Tag Archives: Cocktails With A Curator

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Videos

Cocktails With A Curator: Manet’s “Bullfight” (Video)

Video Leave a comment

n this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Curator Aimee Ng explores the turbulent history behind Édouard Manet’s “Bullfight,” once part of a larger work that the artist exhibited at the Salon of 1864. The original canvas was derided and caricatured by critics, prompting Manet to cut it into pieces. The two surviving fragments were brought together for the first and only time during a 1999 exhibition at the Frick. This week’s complementary cocktail is, fittingly enough, the Toreador.

To view this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/manetbullfight​

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Videos

Cocktails With A Curator: Boucher’s “Four Seasons”

Video Leave a comment

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” take a closer look at the extraordinary flickers of paint in the colorful canvases of François Boucher’s Four Seasons series with Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon. Acquired by Henry Clay Frick late in life, the four paintings were commissioned by Boucher’s great patron Madame de Pompadour—the longtime mistress of King Louis XV—to be placed over doors, hence their unusual shape. The complementary cocktail this week is the Time Regained.

To view these paintings in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/fourseasons

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Videos

Cocktails With A Curator: Meissen “Swan Service”

Video Leave a comment

This week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator” is a story of creation and destruction. Join Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon as he examines two pieces of the legendary Meissen “Swan Service,” which was all but destroyed during World War II when Russian soldiers ransacked a palace in the Polish village of Brody. This opulent set of dishes was given by Augustus III, King of Poland, to the statesman Heinrich von Brühl, who helped engineer Augustus’s ascent to the throne in 1734. Originally comprised of 2,200 intricately designed pieces, only about 100 pieces survive. This week’s complementary cocktail is a spiked hot chocolate.

Meissen porcelain or Meissen china was the first European hard-paste porcelain. Early experiments were done in 1708 by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus.

To view these objects in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/swanmeissen

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Videos

Cocktails with a Curator: Clodion’s “Dance of Time”

Video Leave a comment

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” toast the new year with Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon as he examines a masterpiece of both sculpture and clockmaking: “The Dance of Time,” by Clodion (Claude Michel) and Jean-Baptiste Lepaute. In this 18th-century timepiece, three terracotta nymphs or Hours dance in a circle around an exquisite mechanism enclosed in a glass globe. The Frick has one of the country’s most important collections of clocks, many of which came to the museum through a gift from Winthrop Kellogg Edey. Welcome 2021 by raising a Metropolitan cocktail—Happy New Year!

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Videos

Cocktails With A Curator: Vermeer’s “Mistress And Maid” (The Frick Video)

Video Leave a comment

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Curator Aimee Ng pulls back the curtain on hidden details in “Mistress and Maid,” the largest of the Frick’s three Vermeer paintings and Henry Clay Frick’s final acquisition for his collection. Take a closer look at the rumpled tablecloth, the lady’s wispy curls, and the dark background to understand how this mysterious work has changed since Vermeer applied paint to canvas in the mid-17th century. For this week’s complementary cocktail, the Genever Brûlée, Aimee has dipped into the bottle of genever she featured in her summer episode on Vermeer’s “Officer and Laughing Girl.”

To view this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/mistressmaid

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Travel, Videos

Cocktails With A Curator: ‘Murillo’s Self-Portrait’

Video Leave a comment

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” delve into the life and times of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, one of the most celebrated painters of seventeenth-century Spain. Look closely at his self-portrait for clues about the Seville-born artist—a trompe l’oeil stone frame points to his fascination with the antiquities excavated in his hometown, and the sitter seems to be looking forward, into the future, after surviving a traumatic period when Seville was ravaged by plague. Acquired by Henry Clay Frick in 1904, the painting stayed with the family until 2014, when it was gifted to the museum by Dr. and Mrs. Henry Clay Frick II. This week’s complementary cocktail, the Rebujito, conjures the warm spring days of Seville’s Feria de Abril (April Fair) and goes well with Thanksgiving leftovers.

To view this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/murilloportrait

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Videos

Cocktails With A Curator: Claude Monet’s “Vétheuil in Winter” (Frick Video)

Video Leave a comment

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon takes viewers through Claude Monet’s journey as an artist, focusing on “Vétheuil in Winter,” one of only four Impressionist paintings at The Frick Collection. Monet created this work during a particularly difficult period in his life, which included his wife’s passing and the bankruptcy of his biggest patron. For Xavier, this canvas signifies the importance of hope, as Monet persevered and went on to complete some of his greatest works in the wake of these challenges. The wintry landscape is paired with a complementary beverage of mulled wine. To view this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/vetheuilwinter

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Travel, Videos

Cocktails With A Curator: Tiepolo’s “Perseus and Andromeda” (Frick Video)

Video Leave a comment

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon considers the fragility of art in the context of the Frick’s “Perseus and Andromeda” by Giambattista Tiepolo. This depiction of the Greek demigod saving Andromeda from a sea-monster is a preparatory sketch for a series of ceiling frescoes at Palazzo Archinto in Milan that were destroyed during an Allied bombing in 1943. The painting was featured in an acclaimed 2019 exhibition at the Frick that brought together the surviving preparatory works and pre-war photography to tell the story of these lost masterpieces. This week’s complementary cocktail is a Milanese Gin and Tonic.

To view this painting (or object) in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/perseusandromedaSHOW LESS

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Travel, Videos

Cocktails With A Curator: ‘Chardin’s “Still Life With Plums”‘ (The Frick Video)

Video Leave a comment

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” join Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon as he explores the magical brushstrokes of the first still life painting to enter The Frick Collection—one that will be very familiar to devotees of this series. Acquired at the end of World War II by the museum’s trustees, Jean-Siméon Chardin’s “Still Life with Plums” is a beautiful example of the artist’s skilled portrayal of light refracted and reflected by everyday objects. Xavier has paired this episode with a Gin Martini with a twist.

To view this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/chardinstilllife

Art, Arts & Literature, History, Travel, Videos

Cocktails With A Curator: ‘Romney’s “Lady Hamilton”

Video Leave a comment

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” join Curator Aimee Ng on a fascinating journey as she traces the life of Lady Hamilton (née Amy Lyon), who was seventeen years old when she posed for this painting by George Romney. Lady Hamilton’s great strength was her ability to transform herself: the daughter of a blacksmith, she married Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples, and fell in love with Lord Horatio Nelson (apparently with her husband’s blessing). Along the way, she became a darling of the court of Naples and a favorite of Maria Carolina, sister of Marie Antoinette. As an homage to her time spent in Naples, this week’s complementary cocktail is a Limoncello Spritz.

To view this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/ladyhamiltonSHOW LESS