Paintings of Venetian masquerades and idealized gods and goddesses cavorting amid swirling clouds are paired with an opulence of decorative arts. These include delicate and playful porcelains from the royal Polish Meissen factory and from as far as China; gilt candelabra and silvered mirrors; and lavish furniture made from silk-embroidered velvet, worked leather, marble, alabaster, and gold.
“Objects like these would have been part of the cumulative display of luxury found in the show palaces of Europe,” says Martin Chapman, Curator-in-Charge of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture for the Fine Arts Museums. “The Legion of Honor houses the magnificent French period room the Salon Doré, which was recently conserved and reinstalled to the delight of our visitors. Casanova brings the eighteenth century to life in just as opulent a fashion.”
These artworks are on loan from institutions including the Musée du Louvre; the National Portrait Gallery, London; the National Gallery of Canada; the National Galleries of Scotland; the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes; and several prominent private collections. The exhibit is on view through May 28, 2018.
A stunning gathering of shimmering cityscapes by Canaletto introduces viewers to the sights and spectacles of cosmopolitan Venice. Canaletto’s views of the Grand Canal, Piazza San Marco, and the Palazzo Ducale are joined by paintings by Tiepolo and Longhi and shown alongside period sculpture and furniture to suggest the extravagant interiors that Casanova encountered in the palaces of La Serenissima.
A child of Venice born into a world of actors and musicians, Casanova held a sophisticated understanding of identity and theatricality. Wherever he traveled, he sought out the company of actors. The following section explores the importance of masquerade in Venetian culture and its wider popularity throughout eighteenth-century Europe. A highlight is the Fine Arts Museums’ own Thalia, Muse of Comedy (1739) by Jean-Marc Nattier. In the painting, Thalia holds a mask in one hand and uses the other to lift a plush velvet curtain and playfully invite us into the world of comedic theater.
Image of sedan chair courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Imagined and conceived as a special feature of this exhibition are three tableaux— illustrating a masked interaction in Venice, a lady’s boudoir in Paris, and a dissipated night of cards in London. Each tableau is composed of mannequins in lush velvet and embroidered silk costumes amid period furniture, bringing the visual wealth of Casanova’s world to life.
One of Casanova’s first of many travels abroad was to Paris, where he met with fortuitous circumstances. For the first time in his life, he was truly wealthy and able to afford fashionable quarters and sumptuous artworks to fill them. Paintings, furniture, precious objects, and musical instruments in the following section evoke splendid Parisian interiors. Reunited for the first time in several hundred years is François Boucher’s cycle of six Mythological Scenes featuring the loves of the gods (now in the collections of the Kimbell and Getty). A tableau with mannequins in fashionable robes à la Françoise re-creates a lady’s morning toilette, or the social ritual of getting dressed, accompanied by friends and gossip.
A connoisseur of food, Casanova wrote in great detail about his meals in his memoirs. To highlight the importance of fine dining of the eighteenth century, porcelain and silver have been brought to life in an interactive exhibit called “The Art of Dining.” Through an elaborate overhead video projection, visitors can sit at a “dining table” onto which is projected or “served” a historically accurate, aristocratic three-course feast, using period porcelain and silver pieces.
Casanova also traveled to London, where he had mixed success. Paintings by his Venetian countryman Canaletto set the stage for this act in England. His Westminster Bridge, with the Lord Mayor’s Procession on the Thames (1747) depicts the newly completed Westminster Bridge, an engineering marvel, and at the far right, the recently completed towers of Westminster Abbey. In this section, a tableau — the aftermath of a drunken card game — shows that social interactions were not always genteel.
The exhibition culminates with a gallery devoted to the most intriguing and powerful members of Casanova’s social circles. Throughout his travels, Casanova met or befriended some of the most famous individuals of the eighteenth century. Jean-Antoine Houdon’s bust of Voltaire is joined with Pierre-Étienne Falconet’s Catherine the Great and by portraits of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. This reunion of philosophers, statesmen, popes, monarchs, and artists in this final gallery reflect Casanova’s great intellect, broad travels, and insatiable ambition.
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