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– Wan-Li porcelain alert –

I just came across this exquisite specimen in Amy Lim's article and am struck by its resemblance to the gold-mounted cups I encountered in contemporary constcamer paintings.

Perhaps Jan Brueghel I (1617) and especially Jan Brueghel II had access to the same model as Frans Snyders (1616)?

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This beautiful drawing was on display at the Art Institute Chicago when I visited on April 24, along with most of the other attendees of RSA Chicago 2024. The theme:

Sine Cerere et Baccho Friget Venus.

This proverb carries on a deeper level the message that without food and drink, love grows cold. I rediscovered the presence of this Erasmian adage, after Terence (The Eunuch, IV, 732), in two constcamer paintings:

as a picture-within-picture in The Five Senses (left), and

as a sculpture group in The Picture Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest (right).

The well-known Allegory of Sight also features the proverb in a picture-within-picture above the portal. Although similar to prints after a composition by Titian, this scene has alternatively been interpreted as a representation of Psyche before Venus.

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Everywhere I go I run into Dosso! This painting of the Stoning of St. Stephen was probably made by both Dosso and his brother Battista Dossi. Nowadays it belongs to the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection and is on display in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, located in the magnificent Palau Nacional of Montjuïc in Barcelona.

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It's been a wonderful week in Rome, including the AAA winter school, library and museum visits with plentiful artworks by Dosso! I encountered his works in the Musei Capitolini, Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Galleria Borghese, Galleria Colonna, and Palazzo Barberini. The latter museum finally had their constcamer painting on display, and also hosted the magnificent exhibition "The City of the Sun" in collaboration with Museo Galileo. The Borghese had an impressive show on "The touch of Pygmalion: Rubens and sculpture in Rome," and the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica on my beloved Via Appia. My tour de force was completed by attending the roundtable "Show me your hand" at Istituto Svizzero.

[floorkoeleman]

Fig. 318: Jan Brueghel I & Hendrik van Balen I, Air (detail), 1611, oil on canvas, 46 x 83 cm, Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.

"The first dated representation of a telescope in paint can be found in Brueghel I’s Air [Fig. 317] made in collaboration with Hendrik van Balen I in 1611. The telescope depicted in this painting has previously gone unnoticed. It was thought to be included first in the allegory of Air or Optics of 1621 [Fig. 316], created for Brueghel’s patron Cardinal Federico Borromeo.1286 A telescope can nevertheless also be discerned in the Air signed and dated 'Brueghel 1611,' the last in a series of the four elements presumably created for the Archdukes.1287 The personification of Aurora or Urania (the Muse of astronomy) holds feathers and a bird-of-paradise in her left, and an armillary sphere in her right hand. Next to the armillary sphere, partly covered by her right arm, a telescope is visible, to which an eagle turns its intense gaze [Fig. 318]."

Quote taken from my dissertation Visualizing Visions: Re-viewing the seventeenth-century genre of constcamer paintings, University of Luxembourg 2021, p. 373.

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Dosso and his amazing use of colour, as seen in Modena in 2019.

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After participating in two summer schools in Florence and Pisa this summer, it is now my turn to teach at a winter school in Rome from 15 to 19 January. The winter school L’œuvre augmentée – entre passé et futur : Histoire de l’art, Sémiotique et Humanités numériques is hosted by the Academia Belgica and the Villa Medici and organized by the Augmented Artwork Analysis (AAA) project, which creates tools for assisted interpretation of artistic images. Members of the research teams are active at universities in Lyon, Luxembourg, Liege, Louvain-la-Neuve, and myself in Lausanne (LLLLL).

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2024 is going to be packed with conferences! I am also organizing a session on “Embracing the Digital Age: New Prospects for Researching Northern European Art with Computational Methods” together with Lauryn Smith (The Frick Pittsburgh) and Weixuan Li (University of Leiden) for the Historians of Netherlandish Art Conference, taking place in London and Cambridge from 10 to 13 July. The title of my talk is “Constcamer.art: Lessons learned from developing a digital archive and research tools.” Please contact me if you would like to check out the website.

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The Tools of Knowledge project is coming to an end and I will (be) present at the concluding conference at the Science Museum in London in three weeks. Now all I need is a valid passport to actually get there. So please, Dutch embassy, be quick!

Update 17-11-2023: good to go

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It's really exciting to be part of the CIHA session “Virtual/Material: What Matters for Art History” in Lyon next June. My paper will be on "The Datafication of Interpretation: Polysemy in the Art of Dosso Dossi." Thanks to the chairs – Elizabeth Mansfield, Emily Pugh, and Hélène Dubois – the program is shaping up beautifully. Stay tuned for more updates.

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Alas, the exhibition "I volti della sapienza: Dosso e Battista Dossi nella Biblioteca di Bernardo Cles" closed before I could visit Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trento. But fortunately I already received the exhibition catalogue to make up for it.

The results of the library's ceiling restoration look spectacular.

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I am so pleased that my paper “Collecting and Recollecting: The Myriad Allusions to Antiquity in Constcamer Paintings” was accepted for RSA Chicago 2024 in the session “All'antica: Antique reception and the visual arts.” The session will be chaired by members of the editorial board of the exciting new book series “All’antica: Early Modern Perspectives on the Antique” (Harvey Miller / Brepols) and I am curious to see how this series will unfold!

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On November 27, I will take part in the workshop "Inventories of Historical Collections and Digital Platforms" in Zurich. This is a great opportunity to exchange views with my esteemed colleagues from the projects Bibliothèques et musées en Suisse entre 18e et 19e siècle: une histoire parallèle of the Université de Neuchâtel, hallerNet at the Universität Bern, and the research portal by the Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIK-ISEA). I will also give an introduction to my work on Cabinets d’Amateurs or pictures of collections.

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Looking forward to speak at the autumn meeting Overleg Kunst(historische) Bibliotheken Nederland * Art Libraries Society / The Netherlands (OKBN * ARLIS / NL) about ‘Verhalen uit de praktijk’ on November 3. Many thanks to Saskia Scheltjens of the Rijksmuseum (Library) for the invitation.

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This semester I have the honor of teaching a BA seminar together with Nicolas Bock, entitled Art et Magnificence : la Renaissance à Ferrare et Mantoue. I am ready for tomorrow to take a closer look at Casa Mantegna (1476-1502) with the students.

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Coming up next week: our first in-person workshop on the History of Art and Science at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Science and Technology Studies in Wuppertal. I am truly delighted to meet my fellow working group members after three years of online meetings.

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Photo via the Collection of scientific instruments UNIL-EPFL.

From 18 to 22 September, the 42nd Scientific Instrument Symposium is taking place in Palermo. I will chair the session "Visual Representations: Models, Drawings, Photography and Paintings" on Wednesday and speak in the session "Early Modern Instruments" on Friday. Hope to see you there!