Collecting the Art of Light
Glass, Connoisseurship, and 19th-century Art Market
Organizers: Vitrocentre Romont, Université de Genève, Musée Ariana
Keynote Speaker: Virginia Raguin (Corpus Vitrearum USA)
Call for papers
Deadline for submissions: April 25, 2024
Notification of acceptance: May 31, 2024
We are pleased to announce the call for papers for an international conference dedicated to glass art, collectorship and the art market during the long 19th century. The conference is jointly organized by the Vitrocentre Romont, the University of Geneva and the Musée Ariana. It will take place in conjunction with the exhibition “Post Tenebras Lux, les collections de vitraux du Musée Ariana” shown at the Musée Ariana from 15 November 2024 to 1 October 2025.
The one-day conference will present the results obtained in the framework of the Corpus Vitrearum project “Les vitraux historiques des collections publiques de la Ville de Genève”, conducted by the Vitrocentre Romont in close collaboration with the Musée Ariana, which holds the majority of the approximately 380 stained glass windows studied. The core of the collection comes from the Swiss writer, art collector and patron Gustave Revilliod (1817–1890), who donated his collection to the Municipality of Geneva in 1890. The encyclopedic collection covers nearly nine centuries of the history and technique of European stained glass and testifies to the growing interest of collectors and connoisseurs in stained glass and glass art, which has led to the establishment of important private collections.
The planned conference aims to discuss Revilliod’s glass collection in a broader context and to focus on the increasingly important subject of 19th-century collectorship and art market with respect to glass art. Moreover, the results obtained at the 2010 conference of the Corpus Vitrearum International held at St. Petersburg, dedicated to stained glass collections and their history, shall be reevaluated, and extended to glass art in general by presenting current research in the field.
Details and info here: Call for papers (PDF)
7–8 March 2025
