The Bridgehampton Historical Society asked me to pass word along to collectors who may own Nathaniel Rogers portrait miniatures–they’re looking for Rogers’ miniatures for an exhibition at the Nathaniel Rogers House in 2012.

John Eilertsen
P.O. Box 977, Bridgehampton
NY 11932
Phone: 631-537-1088
Email: bhhs@optonline.net

Contemporary artist Elizabeth Berdann, based in New York City, has a solo show entitled “Marvels, Curiosities & Conundrums” at the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu. It will include a survey of her work from the last 20 years, and also some new work, such as her current installation, “String of Pearls,” which was inspired by the Thomas Seir Cummings necklace of miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The show opened on February 11, 2010, and will run through mid-May. For further information on the artist, please see her website, www.elizabethberdann.com, and for further information on the show, please see the Contemporary Museum’s website: http://www.tcmhi.org/cal.htm .

October 15, 2009 – January 3, 2010

NEW HAVEN, CT.- “I am going to build a little Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill,” declared Horace Walpole in January 1750. An influential antiquarian and man of letters, Walpole (1717-1797) was one of the most important English collectors of the eighteenth century. In 1747 he leased a modest house along the Thames in Twickenham, outside London. Over the next fifty years Walpole expanded the grounds from five to forty-six acres and, with the help of his “Strawberry Committee,” transformed the cottage into the first celebrated building designed in the Gothic Revival style. He added towers and battlements and filled the house with a collection of treasures that reflected his personal fascination with history, art, and architecture. Today Walpole’s villa remains standing, but most of its former contents are scattered throughout other collections around the globe, having been sold off at auction in 1842 by Walpole’s heir, George Edward Waldegrave, the seventh Earl Waldegrave.

In spite of its importance, Horace Walpole’s vast collection as it was formed and arranged at Strawberry Hill has never been the subject of a comprehensive critical study. This fall, the Yale Center for British Art will present the first major exhibition to evoke the breadth and significance of Walpole’s efforts by reassembling an astonishing variety of nearly three hundred objects once owned by him, including rare books and manuscripts, antiquities, paintings, prints, drawings, furniture, ceramics, arms and armor, and curiosities. Entitled Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, the exhibition will analyze the history and reception of Walpole’s collection and the ways in which he described and catalogued it in numerous publications and manuscripts. Walpole was the first person in England to assemble systematically the visual evidence of English history and the first to recognize the importance of the portrait miniature in the history of British art. More than simply reassembling and documenting individual objects, this groundbreaking exhibition will explore the range of the collection, the meaning of Walpole’s pursuits, and the broader cultural contexts in which he operated. In particular, the exhibition will look at the ways in which Walpole used his house and collection to construct different histories: political, national, dynastic, cultural, and imaginary.

The exhibition, which will travel to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in the spring of 2010, is timed at a critical moment in the history of Strawberry Hill. In 2004, the house was included in the World Monuments Fund (WMF) Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites. The WMF and the Strawberry Hill Trust, together with the Friends of Strawberry Hill, are in the midst of a campaign to conserve the structure and interiors, a project to which the UK Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage, and the WMF have awarded substantial grants. At present, the house is scheduled to open to the general public in late summer 2010. Special behind-the-scenes tours will be arranged from September 2010 onward.

That Strawberry Hill still stands today is nothing short of miraculous. Walpole himself fretted that “my buildings are paper, like my writings, and both will blow away in ten years after I am dead.” Many of the house’s architectural details, including the vaulting and tracery, were fashioned in wood, stucco, and papier-mâché instead of carved stone, and are now in a precarious condition. During his lifetime, Walpole spent £21,000 creating Strawberry Hill—a vast fortune in the eighteenth century. The Strawberry Committee included Richard Bentley (d. 1782), an artist and draughtsman, and the architect John Chute (1701–1776), who designed much of the exterior of the house and many of its interiors. Walpole took his inspiration from details of Gothic buildings and adapted them to his own purposes. His approach, and that of the Committee, was not a scholarly one; in 1794 Walpole owned in a letter that the rooms at Strawberry Hill were “more the works of fancy than of imitation.” The library’s Gothic arched bookcases are modeled on a choir screen seen in an engraving of London’s Old St. Paul’s Cathedral; the Long Gallery’s fan-vaulted ceiling is copied from one in the Henry VII chapel in Westminster Abbey; and the Tribune, where Walpole kept his valuable collection of miniatures, sculpture, cabinet paintings, and Roman, medieval, and Renaissance antiquities, is named after the room in Florence’s Uffizi Palace in which the Medici family displayed their most precious possessions. Fortunately, Walpole assiduously preserved the history and meaning of his collections for posterity. In particular, he published a detailed description of the house and its contents, copies of which he and others annotated and extra-illustrated. He commissioned artists to record the interior and exterior of the building with meticulous detail and even annotated some of the objects himself.

In its day, Walpole’s Strawberry Hill was a significant tourist destination. Visiting the house was an extraordinary experience and the public flocked to see it. Important visitors were taken round by Walpole, while others would receive various (and sometimes questionable) tours from Walpole’s housekeeper, Margaret, who profited from the takings. Enthusiasts no doubt count the days until Strawberry Hill is once again open to the public. Until then, the Yale Center for British Art, as the only U.S. venue for the exhibition, will offer a unique opportunity to experience Walpole’s Strawberry Hill first hand.

An exhibition entitled  Dearly Departed: Women and Mourning 1680 – 1918 will be presented August 15th – October 31st at the Tioga County Historical Society in historic Owego, New York. The exhibition outlines the history of mourning,  told through over 600 pieces of jewelry and other commemorative artifacts.

Many of the pieces on display can be found in the book Mourning Art & Jewelry and in the book Georgian Jewelery 1714-1830. A very rare ring for Napoleon, possibly one of a kind, will be on display. In addition, a Charles the first miniature and two commemorative rings will be displayed. Other highlights include the following items of the popular Princess Charlotte: a ring, medals, cups and saucers, and a teapot.

Over a dozen original lithographs depicting death bed scenes of George Washington, Andrew Jackson and the New York funeral of O’ Connell are a part of the exhibit. Currier and Ives and other lithographers contributed to making it possible for the common person to have a colored memorial for their family depicting a commemorative stone which could be personalized. Examples will be on display.

A locally made Cruciform Casket patented design 1884 will be displayed along with stereo cards of the historic Evergreen Cemetery now on the national register.

A full color 48 page catalog is available for this exhibit from Tioga County Historical Society for $18.00 plus postage $3.25. (NY state must add tax $1.44 ). To order a copy:

Send a check or money order to:
TIOGA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
110 Front Street, Owego , New York 13827

Or visit the website and order via PayPal:  http://www.tiogahistory.org/dearly%20departed.html .

The show was covered on Fox News: http://www.wicz.com/news/video.asp?video=09+10+09+wom%2Ewmv%2Eflv&zone=News

Archibald Robertson (1765-1835)  is a well-known miniaturist, but few may know of his wife, Eliza Robertson, nee Abramse (1776-1865.).  Robertson and his brother Alexander emigrated from Scotland to America, and together set up the Columbian Academy of Painting, one of the earliest schools in America. Eliza Abramse was one of his students, and became a talented amateur artist, exhibiting several times at the American Academy of Fine Arts.  Eliza came from an old Dutch family,  one of the original settlers of New York,  their homestead located in Wall Street.  Archibald and Eliza married in 1794, and had six sons and four daughters. 

The Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture has a self-portrait miniature by Eliza Robertson, as well as a miniature of her painted by her husband, which was part of the exhibition Tokens of Affection: The Portrait Miniature in America , at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago in 1991. The Center also has a self-portrait miniature by Archibald Robertson, and a miniature painted by Archibald of their son Anthony Lispenard Robertson. Anthony was a noted jurist, serving as assistant vice-chancellor of the State of New York in 1846-48 and as surrogate judge of New York County in the latter year. In 1859 he was elected a judge of the superior court of New York City and in 1866 was chosen chief justice, an office he held until his death two years later.

Information compiled from the Center’s catalogue text for the miniatures, as well as from The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, May 1890 to October 1890, Volume XL.  

The Intimate Portrait:
Drawings, Miniatures and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence

Exhibition organised by the National Galleries of Scotland and the British Museum,  5 March – 31 May 2009,
Room 90.

The first ever major UK exhibition to examine a fascinating but relatively unknown aspect of British portraiture will open at the British Museum this spring. The Intimate Portrait will explore the period between the 1730s and the 1830s – the heyday of British portraiture – when some of the country’s greatest artists produced beautifully worked portraits in pencil, chalks, watercolours and pastels that were often exhibited, sold and displayed as finished works of art. Jointly organised by the National Galleries of Scotland and the British Museum, this exhibition of 180 works will draw upon the superb (and largely unexplored) holdings of intimate portrait drawings in the collections of both institutions, as well as upon important private collections that have been placed on long-term loan at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Highlights will include masterpieces by Allan Ramsay, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, Richard Cosway, John Downman, Archibald Skirving, Charlotte Jones, Sarah Biffin, Thomas Lawrence, and David Wilkie, among others.

The exhibition is arranged thematically to look at artists’ self-portraits and images of their families and friends, as well as their portrayal of the rising middle classes and the celebrities of the day. Well-known sitters include Prince Charles Edward Stuart, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Lady Hamilton, the Duke of Wellington and the young Queen Victoria. Intimate portraits are revealed to be important indicators of contemporary taste and ideas of ‘sentiment’, particularly through the many portraits of women and of children. The exhibition explores how and why they were made, where they were displayed and, above all, their qualities as portraits that are ‘intimate’ in the multiple senses of the word.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, priced £25; written by co-curators Dr Stephen Lloyd, Senior Curator at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and by Dr Kim Sloan, Curator of British Drawings and Watercolours before 1880 at the British Museum.

The exhibition will be shown first at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh from 25 October 2008 – 1 February 2009.

A number of lectures and gallery talks will accompany the exhibition. For more information check online or contact the press office.

For further information on the exhibition, or images: Katrina Whenham 020 7323 8583 kwhenham@britishmuseum.org .  See also www.britishmuseum.org  to order the catalogue.

The following information is from the website ( http://philaantiques.com/about/index.html  ) for the 2009 Philadelphia Antiques Show, which will take place this year April 18-21.

The 2009 featured loan exhibit, Patriots and Presidents: Philadelphia Portrait Miniatures, 1760-1860, will chronicle more than a century of portrait miniatures, including those of Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia’s most famous citizen, as well as former presidents and patriots. A collection of small, portable portraits depicting early Philadelphia’s most prominent figures celebrates Philadelphia’s history as the center of American government and commerce in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Ivory, oil on copper, and watercolor miniatures of early American presidents and historical figures will be displayed in an exceptional museum-quality exhibit. Curated by Philadelphia collectors of Americana Dr. Robert and Katharine Booth with the assistance of Exhibition Adviser Elle Shushan, the exhibit features objects loaned by prominent national museums, notable local institutions, and several private collectors.

A catalogue is available for $20. Please contact: contact@philaantiques.com .

The Lincoln Journal has the following article on an exhibition of contemporary eye miniatures:

“Lincoln – Sweethearts and lovers should flock to Clark Gallery this Valentine’s Day to view the current exhibition, Tabitha Vevers: “Moments of Being.”

A series of miniature paintings entitled “Lover’s Eyes” are featured in the show. Vevers created this group of captivating, symbolic, and evocative miniatures on ivorine after becoming intrigued by the 18th-century practice of bestowing an exquisitely painted miniature on ivory of the giver’s eye as a token of love and affection.

The eye miniatures were popular from the 1780s to around 1830, as the giver’s most soulful feature was presented to the loved one in the form of a brooch, ring, or locket. Vevers’ series depicts women’s eyes culled from masterpieces throughout art history, ranging from Titian of the Italian Renaissance to contemporary artist Chuck Close. The exhibition runs through Feb. 28.

Clark Gallery is located at the Mall at Lincoln Station, 145 Lincoln Road, in Lincoln, and is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.”

 The gallery’s URL is: http://www.clarkgallery.com/  The link to the artist’s page is: http://www.clarkgallery.com/artist.html?guid=7285B26F-1072-427C-ACAB-8CB43281FAEC   A couple images from the exhibition are shown here.

The New York Times has an excellent on-line archive, and a number of articles and art reviews on portrait miniatures or miniaturists from the late 19th century to the turn of the 20th century may be found. One such example is a review of an exhibition at the Academy in 1916, mentioning pieces by artists Laura Coombs Hills, Lucy M. Stanton,  Margaret Foote Hawley, and Mabel Welch:  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9903EFDD113CE733A25751C0A9629C946796D6CF , and another one is a review of a miniatures exhibition in Philadelphia in 1907: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9505E4D8103EE033A25753C1A9679D946697D6CF .

An important loan exhibition of British portrait miniatures, curated by Emma Rutherford, will appear at the Philip Mould gallery from May 28th to June 14th, 2008.  The exhibition, “Secret Faces: Unseen Portrait Miniatures from Public and Private Collections,” will focus on portraits of major historical figures which are not usually on public display. Works will be on loan from private collections as well as from the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery.

For more information please contact  020 7499 6818, or see:  http://www.philipmould.com/. 

A print catalogue of the exhibition, beautifully written and illustrated, with several guest essays, is available for purchase.