TABLES OF CONTENT Symposium
Harvard University Art Museums
Lecture Hall, Arthur M. Sackler Museum
485 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138

Saturday, April 12, 2008
9:30 am - 4:30 pm

Free admission; advanced registration not required.
For further information, see
http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/events/lectures.html

The baroque banquet table was the site of unparalleled riches and luxury.
It was a visual as much as an edible feast, decked with elaborate
porcelain and confectionary table settings that advanced dynastic
ambitions and political ends. Prompted by the Busch-Reisinger Museum's
exhibition "A Taste of Power: 18th-Century German Porcelain for the
Table," this symposium brings together an interdisciplinary group of
scholars. Topics include issues such as luxury from the baroque to the
present, porcelain and its uses on the table, and performance at court.

PROGRAM

MORNING SESSION, 9:30 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Heather Hess, Busch-Reisinger Museum
Opening Remarks

Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Princeton University
"Theaters of Magnificence"

Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, Arnhold Collection and Frick Collection
"Sugar and Silver into Porcelain: The Conditorei and Court Dining in
Dresden under Augustus III"

Valerie Steele, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology
"Fashioning Luxury"

DANCE AND MUSIC PERFORMANCE
Calderwood Courtyard, Fogg Art Museum, 2 - 2:45 p.m.

A selection of 18th-century dances and music like those seen at baroque
banquets will be performed by dancers Camilla Finlay and Ken Pierce; Carol
Lewis and Alice Mroszczyk, viol; and Olav Chris Henriksen, theorbo and
baroque guitar.

AFTERNOON SESSION, 3:00 - 4:30 p.m.

Meredith Chilton, independent art historian
"Harlequins on the Table: Commedia dell'Arte and Porcelain Sculpture in
the Eighteenth Century"

Ivan Day, independent scholar
"The Edible Edifice: Sculpture for the Eighteenth Century Dessert Table?

RELATED EVENT:

Extravagance and Drama: Responses to 18th-Century European Porcelain
Sunday, April 13
Harvard Ceramics Program, 219 Western Ave., Allston, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
$75; free for students, staff, and faculty at Harvard and at the Ceramics
Program
Master classes by artists Kristen Kieffer, Nicole Peters, and Gala Sorkina
will feature slide presentations of their work followed by their
simultaneous demonstrations of creating porcelain vessels and figurines.
Connections between contemporary and historic porcelain on display in the
Busch-Reisinger Museum will be highlighted, and a potluck lunch will
follow. For more information, see the www.fas.harvard.edu/ceramics .