The November 2009 issue of New England Antiques Journal has an article by Judith Dunn entitled “English Portrait Miniatures, 1525-1810.”  A miniature of a boy signed by Philadelphian expatriate artist Robert Hunt from Christine Archibald Portrait Miniatures is included in the article on page 26. The flipbook version of the magazine and the article may be viewed at www.antiquesjournal.com.

The philosophy of collecting and collections is something that always interests me, and I thought that a quote from Orlando Rock, Christie’s head of Private Collections, illustrated a facet of this.

“What makes the perfect collection?  The key is not to be too old-fashioned and to have a few masterpieces which stand out, around which groups can be coherently formed. But above all, a collection needs to have charm and be full of character; it very rarely works if it is bland or unimaginative. and in an ideal world, added into this mix would be a touch of glamour:  The allure of the cult of the personality….for me, every work of art tells a story–and it is the romance of the object, where it comes from, who commissioned it and who owned it subsequently–that is at the heart of what we do. “

An interesting antique book listed for sale by Joslin Hall (eBay #350261836194) gives detailed instructions on how to paint miniatures. It appears to have three female authors. The listing is as follows:

” Nouveau Manuel complet de Miniature, de Gouache, du Lavis a la Sepia, de l’Aquarelle et de la Peinture a la Cire, par Mm. Constant-Viguier, Langlois-Longueville et Duroziez.  Published in Paris by La Libraire Encyclopedique Roret: 1845. Nouvelle edition.

First published in 1828, this treatise on miniature and watercolor painting includes instructions for preparing and painting on ivory, glass, concave and black glass and other materials, creating and outlining designs, gives suggestions for colors and mediums and discusses subject matter and effects, thoroughly going over every technical and artistic aspect of the subjects. One of the plates illustrates a painter’s kit, with paintbox, brushes, suggested set ups for the palette and a hand-colored color wheel. The other plate illustrates how to effectively chose and frame a view from a natural landscape, including dealing with its geometric elements. A charming manual.

Softcover. 4″x6″, viii + 356 pages plus 2 folding plates, one with an attractive hand-colored color wheel. Publisher’s original printed paper covers, covers with some chipping around the edges, spine reinforced with what appears to be an onionskin paper (see photo). A little toning and spotting throughout, page tips and fore-edge a bit browned, etc. Last gather of text pages and the first plate still attached into the binding by their cords, but very, very loosely. Still, an attractive copy in the publisher’s original paper covers.”

Silhouette: The Art of the Shadow

Publication date: October 6, 2009

Elegant and enigmatic, the silhouette is the simplest of art forms—but that simplicity belies a rich and varied past. In this first major work on the art of the silhouette, art historian Emma Rutherford draws from dozens of American and European sources to create a fascinating history of the art form—and to illuminate the compelling social history hidden behind its shadows.

Emma Rutherford is an art historian who has specialized in silhouettes and portrait miniatures for fifteen years. Formerly a Director of the Silhouettes and Portrait Miniatures Department at Bonhams Auctioneers, she has also worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Phillips Auctioneers in London. She lectures and writes frequently on the subject.

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.