Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy : : Art, Material Culture, and British-Russian Relations / / edited by Louise Hardiman.

• Superior document: Russian History and Culture ; 24
• TeilnehmendeR: Hardiman, Louise,
• Place / Publishing House: Paderborn : : Ferdinand Schöningh, Brill Deutschland,, 2022.; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Russian History and Culture ; 24.; Schöningh and Fink Early Modern and Modern History E-Books Online, Collection 2022.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (426 pages)

“Courtly Gifts and Cultural Diplomacy” explores the history of British-Russian state relations from the perspective of art and material culture. This richly illustrated book presents manifold practices of courtly gift-giving and vivid case studies of British-Russian artistic diplomacy over the centuries. It traces a visual and material history of cross-cultural dialogue that starts with an early English map of Russia made in the 16th century and ends with gifts of Fabergé art objects and domestic photographs exchanged between the British royal family and the family of Tsar Nicholas II in late Imperial Russia. Twelve expert authors from academia, the arts, and the museum sectors in Britain, Russia, and the United States present new narratives and critical interpretations based on material from previously unexplored archives. Their diverse approaches reveal the importance of artistic diplomacy and the agency of gifts of art and material culture in courtly and state relations.

Table of Contents

Intro -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- List of Illustrations -- Notes on Contributors -- Conventions -- Chapter 1 Introduction: Visual Culture and the History of British-Russian Relations -- Part I Art and Diplomacy -- Chapter 2 Art and Acculturation: Sir Godfrey Kneller's Portraits of Petr Potemkin (1682) and Peter the Great (1698) -- Chapter 3 Catherine II, the Cathcarts, and Russian Anglophilia -- Chapter 4 Prince Grigorii Potemkin, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Anglo-Russian Artistic Diplomacy in the Age of Catherine the Great -- Part II The Agency of Gifts -- Chapter 5 "Give with One Hand and Take with the Other:" British Diplomatic Gifts to Russia, 1795-97 -- Chapter 6 Courtly Splendour and Cultural Identity: Nineteenth-century Russian Imperial Gifts for the British Royal Family -- Chapter 7 Alfred, Lord Tennyson and an Imperial Russian Gift -- Chapter 8 Fabergé Hardstone in Imperial Gifting from Russia to England -- Part III Travels and Dialogues -- Chapter 9 Gavriil Skorodumov and James Walker: Printmaking and British-Russian Relations in the Late Eighteenth Century -- Chapter 10 "Smart Travels:" The Encounters of Grand Duke Nicholas with British Art and Artists, 1816-17 -- Chapter 11 Tsar Alexander I, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and George Dawe: Masculinity and the Development of the St Petersburg Military Gallery -- Part IV Dynasties and Domesticities -- Chapter 12 The Wedding of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Maria Alexandrovna of Russia in 1874 and its Visual Commemoration -- Chapter 13 Images of Nicholas II: (Mis-)interpreting the Last Tsar -- Index.