Exhibition
An Intimate Look at French Drawings from the Esmond Bradley Martin Collection
Oct 27, 2013 – Feb 9, 2014
Drawing Room: An Intimate Look at French Drawings from the Esmond Bradley Martin Collection is part of the exhibition Passport to Paris.
Inspired by the drawings cabinets of gentlemen and connoisseurs, this exhibition will offer a space where visitors can get close to artworks, the intimate nature of which invites contemplation and close-up viewing. Curator Angelica Daneo notes the special immediacy of a work-on-paper where little separates the viewer from the direct hand of the artist.
Exhibition
Three Centuries of French Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum
Oct 27, 2013 – Feb 9, 2014
Court to Café: Three Centuries of French Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum is part of the exhibition Passport to Paris.
It features 50 masterpieces from the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut. Masters such as Nicolas Poussin, François Boucher, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Claude Monet will be among those represented.
The successful conservation of the sedan chair now on display in Court to Café relied on a collaborative approach with conservators providing expertise in the treatment of furniture, objects, paintings, and textiles. As presented in Part 1 of this blog, the leather, paintings, and textile components of the sedan chair all needed attention. The goal of the treatment was to stabilize and visually integrate these elements through minimal treatment and using stable and reversible conservation materials, as required by conservation ethics.
Court to Café, part of the Passport to Paris exhibition, includes eight period decorative arts pieces from the Denver Art Museum’s own collections—seven furniture items and one mantle clock. When conservators examined the objects several months before the exhibition to determine if they needed treatment prior to display, they were pleased to note that the objects were in fairly good condition, requiring only minimal cleaning and some other minor and localized treatment.
Passport to Paris is a trio of exhibitions focusing on French art from the 1600s to the 1900s. The Denver Art Museum has taken advantage of this French focus to shed light on not only the diverse painting styles and subject matters of these three centuries, but also the furnishings and costumes that reflect the changes French society and culture underwent during these very distinct eras. What better way to create a sense of context than by surrounding the paintings, drawings, furnishings, and costumes with interiors and design elements that evoke the tastes of the time period?