Wednesday 18 October 6.00pm. Online Seminar

China and India: New perspective on Decorative Stones. Speakers - Adriana Concin, Lola Cindric, Nicholas Grindley, Rosie Mills, and Alice Minter. 

On the occasion of the exhibition Eternal medium: seeing the world in stone at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, this seminar will explore the tradition of decorative stones beyond the expected European canons, especially in China and India. 

Eternal medium: seeing the world in stone 

Exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, in collaboration with The Rosalinde & Arthur Gilbert Collection and to The Vicoria and Albert Museum.

20 August 2023 - 11 February 2024

Contributors:

Adriana Concin 

Adriana Concin is Assistant Curator of Paintings and Drawings at the V&A. She holds a PhD in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.  Her research has been supported by several fellowships, including the Eva Schler research fellowship at the Medici Archive Project, the Ayesha Bulchandani fellowship at the Frick Collection in New York, as well as the Studia Rudolphina fellowship at the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. She has written contributions for several exhibition books and has published her research in leading academic journals. Adriana’s research is driven by an interdisciplinary approach to early modern art history, and a particular interest in the cultural and artistic exchanges between Europe and Asia.

Lola Cindrić 

Lola Cindrić graduated in Conservation & Restoration of Cultural Heritage from the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and specialised in "pietra dura" mosaic after being trained in Florence, Italy. Simultaneously, she completed a Master in Sociology & Anthropology at the University Paris 7 Diderot, specialising in migrations and interethnic relationships. She is currently a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) of Paris, France. Focusing on the connections between Agra, India, and Florence, Italy, when it comes to the craft of "pietra dura", her research explores the identity, alterity and power issues at stake in the historical narratives, the exchanges of objects and the circulation of patterns and materials between those two centres of production.

Nicholas Grindley

Nicholas Grindley for over 45 years now he has been dealing and researching Chinese art with particular interest in furniture and works of art. During most of this time he has conducted his business as a private dealer although since 1998 he has published two catalogues a year, and exhibited in London, New York, and Hong Kong, although the advent of digital communication has curtailed this somewhat; many works from these exhibitions and his other dealing activities are in museums and private collections through-out the world. In 1996 he contributed to the catalogue of the Mimi and Raymond Hung Collection of Chinese Furniture and in 1999 he co-wrote with Robert Jacobsen the catalogue of Classical Chinese Furniture in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. In 2004 he wrote the catalogue for the collection of Dr. Ignazio Vok that was exhibited at the Museum fur Ostasiatische Kunst in Cologne. In 2007 he contributed the entry on Chinese furniture for, ‘The Seventy Wonders of China,’ published by Thames & Hudson. He is asked by museums in the US and Europe to advise on the acquisition, disposal, cataloging and re-attribution of Chinese furniture in their collections. He continues to deal privately in Chinese art.

Rosie Mills 

Responsible for medieval to mid nineteenth-century works, Dr Mills joined the Decorative Arts and Design department in 2013. She is currently curating Eternal Medium: Seeing the World in Stone (2023) which examines the aesthetics of the rich but little-known medium of hardstones. She also recently co-curated the exhibition Conversing in Clay: Ceramics from the LACMA Collection (2022) that illuminates LACMA’s permanent collection by comparing contemporary ceramic acquisitions with earlier examples from across the museum. Mills previously curated The Stowe Vase: From Ancient Art to Additive Manufacturing (2016), and her 2020 article on nineteenth-century silver versions of this important Roman antiquity at LACMA was featured on the cover of the prestigious Burlington Magazine. She was co-curator of an exhibition of contemporary art jewelry Beyond Bling: Jewelry from the Lois Boardman Collection (2016), co-editing the accompanying catalogue, and Close-Up and Personal: Eighteenth-Century Gold Boxes from the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection (2014).

Prior to LACMA, Mills worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on two major refurbishment projects Europe 1600-1815 Galleries (2015) and the Medieval & Renaissance Galleries (2009). Before this, she served as Researcher and Assistant to the Curator at The Stained Glass Museum in Cambridgeshire. Mills holds a PhD in Medieval Art and an MA in Museum Studies from the University of East Anglia, UK, as well as an MA in Medieval Architecture from London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, and a BA in Art History and Archaeology from San Francisco State University.

Alice Minter

Alice Minter joined the V&A as Curator of the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection in July 2018. Prior to that, she worked for 10 years at Sotheby’s London as specialist in ceramics, silver and gold boxes. Alice has co-curated a ground-breaking display:  Concealed Histories: Uncovering the story of Nazi Looting Art (6 December – 10 January 2021) and curated the Touring exhibition Masterpieces in miniatures: treasures from the Rosalinde & Arthur Gilbert Collection (2021-2024). She is now leading a complete refurbishment and expansion of the Gilbert Galleries, due to open in late 2025. Alongside these projects, Alice is a member of the vetting committee at TEFAF,  a member of the Silver Society committee and a trustee of the Strawberry Hill Collection Trust. 

Detail of pietra dura work from the Diwan-i Am, Delhi Palace and Fort, (Painting), ca. 1845 (292F-1871) © Victoria and Albert Museum, London