The Frick Collection presents a site-specific installation by the Swiss-born artist Nicolas Party (b. 1980) that combines Rosalba Carriera’s Portrait of a Man in Pilgrim’s Costume with an ensemble of pastel works of Party’s own devising.The installation, in the Italian Galleries on the third floor of the museum’s temporary home, Frick Madison, juxtaposes Rosalba Carriera’s portrait, a spectacular eighteenth-century pastel bequeathed to the Frick in 2020 by Alexis Gregory, with a suite of works by Party, all created using pastel. The installation places three portraits—the one by Rosalba and two by Party—in the context of three ephemeral pastel murals depicting swathes of drapery inspired by the work of the eighteenth-century artists Jean-Étienne Liotard and Maurice-Quentin de La Tour. As an ensemble, the installation focuses on themes of concealment and disclosure. This is the second Frick installation to be inspired by the Frick’s popular Diptych series, each volume of which focuses on a single work from the collection. Party’s installation is the centerpiece of the most recent Diptych, which spotlights Rosalba’s Portrait of a Man in Pilgrim’s Costume and is co-authored by Party a...
moreThe Frick Collection presents a site-specific installation by the Swiss-born artist Nicolas Party (b. 1980) that combines Rosalba Carriera’s Portrait of a Man in Pilgrim’s Costume with an ensemble of pastel works of Party’s own devising.
The installation, in the Italian Galleries on the third floor of the museum’s temporary home, Frick Madison, juxtaposes Rosalba Carriera’s portrait, a spectacular eighteenth-century pastel bequeathed to the Frick in 2020 by Alexis Gregory, with a suite of works by Party, all created using pastel. The installation places three portraits—the one by Rosalba and two by Party—in the context of three ephemeral pastel murals depicting swathes of drapery inspired by the work of the eighteenth-century artists Jean-Étienne Liotard and Maurice-Quentin de La Tour. As an ensemble, the installation focuses on themes of concealment and disclosure. This is the second Frick installation to be inspired by the Frick’s popular Diptych series, each volume of which focuses on a single work from the collection. Party’s installation is the centerpiece of the most recent Diptych, which spotlights Rosalba’s Portrait of a Man in Pilgrim’s Costume and is co-authored by Party and Xavier F. Salomon, the Frick’s Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator.
The Venetian Carnival reached its zenith in the eighteenth century, when foreign travelers flocked to Venice for the masked revelries that became synonymous with the city. At the time, Rosalba Carriera (1673–1757) was the preeminent portraitist in Venice. Rosalba had developed an easily identifiable style in her pastel portraits, and her studio was a popular stop for visiting foreigners, who often posed for her in their elegant Carnival costumes. The Frick’s Portrait of a Man in Pilgrim’s Costume (ca. 1730) is most likely one such work. The sitter is possibly French, British, or German, but his identity is unknown to this day. With his black cape, pilgrim’s staff, and tricorn hat precariously perched on his head, he is depicted as a pilgrim. Party’s specially commissioned large pastel mural at Frick Madison is in dialogue with Rosalba’s Carnival-inspired portraits, particularly her Portrait of a Man in Pilgrim’s Costume. Much like stage curtains framing a play, the elaborate draperies in his mural highlight the Rosalba portrait along with two portraits Party created in response to Rosalba’s work.