The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England

The Met Fifth Avenue

October 10, 2022–January 8, 2023

Opening October 10, the first exhibition in the United States focusing on art created during the Tudor dynasty will feature more than 100 paintings, tapestries, sculptures, and more

From King Henry VII’s seizure of the throne in 1485 to the death of his granddaughter Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, England’s Tudor monarchs used art to legitimize and glorify their tumultuous reigns. On view at The Met from October 10, 2022, to January 8, 2023, The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England will trace the transformation of the arts under their rule through more than 100 objects—including iconic portraits, spectacular tapestries, manuscripts, sculpture, and armor—from both the Museum collection and international lenders. 

A detail of “Saint Paul Directing the Burning of the Heathen Books,” a tapestry designed by the Flemish artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst in the 1530s at the Metropolitan Museum in New York on Oct. 3, 2022. “The Tudors” shows how the English Renaissance was the work of wily leaders and enterprising foreigners. No dynasty has better captured the modern imagination. (Vincent Tullo/The New York Times).

The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cleveland Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

“This magnificent exhibition brings the stunning majesty and compelling drama of the Tudor dynasty to life,” said Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Met. “By examining the wider political and societal context in which these sumptuous goods and extraordinary portraits were made, we can appreciate both their exquisite beauty as works of art and the complex and often turbulent stories they tell.”

Exhibition co-curator Elizabeth Cleland, Curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, added: “The sense of majesty that the Tudors crafted around themselves was so successful that, even now, we need to take a step back and remind ourselves just how tenuous their claim to the throne actually was and how many challenges they were facing.”

“English Renaissance literature of this time, particularly the plays of William Shakespeare, continues to be world famous today,” added exhibition co-curator Adam Eaker, Associate Curator in the Department of European Paintings. “This exhibition gives us the opportunity to introduce The Met’s audiences to the stunning visual arts of the period and the ways that both artists and patrons used imagery to navigate the treacherous waters of court life. Rather than an illustrated history of the Tudor monarchy, it offers a fresh look at the incredible figurative and decorative arts made or acquired for the court.”

Exhibition Overview

England under the volatile Tudor dynasty was a thriving home for the arts. An international community of artists and merchants, many of them religious refugees from across Europe, navigated the high-stakes demands of royal patrons against the backdrop of shifting political relationships with mainland Europe. The Tudor courts were truly cosmopolitan, boasting the work of Florentine sculptors, German painters, Flemish weavers, and Europe’s best armorers, goldsmiths, and printers, while also contributing to the emergence of a distinctly English style. This exhibition features works of art made under the patronage of all five Tudor monarchs: Henry VII (reigned 1485–1509), Henry VIII (1509–47), Edward VI (1547–53), Mary I (1553–58), and Elizabeth I (1558–1603). It is organized thematically in five sections within an overall exhibition design that evokes the long galleries and intimate alcoves that defined Tudor palace architecture.

 

Deriving their power from Henry VII’s seizure of the throne in 1485, concluding the Wars of the Roses, all five monarchs of the Tudor dynasty grappled with crises of legitimacy and succession. Beginning with a spectacular group of Italian bronze sculptures (reunited here for the first time since the 17th century) from a never-completed tomb for Henry VIII, the exhibition’s first section, “Inventing a Dynasty,” shows how the Tudors devoted vast resources to crafting a public image as divinely ordained sovereigns, shoring up their tenuous claim to the throne. A series of portraits will introduce visitors to the five Tudor monarchs; included here are the exceptional loans of Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Henry VIII from the Museo Nacional Thyssen Bornemisza in Madrid and the “Sieve Portrait” of Elizabeth I by Quentin Metsys the Younger from the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena. 

The next section, “Splendor” evokes the ornately layered interiors of Tudor palaces, filled with figurative plasterwork, tapestries, metalwork, and the lavishly dressed bodies of the courtiers themselves. As monarchs traveled between residences, portable furnishings transported their magnificence with them. Tapestries woven in richly dyed wools, silks, and metal-wrapped threads enveloped rooms. Private chapels offered devotional manuscripts and images. Games, music, and athletic tournaments provided opportunities for ostentatious displays. This section highlights the Tudor monarchs’ taste for luxurious imports from the continent, but also the work of local artists and newly arrived Flemish and French immigrants. Examples include Henry VIII’s personal book of psalms (British Library), featuring handwritten annotations by the king himself; a rare French-made “Sea-Dog” Table with Italian marble inlay (National Trust, Hardwick Hall, The Devonshire Collection); and a dazzling London-made rock crystal vase mounted in gold with the devices of Henry VIII and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon (Museo delle Cappelle Medicee, on permanent loan to the Tesoro di San Lorenzo, Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence).

“Public and Private Faces” spotlights the dominance of portraiture in Tudor painting and the transformative impact that Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497–1543) had on the genre. In 16th-century England, portraits recorded status, lineage, piety, and political affiliation, as well as physical appearance. They allowed for physically distant relatives to keep in touch, or for royals to gauge the attractiveness and health of potential future spouses. The emergence of the portrait miniature, intended to be held in the hand or worn on the body, heightened the association between portraiture and intimacy and portraiture’s role in bridging geographic separation. Highlights of this section include Holbein’s portrait of the royal falconer Robert Cheseman, on loan from the Mauritshuis, along with a group of the artist’s portrait drawings in the collection of HM Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. Also featured is Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger’s elegant portrait of the Welsh aristocrat Ellen Maurice, recently acquired and conserved by The Met.

“Languages of Ornament” illuminates how Tudor arts combined the classical, the natural, and the neo-medieval, forming a uniquely English Renaissance aesthetic. Like other elites of Renaissance Europe, the Tudors were interested in the artistic legacy of ancient Greece and Rome, as seen in the classical whimsy of The Apotheosis of Henry VIII, a drawing on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In the decorative arts of 16th-century England, however, this classical tradition was also often blended with a new taste for motifs from the natural world. They drew upon both longstanding conventions of floral symbolism as well as a new fascination with untamed wilderness as a place of liberation. Meticulously woven vines of Tudor and Lancastrian roses, for example, decorate a velvet cope from a lavish suite of vestments commissioned by Henry VII, on loan from the British Jesuit Province. Additionally, elaborate court performances and choreographed tournaments revealed a nostalgia for the Middle Ages—nodding to the Tudors’ shrewd appropriation of King Arthur as a legendary ancestor. Interlacing geometric straps evoking Celtic knotwork and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts flourished in patterning on everything from armor to textiles, like the boldly colored Luttrell Table Carpet from the Burrell Collection in Glasgow.

The exhibition culminates with “Allegories and Icons,” a collection of striking depictions of Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, including the celebrated “Ditchley” and “Rainbow” portraits, on loan from the National Portrait Gallery (London) and the Marquess of Salisbury, respectively. Facing enormous pressure as an unmarried female ruler, the queen exerted tight control over her image. Her carefully vetted portraitists drew upon the elaborate allegories devised by court poets to pay tribute to the queen and her immense powers. As the Protestant Reformation had brought about the destruction or removal of religious images from English churches, most artists focused on investing the monarch—as newly proclaimed head of the church—with an enchanted and sacred authority. At the same time, printmakers created mass-produced images that celebrated Elizabeth as a protector of the Protestant cause. The exhibition concludes with a portrait, from The Met collection, of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, a dynamic depiction of the Stuart dynasty that came to the throne after Elizabeth’s death in 1603, ushering in a new age of artistic styles.

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England is curated by Elizabeth Cleland, Curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, and Adam Eaker, Associate Curator in the Department of European Paintings. Additional support was provided by Sarah Bochicchio, former Curatorial Research Assistant at The Met. The exhibition design is by Senior Exhibition Designer Fabiana Weinberg.

Catalogue

A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, it will be available for purchase from The Met Store. 

Images

Quentin Metsys the Younger (Netherlandish, 1543–1589)  Elizabeth I of England (The Sieve Portrait),  1583  Oil on canvas  49 x 36 in. (124.5 x 91.5 cm)  Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. By permission of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, Museum Complex of Tuscany (Polo Museale della Toscana)  Photo Archive of the National Gallery of Siena (Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena)

Hans Holbein the Younger (German, Augsburg 1497/98–1543 London)  Henry VIII, ca. 1537  Oil on wood  11 x 7 7/8 in. (28 x 20 cm)  Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid  Image © Museo Nacional Thyssen- Bornemisza, Madrid

Attributed to Guillim Scrots (Flemish, active 1537– 1553) 

Edward VI, King of England, ca. 1547-50 

Oil on panel 

22 13/16 × 26 3/4 in. (58 × 68 cm) 

Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park, Warwickshire 

Image © Compton Verney Photograph by Jamie Woodley 

Hans Eworth (Flemish, ca. ca. 1525–after 1578) 

Mary I, 1554 

Oil on wood 

41 × 30 3/4 in. (104 × 78 cm) 

Society of Antiquaries of London 

Image © The Society of Antiquaries of London 

Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (Flemish, Bruges 1561–1635/36 London) 

Queen Elizabeth I (The Ditchley Portrait), ca. 1592 

Oil on canvas 

95 x 60 in. (241 x 152 cm) 

National Portrait Gallery, London 

Image © National Portrait Gallery, London 

Workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger (German, Augsburg 1497/98–1543 London)  Henry VIII, ca. 1540  Oil on panel  93 5/8 × 52 3/4 in. (237.9 × 134 cm)  Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool (WAG 1350) Image Courtesy National Museums Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery

Attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, (Flemish, 1561–1635/36)  Elizabeth I (The Rainbow Portrait), ca. 1602  Oil on canvas  50 3/8 x 40 in. (128 x 101.6 cm)  Reproduced with the permission of the Marquess of Salisbury, Hatfield House Image ©Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, UK/Bridgeman Images

Unknown English Artist  Abd al-Wahid bin Mas’ood bin Mohammad ‘Annouri, 1600  Oil on oak panel  44 1/2 x 34 1/2 inches (113 x 87.6 cm)  Birmingham University, Campus Collection of Fine and Decorative Art (BIRRC-A0427) Image © Research and Cultural Collections, University of Birmingham  Nicholas Hilliard (British, Exeter ca. 1547–1619 London)  Sir Anthony Mildmay, Knight of Apethorpe, Northamptonshire, ca. 1590–93  Watercolor on vellum, laid on card, mounted on wood  9 1/8 x 6 7/8 in. (23.3 x 17.4 cm)  Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund (1926.554)  Courtesy of The Cleveland Museum of Art

Designed by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (Netherlandish, Aelst 1502–1550 Brussels); possibly woven under the direction of Paulus van Oppenem, (Brussels, active ca. 1510–45) Detail of Saint Paul Directing the Burning of the Heathen Books, from a nine-piece set of the Life of Saint Paul, before September 1539  Wool (warp), wool, silk, silver, and gilded-silver metal-wrapped threads (wefts)  134 x 216 in. (340 x 550 cm)  Private collection

Design attributed to Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio or Santi) (Italian, Urbino 1483–1520 Rome)  The Triumph of Hercules, ca. 1540  Wool, silk, and gilt-metal- and silver-wrapped thread 15 ft. 11 5/16 in. x 21 ft. 1 15/16 in. (486 × 645 cm)  Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2022

Dutch Drawings from a Collector’s Cabinet

 

The J. Paul Getty Museum presents Dutch Drawings from a Collector’s Cabinet, an exhibition showcasing for the first time a magnificent group of 17th-century drawings acquired from a private collector in 2019. On view at the Getty Center from October 11, 2022, to January 15, 2023, the exhibition features 50 works by artists from the Dutch Republic, including Rembrandt van Rijn, Adriaen van de Velde, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Aelbert Cuyp, among others.   “This exhibition celebrates a landmark acquisition for the Getty Museum, one that enables us to showcase a more complete history of Dutch art and makes our holdings in this area one of the strongest in the United States,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “This marks the first time these works are being publicly displayed together, and we are delighted to be able to share them with visitors and scholars for their study and enjoyment.”   “One of the things that makes this acquisition particularly significant is that several of the drawings in the group are by artists whose work is very rarely available on the market,” says Stephanie Schrader, curator of Drawings at the Getty Museum and co-curator of the exhibition. “The exhibition spotlights the collection and invites visitors to explore the subjects and techniques that made artists of the Dutch Republic so renowned and beloved.”   The Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe in the 17th century, a time when its global trade, military, science, and art were highly regarded. The exhibition showcases this period of great artistic achievement when drawings became increasingly valued as independent works of art.   The exhibition presents a diverse range of genres and subjects, from a selection of rare landscapes and seascapes, religious scenes, figure studies and portraits, to colorful botanical illustrations. A standout landscape drawing in the exhibition is Adriaen van de Velde’s The House with a Little Tower Seen from the Northeast, which offers a quintessential evocation of the Dutch flat countryside framed by stretches of sky and water. Another landscape, Jacob van Ruisdael’s A Cottage among Trees, boldly rendered in black chalk, documents the artist’s travels to Bentheim in Westphalia.   While Dutch artists often rendered naturalistic subjects emblematic of their native land, many also flocked to Rome to immerse themselves in the study of ancient monuments. “Dutch artists were enchanted by the warm, golden Italian sunlight and vibrant history of the landscape,” said Casey Lee, curatorial assistant in the Drawings Department at the Getty Museum. “This exhibition offers insight into the significant influence Italian subjects played in Dutch art during this time, from Roman ruins to Corinthian columns.”   The exhibition includes several religious and historical scenes, including a striking work titled Crucifixion by Samuel van Hoogstraten, one of Rembrandt’s most talented pupils, along with an elaborate compositional study by Gerrit van Honthorst titled Allegorical Portrait of the Four Eldest Children of the King and Queen of Bohemia.    Among the many portraits and figure studies featured in the exhibition is Peasants Playing Backgammon and Merry-making in a Tavern, a comical scene by Cornelis Dusart portrayed in vibrant watercolors on luxurious vellum. Two more standout works are Young Woman at a Balustrade, a highly detailed portrait of a woman by Jan de Bray, and Young Man Leaning on a Stick, a rare early figure study by Rembrandt, made while he was working in Leiden, Netherlands at the beginning of his career. Five botanical drawings in the exhibition demonstrate the fascination with the natural world and the interaction of art and science in the Netherlands. Jacob Marrel’s imposing watercolor of Four Tulips speaks to “tulipmania,” a period when the speculative prices for tulip bulbs reached astonishing heights before the market collapse in 1637. Maria Sibylla Merian’s watercolor Metamorphosis of a Small Emperor Moth on a Damson Plum is a meticulous rendering of the metamorphosis of an emperor moth from egg to caterpillar based on a counterproof from her Caterpillar Book of 1679.

To complement the exhibition, Getty will hold a lecture, Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age, on October 30 with Dr. Anne Goldgar, author of Tulipmania, who will debunk myths about the 17th-century phenomenon of “tulipmania.”   Dutch Drawings from a Collector’s Cabinet is curated by Stephanie Schrader, curator of Drawings, and Casey Lee, curatorial assistant in the Drawings Department at the Getty Museum.

1930s and 40s American art. The WPA era. Modernism.

 Helicline offers American and European modernist artwork from the first half of the 20th Century. Look at HeliclineFineArt.com for others.

The core of our offerings are 1930s and 40s American art. The WPA era. Modernism.  Attached are seven work we are pleased to offer.. Some are depression era works. One shows the birth of television, a protest. family, the effects of war, a fight and more, All are figurative paintings and drawings that capture an era.    Daniel Celentano (1902 – 1980) Going to the Festival 14 1/2 x 10 1/2 Watercolor on paper, c. 1930s Signed lower left Robert Riggs (1896-1970) The Knockout 22 x 30 inches watercolor on paper Signed lower right Leon Bibel (1912-1995) Shattered 24 x 20 inches Oil on canvas, c. 1937 Estate stamp verso

Chris Ritter (American, 1906 – 1976) Animated Discourse 19 x 24 inches Watercolor on paper Signed lower left

Stowell Sherman (1886 – 1973) Pawns 16 x 20 Oil on board, c. 1930’s Signed lower left

Harry Sternberg (1904 – 2002) Television #2 19 x 30 inches Oil on Canvas, 1949 Signed lower right, Signed and titled verso

Boris Deutsch (1892 – 1978) Three Young Men 24 x 30 inches oil on canvas signed and dated 1930 lower right

Book: Vermeer's Maps

 

Most Comprehensive Study to Date on this Topic

(New York, September 22, 2022)—Of the approximately thirty-four paintings attributed to Johannes Vermeer—whose extraordinary art has captivated viewers since his rediscovery in the nineteenth century—wall maps and other cartographic objects are depicted in nine of them, including The Frick Collection’s renowned Officer and Laughing Girl and the artist’s masterpiece in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, The Art of Painting. With stunning reproductions and incisive text, the Frick’s new publication, Vermeer’s Maps, is the most comprehensive study of the artist's depiction of wall maps to date. Drawing on rare surviving examples of the physical maps and other primary sources, author Rozemarijn Landsman examines this intriguing aspect of Vermeer’s work, greatly enriching and expanding our understanding of the art and life of the “Sphinx of Delft.” As Landsman writes in the book’s introduction, “While scholars continue to remark on the prominence of maps in Vermeer’s art, these objects are rarely the center of attention. […] Questions about the maps in Vermeer’s paintings linger: What kinds of maps are they? How were they made? For whom were they produced? What were their functions? Above all, the questions of what maps meant for Vermeer and his art and what may have motivated him to choose these specific objects to adorn his painted walls remain to be addressed.” A doctoral candidate at Columbia University, Landsman was the 2019–21 Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow at The Frick Collection. Vermeer’s Maps is being published October 2022 by The Frick Collection in association with DelMonico Books/D.A.P. New York. The 128-page hardcover volume includes 68 color images and 30 in black and white ($39.95, member price $31.96). It includes a foreword by Ian Wardropper, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director of the Frick, followed by Landsman’s introduction and her essays on maps and mapmakers in seventeenth-century Holland and Vermeer’s particular interest in rendering cartographic works, interpreting their significance to him and to his audience. The publication can be pre-ordered online at shop.frick.org, by emailing sales@frick.org, or by calling 212.547.6849. It will also be available for purchase at the Museum Shop at Frick Madison this fall.

Dare to Know: Prints and Drawings in the Age of Enlightenment

 

Jacques-Fabien Gautier d’Agoty, Muscles of the Back, Plate 14 from Myologie complette en couleur et grandeur naturelle (Complete Scientific Study of Muscles in Color and Life-Size), 1746. Color mezzotint. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the SmithKline Beckman Corporation Fund, 1968, 1968-25-79n, TL42415.2. Image: Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Photo: Joseph Hu. Cambridge, MA September 9, 2022 

This fall, the Harvard Art Museums will present a first-of-its-kind exhibition and accompanying publication devoted to the graphic arts of the Enlightenment era. Dare to Know: Prints and Drawings in the Age of Enlightenment offers provocative insights into both the achievements and the failures of a period whose complicated legacies reverberate still today. Bringing together 150 prints, drawings, books, and other related objects from Harvard as well as collections in the United States and abroad, the large-scale exhibition asks new and sometimes uncomfortable questions of the so-called age of reason, inviting visitors to embrace the Enlightenment’s same spirit of inquiry—to investigate, to persuade, and to imagine. The catalogue fills a gap in scholarship about the period by focusing on prints and drawings from across Europe, with a wealth of new ideas and analysis. 

Co-curated by Elizabeth M. Rudy, the Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Curator of Prints at the Harvard Art Museums, and Kristel Smentek, Associate Professor of Art History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Dare to Know: Prints and Drawings in the Age of Enlightenment is on display September 16, 2022 through January 15, 2023 in the Harvard Art Museums’ special exhibitions gallery on Level 3. The exhibition’s title borrows from German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s published response in 1784 to a journal article asking, “What Is Enlightenment?” Kant argued that the Enlightenment’s main impulse was to “dare to know!”: to pursue knowledge for oneself, without relying on others to interpret facts and experiences. But is this ever truly possible? 

The 18th century saw dramatic growth in the circulation of works on paper, ushering in an era of information sharing that rivals our own digital age. New concepts in every realm of intellectual inquiry were communicated not only through text and speech, but in prints and drawings that gave ideas concrete form. The graphic arts made new things visible and familiar things visible in powerful new ways, wielding the potential to articulate, reinforce, or contradict well-known concepts. 

The graphic arts were also pivotal during moments of political instability, especially amid the three revolutions— American, French, and Haitian—that rocked the world at the end of the century. “The Enlightenment era has often been described as awash in paper. The profusion of printed matter was essential for the exchange of ideas across physical distances, and the role of imagery was paramount,” said Rudy. 

“This exhibition and its catalogue focus on the power wielded by drawings and prints to shape opinions, argue for social change, and inspire new realities.” Smentek added: “Our exhibition aims to show how prints and drawings were agents of Enlightenment rather than passive documents of it. Works on paper traveled easily, and they allowed for more experimentation in content and format than other modes of visual art. More immediate in their effects than textual sources, works on paper gave visual form to both the era’s ideals and its ambitions—in all their complexity.” 

Dare to Know features a range of drawings, prints, and books from roughly 1720 to 1800 that shaped and communicated the debates of the moment, ranging from the realms of the natural sciences, technology, justice, religion, economics, and sexual health, among others. 

The exhibition’s introductory section lays out some of the foundational ideas and questions of the Enlightenment, followed by three sections that broadly prompt visitors to Investigate, Persuade, and Imagine. 

Highlights on display include: 

Étienne-Louis Boullée’s 1784 drawing Cénotaphe de Newton (Cenotaph to Newton), which details a fantastical monument honoring Sir Isaac Newton, a scientist who loomed large over the 18th century (loan from the Bibliotheque nationale de France); 

James Barry (Irish, 1741–1806), The Phoenix; or, The Resurrection of Freedom, 1776. Engraving and aquatint. Plate: 43.2 × 61.3 cm. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1977.14.11067, TL42412.9. Image: Yale Center for British Art.


Marie-Gabrielle Capet (French, 1761–1818), Self-Portrait, 1790. Black, red, and white chalk. 34 × 29.4 cm. The Horvitz Collection, D-F-429, TL42410.1. Image: The Horvitz Collection, Wilmington, Del.

A Branch of Gooseberries with a Dragonfly, an Orange-Tip Butterfly, and a Caterpillar (1725–83), a realistic gouache over graphite drawing by Barbara Regina Dietzsch, a trained specialist in botany and drawing who came from a noted family of botanical illustrators in Nuremberg, Germany (loan from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.);

Diomède assailli par les Troyens, son écuyer tué à côté de lui (Diomedes Assaulted by the Trojans, His Horseman Killed at His Side), a 1756 drawing by sculptor Augustin Pajou exhibited at the Paris Salon, pointing to the era’s new appreciation for drawings as autonomous works of art (loan from the Musée du Louvre);


The Money Devil, an elaborate undated drawing by Roger Lorrain that could be a satirical critique of France’s economic situation in the 1780s, on the eve of the French Revolution (loan from Harvard Business School’s Baker Library; first museum exhibition and publication of this work);

Two copperplate engravings with silk borders by Manchu artist Ilantai from the volume Changchun yuan shuifa tu (Pictures of the European Palaces and Waterworks), created for the Qianlong emperor depicting the emperor’s private residence in Yuanming Yuan, in northwest Beijing (loan from Houghton Library, Harvard University);

Louis Carrogis de Carmontelle’s spectacular 12-foot-long watercolor Figures Walking in a Parkland (1783–1800), an idealized countryside scene painted on conjoined sheets of translucent paper and wound around rollers inserted into a backlit box to create a moving image and now presented with a custom lightbox (loan from the J. Paul Getty Museum).

Developed over several years and involving research consultation and collaboration between Harvard University and MIT, Dare to Know includes loans from 31 international and U.S. lenders. Multidisciplinary in its approach, the exhibition puts the works on view in new contexts, as seen through new lenses. Research from disparate fields, particularly history, comparative religion, gender studies, and history of science, was brought to bear in the analysis of works in the exhibition, offering new ways to interpret their impact during the 18th century. 

The curators extend their special thanks to Heather Linton, Curatorial Assistant for Special Exhibitions and Publications in the museums’ Division of European and American Art, and Christina Taylor, Associate Paper Conservator, Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies. Research contributions were made by Austėja Mackelaitė, Stanley H. Durwood Foundation Curatorial Fellow (2016–18) and by these Ph.D. candidates in Harvard’s Department of History of Art and Architecture and former graduate interns in the Division of European and American Art: J. Cabelle Ahn, Thea Goldring, and Sarah Lund. 

Publication 

A generously illustrated catalogue with 26 thematic essays—an A to Z exploration of the Enlightenment quest for understanding and change—accompanies the exhibition. With a multidisciplinary approach, the book probes developments in the natural sciences, technology, economics, and more—all through the lens of the graphic arts. The essays, along with 11 object-specific spotlights, consider the disparate and often incongruous aspects of the period, with a particular focus on scientific investigation, religious belief, empathy, colonialism, the study of ancient civilizations worldwide, and political revolution. Edited by Edouard Kopp (John R. Eckel, Jr., Foundation Chief Curator at the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston), Elizabeth Rudy, and Kristel Smentek, with contributions by a range of leading scholars representing a variety of expertise and diversity of opinion. Published by the Harvard Art Museums and distributed by Yale University Press.

More on EDWARD HOPPER’S NEW YORK

Essay

Approaching a City: Hopper and New York, Kim Conaty

Images

Click on links for more info about each work:

Edward Hopper, Manhattan Bridge Loop, 1928. Oil on canvas, 35 × 60 in. (88.9 × 152.4 cm). Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA. © 2022 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image courtesy Art Resource, NY 

 Edward Hopper, Tables for Ladies, 1930. Oil on canvas, 48 1/4 × 60 1/4 in. (122.6 ×153 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art; George A. Hearn Fund. © 2022 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image courtesy Art Resource, New York 

Edward Hopper, Drug Store, 1927. Oil on canvas, 29 × 40 1/8 in. (73.7 × 101.9 cm). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; bequest of John T. Spaulding. © 2022 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

Edward Hopper, New York Restaurant, c. 1922. Oil on canvas, 24 × 30 in. (61 × 76.2 cm). Detail. Muskegon Museum of Art, MI; Hackley Picture Fund. © 2022 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 Edward Hopper, Roofs, Washington Square, 1926. Watercolor over charcoal on paper, 13 7/8 × 19 7/8 in. (35.24 × 50.48 cm). Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. James H. Beal. © 2022 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 Edward Hopper, Office at Night, 1940. Oil on canvas, 22 3/16 × 25 1/8 in. (56.4 × 63.8 cm). Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; gift of the T.B. Walker Foundation, Gilbert M. Walker Fund, 1948. © 2022 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Edward Hopper, New York Corner (Corner Saloon), 1913. Oil on canvas, 24 × 29 in. (61 × 73.6 cm). Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University; museum purchase made possible by the Halperin Art Acquisition Fund, an anonymous estate, Roberta & Steve Denning, Susan & John Diekman, Jill & John Freidenrich, Deedee & Burton McMurtry, Cantor Membership Acquisitions Fund, an anonymous acquisitions fund, Pauline Brown Acquisitions Fund, C. Diane Christensen, an anonymous donor, Modern & Contemporary Art Acquisitions Fund, and Kazak Acquisitions Fund, 

Edward Hopper, The City, 1927. Oil on canvas, 27 1/2 × 37 in. (71.1 × 91.4 cm). University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson; gift of C. Leonard Pfeiffer © 2022 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 

Edward Hopper, Approaching a City, 1946. Oil on canvas, 27 1/18 x 36 in. (68.9 x 91.4 cm). The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; acquired 1947 © 2022 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York