Colloque : Le portrait et politique entre France et Etats-Unis autour de 1800 (Washington, 25-26 septembre 2014)

Political Portraiture in the United States and Franceduring the Revolutionary and Federal Eras, ca. 1776-1814

The Montana State University Foundation and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery are pleased to invite scholars, students, connoisseurs, and friends of American-French cultural exchange to attend an international conference, Political Portraiture in the United States and France during the Revolutionary and Federal Eras ca. 1776-1814.
This conference will mark the bicentennial of an important historical event:  British capture of Washington, D.C., in 1814 and their burning of the Capitol along with Congress’s state portraits of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.
European and North American scholars from universities and museums will discuss aspects of diplomatic strategy, democratic representation, and republican identity as promoted in portraits.  This conference is made possible by generous support from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and the Henry Luce Foundation.

This event is free and open to the public.
For more information, go to http://npg.si.edu/event/conference.html.  Seating is limited, so please make a reservation on www.eventbrite.com at your earliest convenience.

PROGRAM

Thursday, 25 September

9:00—9:30 a.m.
Conference Welcome and Opening Remarks.
Kim Sajet, Director of the National Portrait Gallery
Waded Cruzado, President of Montana State University
Brandon Brame Fortune, Chief Curator of the National Portrait Gallery
Todd Larkin, Associate Professor of Montana State University

Part One:  Dialect[ic]s of Diplomacy

9:45—11:15 a.m.
Session 1. State Portraits in the United States and France.  Chair:  Olivier Bonfait, Professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, Université de Bourgogne

Cristina S. Martinez, University of Ottawa, “Allan Ramsay’s Portrait Enterprise:  The Propagation and Reception of a Ruler’s Image”
David O’Brien, University of Illinois, “Republicanism in Portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte”
Heather McPherson, University of Alabama, “Man + Horse:  Repurposing the Equestrian Portrait in the Post-Revolutionary Era”

11:30 a.m.—1:30 p.m.
Session 2. The Portrait Copy, Painted and Printed.  Chair:  Xavier Salmon, Conservateur général, Directeur du département des arts graphiques, Musée du Louvre

Wendy Bellion, University of Delaware, “Romans in New York:  British Statuary and Atlantic Revolutions”
Laurent Hugues, Monuments historiques, Direction régionale des affaires culturelles de Languedoc-Roussillon, “Les dons de portraits du roi sous Louis XVI”
Stéphane Roy, Carleton University, “Prints, Paintings and National Characters:  Washington’s Likeness in a Transnational Perspective”
Xavier Salmon, Musée du Louvre, “Portraiturer les souverains entre 1800 et 1831:  L’exemple de François Gérard”

1:30—3:00 p.m. Lunch Break

3:00—5:00 p.m.
Session 3. The Portrait as a Diplomatic Gift.  Chair:  Brandon Brame Fortune, Chief Curator, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Ellen G. Miles, National Portrait Gallery, “Gilbert Stuart’s ‘Lansdowne’ Portrait of George Washington:  From Private Diplomatic Gift to State Portrait”
Todd L. Larkin, Montana State University, “What Ever Happened to the U.S. Congress’s State Portraits of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette?  The Politics of Pictorial Display, Displacement, and Destruction at the Capitol, ca. 1800-1814”
Gaye Wilson, Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, “ Preparations for Diplomacy:  Gilbert Stuart’s Pendant Portraits of President Jefferson and Secretary Madison”
Cyril Lécosse, Université de Strasbourg, “Rivalries and Dissentions within the Maison de l’Empereur:  The Portraitists of Napoleon and the Production of Diplomatic Gifts

Friday, 26 September

Part Two:  Representative Bodies

9:00—11:00 a.m.
Session 4. “Republicanism” and the Politician’s Portrait.  Chair:  Philippe Bordes, Professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, Université de Lyon

Matthew H. Fisk, Independent Scholar, “The Semiotic Origin—and Paradox—of the Federalist Ideal in John Trumbull’s Portrait of General George Washington (1780)
Guillaume Mazeau, Université de Paris, “The Physionotrace in Europe and North America (1780-1800):  A Tool for Visualizing a New Political Culture”
Gerrit Walczak, Technical University Berlin, “Representative Democracy and Popular Insurgency:  Collective Portraiture under the National Convention”
Kathryn Calley Galitz, Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Signs of Power:  Bonaparte and the Concordat of 1801”

11:15 a.m.—1:15 p.m.
Session 5. “Patriotism” and the Family Portrait.  Chair:  Amy Freund, Assistant Professor of the History of Art, Southern Methodist University

Melissa Hyde, University of Florida, “Family Matters in French Royal Portraiture”
Kevin Murphy, Vanderbilt University, “Family Ties in the Revolutionary Atlantic:  The Lafayettes and Washingtons, LaGrange and Mt. Vernon”
Marlen Schneider, University of Leipzig, “Politicizing Portraiture:  Formal Aspects of French Family Portraits between the Ancien Régime and the Republic”
Todd Porterfield, Université de Montréal, “Against Portraiture:  Representative and Planetary Bodies”

1:15—2:45 p.m. LunchBreak

2:45—4:45 p.m
Session 6. The “Face” and “Body” of Paris, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington:  Splendor and Squalor, Leisure and Labor in the Early Modern Metropolis.  Chair:  Margaretta Lovell, Professor of the History of Art, University of California

Jeffrey A. Cohen, Bryn Mawr College, “A Tale of Four Cities:  Representations, Fabric, and Ambitions”
Min Kyung Lee, College of the Holy Cross, “From Portrait to Plan:  Mapping Capital Cities in the Late Eighteenth Century”
Laura Turner Igoe, Temple University, “Corruption and Failure in the Body Politic:  John Lewis Krimmel’s Images of the Centre Square Waterworks and the Bank of Pennsylvania”
Dell Upton, University of California, “On the Back of the Engraving:  Obverse and Reverse in Philadelphia’s Federal-Era Urban Imagery”

4:45—5:00 p.m. Closing