Reproducing Renaissance Italy in the Long Nineteenth Century

The role of the Classical tradition in shaping artistic, social and political cultures in the global nineteenth century has been the subject of sustained scholarly attention and, increasingly, decolonizing critiques. But there are fewer considerations of the specific impact the visual and material culture of Renaissance Italy had during this period, not only throughout Europe, but also globally.

Our session seeks to build on growing interest in this subject by exploring how (and why) Italian Renaissance art was reproduced in the long nineteenth century across different media, among them plaster casts, electrotypes, reproductive prints, photographic reproductions, ceramics, and painted copies. These reproductions were made for a variety of purposes, from tourists' albums intended for intimate domestic settings to full-scale replicas of sculpture displayed in public spaces around the world.

Speakers might explore the politics of reproducing Renaissance art both within Italy and beyond from the fall of Napoleon through the rise of Fascism; the role played by photographic reproductions of paintings and sculpture in debates about authenticity and indexicality; how reproductions of Renaissance art were deployed by increasingly professionalized—and increasingly globalized—art historians, museum curators, and art dealers; and the taste for replicas and reinterpretations of Renaissance art in a wide range of contexts.