Tag Archive for Portraits

Exhibition | Eighteenth-Century Porcelain Sculpture | NGV International

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Chelsea Porcelain Factory, London (manufacturer) England c.1744–69 Joseph Willems (designer) Flanders/England c.1715–66 Pietà c.1761 (detail) porcelain (soft-paste) 38.5 x 28.5 x 22.8 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased through The Art Foundation of Victoria with the assistance of the Alcoa Foundation, Governor, 1989 (D2-1989)

A new exhibition at the NGV will celebrate the gallery’s excellent collection of eighteenth-century porcelain sculpture. The exhibition opens this weekend and will offer a window into eighteenth-century life in Europe. The collection is the largest of its kind in Australia and holds examples of many rare porcelain sculptures, such as one of only three examples of the Chelsea Porcelain Factory’s Pietà (you can read more about the Pietà in an article by NGV curator Matthew Martin here). Eighteenth-Century Porcelain Sculpture will showcase over eighty exquisite examples from famed European factories including the German Meissen, French Sèvres and English Derby factories, of intricately modelled porcelain figures, large-scale sculptural works and celebrity portraits. Whilst today porcelain sculptures are often considered ‘decorative’ items, in…

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News | Whistler’s Portrait of the artist’s mother to visit the NGV in 2016

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James McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in grey and black no. 1: Portrait of the artist’s mother, 1871, oil on canvas, 144.3 x 162.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris (RF 699), Photo : © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay) / Jean Schormans

The National Gallery of Victoria has announced that James McNeill Whistler’s portrait of his mother, called “Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1.” 1871, will be the focus of an exhibition at the NGV in 2016. The exhibition, Whistler’s Mother, will focus on this important painting by Whistler, which in 1891 became the first work by an American artist to be bought by the French State (it now resides in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris). The painting was not well received when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art in London, but went on to become one of the most popular of its day, though Whistler was often frustrated by the sentimental responses to it. The painting is evocatively described in a recent article by Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker…

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Melbourne Portrait Group Seminar | Emily Wubben: ‘Artistic Souls: Baronne Madeleine Deslandes and her portrait by Edward Burne-Jones’

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Edward Burne-Jones, Portrait of Baronne Madeleine Deslandes, 1895-96. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

Please note venue change - seminar will now be held in the Visual Resource Centre in the John Medley building. Time and date are the same. This paper will investigate Sir Edward Burne-Jones’s enigmatic portrait of Baronne Madeleine Deslandes (1895-96), which was acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria in late 2005. Baronne Deslandes (1866–1929) was the celebrated hostess of a cultured Parisian salon that was frequented by renowned artists, poets and composers. Using contemporary accounts of Deslandes, this paper will explore the degree to which her portrait by Burne-Jones reflected her character. Capturing a sitter’s likeness was not central to the portraits by Burne-Jones, in which he depicted his own perception of beauty. Further, the deliberate inclusion of the background…

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Melbourne Portrait Group Seminar | Alison Inglis: Portraiture and the colonial collection

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‘Additions to the Public Library buildings’, Australasian Sketcher, 18 April 2021 State Library of Victoria)

Associate Professor Alison Inglis | ‘Portraiture and the Colonial Collection: Searching for Portraits in the National Gallery of Victoria in the Nineteenth Century This paper will investigate the significance of the portrait during the early years of the National Gallery of Victoria by reconstructing this aspect of the collection prior to Federation. To what extent did the Trustees of Victoria’s leading colonial institution (consisting of the Public Library, Museum and National Gallery combined) seek to fulfill the role of a national portrait gallery by adopting such traditions as ‘the hall of fame’? Furthermore, can the contemporary perception of portraiture and its role in the Gallery be ascertained by examining such initiatives as the NGV Travelling Scholarship (which started in 1887)?…

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