Decorative Arts Lecture Series

Lecture by Dr. Blaise Ducos: Metal into Paint: The Many Lives of the Van Vianen Vase

Tuesday, February 28 at 6:00 p.m. Reception to follow. Third floor of the Shaw Center for the Arts.

Dr. Blaise Ducos, the Curator of 17th- and 18th-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings at the Musée du Louvre, discusses European decorative arts. Dr. Blaise Ducos will give a lecture at LSU MOA titled, Metal into Paint: The Many Lives of the Van Vianen Vase. The lecture will investigate this decorative object and its recurring appearance in Dutch paintings throughout history. This program will be held on the third floor of the Shaw Center for the Arts in downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This lecture will be followed by a brief reception at the museum. Free to attend.

About this lecture One of the most remarkable and intriguing pieces of silverware designed in 17th century Holland is the Van Vianen vase, held at the Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. A technical prowess and feat of inventive craftsmanship, it wields inspiration after natural forms, as well as a taste for the slightly bizarre. As such, it is above the league of well-conceived, well executed silver. It catches the eye. It breathes life and a fluid rhythm into metal manipulated as molten wax would be. It comes therefore as no surprise to see the little ewer surfacing in paintings of the time as an object of fascination: the Van Vianen Vase became a motif, even a leitmotiv in Dutch painting. But how did painters use it? This lecture will explore the many pictorial lives of this strange, alluring object.

Dr. Blaise Ducos is the Paula G. Manship Endowed Lecturer at the LSU College of Art + Design.

Dr. Blaise Ducos, the Curator of 17th- and 18th-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings at the Musée du Louvre.

Adam van Vianen, Vase, 1614 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) ©Public domain