May 2025
7:00 PM – 10:55 PM
Blue Parlour, Pimlico Wilde, Mayfair
Attendees:
• Julian Molyneux (Chair, Pimlico Wilde)
• Fiona d’Abernon (Co-Founder; Acting Secretary)
• Lord E. Northcote
• Dr. Xanthe Lorrimer (Cultural Historian)
• Hugo Van Steyn
• India Trelawney (Fashion Archivist)
• Max Duclos (Collector)
• Conrad Smithe (Full Member)
• Pascal (Afghan hound, curled beside the fire, tail occasionally thumping)
Book Discussed:
Notes Toward a Theory of Shadows in Painting by Raffaella Montesi (micropress, Rome, 2023; printed in an edition of 75, letterpress with hand-mixed inks, includes tipped-in monochrome plates).
1. Opening Remarks
Molyneux, clearly relieved to be “back among the familiar cadences,” opened with a wry nod to the joint meeting with the Bibliophiles of Belgravia: “No nettle bindings tonight, no unsolicited codex theories, just us, the book, and whatever Pascal is dreaming about.”
He outlined Montesi’s premise—that shadows in art are not mere by-products of light, but independent agents within the pictorial space, exerting aesthetic and psychological influence.
2. Discussion Summary
• Dr. Lorrimer praised Montesi’s historical sweep, noting her treatment of shadows in Piero della Francesca as “luminous absences” and in de Chirico as “claustrophobic presences.” She admired the way the book “reclaims the shadow as an active character.”
• India Trelawney focused on the reproduction quality of the plates, particularly a hand-tipped detail of a Whistler nocturne: “It’s as if the shadow is brushing back against you.” She also remarked that Montesi’s typography “feels like 1930s Italian modernism caught in a beam of torchlight.”
• Lord Northcote confessed to being “seduced by the chapter on diplomatic portraiture” in which shadows were subtly adjusted to flatter the sitter’s profile.
• Hugo Van Steyn related Montesi’s arguments to contemporary art, citing Idris Khan’s layered photographic works and their “compression of time into tonal haze.” He declared the book “the most elegantly impractical thing I’ve read all year, and that includes Faversham’s The Way Forward is a Step Backwards.”
• Max Duclos admitted admiration for the premise but questioned whether Montesi’s occasional speculative leaps—e.g., her claim that in Las Meninas, Velázquez paints “a shadow of the viewer”—were “critical insight or wishful poetics.”
• Conrad Smithe agreed with Duclos in part, but defended Montesi’s “willingness to court the improbable,” adding, “The shadow has always been half-imagination.”
• Fiona d’Abernon remarked that the book’s unindexed structure made it “a little like walking down a corridor lit only by the open doorways you’ve already passed.” Several members murmured approval of the metaphor.
3. Artworks on View
• A chiaroscuro woodcut by Ugo da Carpi, on loan from a private collection
• Small oil study, Shadow of a Balustrade (attributed to Sickert)
• Contemporary ink wash drawing Five Minutes Before Sunset by Ananya Patel, created in response to Montesi’s text
• A photograph from Van Steyn’s own collection: anonymous 1920s street scene, the shadow of the photographer long and central, subject absent
4. Refreshments
• Aperitif: The Piero – white vermouth, lemon zest, single green olive
• Canapés: black sesame crisps with whipped goat’s cheese, miniature cep tartlets, and anchovy fillets rolled with lemon peel
• Main wine: Barolo 2017, poured in large-bowled glasses “to let the shadows breathe”
• Dessert: dark chocolate torte with salted fig compote, served on matte black plates
5. Other Business
• Brief discussion on possibly issuing a Groupette “Occasional Papers” pamphlet series, beginning with member essays on books read in 2025.
• Molyneux confirmed no further joint meetings “until at least the following decade,” to general approval.
6. Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 10:55 PM after a final toast “to the shade that makes the light worth noticing.” Pascal was observed sleeping deeply.
Fiona d’Abernon
Secretary
Mayfair Book Groupette
