Ignazio Enrico Hugford (draughtsman) Portrait of Domenichino painter of Bologna ca. 1769-75 engraving British Museum |
Ignazio Enrico Hugford (draughtsman) Portrait of Luca Cambiaso painter of Genoa ca. 1769-75 engraving British Museum |
"As Winckelmann's practice implies, the life of art history is the mourning of the loss of the history of art. Therefore the death of art history would be the loss of its life-in-mourning. But art history could not be due to loss alone. Art history requires not only the loss of its objects but also, and much more important, its witnessing of that loss – that is, our witnessing not of the loss itself, since it took place long ago, but of the fact that what has been lost is, in fact, being-lost for us. The history of art is lost, but art history is still with us; and although art history often attempts to bring the object back to life, finally it is our means of laying it to rest, of putting it in its history and taking it out of our own, where we have witnessed its departure. To have the history of art as history – acknowledging the irreparable loss of the objects – we must give up art history as a bringing-to-life, as denial of departure. If it is not to be pathological, art history must take its leave of its objects, for they have already departed anyway."
– from an essay by Whitney Davis published in The Art of Art History, edited by Donald Preziosi (Oxford University Press, 1998)
Ignazio Enrico Hugford (draughtsman) Portrait of Diego Velázquez painter of Seville ca. 1769-75 engraving British Museum |
Ignazio Enrico Hugford (draughtsman) Portrait of Gerard van Honthorst painter of Utrecht ca. 1769-75 engraving British Museum |
Ignazio Enrico Hugford (draughtsman) Portrait of Jacob Jordaens painter of Flanders ca. 1769-75 engraving British Museum |
Claude Mellan Portrait of Anna Maria Vaiani painter & engraver ca. 1620 engraving Royal Collection, Windsor |
Claude Mellan Portrait of Girolamo Frescobaldi composer and organist at St Peter's, Rome 1619 engraving Royal Collection, Windsor |
Claude Mellan Portrait of Vincenzo Giustiniani Roman art collector and patron 1631 engraving Royal Collection, Windsor |
Claude Mellan Portrait of Virginia da Vezzo Roman painter 1626 engraving Royal Collection, Windsor |
Claude Mellan Portrait of Henry Blackwood professor of medicine, Paris 1620s engraving Royal Collection, Windsor |
Anonymous Italian printmaker Portrait of Giovanni Baglione painter and writer (as Knight of Malta) 17th century engraving British Museum |
attributed to Nicolas Beatrizet Bust portrait of Antonio Salamanca copyist of antiquities ca. 1560 engraving Royal Collection, Windsor |
Wenceslaus Hollar after Joannes Meyssens Portrait of Hendrick van der Borcht the Elder Flemish painter and engraver 1650 etching Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
Wenceslaus Hollar after Joannes Meyssens Portrait of Hendrick van der Borcht the Younger Flemish painter and engraver in service to Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel 1648 etching Teylers Museum, Haarlem |