Commercial Visions

Margócsy, Dániel

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226117881.001.0001

Cited by 93 publications

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“…9 During this decade, he decomposed tints of paint into arithmetical ratios of pure color and white paint mixed together, discovering a mathematical formula whereby proportional combinations of these two elements could be calculated to produce predictable results. 10 Yet it was not until 1725 with the publication of his Coloritto; or the Harmony of Colouring in Painting that any hint of this research appeared in print. The purpose of this treatise was to communicate infallible rules by which "flesh, or the color of any other object" could be represented in paint.…”

Section: The Investibility Of Le Blon and His Inventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…103 As Dániel Margócsy has shown, this was derived from the Pythagorian idea that there is an arithmetical correspondence between ideal bodily proportions (as depicted by Raphael), color harmonies, and musical intervals. 104 We have already seen how Le Blon had invoked the ancient science of harmonics once before in his Coloritto. It therefore seems likely that the scientific theorizing presented in The Beau Ideal, albeit obliquely, was similarly intended to endow his claims to having perfected a new method of weaving with a certain credibility.…”

Section: Maintaining Credibility and Rationalizing Tastementioning

confidence: 99%

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Succeeding while Failing: The Tapestries of Jacob Christoph Le Blon that Never Were, 1725–1733

Bate¹

2020

Eighteenth-Century Studies

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In the years around 1720, when the South Sea Bubble burst, leaving a trail of financial ruin in its wake, England was inundated with speculative schemes for improving society and getting rich quick. One of the less well known was spearheaded by a painter from Frankfurt working in London named Jacob Christoph Le Blon. 1 Between 1725 and 1733, Le Blon tried to make new inroads into textile manufacturing by industrializing the production of tapestries and funding this though private investment. On the technical end, this was to be achieved by using draw looms and yarns of just a few colors: mainly the painter's primaries of blue, yellow, and red. It was a promising invention, but, unfortunately for its financial backers, one that never took off. The co-partnership that Le Blon established in order to make the tapestries-in fact imitations of tapestry in brocade-foundered after eight years, and during this time it seems to have produced nothing for the retail market. This impression of dearth is confirmed by unpublished legal documents charting the collapse of Le Blon's tapestry concern between 1733 and 1736, as well as its surviving output, which is confined to a group of textile samples. 2 These comprise life-size depictions of the head of Christ from Raphael's famous tapestry design, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (figs. 1 and 2), that restore the radiant colors of the original gouache painting, especially the red of Christ's tunic. In some samples the head faces left, while in others it faces right, but all of them were issued with a woven panel of text that was stitched to the bottom of picture, identifying it as a "vera salvatoris nostri effigies" [true likeness of Our Savior]. Dominic Bate is a Ph.D. candidate in History of Art and Architecture at Brown University. He wishes to thank Caroline Castiglione, Evelyn Lincoln, Holly Shaffer, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments, which greatly improved this article, as well as Theresa Fairbanks-Harris at the Yale Center for British Art for her kind help with the photography for figures 5 and 6.

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Section: The Investibility Of Le Blon and His Inventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Maintaining Credibility and Rationalizing Tastementioning

confidence: 99%

Succeeding while Failing: The Tapestries of Jacob Christoph Le Blon that Never Were, 1725–1733

Bate¹

2020

Eighteenth-Century Studies

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“…Housing specimens in transit and preserving them from decay was very difficult, so the commercially valuable or easily preserved parts of creatures were more likely to be extracted and transported. 4 Natural objects were enigmatic things, serving different symbolic functions amongst the different groups of people handling them. 5 These different functions were never entirely confined to their locale, the specific symbolism and knowledge surrounding such objects were often transported with them.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast, Dániel Margócsy's study suggests that commercial processes stimulated differentiation in ways of representing natural objects. 10 This article will draw more on Margócsy's argument to explore exotic objects as the diverse results of numerous commodification processes. Focusing on close comparative analysis of natural history accounts, as used in recent history of zoology studies such as those by Paul Smith and Karl Enenkel, it will uncover the work of source collection and networking involved in the production of diverse assembled creatures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exotic origins: the emblematic biogeographies of early modern scaly mammals

Lawrence¹

2015

Itinerario

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Exotic natural objects brought to Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were mutable and malleable things. They were constructed and assimilated into European world-views in a reciprocal process of change as they moved around early modern Europe. In particular, the provenance of natural objects and the associated rich symbolic resonances were central to their natural histories. The distinctions between Orient and Occident had divided the world since antiquity and were given a range of new senses in this period. The location of these two ‘Indies’, and their relationship to one another, were neither static nor always geographically defined. This article focuses on two rich examples of this natural historical construction in relation to images of the Indies: the Old World pangolin, or scaly anteater, and its New World counterpart, the armadillo. Initially, pangolins were understood as East Indian ‘scaly lizards’, armadillos as West Indian. But from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, their geographical identities and symbolic associations were entangled as these creatures came to embody colonial anxieties and resonances. The ‘India’ of the scaly lizard became the ‘Indies’ of the scaled mammals, both East and West. Examining the reception and treatment of examples such as these in European cabinets and natural histories, offers new insights into European relationships with regions of the world seen as distant and wonderfully bountiful.

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Verpacken, verkaufen, verschenken: Hans Sauters entomologische Praktiken zwischen Formosa und Europa, 1902–1914

Pannhorst

2016

Ber Wissenschaftsgesch

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Parcels, Salesa nd Gifts: Hans Sauter's EntomologicalP ractices between Formosaand Europe,1902-1914. Theexploration of globalbiodiversity is aformof knowledgep roductiont hati sn ecessarily specimen-based. In thee ndeavort oc hart the naturalworld,not only ideasand writings travelled across theoceans,but also aflood of scientific objects. TheG ermane ntomologistH ansS auter ( 1871 -1943) spentm osto f hislifeinFormosa,thenaJapanese colony. Hispronouncedaim was to complete an inventory of theentirefauna of Formosa.Heaimed forthe mass production of knowledge, becomingacollecting-entrepreneur whoe mployed scores of local collectors. Between 1902 and1914, they amassedlarge quantities of insects, whichrequiredspecialized practicesincollecting, preserving,documenting,and packaging.Sautersentthese insects, but alsoh undredso fr eptiles, mammals, birds, fish etc.,t oz oologistsa ll over Europe who identified andp ublished hitherto undescribed species. At first, Sauter sold hisf inds. Later, he stoppeda skingf or money-pushingi nstead fors peed in publication and making demandsa bout thec ontent andn amingo ft hese articles.H is demandsw ere met, especiallyb yt he DeutschesE ntomologischesM useumi nD ahlem. Despitealmost no publications to hisn ame, Sauter quickly gainedc onsiderable influencei nt he world of entomological research. In thispaper,t he circulationo ft hese scientific objectsserves as afocal pointinorder to embedl ocal circumstancesinthe processofk nowledge productioni naglobalc ontext.T he practicesa ssociatedw itht he specimensi llustratet he economic,political andsocialdimensionsofthe formationofknowledge. Hans Sauter's case defies traditionald ichotomies as it illustratest he interdependenceo fp ractical and theoretical knowledge,ofscience andtrade and of center andperiphery. Practical knowledge gainedinalocal settinginFormosa allowed Sauter to amass large amountsofinsect specimens, aresourceheused to steerthe course of scientific practice in Europe.

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Commercial Visions

Cited by 93 publications

References 0 publications

Succeeding while Failing: The Tapestries of Jacob Christoph Le Blon that Never Were, 1725–1733

Succeeding while Failing: The Tapestries of Jacob Christoph Le Blon that Never Were, 1725–1733

Exotic origins: the emblematic biogeographies of early modern scaly mammals

Verpacken, verkaufen, verschenken: Hans Sauters entomologische Praktiken zwischen Formosa und Europa, 1902–1914

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