Naslov
Croatian Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer as Art Collector and Founder of the Gallery of Old Masters in Zagreb

Autori
Dulibić, Ljerka

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
Seminars in the History of Collecting, Wallace Collection

Mjesto i datum
London, Ujedinjeno Kraljevstvo, 25.02.2013

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer; Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters; art collecting; 19th c. art market; provenance

Sažetak
In 1884, Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer (1815- 1905), one of the key figures in nineteenth- century Croatian culture and politics, correspondent – among others – of William Gladstone, Lord Acton and Canon Liddon, ceased acquiring Old Masters paintings. With the opening of his collection to the public, in a structure conceived exclusively for that purpose, the objective of his decades of collecting had been fulfilled. As an art collector, Bishop Strossmayer was motivated by the ideals of education and enlightenment. The Gallery is embedded within rich and inherent inconsistencies, inconsistencies that define its unique character. Strossmayer’s privileging of old masterworks was deeply intertwined with his religiosity, and yet we find him acting just as much as a ‘secular’ figure, putting the interest of the public above his own personal taste: his art collecting was guided by his consistently future-oriented mission. For the most part, Strossmayer acquired works of art in Italy, where his long-time intermediaries lived and bought works of art for him. Much of the correspondence between the Bishop and his most important agents has been preserved and covers the entire period during which he collected. This letters abounds in descriptions of artworks, their physical state, the course of their buying and selling and the negotiations on prices and costs. This makes them one of the most valuable sources for determining the provenance of particular works, as well as being sources of a broader insight into the characteristics of the art market of the 19th century. The final form of the collection reflects Strossmayer’s fundamental desires as much as the resourcefulness of his advisors. Strossmayer’s collection reflects the times which brought about its existence. More generally, it is a mirror of the phenomenon of collecting that developed in the nineteenth century as a means of strengthening national identities. Universally acclaimed artistic works brought from Western Europe—whose forms were not directly connected to the artistic tradition of the territory to which they were imported—began, nevertheless, to represent cultural and political values of the ‘nation’ of the new owner. Apart from an introduction to Bishop Strossmayer, through several selected examples (including a fragment from Albertinelli’s Old Testament Cycle, of which an integrally preserved painting is part of the Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery collection) a specific set of research concerns which arise in the context of the Strossmayer Gallery, and the possible approaches to their further interpretation will be presented. Strossmayer did not belong to the few very wealthy collectors, but the knowledge about his art collecting, which is to be presented in this lecture, could supplement the knowledge about the whole art collecting practice of 19th century Europe, in accordance with the words of F. Haskell (1980): “...nor, it is often forgotten, do the activities of a few rich collectors provide the most valuable information about changing tastes”.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Povijest umjetnosti

Napomena
Lecture took place on Monday 25 February at 17:30 in the Lecture Theatre, Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN, as a part of the series at the Wallace Collection entitled Seminars in the History of Collecting. The event was supported by the International Trust for Croatian Monuments and Croatian Fine Wines and was included in the program of the Welcome Croatia Festival celebrating Croatia’s entry into the European Union, organised by the British-Croatian Society. Ambassador of Croatia in the United Kingdom His Excellency Dr Ivan Grdešić gave the welcome talk, and after the lecture Mrs Flora Turner presented her project “Mapping Croatian Works of Art in the UK”.

POVEZANOST RADA