Framing the Drawing – Drawing the Frame

Papers will consider both how the symbolic connotations associated with the frame in the early modern period functioned as part of artists’ generative creative processes as a cultural technique as well as the role that the physical act of framing drawings played within histories of collecting and reception. With this focus on the medium of drawing, this conference seeks to uncover new ways to think about the myriad semiotic potentials of the frame in the making and study of early modern art.

Please follow the event also on our VIMEO: https://vimeo.com/event/5864584

PROGRAM

Wednesday 13 May 2026 (https://vimeo.com/event/5864584)

14:00 WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS
Tatjana Bartsch, BHMPI, Ariella Minden, University of St Andrews

14:30 SECTION I
Chair: Ariella Minden

INTERVENTIONS
Reinier Baarsen, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Who drew Frames?

Furio Rinaldi, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Leonardo’s Border Lines

15:50 COFFEE BREAK

16:10 SECTION II
Chair: Silvia Massa, Kunstmuseum Basel

INTERVENTIONS
Elizabeth Merrill, Ghent University, Copy, Snip, Cut, Collage: Drawing Practices in the Workshop of Lambert Lombard

Ludovico Maria Durante, Roma, Sovrintendenza Capitolina, Abitare la soglia. La cariatide come cornice incarnata nei disegni di Cherubino Alberti e Federico Zuccari

Helen Barr, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Cornice / senza cornice / fuori cornice. Il libro de’ disegni di Francesco Morandini

Thursday 14 May 2026 (https://vimeo.com/event/5864584)

10:00 SECTION III
Chair: Francesca Borgo, BHMPI

INTERVENTIONS

Laura Moretti, University of St Andrews, Framing the Disegno: Vincenzo Borghini’s Cultural Techniques and the Construction of the Vasarian Libro

Vera Hendriks, The Hague, RKD — Netherlands Institute for Art History, Framing Authorship: Drawn Borders and Inscribed Frames in Eighteenth-Century Dutch Artists’ Portraits

11:20 COFFEE BREAK

11:40 SECTION IV
Chair: Tatjana Bartsch

INTERVENTIONS

Gudula Metze, Kupferstich-Kabinett – Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Creative Collecting. A Group of Baroque Drawn Frames at the Dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett

Elisabeth Oy-Marra, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Le scritture ai margini. Sebastiano Resta e la doppia incorniciatura dei disegni

13:00 LUNCH BREAK

14:00 SECTION V
Chair: Anna Magnago Lampugnani, BHMPI

INTERVENTIONS

Thomas Pöpper, Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau, Angewandte Kunst Schneeberg, Passage, Access, Depth: Mounting as Framing–The Window Mount in Albrecht Dürer and Michelangelo

Giovanni Santucci, Università di Pisa, Mounting, Borders, and Meaning in the Talman Collection

15:20 COFFEE BREAK

15:40 SECTION VI
Chair: Giorgio Marini, Roma, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica

INTERVENTIONS

Christoph Orth, Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Framing the Face. On the Role of Drawings in Lavater’s Ideas on Physiognomy

Kristel Smentek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, A Persian Muraqqa and Pierre-Jean Mariette’s Mounted Drawings

Friday 13 May 2026 (no streaming)

10:00 – c.13:00 ROUND TABLE
Chair: Johannes Röll, BHMPI