AFC Newsletter Winter 2025
/The AFC Winter Newsletter
A Word From the AFC President
Dear American Friends of Capodimonte,
Buon Anno! This edition is devoted to updates about our five AFC Fellows: James Anno, Claire Van Cleave, Caroline Paganussi, Emma de Jong, and our new Senior Fellow Kimberly Schenck. Schenck will be visiting Capodimonte for the month of April to lend her paper conservation expertise to the study and care of the Capodimonte drawings and prints collection. Our specially commissioned video about the paper collections at Capodimonte provides an insight into the art works she will be advising on.
Schenck recently retired from the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, where she served as Head of Paper Conservation since 2006. She has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues and has published articles on drawings by Raphael, Giorgio Vasari's Libro de' Disegni, and engravings by Hendrick Goltzius, among others.
Schenck will be hosted at the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte by Dr. Vincenzo Stanziola, Curator of Capodimonte's Gabinetto dei Desegni e delle Stampe (GDS). The GDS holds more than 30.000 works on paper, including works by Andrea Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer, and Rembrandt van Rijn. It houses one of only two surviving Michelangelo cartoons and several cartoons related to Raphael and his workshop. Dr. Stanziola is undertaking a project to modernize the GDS and Schenck will be advising him on new storage solutions to optimize the care and preservation of the collection.
Schenk's primary focus will be on the eighteenth-century Carlo Firmian Collection and she will be collaborating with AFC's Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow, Emma de Jong, in her research on the different types of papers present in the collection. Emma has so far catalogued 1,500 individual art works from the Firmian Collection. Her efforts are part of a large scale digitization program, which will see Capodimonte’s entire print, drawing, and porcelain collection put online. The projected launch date for the new digital database is in 2026.
Updates from our Past and Present Fellows
Emma de Jong (‘23-’25 Fellow) is currently writing several articles about different aspects of the Firmian collection. She has already published an introductory blogpost on the Codart website and presented her work at La Capraia (The Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities) and the Società Napoletana di Storia Patria. She wrote a contribution for the exhibition catalogue Art and War in the Renaissance: the Battle of Pavia Tapestries, which in Elizabeth Cleland’s Burlington Magazine review was described as ‘a useful discussion of the drawings’. At the end of March Emma will be attending a seminar on print curation in London and Paris. It is being hosted by the academic journal Print Quarterly and generously funded by the Getty Paper Project.
To stay abreast of Emma’s work, follow the AFC’s Instagram page, where she posts the latest news about Capodimonte and the AFC.
Joris Hoefnagel, Animalia Rationalia et Insecta (Ignis): Plate 53: Southern Hawker Dragonfly, c.1575/1590, gift of Mrs. Lessing J. Rosenwald
Kimberly Schenck (Spring 2025) has been working on one of the great treasures of the National Gallery of Art: Joris Hoefnagel's (1542-1601) The Four Elements, a set of four volumes (Aier, Terra, Aqua and Ignis) of miniatures of animals and plants in watercolor on parchment. Kim's and her museum colleagues' research has focused on the materials and techniques used by Hoefnagal to paint the insects in Ignis. One of their discoveries is that many of the butterflies were first created with lepidochromy, a transfer printing process using real insect wings, and then embellished with paint. All four volumes are to be displayed in the upcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Art titled "Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World" (May 18-November 2025). Kim's essay, co-authored with Stacey Sell, is published in the book: Insects and Colors between Art and Natural History, edited by V.E. Mandrij and Giulia Simonini (Brill, 2024). They have also contributed a recent article, "Insect Transfer Prints in Joris Hoefnagel's Ignis from The Four Elements" to Master Drawings. Finally, Kim is currently working on an essay for an upcoming volume of Facture. The working title is: "Angles of Light: Examination of Joris Hoefnagel's Insect Watercolors Using XRF Mapping." To find out what Kim will be doing at Capodimonte this spring, please refer to the article at the top of the newsletter.
Caterina de Julianis, Penintent Magdalene, 1717. Polychrome wax, painted paper, glass, tempera on paper, and other materials, 59.2 x 53.2 x 11.5 cm. Museum Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation Fund, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2019.44.
Caroline Paganussi (‘21-‘23 Fellow) has a forthcoming volume Women in Early Modern Sculpture, 1400 - 1800: Molding Matters, which she co-edited with Eve Straussman-Pflanzer (Curator of Italian and Spanish Painting, National Gallery of Art). It is under contract with Routledge. The volume is the first to explore the contributions of women sculptors between 1400 and 1800. Her chapter focuses on the work of Caterina de Julianis, a Neapolitan wax sculptor from the late 17th century. Later this month, her article on an incised Philippine bamboo tube that traveled to Italy will appear in print in the journal Eighteenth-Century Life. This is a project she began during her AFC fellowship.
Caroline is teaching in the Italian Studies Department at the University of Sydney. She is teaching remotely at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, and advising Master’s thesis projects at Lindenwood University, MO.
Claire Van Cleave (‘20-’21 Senior Fellow) has a forthcoming book on the Farnese drawings at Capodimonte. It is under contract with Editori Paparo and will be published in English in March. It includes forwards by Capodimonte Director Eike Schmidt and Vincenzo Stanziola. At its peak, the Farnese collection included over 850 works on paper, but today only 57 drawings with a Farnese provenance are identifiable in Capodimonte collections. The book comprises two parts: a history of the Farnese collection and a catalogue of the drawings with a Farnese provenance remaining at Capodimonte, including works by Parmigianino and Sofonisba Anguissola. Claire began her research during her AFC fellowship.
Stay up to date on Claire’s new publication through her Instagram page @farnese_drawings
Dr. James Anno ('17-'19 Fellow) is Associate Curator of European Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX. James is curator-in-charge of the upcoming exhibition Knights in Shining Armor: The Pavia Tapestries (March 2 - May 26, 2025). This will be the last U.S. stop of this exhibition. The seven tapestries, that are exhibited in the U.S. for the first time, will be returning to Italy when the exhibition closes in May. In his Washington Post review of the exhibition, Sebastian Smee writes that the tapestries ‘are surely among the most remarkable works of art ever created by human hands’.
Members at the $100 level and above may inquire about special programs they can attend in Houston for the opening or during the exhibition run. James will be giving the opening lecture. Please contact us at americanfriendsofcapodimonte@gmail.com. For more info, see the museum website.
Upcoming AFC Trip to Naples: September 2025
The AFC Trip to Naples is planned for September 18-21, 2025.
Highlights will include a day at the Capodimonte Museum with curators and conservators. We will be exploring the 14 new Porcelain galleries reimagined by legendary designer Federico Forquet and making a visit to the conservation lab where Director Schmidt has announced the restoration of several masterpieces including works by Niccolò di Tommaso, Cristoforo Scacco and Giovanni Antonio Bazzi “il Sodoma”. We have reserved opera tickets to see Tosca with Neapolitan soprano Anna Pirozzi. On September 19 we will be celebrating the Feast of San Gennaro, which dates back to the fourteenth century.
The trip is currently fully subscribed, please email us if you would like to be added to the waiting list.
We hope you you will continue to support us in 2025. The American Friends of Capodimonte is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization and gifts are tax-deductible. Introductory membership is $100 annually and includes a quarterly subscription to the newsletter. Should you be in Naples, membership always includes the opportunity to enjoy a tour of the Capodimonte Museum with our AFC Fellow (subject to availability). For more information, email: americanfriendsofcapodimonte@gmail.com.
While scholars and members of the media are not required to donate to receive the newsletter, we would welcome your tax-deductible contribution which supports the AFC Fellow in their scholarly pursuits
Yours sincerely,
Cristina Del Sesto, AFC President
And the AFC Board
Giovanni Lombardi, Honorary President; Nancy Vespoli, Vice Chair; Vincent Buonanno, Founder and President Emeritus; James Anno, Program Director; Mary Ellen Countryman, Treasurer: Gretchen Hirschauer, Secretary; Tory Gath; Henrietta Hakes; Bartley Livolsi; and Francis Prins