Posted for Charles Brownell, VCU

PRESS RELEASE
March 8, 2002

 REDISCOVERING JEFFERSON’S MODEL FOR THE CAPITOL OF VIRGINIA, a
lecture by F. Carey Howlett, will take place at Virginia Commonwealth
University’s Grace Street Theater, at 934 West Grace Street, Richmond, on
Friday, March 22, 2002, at 6:00 p.m.  The presentation is Virginia
Commonwealth University’s Annual Maurice Bonds Lecture in Art History.
Recent study and conservation of Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 model for the
Capitol of Virginia have revealed a treasure-trove of long-lost
information.  Using traditional and modern methods of examination and
analysis, Colonial Williamsburg conservators have made discoveries that
open new avenues of research into Jefferson’s vision for the Capitol, his
collaboration with the French architect/draftsman Charles-Louis Clérisseau,
the artisanry of the model’s maker, Jean-Pierre Fouquet, and the history of
the model in Virginia.

 Join F. Carey Howlett, who directed the  Capitol model project at
the request of the Library of Virginia, as he describes the exciting
process of discovery, reveals images of the model’s exquisite classical
architectural detail obscured by paint for more than 150 years, and
explores the fascinating 19th- and 20th-century history of the model as
documented in the paint layers.  Learn about the factors informing the
conservation of the model as a pre-eminent artifact of Virginia history and
of the process of fabricating a replica of the model as Jefferson knew it.

 The Maurice Bonds lecture is free and open to the public.  A
recption will follow.  For information, please call the Department of Art
History at 804/828-2784.


Barbara C. Batson
Exhibitions Coordinator
The Library of Virginia
804-692-3518
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