{"id":5329,"date":"2019-03-21T22:27:15","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T02:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/?p=5329"},"modified":"2019-03-21T22:36:55","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T02:36:55","slug":"fellows-colloquium-tracing-objects-translation-and-transmission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/foundations\/2019\/03\/21\/fellows-colloquium-tracing-objects-translation-and-transmission\/","title":{"rendered":"Fellows Colloquium\u2014Tracing Objects: Translation and Transmission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Met Fellowship Program draws leading and emerging scholars and practitioners from fields such as museology, academia, archaeology, education and scientific research. Since the program’s inception in 1951, the fellows’ research has deeply examined The Met collection and have significantly added to ongoing discourse in their fields.

This spring, current fellows present their research and explore related scholarly topics in a series of nine colloquia. I attended one of these sessions with the topic “Tracing Objects: Translation and Transmission” on 15 March 2019. The colloquia featured fellows Krisztina Ilko, Tommaso Mozzati, Max Bryant, Brian Martens, Georgios Makris, Maria Harvey and Chassica Kirchhoff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New Evidence on the Original Materials, Former Construction, and Late Collecting History of the Patio of V\u00e9lez Blanco<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Tommaso Mozzati, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Patio from the Castle of V\u00e9lez Blanco<\/em>, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Retrieved March 21, 2019, https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/199003. Image in Public Domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mozzati’s research examines the marble patio originally part of the Castillo de V\u00e9lez-Blanco, now housed in the entrance of The Met’s Thomas J. Watson Library to showcase the museum’s Italian Renaissance statues. The Patio of V\u00e9lez Blanco was built at the beginning of the sixteenth century by Pedro Fajardo y Chac\u00f3n and remains a matter of conjecture today. Mozzati’s archival investigation led him to an unpublished drawing from 1805 that shows the patio’s original composition, in situ in the Spanish fortress. Reflecting on this drawing, Mozzati highlighted questions of authenticity as with little to no archival records before, the changes made over time with the movement of the patio can only be supposed. The drawing differed significantly from the patio in The Met with various additions and shifts, emphasizing the compromised state of the original and the mutability of art to fit the whims of the owner. Mozzati thus brought up the idea of ‘trans-content’ with regards to the patio’s importance in the context of early modern Spanish architecture and its new meaning and significance now that it is situated in Fifth Avenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To complement the comprehensive art-historical study started in 2017 by Tommaso Mozzati, Andrew W. Mellon fellow in the department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, petrographic and stable isotopes analyses are now being used to pinpoint the provenance of the marbles, identify later replacements, and reconstruct the complex history of the patio since it left Spain in early 1900 for Blumenthal\u2019s house in New York City. Image 1. Velez-Blanco patio photographed at the Met in 1964, when it was first opened to the public. 41.190.482, Bequest of George Blumenthal, 1941. Image 2. Two samples of marble from the patio, imaged using a petrographic microscope. #metscience\u00a0#themet #metscientificresearch\u00a0#Europeansculptureanddecorativearts #velezblanco\u00a0#marmolmacael #almeria #castlesofspain #whitemarble<\/a><\/p>

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