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- Convenor:
-
Ana Duarte Rodrigues
(Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa)
- Location:
- Sala 38, Piso 0
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
A systematic approach of the serial production of sculptures in different materials such as stone, lead, paper and wood built on an international up-to-date technical and social context will back a new vision of sculpture production and markets.
Long Abstract:
Recent research on sculpture has proved that there was an almost "industrialized" production and afterwards exportation of these "works of art".
The circulation of wooden sculptures following the commercial circuit from Flanders to Lisbon or Spain and from there to New Spain is already known. However, recent research has revealed that religious images made with some different materials and technique variations have also been produced in series in New Spain and sold to Spain and South America.
In Europe, Genoa is an important centre of production and commercialization of stone sculptures to all Europe, including Portugal, but it is still to be explored the real dimension of this exportation centre and if they reached Brazil.
The discovery of formal and material similarities between the lead sculptures of Fronteira Palace, in Portugal, and the golden lead statues of the Herrenhausen gardens, in Germany, sold by the Larsons' family from Holand made us realize how important is the study of casts, replicas and copies' markets to another level of comprehension of the concept of art as objects of art markets. Something similar waits to be explored with "peltre" sculpture between Spain and America. In particular, in Mexico, Ecuador and Peru.
How relevant was the sculpture trade and its serial production? The question is essential to an understanding of the Early Modern European cultural milieu, of the level of internationalization of Antique Roman sculptures through the dissemination of models (Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, 1990), its main trends, sources and favorite markets.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2013, -Paper short abstract:
The formal similarities between the lead sculptures of Fronteira Palace, in Lisbon, and the golden lead statues of the Herrenhausen gardens, in Hannover, stays as an evidence of objects of art serial production and of the level of globalization sculpture’s markets attained.
Paper long abstract:
Figures imitating famous archetypes of Antiquity and Early Modern period and made of lead were a popular replacement in renaissance and baroque garden sculpture for the far more expensive original figures made out of bronze. These copies market was especially successful in northern Europe. The case-study we seek to present in this conference will stand as an evidence of the level of globalization in 17th century sculpture market and will prove Fronteira's lead sculptures as the most antique group of this typology in Europe.
Twenty-seven figures of lead ennobled with gold plating were bought by the Hanoverian court from 1689 until 1692 in the Netherlands to decorate their ballroom in the garden, the first "Heckentheater" in Germany and the only one that still exists. These statues were bought between 1689 and 1691 from Barent Dronrijp who had acquired the studio stock with casting molds from Johan Larson's legacy. In 1673, similar lead sculptures already existed at the Great parterre of Fronteira Palace which were probably imported from the same studio. Johan Larson and his brothers were sculptors in Den Haag and London and supplied several courts in England, Netherlands and Germany with all kinds of statues. So it might be that our Portuguese statues were bought in London or in the Netherlands. This demand is probably explained by the combination of the relatively low prices and quick delivery for lead figures, when compared to sculptures in marble or bronze.
Paper short abstract:
This paper focus on the continuous interest over classical sculpture and the way it affected the landscape of public and royal collections in Portugal between the XV and the end of the XIX century.
Paper long abstract:
Without having a consistent tradition of acquiring classical sculpture and its reproductions, Portugal has known several case study's within the mainstream of international purchases. The cast collecting brought by D. Miguel da Silva in 1525 is unquestionably one of the earliest cases but other works purchased from Genoa throughout the XVII century witness that Portugal was keeping up with an international trend for adorning noble houses with busts of eminent Greek and Roman characters.
Following this example it comes with no surprise that one of the largest collections of lead casts made by John Cheere was settled in the Royal Palace of Queluz making clear that this taste for the antique would sooner or later come up in full size copies produced by local artists. The Italian sculptor Alessandro Giusti has the credit for introducing this new awareness by making a stone replica of the celebrated Flora Farnese and thus setting an example for Machado de Castro's later intervention on the summer houses of Caxias and Belem. Indeed recent evidences show that plans were made to getter in Belem not only this set of stone sculptures made by both artist but also other Italian sculptures that lay today in the garden of the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon.
This paper focus on the continuous interest over classical sculpture and the way it affected the landscape of public and royal collections in Portugal between the XV and the end of the XIX century.
Paper short abstract:
The production, distribution and patronage of ivory and "light" sculpture in New Spain, considering its resemblance with parallel sculpture traditions within the viceroyalty, Italy and northern Europe as well as its European antecedents.
Paper long abstract:
Within the two main commercial routes that united New Spain with Europe and Asia, the study of religious sculpture can help to better define cultural exchange through the study of patronage, morphological loans and production (definition, circulation and appropriation of artistic techniques). The route of the Galeón de Manila that departed from Phillipines and arrived to Acapulco in the Pacific side of Mexico brought ivory sculptures for the American and European markets. The Flota de las Indias that departed from the port of Veracruz arriving to Cadiz or Seville imported "Light" sculptures, mainly for a Spanish market. This two sorts of sculpture, one carved on ivory and the other mainly molded and modeled with paper and corn with pieces of carved wood followed an almost "industrialized" production before its exportation. In both cases, material has been an invaluable resource to pinpoint its origins and understand its success although there are other aspects (related to their production and patronage) that differentiate them. We would like to create a dialogue between these two diverse sculptural traditions because they both reached wide markets. Ivory was specially valued in New Spain as can be seen at the importance given to these pieces in private and public places such as the cathedral of Puebla where ivory sculptures crowned the choir entrance and the bishop`s seat. Unlike the production of ivory sculpture whose specialization resembles the guilds production of Flanders, the exportation of light sculpture made of corn and paper cannot be fully understood without taking into account individual patrons.