Ancient Sculpture Research Articles

Inventing the Louvre: Art, Politics, and the Origins of the Modern Museum in Eighteenth-Century Paris

Founded in the final years of the Enlightenment, the Louvre--with the greatest collection of Old Master paintings and antique sculpture assembled under one roof--became the model for all state art museums subsequently established. Andrew McClellan chronicles the formation of this great museum from its origins in the French royal picture collections to its apotheosis during the Revolution and Napoleonic Empire. More than a narrative history, McClellan's account explores the ideological underpinnings, pedagogic aims, and aesthetic criteria of the Louvre. Drawing on new archival materials, McClellan also illuminates the art world of eighteenth-century Paris.

Tradition in Late Antique Sculpture: Conservation, Modernization, Production. By Niels Hannestad.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsTradition in Late Antique Sculpture: Conservation, Modernization, Production. By Niels Hannestad.Eric R. VarnerEric R. Varner Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 99, Number 4October 1995 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/506204 Copyright © 1995 by the Archaeological Institute of America. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Ghiberti on the Destruction of Art

Previous articleNext article No AccessGhiberti on the Destruction of ArtCreighton E. GilbertCreighton E. Gilbert Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance Volume 61995 Published for Villa I Tatti: The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/4603694 Views: 12Total views on this site Citations: 5Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1995 Villa I TattiPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Sculptural Bodies: Created, Destroyed, and Re-Enchanted, (Feb 2020): 99–152.https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108579322.006Megan Holmes Sculptural Transformations in Quattrocento Italy, (Feb 2020): 134–152.https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108579322.009Una Roman D’Elia How the Quattrocento Saw Ancient Sculpture in Color, Source: Notes in the History of Art 35, no.33 (May 2016): 216–226.https://doi.org/10.1086/686707David Karmon Archaeology and the Anxiety of Loss: Effacing Preservation from the History of Renaissance Rome, American Journal of Archaeology 115, no.22 (Apr 2011): 159–174.https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.115.2.159David Karmon Archaeology and the Anxiety of Loss: Effacing Preservation from the History of Renaissance Rome, American Journal of Archaeology 115, no.22 (Dec 2021): 159–174.https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.115.2.0159

'Squabby cupids and clumsy graces': Garden Sculpture and Luxury in Eighteenth-Century England

When at the end of the eighteenth century Rowlandson represented a number of fashionably dressed people viewing figures in the yard of a London statuary (Fig. 1), he was assuming on the part of his audience a familiarity with those reproductions of antique (and some more modern) sculptures in lead and plaster that had for the past fifty years or so been produced in increasingly large quantities for interiors and gardens.' The marketing of such sculpture and its purchase by a widening social group was indeed one prominent manifestation of that growth in consumption that was so marked a feature of eighteenth-century Britain.2 Rowlandson's image is given its satirical bite in part through the juxtaposition of the elongated, nude statues with the portly male and modishly dressed female spectators. But behind it also lies some hint of those concerns about luxury that might be described as constituting consumption's Other in the eighteenth century.

Review Article: The Study of Classical Sculpture at the End of the 20th Century

The year 1993 has marked centenary of Adolf Furtwingler's influential Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik, and such an important anniversary should not pass unnoticed.' That book signaled beginning of a strong current in studies of ancient sculpture, one that is usually known by such German terms as Meisterforschung and Kopienkritik. It was based on premise that style of ancient sculptors could, and should, be identified through Roman replicas of their lost originals, and proceeded on assumption that attributions could be made not only on authority of mentions in ancient sources but also on purely formal and iconographic grounds. In words of Andrew Stewart, the continuing spell of Furtwangler's achievement, and of great sculptors themselves, has ensured that much of bibliography of Greek sculpture still addresses, one way or another, these basic concerns, often to detriment of other lines of inquiry.2 It seems therefore fitting to choose this moment to review status of Greek sculptural studies 100 years later. In particular, it may be appropriate to do so using a 1993 publication as a starting point: Luigi Todisco's Scultura greca del IV secolo. Although restricted to a single century, as contrasted with Furtwingler's ampler coverage,3 this monograph at same time marks what is newest and what is still same in our field. I shall start by reviewing Todisco's book, and shall then attempt to define other current trends, in an overview of methodological theories and publications. Needless to say, my selection will be guided by purely personal and subjective criteria necessarily informed by my own preferences and re tricted by limits of my own knowledge.

DAYLIGHT CONTROL FOR THE NEW LANTERNS IN THE NORTH GALLERY OF PETWORTH HOUSE, WEST SUSSEX

DAYLIGHT CONTROL FOR THE NEW LANTERNS IN THE NORTH GALLERY OF PETWORTH HOUSE, WEST SUSSEX

The horses of San Marco & the quadriga of the Lord

Although the rich facades of San Marco are an unmistakable tribute to the glory of Venice, their captivating splendor almost conceals the rigor of their complex ideological statement. Here Michael Jacoff offers a new approach to understanding San Marco's exterior decoration by concentrating on the facades' most celebrated feature: the four life-size ancient bronze horses on the west front. Trophies commemorating Venice's conquest of Constantinople in 1204, these horses, Jacoff argues, also evoked for medieval believers the metaphor of Christ's quadriga, in which the four Evangelists are likened to four spirited steeds drawing Christ's chariot, representing His Word, through the world. The horses have, then, both a political and religious meaning, and in both respects they make a fundamental contribution to the facades' overall message.Jacoff compares the horses to other examples of ancient sculpture put on display during the Middle Ages and explores their Roman references. He concludes that the horses would have been installed very differently were it not for their additional Christian meaning at San Marco. Seeing the horses as the Quadriga of the Lord significantly advances our understanding of San Marco's facades and of the medieval reuse of classical antiquities.

Des ruines au musée. La destinée de la sculpture classique

Vers 170-160 avant J.-C, le roi de Pergame Eumène II décide, pour célébrer une victoire guerrière, d'élever sur l'acropole de sa capitale un autel aux proportions inédites, décoré d'une grandiose Gigantomachie, qui fait aujourd'hui partie des plus célèbres monuments de l'art antiquel. Après des siècles d'oubli, l'autel est retrouvé à partir de 1871 au cours de fouilles allemandes ; grâce à l'intervention personnelle de Bismarck, et en échange d'une aide financière aux victimes de la guerre russo-turque, en 1878 la Sublime Porte donne la permission de transporter la série entière des reliefs sculptés à Berlin, où ils sont remontés dans un musée destiné à cet effet, le Pergamonmuseum (fig. 1). Depuis cette date, et à nouveau après les destructions de la seconde guerre mondiale et la reconstruction, c'est à Berlin qu'il faut se rendre pour voir l'autel de Pergame. Un monument dynastique de très grand prestige, perdu de vue pendant des siècles, entrait dans un nouvel horizon urbain, pour célébrer les succès d'un autre Empire.

The Beholder's Tale: Ancient Sculpture, Renaissance Narratives

Research Article| October 01 1993 The Beholder's Tale: Ancient Sculpture, Renaissance Narratives Leonard Barkan Leonard Barkan Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Representations (1993) 44: 133–166. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928642 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Leonard Barkan; The Beholder's Tale: Ancient Sculpture, Renaissance Narratives. Representations 1 October 1993; 44 133–166. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2928642 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentRepresentations Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1993 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Beholder's Tale: Ancient Sculpture, Renaissance Narratives

The Beholder's Tale: Ancient Sculpture, Renaissance Narratives

The Concert Spirituel in the Tuileries palace

Frangois I (1515-47) began the westward expansion of Renaissance Paris in 1546, when he had part of the medieval fortress of the Louvre pulled down and commissioned Pierre Lescot to begin a new palace in its place. This became the original component of the modern Louvre's cour carrd, built during the following reign of Henri II (1547-59). The large room on its ground floor (at present an antique sculpture room of the Musde du Louvre) contains the famous musicians' balcony supported by four caryatids sculpted in 155o-51 by Jean Goujon after the Erechtheion at Athens. Catherine de Medicis, the widow of Henri II, greatly extended the new palace. As Queen Mother she also acquired land in 1563-4 further to the west, outside the old city walls, in order to build a palace that would be near the residence of her reigning sons in the Louvre, but separate. Philibert de l'Orme was the architect who drew up the plans for her. He completed the central pavilion and two narrower wings that extended north and south by 1570, and added a square pavilion to the south (PavilIon de Bullant) by 1572. The central portions of the Tuileries palace were thus in place. Religious wars slowed building for the next two decades, but under Henri IV (1589-1610) the Grande Galerie of the Louvre was extended west along the banks of the Seine all the way to the Pavillon de Flore, which was then connected by a new wing (Galerie de Diane) to the Tuileries. The architect Louis Le Vau (1612-70) completed the Tuileries palace in the 166os, early in the reign of Louis XIV (16431715), making it symmetrical by extending to the north. He also enlarged the central pavilion by increasing its height and constructed a grand staircase leading to its main floor. A two-level terrace was added along the length of the western facade, leading to the garden laid out by Andre Le N6tre (1613-1700) in 1664. The Plan Turgot of 1739 shows a bird's eye view of the whole complex (illus.1). The gardens of the Tuileries became famous as a promenade for people of fashion. Musorgsky's artist friend Victor Hartmann put children at play in his picture of the gardens, rendered immortal by Pictures at an exhibition. A century earlier the players were adults, and the name of the game was seduction. Martin Engelbrecht captured the galant tone of amorous dalliance in his bilingually labelled engraving 'Les Promenades du Palais des Thuilleries' (illus.2). The German couplet pells out the message more explicitly than the French, ending as it does with 'hot desire'. One reason the Tuileries functioned for so long as a meeting place for locals and visitors alike is that the palace and gardens were used very little as a royal residence. Louis XIV lived at the Tuileries for only three years, 1664-7. He preferred Versailles subsequently. At his death in 1715 the Regent, Philippe d'Orleans, decided to lodge the five-year-old child who would become Louis XV in the Tuileries, while he took up residence in the Palais Royal. But in 1722 it was decided that the young king should reside at Versailles, leaving the Tuileries free from hordes of royal attendants and guards, and open to the possibility of other uses. The Tuileries was a place of theatrical entertainment as well as a royal residence (mostly in waiting). Le Vau's northern wing housed the vast Salle des Machines built by Gaspare Vigarani and his two sons between 1659 and 1662 at the behest of Cardinal Mazarin, who died the year before completion. It was Mazarin's idea to impose Italian opera on France, and Cavalli's Ercole amante opened the new theatre in 1662. The theatre was so large, Sauval claimed in his Antiquites de la ville de Paris (1724), that as many as 7,000 spectators could be accommodated in the Salle, while the even larger Scene had stage machinery that could elevate more than loo performers at once. There were common complaints that the uman voice was swallowed up in the vastness of these spaces and that the auditors could hear nothing. The Salle des Machines was not long used as an opera house, being replaced by the Opera in a wing of the Palais Royal. The machinist-architect Servandoni found an appropriate use for it, on the other hand, in the spectacular series of pantomime shows he designed and directed there between 1734 and 1758. In 1763 the architects Jacques-Germain Soufflot (1713-80) and Jacques-Ange Gabriel (1698-1782) were commissioned to construct a new theatre for opera in the space of the Salle des Machines after fire gutted the Opera in the Palais Royal. They used only the stage of the old theatre in which to install both stage and auditorium.' A plan of the main floor of the Tuileries palace

Phyllis Pray Bober and Ruth Rubinstein. Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources. With contributions by Susan Woodford. London: Harvey Miller, 1986. Reprinted with minor revisions 1987. New impression, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 1991. 526 pls. + 522 pp. $39.50.

Phyllis Pray Bober and Ruth Rubinstein. Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources. With contributions by Susan Woodford. London: Harvey Miller, 1986. Reprinted with minor revisions 1987. New impression, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 1991. 526 pls. + 522 pp. $39.50.

AUX ORIGINES DE LA COLLECTION MAZARIN: L'ACQUISITION DE LA COLLECTION ROMAINE DU DUC SANNESIO (1642 1644)

The discovery of correspondence, hitherto largely unpublished, between Mazarin and two of his Roman agents (Archives des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, Correspondance politique, Rome) has produced further information concerning the Cardinal's collection. These documents cast a new light on some early facts concerning Mazarin as a patron (paintings commissioned from Bernini, Romanelli, Baur) and as a collector (purchase of some Antique sculptures). The history of this remarkable collection is especially illuminated by letters revealing the difficult but ultimately successful steps taken with the Roman family Sannesio to acquire an important set of Antique sculptures and paintings. This acquisition, which took place between 1642 and 1644, is contemporary with the purchase of the Palais Mazarin in Paris, and can be considered to represent the true beginning of Mazarin's outstanding career as a collector.

THE PALACE OF LAUSUS AT CONSTANTINOPLE AND ITS COLLECTION OF ANCIENT STATUES

The veracity of the literary sources relating to a collection of ancient sculpture in fifth-century Constantinople has been doubted, but they can be shown to have a likely basis in historical fact. The order in which the statues are said to have stood in the Palace of Lausus points towards a programmatic arrangement, a kind ofImago mundi which was Christian in character, as might have been expected from the interests and patronage ofLausus, chief chamberlain of the Byzantine court at the time when pagan temples were going out of use, and when major pieces of ancient sculpture - including the chryselephantine Zeus at Olympiu - were for once available.

Rubens: the artist as collector

Peter Paul Rubens assembled a collection of art that was, for an artist and for the Netherlands, of unprecedented richness and breadth. Hundreds of pictures (including masterpieces by Titian, Bruegel, and Van Dyck) and prints and drawings, as well as ancient sculptures, coins, and gems, were joined with select works by Rubens himself and displayed in the artist's magnificent house in Antwerp. This richly illustrated volume is the first to treat the significance of the collection in depth, to document its major components, and to catalogue all the individual pieces in it.

Plaster Casts after Antique Sculpture: Their Role in the Elevation of Public Taste and in American Art Instruction

Plaster Casts after Antique Sculpture: Their Role in the Elevation of Public Taste and in American Art Instruction

Cathodoluminescence Signature of White Marble Artefacts

AbstractThe cathodoluminescence characteristics of more than 500 white marble samples from known classical quarrying sites and surrounding areas in Greece, Turkey and Italy were analysed to develop a rapid and low-cost method for the characterization of white marbles. In most cases, the observed cathodoluminescence colors, intensity and intensity distribution form a distinct “cathodomicrofacies” which is commonly unique for a given area, quarry or parts of a quarry.In cases where the cathodomicrofacies is common to more than one quarrying area, the stable isotope signature of the white marbles provides an effective complement to cathodoluminescence, and allows additional distinctions between marbles to be made.The study of field samples from ancient quarrying areas can identify the source of white marble used for ancient sculptures and buildings. This new approach has been successfully tested on ancient marble sculptures and sarcophaguses from the collection of the Art and History Museum in Geneva.

The Conservation of Ancient Chinese Polychrome Clay Sculptures

(1990). The Conservation of Ancient Chinese Polychrome Clay Sculptures. Studies in Conservation: Vol. 35, Summaries of the Posters at the Brussels Congress, 3-7 September 1990. Cleaning, Retouching and Coatings, pp. 20-20.

High-Resolution Computed Tomography and Digital Radiography of Archaeological and Art-Historical Objects

AbstractRecent advances in x-ray imaging and image processing are providing new options for the nondestructive physical evaluation of archaeological artifacts and works of art. Traditional film-based methods have played an important role in this field for many decades1, but digital modes developed for medical and industrial applications have been gaining ground2 and can be expected to become more important as they become more accessible and less expensive. Modes such as digital radiography (DR) and computed tomography (CT) have many advantages in terms of information content, quantitative analysis options, and image display options (including some that make image publication easier). CT, in particular, provides structural information which cannot be obtained through any other nondestructive means. From a technical point of view, the only real drawback to digital methods has been spatial resolution that hasn't compared favorably with the best available from film. That situation is changing3.The objective here is to discuss a few of the important characteristics peculiar to digital images, to show examples of how high-resolution digital images can provide important structural information, and to illustrate useful types of image processing. The use of experimental CT and DR systems, with spatial resolution as fine as 50 microns, is illustrated in studies of three objects: an ancient terracotta sculpture, a Japanese assembledwoodblock sculpture (ca. 17th century), and an oil painting on canvas (ca. 18th century).

Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources

Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources