We are again grateful to the Furniture History Society and British & Irish Furniture Makers Online for their kindness in inviting RFS members to the latest in their series of free online lectures.
| Sunday, 22 November 2020, 19:00 (GMT): Wilhemina Castelijns – Transforming a Town Hall into a Royal Palace: Empire Furniture in Amsterdam. The Dutch royal palaces contain one of the largest collections of Empire furniture outside of France. On his arrival in the Netherlands in 1806, the country’s first king Louis Napoleon chose Amsterdam as his new place of residence and started an enormous refurnishing campaign, turning the former town hall into a royal palace, decorated in the empire style that was fashionable at his brothers court. Although French tapissiers, bronziers, furniture- and clockmakers were asked to deliver some important new works, the King soon explicitly turned to Dutch craftsmen, ordering hundreds of pieces of furniture. This paper will give an overview of the resulting Empire collection in Amsterdam, the craftsmen that were involved in its creation and the (foreign) examples that influenced its design. Additionally, some examples of Empire furniture at the other palaces will be shown, providing a brief introduction of the empire style furniture ordered by subsequent monarchs. Wilhemina received an MA in Fine and Decorative Art form Sotheby’s Institute of Art in 2016 and went on to work as Junior Curator of Furniture at the Rijksmuseum, where she assisted Reinier Baarsen with the exhibition ‘Kwab: Dutch Design in the Age of Rembrandt’. She then worked as curatorial intern at the Royal Collection Trust before moving back to the Netherlands where she is now working for the Royal Household as Keeper of the Royal Furniture. |
Zoom joining instructions:
Time: Nov 22, 2020 07:00 PM London
https://zoom.us/j/97495831151?pwd=bHB0NXhlbHZWMXpFbWFNK1VENm9SQT09
Meeting ID: 974 9583 1151
Passcode: 475514
Attendees will be admitted from the waiting room from 18.45. Please make sure you are muted and your cameras are turned off. Please note that for security reasons we will lock the meeting at 19.30, so please make sure you have joined us by then. The lecture will be followed by a round of Q&A. Please use the chat message box at the bottom of your Zoom window. If you are using Zoom software, please note that Zoom have increased their security and you may be required to install an update.
We hope to see many of you on Sunday, 22 November.
For any queries, please email events@furniturehistorysociety.org
Other notices:
SPACES STILL AVAILABLE
Online Lecture
The Story of Matthew Boulton and Soho House
Tuesday, 24 November 2020 15.00 (GMT)
with Birmingham Museums
The talk will be delivered by one of the Museum’s expert tour guides over Zoom and last for about one hour and 15 minutes. Click here for more information on the FHS website.
Soho House is an 18th century mansion and was the home of the great industrialist Matthew Boulton for over 40 years, it was the epicentre for many changes brought about through the Industrial Revolution. This talk will take you through this historical property’s wonderfully preserved rooms, and discover the objects and tales behind them. We’ll look at the people that lived here, and learn about Boulton’s life, legacy, and the birth of the industrial revolution in the heart of Handsworth.
Soho House was also the meeting place for the Lunar Society, where radical scientific and technological debates were the centre of discussion. We’ll also look at the members of the lunar society, a group of free thinking scientists and industrialists including Joseph Priestley, Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood, James Watt, and William Withering.
On 19 November 2020, The Glass Society is hosting a free lecture by the stained glass conservation specialist Jonathan Cooke whose work recreating a lost William Collins window at the Soane Museum featured recently in Reconstructing Soane. Click here for further details.