Stephen A. Bergquist (Boston), Benvenuto Disertori: His Portraits of the Bisiachs.

Benvenuto Disertori (1887–1969), best known today as a musicologist, was, in his earlier years, an interesting and idiosyncratic printmaker. As an art student he never became interested in painting, but when he went to Munich in 1907 he discovered the woodcuts of Dürer and became attracted to printmaking. Over the next four decades he produced ninety-five prints (not including fifty-six bookplates, mostly small woodcuts, that he did for family and friends). Disertori was enchanted by the venerable hill towns of Tuscany and Umbria, and thirty-eight of his plates are etchings of these towns. In addition to these townscapes, he etched or lithographed a few allegorical plates, ten female nudes, and fourteen portraits. Of his fourteen portraits, seven are of members of the Bisiach family—Leandro (1864–1945) and his four sons, Andrea, Carlo, Giacomo, and Leandro junior (Leandrino), all of whom were highly-regarded violin makers. Disertori, who was interested in music himself, got to know the Bisiachs, who worked in Milan and Florence, probably in the 1920s, but in any case no later than 1930, when he produced his first Bisiach portrait, a drawing of Carlo working on a violin. From this drawing he then produced a small head-and-shoulders etching of Carlo, a print that exists in only one known impression. Around 1933 he did three lithographs of Carlo, Giacomo, and Leandrino, showing them in their shops, working on violins. Later in the 1930s he did a drypoint of Leandro, the father, showing him playing the violin, and finally, in 1938, he did profile portraits of Giacomo and Leandrino in drypoint, in identical format, intended as companion pieces. Disertori’s art was never commercially successful, and it fell out of favor in the 1920s, when the Fascist regime became enamored of Futurist art, with its cult of speed, power, and modernism. Disertori’s output of prints declined in the 1920s and 1930s, and he eventually turned completely to his other interest, music, teaching courses in Parma and Cremona, and writing numerous articles, mostly on the history of stringed instruments, and on Renaissance musical paleography, for various Italian journals.

Stephen A. Bergquist (Boston), A Century of Musical Mezzotints.

The eighteenth century was the great age of mezzotint. The mezzotint process, a tonal process, is especially suited to the reproduction of paintings, and was notably used to reproduce portraits. Ten musical mezzotints are discussed here—eight portraits and two genre subjects, done during the hundred-year period 1704 to 1804. In 1704 the English mezzotint artist John Smith (1652–1743) did a portrait of Arcangelo Corelli, after a painting by the Irish artist Hugh Howard. It was originally thought that Corelli sat for Howard’s portrait, but it is more likely that Howard’s painting was itself a copy of a portrait by Carlo Maratti, one of the leading painters in Rome at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and a close friend of Corelli. This same year, 1704, the French artist André Bouys (1656–1740) did a mezzotint portrait of Marin Marais, after his own painting. In 1719 John Simon (ca. 1675–1751), a Huguenot working in London, did a mezzotint portrait of Attilio Ariosti, after a painting by Enoch Seeman. Jean-Philippe Rameau was portrayed by Jean-Baptiste-André Gautier-Dagoty (1740–1785/6) in 1770. Around 1735 the Dutch artist Cornelis Troost (1696–1750) did a mezzotint portrait of Pietro Locatelli, after his own pastel. The great castrato Farinelli (Carlo Broschi) appears in a 1735 mezzotint portrait by Alexander van Haecken (1701–1758), after a painting by Charles Lucy. In 1758 James McArdell (1728/9–1765) did a mezzotint of a young girl playing the flute, A Happy Peasant Girl, after the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Jan Molenaer. James Watson’s The Ballad Singer of 1765/6 is after a painting by Henry Morland. Around 1791 the Viennese artist Johann Peter Pichler (1765–1807) did a portrait of Haydn’s patron Prince Anton Esterházy, and around 1804 Pichler’s compatriot Franz Wrenk (1766– 1830) produced a portrait of the young Johann Nepomuk Hummel, after a painting by Catharina von Escherich.

Stephen A. Bergquist (Boston), George Gershwin, Arthur Fiedler, and Their Circle.

George Gershwin and his brother Ira had many famous friends in the entertainment world—music, the theater, and motion pictures—including Lillian Hellman, Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman, Oscar Levant, and Harpo Marx. Less well known is a smaller circle of Gershwin’s friends that included Arthur Fiedler, as well as the violinists Mayo Wadler and Leopold Godowsky, Jr. Also part of the group were the Gershwins’ younger sister, Frances, and Wadler’s younger sisters, Ruth and Lucille. All of these friends were highly accomplished. Wadler and Fiedler met in 1911, when they were students at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, and they became lifelong friends. Gershwin and Godowsky met in 1920, spending many happy evenings together listening to the Paul Whiteman Orchestra at the Palais Royal in Manhattan, and they both took composition lessons from Rubin Goldmark from 1922 to 1924. The friendships of all four musicians intermeshed in the 1920s. Godowsky courted Lucille Wadler, but wound up marrying Frances Gershwin. He and a friend worked for Eastman Kodak in the early 1930s, where they invented Kodachrome film. Mayo Wadler toured as a soloist until 1925, and then went to work for the Capitol Theatre Orchestra in New York City, where he eventually became the chief conductor, and he also made recordings for the Edison and Brunswick labels. Ruth Wadler became an artist; her sister Lucille became an actress and, later, a producer of off-Broadway shows. In 1928 the artist Francis Coradal-Cugat (the husband of Ruth Wadler) did an etched portrait of Gershwin, on the theme of Gershwin’s An American in Paris, showing the composer surrounded by images of Paris and New York. The following year Lydia Purdy Hess did a linocut portrait of Fiedler. Both prints are rare, and both seem to be the only portrait prints of their respective subjects.

Sylvia Bowden (University of Southampton), Re-Viewing Stieler’s Beethoven Portrait and Schwind’s Eine Symphonie: Still Life or More Than Meets the Eye?

During their extended stay in Vienna between 1809 and 1812, Beethoven had formed a close friendship with Antonie and Franz Brentano, and an attachment to their eldest daughter Maximiliane. With the Brentano family are connected two paintings featuring Beethoven: His portrait by Joseph Stieler (1820) at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, and Moritz von Schwind’s epic memorial painting, Eine Symphonie (1852), at the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Neue Pinakothek, in Munich. Stieler (1781–1858) was a fashionable painter in Vienna, belonging to the artistic circle of the Brentanos, and it is generally assumed in the literature that they commissioned Beethoven’s portrait. However, this assumption can be questioned since the Brentanos received only a miniature copy of the full-size portrait. The notes written in Beethoven’s Conversation Books of 1820, document the chronology of his seating for Stieler between February and April, offer a valuable insight into the social dynamic within his circle, and offer possible clues about the reasons why was he prepared to sacrifice so much time in the project. In a visual homage to Beethoven entitled Eine Symphonie, Moritz von Schwind (1804–1871) — who was a regular visitor to the marital home of the Brentanos’ daughter Maximiliane in Frankfurt — presented a happy romance between a singer and her admirer. Behind this narrative is possible to read a concealed story featuring Beethoven and Maximiliane. This parallel storyline in Eine Symphonie and the circumstances surrounding the miniature copy of Stieler’s Beethoven portrait sent to the Brentanos, suggests that the unidentified miniature portrait of a young woman found in a secret drawer of Beethoven’s bureau after his death could be a likeness of Maximiliane née Brentano by Joseph Stieler, thereby strengthening the case for “Maxe” as both Beethoven’s muse and his distant beloved.

Daniela Castaldo (Università del Salento. Lecce), Music and Identity on Ancient Roman Coinage.

Musical iconography on Roman coins from the Republic through the early Empire functioned as cultural identity markers and political propaganda. Stringed instruments, especially the cithara and lyre, comprise approximately 95 percent of musical representations, reflecting their association with Apollo and the practical limitations of coin design. Republican monetary magistrates employed musical imagery to honor family lineages. L. Scribonius Libo’s denarii (62 BCE) featured citharae on the puteal Scribonianum, possibly referencing votive practices or the Ludi Megalenses. Q. Pomponius Musa issued ten denarii depicting the nine Muses and Hercules Musarum, commemorating the cult introduced by Fulvius Nobilior. Under Augustus, Apollo and his cithara symbolized imperial authority and the pax Romana: coins by C. Antistius Vetus showed Apollo Actiacus with cithara standing on ship rostra from Actium, emphasizing the god as peace guarantor rather than vengeful archer. Provincial coinage adapted musical themes to express local identity. Methymna depicted Arion riding a dolphin; Thracian issues showed Orpheus among animals; Phrygian coins from Apamea and Tarsus represented the Apollo-Marsyas contest, symbolizing the cultural opposition between Greek civilization (cithara) and “oriental” traditions (aulos). While offering limited organological detail, numismatic iconography reveals the symbolic and cultural significance of musical instruments in antiquity, demonstrating how visual language circulated across artistic media to shape collective identity in the Roman world.

Annalisa de Franzoni (Museo archeologico nazionale di Aquileia), Elena Braidotti (Museo archeologico nazionale di Aquileia), and Alessia Zangrando (Università degli Studi di Udine), “Singin Stones”: Musical Scenes on the Roman Gems of Aquileia.

A total of 118 gemstones and glass gems depicting musical themes or instruments were identified in the glyptic collection of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Aquileia. These artifacts, primarily carnelians, nicolos, red jaspers, and sardonyxes, constitute a numerically substantial sample for examining Roman-period glyptics from a specific, homogenous territorial context. They also represent a primary resource for archaeomusicological studies, shedding light on the instruments’ characteristics, performance practices, and symbolic significance of music in this crucial Roman commercial and administrative centre.

Hu Yile 胡怡樂 (University of Hong Kong), Representations of Musical Instruments in the Ruins of the Guge Kingdom Kapital.

The archaeological site of the capital of the Guge Kingdom, located in the Tsparang Village, Zanda County, in Tibet, consists of four major Buddhist buildings: in the center of the palace district are located Kyil-Khor Lhakhang (1460–1470) and the Mgon Khang (15th century); and in the northern part of the monastery district are located the Lhakang Marpo (late 15th century) and the Lhakang Karpo (the first half of the 16th century). These locations include depictions of a variety of musical instruments, including the hold long horns, known as dungchen, damaru drum, and piwang fiddle, which closely correspond with their descriptions in historical written sources such as The Treatise on Music, a notable thirteenth-century text by the Buddhist master Sakya Pandita; The Blue Annual (completed in 1478), chronicling the history of Guge; and the early Bon text Gzer Mig, from the end of the eleventh century. Morphological analysis and historical documentation allow the identification of these instruments, revealing patterns of cultural exchange and integration in their development. The instruments depicted in Guge murals are organized in three main functional groups: as offerings to the Buddha alongside other Buddhist items, as implements used by offering goddess, and as accompaniment for Buddhist rituals or secular performances. Two major religious influences shape the instruments’ forms and uses. Indigenous instruments, such as the lag-rnga and piwang fiddle, reflect elements of the Bon religion, while instruments associated with Tantric Buddhism, including the damaru and ghanta, demonstrate Buddhist ritual significance. Large musical ensembles used in religious ceremonies, characterized by solemnity and strong rhythmic patterns, illustrate the close relationship between music and religious practice in the Guge Kingdom. Images of the madal drum, kettle drum, damaru, and ghanta document active interactions among India, Nepal, and Guge, whereas the prevalence of the lag-rnga and dungchen highlights the Guge Kingdom’s influence on the broader Tibetan Buddhist cultural sphere.

Guido Olivieri (The University of Texas at Austin), Visions of Heavenly Sound: Giaquinto’s Concerto degli Angeli (1703).

Among the most powerful illustrations of the transcendent quality of music are the representations of the imaginary and ineffable sound of angel musicians. A fresco cycle in the church of San Sebastiano in Moiano (near Benevento, Italy), painted by Tommaso Giaquinto (1661/62–1717) around 1703, includes biblical scenes with music instruments. The cycle’s centerpiece is a Concerto degli angeli, situated on the walls of the organ loft. The unusual placement of the two groups of angels playing wind and stringed instruments on the cantoria delineates the liminal space between the visible yet inaudible performance of the angel musicians and the invisible yet resonant music of the church organ. Despite its idealized vision and symbolic connotations, the arrangement of instruments and the details of the angels’ gestures presented in Giaquinto’s Concerto degli angeli help to interpret settings and musical practices, and allow for reflections on aspects related to the intermediality of real and imaginary soundscapes within liturgical contexts.

Henrike Rost (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften), Humor and Community: Visual Wit in Nineteenth-Century Musical Album Culture.

Nineteenth-century friendship albums (Stammbücher) created within musical circles, included visual wit that served as a sophisticated instrument of social cohesion. The album entries reveal how humor facilitated community-building through shared knowledge and insider references that effectively distinguished between those within and outside the musical circle. The collaborative album leaf created by Julius Benedict and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy for young violinist Joseph Joachim exemplifies the multilayered interplay of music, text, and visual elements that marked a significant career milestone while reinforcing professional networks. Among the Moscheles family albums, Emily Moscheles’s album provides rich evidence of how musical notation transcended its primary function to become visual art with humorous intent, as seen in entries by Pablo de Sarasate and Charles Gounod. Private jokes and specialist humor in contributions by Stephen Heller and Franz von Pocci demonstrate how album contributors strategically employed techniques such as irony, allusion, caricature, and wordplay to signal cultural literacy and forge communal bonds. Drawing on theoretical frameworks such as Vittorio Marone’s concept of humor as a “community-building cushioning glue”, this examination reveals that album entries functioned on multiple levels: facilitating immediate social connection through shared laughter, establishing professional standing by showcasing intellectual agility, and collectively constructing a distinctive community identity. Nineteenth-century musical album culture thus exemplifies “identification humor” (John Meyer) that built group cohesiveness by invoking a sense of unity, transforming albums into repositories of insider humor that defined these artistic circles and served as essential social instruments that both reflected and shaped nineteenth-century musical communities.

Linyu Jolene Shao 邵琳予 (Arizona State University), The Art of Selling Cigarettes: Portraying Music and Women in Yuefenpai Cigarette Advertisements of 1920s–1930s Shanghai.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai grappled with a paradoxical dynamism. Amidst the unresolved tensions between colonial occupation, nationalist struggle, and capitalist enterprise, an increasing number of visual artists found careers in its burgeoning market for commercial illustration. Among the various forms of advertising which provided these artists a new channel for visual expressions was yuefenpai, a genre of calendar posters that blended traditional Chinese aesthetics with Western artistic influences to promote a wide range of consumer goods. Cigarette brands in particular drew on yuefenpai’s visual appeal to project aspirational lifestyles and frequently presented advertisements that strategically depicted women holding musical instruments. By integrating elements of both Chinese tradition and Western modernity within a single composition, these images visually articulated the hybrid identities that defined Shanghai’s residents to whom notions of femininity, music, and consumerism seemed embedded in both the past and the present, as well as local and global contexts.
The goals, producers, and modes of public dissemination of yuefenpai emerged from the advertising practices and visual culture of early twentieth-century Shanghai. Yuefenpai cigarette advertisements repeatedly depicted women with musical instruments and thereby constructed a model of femininity that balanced national tradition with global modernity. The combination of Chinese and Western artistic elements positioned musical women as central agents in the transformation of the visual field into a multisensory experience that encouraged viewers to perceive and imagine sound, scent, and atmosphere. Within this visual strategy, the evocation of sound functioned as a form of sonic branding that operated simultaneously as a cultural bridge and a sensory conduit, linking Chinese heritage to the modern, refined, and aspirational lifestyle promoted to Shanghai’s urban consumers.

Benedetta Saglietti (Conservatorio di Musica “Giacomo Puccini” di Gallarate), Music, Painting and a New Idea of Beauty: Alfredo Casella and Felice Casorati. The Beginning of an Artistic Friendship.

The early artistic relationship between the composer Alfredo Casella (1883–1947) and the painter Felice Casorati (1883–1963) emerges within the Italian cultural milieu of the early 1920s. Their friendship begins before its limited documentary record generally starting in 1927 and develops through a continuous exchange between music and painting. Casella’s acquisition of Casorati’s Mattino (1922) and Conversazione platonica (1923) signals a shared rejection of impressionistic obscurity, a commitment to constructive form, and a new conception of modern beauty. Casella’s musical works associated with his wife Yvonne Loeb Müller (1892–1977) parallel Casorati’s figurative language through strategies of seduction, stillness, and abstraction. The figure of the Venere Tripolina mediates this dialogue by circulating between pictorial and musical imaginaries as a model of modern female beauty. Casorati’s 1926 portrait of Casella coincides with the stylistic turning point marked by Casella’s Concerto Romano and reflects a reciprocal moment of artistic redefinition. The Casorati–Casella relationship thus takes shape as a discreet, yet coherent exchange of ideas articulated through artworks rather than explicit statements.

Matthieu Somon (Université catholique de Louvain), Chardin: A Concert of Objects.

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699–1779) executed at the end of his career (1765–67) three large still-life paintings of musical instruments, for music salons in the residences of Louis XV’s royal family (Paris, Musée du Louvre). An analysis of their compositional devices and the pictorial facture of the figuration of instruments, demonstrate their specific features in the history of early modern still life painting of musical instruments. Painted more or less life-size and slightly overhanging the viewers, the musical instruments that Chardin portrayed differ from the tradition of this type of still life invented by Evaristo Baschenis (1617–1677). By lending the instruments he depicts postures that display their sound organs, and by orienting their capacity to emit sound and resonate (bells, mouthpieces, striking skins, in particular) towards the front of his paintings and towards the viewers’ space, Chardin renews the still-life genre and seems to contradict Leonardo da Vinci’s famous dictum that painting should be addressed “to the intelligence of the deaf”. Indeed, by depicting the instruments in an overhanging position that resembles their situation in concert and shows their ability to resound, and by using a fairly wide framing that leaves a large part to the representation of air conducive to the propagation of sounds, Chardin’s three paintings from his mature years could arouse the imminence of sounds, or even sound spectra or acoustic fictions, deduced from the observation of the depicted instruments or even freely invented by the beholders. These effects of potential sound stimulation, which are not to be found in his earlier work, also give his three late paintings a special place in the history of musical instrument iconography, whose resonances in later artistic production are the final stage of this inquiry.

Susan V. Webster (College of William & Mary), Pipe Organs and Musical Sculptures in Colonial Quito.

Pipe organs were introduced in South America from the early colonial period and rapidly gained widespread popularity among the Indigenous populations in a region where aerophones had enjoyed millennia of musical primacy. In Ecuador, colonial organs and organ builders have been accorded far less scholarly attention than in other areas of the continent. A series of contracts for the commission of pipe organs in the audiencia of Quito (today, Ecuador) between 1600 and 1635 documents early organ makers, their patrons, and the nature and requirements of the instruments. The organs built by the local specialist Francisco de la Chica (1600–1635) and Francisco de Orellana (1630–1635) underscore the uniquely local and situational visual and sonorous characteristics of the instruments produced in the audiencia. Quito in the colonial period was widely renowned for the prolific production of exquisite polychrome wood sculptures of saints, angels, and other figures. Many of the colonial organs produced in the audiencia possess large polychrome wood sculptures of musicians playing trumpets that, by means of individual wind channels, voiced a range of sounds. These sculpted trumpeters were not mere adornments; rather, they constituted an integral part of the instruments and the music they produced. The trumpeting figures integrated into organs in the audiencia of Quito recall and embody the ancient Andean cultural predilection for wind instruments, particularly for musician figures that themselves functioned as aerophones.