New Lectures
Precious Imperfections: Ceramics with Rivets and Gold
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Ceramics are hard, lustrous and useful, sometimes rare, costly and beautiful. They are fragile and disasters can strike in unexpected ways: as a trembling hand wields a duster in the drawing room of a grand country house; as a delicious dessert is prepared in the confectionery kitchen of an Ottoman Palace; or when a revered bowl which has passed through generations of owners falls to the floor during the Japanese tea ceremony. We can sympathise with the tears of a tired English housemaid when a matching set of treasured plates was reduced from six to five! Yet help for her was at hand in the form of skilled porcelain menders who, in the make-do-and-mend spirit of past eras repaired the damages with tiny metal rivets. In Japan, gold lacquer repairs are called kintsugi. When revitalised with intricate repairs and their unique histories of cracks and chips are outlined in gold, these tea ceramics connect with a philosophy known as wabi-sabi in which beauty can be found in the imperfect and incomplete. In contrast, Imperial China witnessed the deliberate smashing and burial of porcelain wares which emerged flawed from the kilns so they could not be seen by the emperors. We explore why some people in 17th Century Spain ate fragments of broken pottery! The lecture includes my original photographs taken in China, Japan and Istanbul.
Text © Anne Haworth, 2023
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This lecture can now be booked by the Arts Society or other organisations.
A Chinese export plate with riveted repairs, front view
Bowl with 'Hare's Fur' Decoration and gold lacquer repair, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (photo in the public domain)
A Chinese export plate with riveted repairs, back view
Please click the title for more information on this lecture
Lectures
Please contact me to make a booking or for further information on any lectures in the following six categories.
A new category of Fashion Lectures can be found by scrolling down to the end of this list.
European Ceramics Lecture Titles
European Ceramics of the Renaissance
The Della Robbia Family, Sculptors and Potters of Renaissance Florence
Princely Courts and Porcelain Secrets
White Gold from Saxony: A History of Meissen Porcelain
From Vincennes to Sèvres: The Dawn of the French Royal Porcelain Manufactory
18th Century Sèvres and 19th Century Minton Porcelains: Comparisons and Contrasts
European Porcelain Figures of the 18th Century: A World in Fragile Miniature
Ceramics in the Frame from the Renaissance to Rossetti
Vincennes porcelain Bouquet de la Dauphine, 1748 and detail, in the Zwinger, Dresden
Altarpiece, The Assumption of the Virgin, the Workshop of Andrea della Robbia, 1486-1525, The Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, the V&A Museum
A Meissen dish moulded and gilded with scrolls and flowers in a rococo revival style, 20th Century
The porch of the cathedral of Pistoia with glazed architectural ornament by the workshop of Andrea della Robbia
The Arts of Magnificence Lecture Titles
Nicholas Hilliard and the Portrait Miniatures of Elizabethan England
Sir Anthony van Dyck, Portrait Artist and Silk Merchant's Son: He Held up a Mirror to King and Court
Gemstones, Crystals and ‘a Bushel of Pearls’: Bejewelling ‘This Sceptred Isle’
The Miseroni Family, Lapidary Artists of Milan and Prague
Treasures from Mines and Mountains: Magnificent Artistry in Rock Crystal
Glittering Masterpieces: European Snuff-Boxes of the 18th Century
Light, Lustre, Colour: A History of European Enamels
The Art of the Shell, an Object of Wonder from the Natural World
Tulipmania: a 17th Century Passion in Art, Gardens and Collecting
Delights for the Senses: Exquisite and Rare Vessels for Perfume
The Adoration of the Magi: A Tableau from the Silk Road and a Much-Loved Christmas Story
​Bals Masqués: the Arts of Masks, Mystery and Pleasure
The ‘Eleanor’ Vase of Sasanian rock crystal in the Musée du Louvre, Paris
The Porcelain Collection viewed through illuminated windows at the Zwinger, Dresden
The Hall of Mirrors with chandeliers at the Palace of Versailles, 2017
St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague
Bronze and Silver-mounted heliotrope footed bowl with griffin handles by Ottavio Miseroni, Prague c.1620, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg
Rock crystal footed dish, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
East Meets West Lecture Titles
Visions of Enchanted Lands: Chinoiserie in European Art and Design
From the Mazarin Chest to Madame Butterfly: The Fashion for Japan in Europe
Fine as Air, Green as Frost on Leaves: Works of Art in Rock Crystal and Jade
Flowers like Fire, Mountains so Blue and Rivers of Sprinkled Gold: Oriental Luxuries for European Palaces (also a study day)
19th Century English porcelain plate painted with an ‘Old Japan’ pattern
East Asian Art and History Lecture Titles
When the Hare Looked up at the Moon: Night-time Encounters in East Asian Art
The Phoenix at the Fall of Empire: Three Empresses of China and the Fate of the Imperial Art Collection
The Forbidden City: Unveiling the Secrets of China’s Imperial Palace
Art, Architecture and Style in Old Shanghai
The Chinese Gentleman as Artist, Collector and Connoisseur
Blue and White Porcelain
Porcelain for the Chinese Emperors
Dress in China: Sartorial Style from a Land of Silk
Chinese porcelain plate enamelled with dragons, phoenix and eight auspicious symbols
Scholars’ rocks in the Humble Administrator’s Garden, Suzhou, China, 2009
Chinese gilded and painted carved wooden frame with embroidered silk panels
Detail of a Chinese carved, painted and gilded wooden panel
A Chinese blue and white dish with birds on flowering and fruiting branches, 20th Century
The Moon Hare or Rabbit, pounding the elixir of long life, detail of a Chinese Embroidered panel in the V&A Museum, London
Jade plaque in the Shanghai Museum,(Shanghai Bowuguan)
Colours of the lake at the Suzhou Museum
18th Century jade vessel for the scholar's desk at the Suzhou Museum
Roofs at Yu Garden
Rooftops at Jade Buddha Temple, Shanghai
Fashion Lectures
In the Mood for Enchantment: Spellbinding Beauty in Parisian Couture
Cristóbal Balenciaga and the Couturiers of 20th Century Spain
Princesses, Pyjamas and Palazzi: a Golden Age of Italian Alta Moda
From Clothing Coupons to Classic Couture: Thrift and Elegance in Three Decades of British Fashion
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I have given many private tours in the fashion gallery at the V&A as well as introductory lectures about all of the fashion exhibitions held in recent years at the Museum.
Carlos Place in Mayfair