core of the collection and exhibition are substantial groups of Giambattista’s drawings that relate to major ceiling fresco projects of the 1740s and 1750s.

A fresh look at the style, function, and material properties of these working drawings has yielded new insights into their purposes. Most significantly, the exhibition presents for the first time extremely rare pen studies for Tiepolo’s magnum opus, the ceiling fresco above the staircase of the Würzburg Residenz of 1752, and a group of bold sketches newly connected with his ceiling fresco of 1754 at the Venetian church of Santa Maria della Pietà.

Other sections of the exhibition highlight the introduction of Domenico to the family workshop, the exchanges between father and son, and the great series drawings by both: Giambattista’s fantastic heads and figures seen di sotto in su, and Domenico’s drawings of animals, biblical scenes, and contemporary life.

The exhibition will end with a wall including striking examples from Domenico’s late Punchinello series. October 27, 2023 through January 28, 2024

Art, Art Galleries, Arts & Literature, History, Videos

Art History: Two Paintings Survey Canaletto’s Venice

Video November 23, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Christie’s (November 23, 2023) – Immerse yourself in a dreamlike vision of Canaletto’s Venice where the floating city of the 1700s appears strikingly unchanged centuries later. Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto (1697-1768), was born and died in Venice.

Did Canaletto paint these paired views of Venice for the Countess of Essex?

Home for most of his life, the city was also the artistic subject that dominated his career. Canaletto helped establish the veduta — or topographical view — as one of the chief genres of Venetian painting in the 18th century, as well as a prime export. A pair of vedute by Canaletto, unknown to scholars until now, will lead the Old Masters Part I sale at Christie’s in London on 7 December 2023, as part of Classic Week.

Coming from a private collection, these masterpieces were painted around 1734, when Canaletto was at the peak of his powers, almost certainly for an English patron.

Find out more: https://www.christies.com/en/stories/…

Art, Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Photography, Reviews

Book Of The Year: “James Gillray – A Revolution in Satire” By Tim Clayton

November 23, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Apollo Magazine (November 23, 2023) – Political satire is by its nature ephemeral: it reacts to events and personalities and moves quickly on. Yet James Gillray’s (1756–1815) excoriating attacks on William Pitt, Charles James Fox, George III, the Prince Regent and a whole cavalcade of Georgian public figures retain their sting more than two centuries after he dreamed them up. In his sumptuously illustrated study of Gillray, Tim Clayton explains why.

Gillray was, shows Clayton, as much an artist as a caricaturist – his fertile wit and invention were equalled by his facility with an etching needle. His images reveal a man of learning, liberal with allusions in his prints to Shakespeare, Milton and the classics, who developed a style that combined the literary and the visual. His seven years at the Royal Academy, meanwhile, helped shape him into one of the most accomplished draughtsmen of the early 19th century.

Although Clayton takes Gillray from his early training as a letter engraver through his time as a travelling player and into his pomp and then the madness that blighted his later years, this is not a biography in the traditional sense. There are few documentary sources relating directly to Gillray, so Clayton skilfully reveals his man through examining the ‘business of satire’. He looks at Gillray’s often overlapping professional and personal relationships, at the intricacies of Georgian print culture, and the ebbs and flows of politics.

Archaeology, History, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Preview: Archaeology Magazine – Nov/Dec 2023

October 10, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Archaeology Magazine (November/December – 2023):

Assyrian Women of Letters

4,000-year-old cuneiform tablets illuminate the personal lives of Mesopotamian businesswomen

By DURRIE BOUSCAREN

Excavations at the ancient Anatolian city of Kanesh in Turkey have revealed a district where merchants from the distant Mesopotamian city of Assur in Iraq lived and worked. Some 23,000 cuneiform tablets, mostly dating from about 1900 to 1840 B.C., have been found in the merchants’ personal archives in Kanesh.

The parents of an Assyrian woman named Zizizi were furious. Like many of their neighbors’ children, their daughter had dutifully wed an Assyrian merchant. Sometime around the year 1860 B.C., she had traveled with him to the faraway Anatolian city of Kanesh in modern-day Turkey, where he traded textiles. But her husband passed away and, instead of returning to her family, Zizizi chose to marry a local.

Art Books: ‘Latin American Artists: From 1785 to Now’

September 1, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Forthcoming: Latin American Artists – Ellen Mara De Wachter

The essential survey showcasing the work of more than 300 modern and contemporary artists born or based in Latin America

BOOK: Latin American Artists:From 1785 to Now, Phaidon Publications – dreamideamachine ART VIEW

Latin American artists have gained increasing international prominence as the art world awakens to the area’s extraordinary art scenes and histories. In an accessible A-Z format, this volume introduces key artworks by 308 artists who together demonstrate the variety and vitality of artwork being made.

Artists featured include: Allora and Calzadilla, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Francis Alÿs, Olga de Amaral, Fernando Botero, Leonora Carrington, Lygia Clark, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Leonor Fini, Gego, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Carmen Herrera, Graciela Iturbide, Alfredo Jaar, Frida Kahlo, Guillermo Kuitca, Wifredo Lam, Teresa Margolles, Marisol, Cildo Meireles, Ana Mendieta, Beatriz Milhazes, Ernesto Neto, Hélio Oiticica, Gabriel Orozco, José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Zilia Sánchez, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Cecilia Vicuña, Adrián Villar Rojas and Faith Wilding.

Archaeology, History, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Preview: Archaeology Magazine – Sept/Oct 2023

August 9, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Archaeology Magazine (September/October 2023):

Ukraine’s Lost Capital

Ukraine Batyrn Cossack Citadel — Archaeologists have spent decades excavating the remnants of the Cossack capital of Baturyn in north-central Ukraine. Based on the excavation’s findings, the Ukrainian government has reconstructed the town’s citadel—including the wooden Church of the Resurrection, defensive walls, rampart, and moat—which was destroyed by Russian soldiers in 1708.

In 1708, Peter the Great destroyed Baturyn, a bastion of Cossack independence and culture

By DANIEL WEISS

On November 2, 1708, thousands of Russian troops acting on the orders of Czar Peter I, known as Peter the Great, stormed Baturyn, the Cossack capital in north-central Ukraine. The Cossack leader, or hetman, Ivan Mazepa—who had been a loyal vassal of the czar until not long before—had departed with much of his army several days earlier to join forces with the Swedish king Charles XII, Peter’s opponent in the Great Northern War (1700–1721). The fortified core of Baturyn consisted of a citadel on a high promontory overlooking the Seim River and a larger adjoining fortress densely packed with buildings, above which soared the brick Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. The citadel and fortress were each surrounded by defensive walls, earthen ramparts, and moats whose sides were lined with logs. Although they sustained heavy losses, the Russian forces managed to seize Baturyn, which proved to be a key victory.

When Lions Were King

Across the ancient world, people adopted the big cats as sacred symbols of power and protection

Secrets of Egypt’s Golden Boy

CT scans offer researchers a virtual look deep inside a mummy’s coffin

Rites of Rebellion

Archaeologists unearth evidence of a 500-year-old resistance movement high in the Andes

Bronze Age Power Players

How Hittite kings forged diplomatic ties with a shadowy Greek city-state

Art, Arts & Literature, Collections, History, Museums, Profiles, Videos

Arts: Meissen Porcelain – ‘A Fox with a Chicken’

Video May 17, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Getty Museum (May 17, 2023) – Imagine a menagerie of over 500 life-sized porcelain animals long gallery in a palace in Dresden. A Fox with a Chicken was a part of this new creation commissioned by Augustus II “The Strong” in the 18th century to share his love for Japanese porcelain with others.

A Fox with a Chicken

Meissen Porcelain Manufactory (German, active 1710 – present), Model by Johann Gottlieb Kirchner (German, 1706 – 1768)

Johann Gottlieb Kirchner produced the model for this life-size porcelain sculpture of a fox-looking a little guiltily around the chicken it is about to devour-as part of an extraordinary commission from Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, who envisioned a life-size porcelain menagerie for his Japanese Palace in Dresden. The Meissen Porcelain Manufactory had been operating for only twenty years when Augustus commissioned this series of porcelain animals to be rendered “in their natural sizes and colors.” The production of porcelain models of this size had never been attempted before in Europe.

Home Design, Homes, Interior Design, Profiles, Tours, Videos

Interior Design: A Tour Of Berdoulat, Bath, England

Video April 7, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

House & Garden (April 7, 2023) – Patrick & Neri Williams welcome us into their shop & home, Berdoulat, based in the World Heritage Site of Bath, England. The interior design duo have transformed a truly unique space in the heart of Bath, which sees Georgian, Regency and Victorian architecture converge.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Shop: “Originally in the 18th-century, the shop would have a completely different format” 02:51 – Kitchen & Living Room: “The kitchen is the real heart of the home” 05:24 – Internal Courtyard: “This is the room where we relax and also come up with ideas” 07:54 – Bedroom: “We colour-matched the original Georgian green” 10:30 – Shop Vaults: “This is the original kitchen from the 18th-century servants’ quarters”

With a deep respect for the history and soul of the building, they have sensitively renovated the Grade II-listed space. “In 1890, three very eccentric Victorians joined forces,” explains Patrick as he stands in the front-of-house shop.

“What they did with the building was to completely reformat the space. All of the internal walls at ground and first-floor were removed, as was the ceiling to create this fantastic double-heighted space.” Watch the full episode of Design Notes with Patrick & Neri Williams and tour Berdoulat in Bath.

Architecture, History, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Travel, Videos

English Country Houses: A Tour Of Wolterton Hall

Video February 3, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

House & Garden (February 3, 2023) – Peter Sheppard and Keith Day welcome us into Wolterton Hall, an 18th-century English country house in Norfolk, England. Both Peter & Keith have been steadily restoring and redecorating Wolterton Park since they bought the estate in 2016 — bringing the state rooms back to their original glory and creating beautiful, practical living spaces.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Boudoir: “The walls were covered with a green hessian” 02:30 – Saloon: “This is where we have our best parties” 05:29 – State Bedroom: “It’s really funny to have a state bedroom when your friends come and stay…” 06:17 – State Bathroom: “It’s not conventional to have a bath of this size” 07:30 – Kitchen: “You shouldn’t hide away beautiful things” 08:49 – Living Room: “This was the Walpole’s library” 09:57 – Picture Room: “A 20th-century collection of paintings”

Watch the full episode of Design Notes as we tour Wolterton Hall and Peter & Keith explain how they live in the Palladian rooms of the piano nobile, from the State Bathroom with its alabaster-panelled bath to the Saloon that looks out on 500 acres of parkland. #HouseTour #ManorHouse #CountryHouse #England #HomeDesign