2ND ANNUAL EMERGING SCHOLARS COLLOQUIUM
Saturday, February 8, 9:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. • Isaac Bell House
Students $5 / Members $30 / General Public $40
Advance registration required
In conjunction with The Decorative Arts Trust, we are pleased to
offer our second annual Colloquium featuring students and young
professionals in the fields of decorative arts and historic
preservation. Join us for a daylong speaker series featuring new
research by young scholars. A box lunch and complimentary admission to all PSNC properties included with registration.
Please note, all tours are self-drive, transportation not included.
For more information, contact emarchi@newportmansions.org.
Schedule
9:30 AM Registration and Coffee
10:00 AM Welcome
Trudy Coxe, CEO and Executive Director, The Preservation Society of Newport County
10:10 AM / SESSION 1
The Ornate Staircase Railing at Marble House: A Unique and Exceptional Reflection of Versailles in Newport
Mathilde Tollet, 2020 PSNC Research Fellow;
2018 M.A., Museology & Conservation, l’Ecole du Louvre, Paris, & Complutense University, Madrid
A Tale of Two Families: An Engraved Tea Service in Antebellum Augusta, Georgia
Kayli Rideout, PhD. Candidate, American Studies, Boston University
11:10 AM Break
11:25 AM / SESSION 2
Discriminate Doorknobs: An Inventory of Door Hardware at The Breakers and the Delineation of Spaces using Decorative Details
Sébastien Dutton, 2020 PSNC Research Fellow;
2019 M.A., Design Studies & Historic Preservation, Boston Architectural College
Edgefield Stoneware in The Met’s American Wing
Kate Hughes, 2018-2020 Peggy N. Gerry Research Scholar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; 2014 M.A., Sotheby's Institute of Art – New York
12:30 PM Lunch
1:30 PM / OPTIONAL TOURS
Complimentary admission to all PSNC properties included with registration.
Please note, all tours are self-drive, transportation not included.
Abstracts & Bios
Mathilde Tollet, 2020 PSNC Research Fellow
The Ornate Staircase Railing at Marble House: A Unique and Exceptional Reflection of Versailles in Newport
Abstract:
This presentation will explore the French precedents for the wrought iron railing of the staircase at Marble House. The railing, as interpreted by the architect, Richard Morris Hunt, and the designer, Jules Allard, exemplifies the enduring strength of French influences on American Gilded Age design practices.
Bio:
Mathilde Tollet earned her Bachelor's degree in Art History, with a concentration in Decorative Arts, in 2016 from l’Ecole du Louvre in Paris, and received a M.A. in Museology and Conservation in 2018 from l'Ecole du Louvre and the Complutense University in Madrid. She wrote her thesis on the collection of writer and art critic Octave Mirbeau. Mathilde was the 2018 French Heritage Society Intern at the Preservation Society and a current 2020 Preservation Society Research Fellow. She is working on French influences on the artistic wrought iron work found in the Newport Mansions.
Kayli Rideout, PhD. Candidate, American Studies, Boston University
A Tale of Two Families: An Engraved Tea Service in Antebellum Augusta, Georgia
Abstract:
From the silversmith shop of three Connecticut-born brothers to the home of a wealthy family in Augusta, this tea service, now in the collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, preserved the stories of industry and power in antebellum Georgia. In the Clark brothers’ shop it suggested years of growth and change in the silver industry – the expansion of trade networks, innovations in technology, and changes in style. For Amy, the subject of the service’s engraving, the service may have functioned as a material grounding of female identity and a relic of matrilineal descent. By reading the object through the hands of its people the service becomes a vessel for the story of two families, producer and consumer, in a Southern city on the brink of civil war.
Bio:
Kayli Rideout is a current Ph.D. student in American Studies at Boston University with a background in decorative arts and design history. Her research explores American social history and identity through decorative arts and material culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, specifically the relationship between the American silver industry and the formation of regional identity in the American South. Kayli is particularly interested in the role of Tiffany & Co. and Tiffany Studios in the construction of the South’s image in the national collective memory. She is a recent recipient of the William C. and Susan S. Mariner Fellowship for Emerging Museum Professionals, sponsored by the Decorative Arts Trust, and a participant of the 2019 Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts Summer Institute. She has previously held positions at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, the New-York Historical Society, and the Jewish Museum. Most recently she was the Tiffany & Co. Foundation Curatorial Intern in American Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sébastien Dutton, 2020 PSNC Research Fellow
Discriminate Doorknobs: An Inventory of Door Hardware at The Breakers and the Delineation of Spaces using Decorative Details
Abstract:
The Breakers is a glittering showpiece of art and design. This presentation will give an overview of the variety of door hardware used throughout the house and looks at how the multitude of different designs and styles are used to create separation between public and private, family and service spaces. A cross examination with other similar sized homes of the period helps to inform whether such variety was commonplace or further places The Breakers above and beyond the already lavish homes of the Gilded Age.
Bio:
Sébastien Dutton earned his Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Oklahoma Baptist University. His studies focused on Business Administration and French language. In May 2019, he received his Master of Arts in Historic Preservation from Boston Architectural College, where he focused his studies on Gilded Age America.
Dutton has received three consecutive scholarships to attend the Newport Symposium and once remarked that the inspiration for his pursuit of a Master’s degree was the Preservation Society properties.
Kate Hughes, 2018-2020 Peggy N. Gerry Research Scholar, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; 2014 M.A., Sotheby's Institute of Art – New York
Edgefield Stoneware in The Met’s American Wing
Abstract:
This presentation will explore Ms. Hughes's work over the past year and a half as the Peggy N. Gerry Research Scholar, supported by the Decorative Arts Trust and The Met's American Wing, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She will discuss her involvement with The Met's upcoming exhibition focusing on the nineteenth-century alkaline-glazed stoneware of Old Edgefield District, South Carolina, a place of monumental pottery production that would not have been possible without the forced labor of enslaved African Americans. A little-known piece of regional American history, this stoneware tells a fully American story of innovation, art, resistance, and freedom, while still holding many questions for future scholars.
Bio:
Katherine “Kate” Carson Hughes is the 2018-2020 Peggy N. Gerry Research Scholar, supported through the Decorative Arts Trust, with the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. An alumna of The College of William & Mary (B.A. 2012) and Sotheby’s Institute of Art – New York (M.A. 2014), Kate continued her education as a three-time graduate of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts Summer Institute, the Victorian Society of America’s London Summer School, and the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s Professional Intensive. She was most recently the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in Historic Interiors at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, and previously held positions at Historic Charleston Foundation and the design firm Ralph Harvard, Inc., as well as internships with The Winter Show, Christie’s, and the New-York Historical Society. Her research has focused on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century material culture and decorative arts of the American South, with particular interests in architectural history and interiors. Kate’s primary duties at The Met center on their upcoming exhibition on the nineteenth-century stoneware of Edgefield District, South Carolina. Her research on potter Thomas M. Chandler’s earliest-known signed piece, a stoneware butter churn, was recently published in the Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts. Kate is also currently a Fellow with the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University.