Lecture and Wine Reception - Ingrid Goddeeris 'The Print Publisher and Art Dealer Ernest Gambart (1814-1902): New Insights into His Life and Work'

The Society for the History of Collecting 

are delighted to invite you on 

Thursday, 4 April 2024 at 6pm (BST); 7pm (CEST)

to a lecture followed by a wine reception

at The Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen's Square, London, WC1N 3AT.

The lecture will be delivered by Ingrid Goddeeris on the topic of 

The Print Publisher and Art Dealer Ernest Gambart (1814-1902): New Insights into His Life and Work

The lecture will be chaired by Adriana Turpin, with Rupert Maas in response.

£12.50 for members; £18 for non-members

£10 for under 35; free for under 25

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Picture Gallery, detail, 1874, Towneley Hall Art Gallery and Museum, Burnley, Lancashire. Cover of a new publication on Ernest Gambart (1814-1902) by Ingrid Goddeeris, Filippe De Potter & Paul De Paepe 

The aim of this talk is to offer a glimpse into the fascinating life of Ernest Gambart, a key figure in the history of the 19th-century international art market. Ingrid Goddeeris will present the research she conducted in preparation for the publication "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever". Ernest Gambart (1814-1902), a life inart trade, a collaborative study between the Royal Cercle of History and Archeology of Kortrijk and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Her profound research led to many new findings. Through the various successive places of residence of Gambart (Kortrijk, Paris, London, Spa and Nice), she provides a chronological overview interlaced with genealogical and biographical data. Using unpublished sources, she highlights facets of his life full of art and entertainment. Some have hitherto received little or no attention like his career in Paris or the last three decades of his existence when hehosted the top of the international art world and high society in his imposing villas, the Château d'Alsa in Spa and villa Les Palmiers in Nice. In addition, Goddeeris focuses on the various art trade techniques (mass production of prints, exhibitions, use of the press and auctions) that Gambart used for his flourishing trade. Based on his connection with middlemen as Victor Laurent Esliard alias Surville, Henry Mogford and Franz Joseph Pilgeram, and artists like Rosa Bonheur, Jean Portaels, William Powell Frith and Lawrence Alma-Tadema, she explains the importance of Gambart's extensive network to his success. The research on Gambart is a never-ending story. Goddeeris hopes that her contribution will encourage further studies on this intriguing individual, notorious in contemporary cultural and political circles, about whom the last word has not yet been said.

SPEAKER'S BIOGRAPHY: Ingrid Goddeeris, art historian, is Head Librarian at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB). She is a member of the research group Cultural History since 1750 at the Leuven University (2019-). Her PhD research and her publications focus on the nineteenth-century Belgian and international art trade. Starting from a number of 'Belgian' 19th-century art dealers, she explores their network, not only their mutual relationships, but also those with contemporary artists, collectors and other art connoisseurs. Ernest Gambart (1814-1902) is one of the central figures in her research among other prominent art dealers such as Léon Gauchez (1825-1907), Etienne Le Roy (1808-1878), Arthur Stevens (1825-1890) and Prosper-Léopold Everard (1835-1881). Owing to her interest in provenance research, in particular, the Collectors' Marks and seals on the reverse of paintings, she joined the team of the Jordaens Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project in 2018. She is also co-coordinator of the project ProvEnhance. Enhancing the provenance data of the collections of the RMFAB since 1933. Scientific study, digital valorization and narrative in context (2023-2027).