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A Travelling Seminar in Drawings Connoisseurship and the Art Market

The Morgan Library & Museum invites applications for a traveling seminar in drawings connoisseurship and the art market. Led by Morgan curators John Marciari, Charles W. Engelhard Curator and Head of the Department of Drawings and Prints, and Jennifer Tonkovich, Eugene and Clare Thaw Curator of Drawings and Prints, the ten-day travelling seminar will take place in London, Oxford, and other locations in England from 26 June to 5 July 2018. The seminar will have a twin focus on the skills of connoisseurship and on the workings of the art market.

The seminar will begin with visits to some of the major collections of drawings in England, including the Ashmolean Museum, the British Museum, and the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. Drs. Marciari and Tonkovich, together with host curators at those institutions, will conduct sessions exploring connoisseurial questions of attribution, condition, quality, and authenticity. The seminar will then turn its attention to the old master sales held in London during the first week of July. Seminar participants will meet with representatives from the auction houses and galleries, and they will be asked to write sample acquisition proposals, which will be reviewed and discussed by the group both before and after the sales. This second part of the seminar is intended to supplement the connoisseurial training of the first week with a practical grounding in the workings of the art market, thus training young curators in some of the skills necessary for them to advance professionally.

This program is tailored to art historians with a demonstrated commitment to a curatorial career in the field of old master and nineteenth-century drawings and less than five years of full-time museum work experience. Most applicants will be employed as an assistant curator, or a curatorial or research assistant, in a department of drawings and prints, or will hold or have recently held a curatorial fellowship. Advanced graduate students pursuing a doctoral thesis in which drawings play a critical role are also encouraged to apply.

The seminar will run from 26 June to 5 July. Travel, lodging, and meal costs will be covered by the program.

Applicants are asked to submit the following materials electronically, in a single pdf document, to drawingseminar@themorgan.org:

A letter summarizing your interest in the program, with an explanation of how participation in it will help you achieve your career goals.
A curriculum vitae that includes your name, title, affiliation, email address, and nationality/citizenship.
A letter in support of your application from your department head or director, if you are affiliated with an institution, or from your graduate advisor if you are enrolled in a Ph.D. program.
Application deadline: March 25, 2018.
Participants will be selected and notified by mid-April.

Questions about the program may be directed to drawingseminar@themorgan.org.

This seminar is supported by a major grant from the Getty Foundation, as part of The Paper Project: Prints and Drawings Curatorship in the 21st Century.

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