16th Century
Piero di Cosimo's Magdalene at the Palazzo Venezia, Rome
April 17 2026
Video: TG2000
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Palazzo Venezia in Rome are opening a new exhibition today investigating Piero di Cosimo's painting of the Magdalene alongside other examples of the decorative arts from that period. The display will run until 5th July 2026.
Elizabeth I - Queen & Court at Philip Mould & Co
April 14 2026
Picture: Philip Mould & Co
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
London dealers Philip Mould & Co will be opening a new exhibition on Pall Mall next month entitled Elizabeth I - Queen & Court. Here's a write up from artnet.com.
According to their website:
This spring, the gallery presents Elizabeth I: Queen and Court, an exhibition exploring how portraiture shaped one of Britain’s most iconic reigns. Featuring outstanding Tudor works drawn from private collections, the exhibition includes the earliest surviving life-size, full-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, alongside portraits of some of the key figures from her close circle of courtiers and confidantes. These rarely seen paintings reveal how portraiture functioned as a tool of power and was used to project authority, secure allegiance, and, in rare cases, register dissent.
Mohun Double Portrait acquired by YCBA
April 14 2026
Picture: YCBA
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Yale Center for British Art have announced their acquisition of the following double portrait of Sir Reginald Mohun and Dorothy Mohun (née Chudleigh) by an unknown artist.
According to their Facebook post:
Painted to celebrate the marriage of Sir Reginald Mohun to Dorothy Chudleigh in 1602, the painting marks the first occasion in British art that wife and husband were depicted together at full length. This innovation frees space for the newlyweds to express mutual affection through their body language, and they take the opportunity to tenderly intertwine their arms.
Moreover, the format puts the sitters’ fashionable clothes on full display. The circular pendant on Dorothy’s dress appears to be porphyry, an extremely hard stone embodying love’s endurance. The material was mined locally to the Mohuns’s home and the workshop that produced this portrait in the South of England.
Regular visitors to art fairs will have known this painting from the Weiss Gallery stand, who presumably made the sale to the YCBA (?)
Update - Confirmation has arrived that the Weiss Gallery did indeed make the sale, many congratulations to all involved!
Tour of the MET's Raphael Exhibition
April 13 2026
Video: MET
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
For those not able to make it to New York to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art's recently opened Raphael exhibition, here's a video providing a tour with the curators and staff.
Research Tudor Paint Samples at the NPG
April 13 2026
Picture: NPG
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Portrait Gallery in London are hiring a part-time Conservation Project Researcher.
According to the job description:
The National Portrait Gallery holds the world’s most significant public collection of Tudor and Jacobean paintings. Between 2007 and 2012, its transformative research project ‘Making Art in Tudor Britain’ generated unprecedented heritage-science data on 120 portraits from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. A central element of the project was the taking of paint samples, mounted as cross-sections, to investigate paint composition and structure. However, images and detailed metadata from these cross-sections are not currently in formats suitable for broad dissemination.
The missing piece: sharing cross-sections from the ‘Making Art in Tudor Britain’ project is a research initiative supported by Heritage Science Data Service Small Grants Programme. You will take a key role delivering the project, with responsibility to identify cross-sections produced during the original research; extract relevant metadata from the reports; re-photograph samples; review and align metadata with the new images; and prepare the full dataset for sharing with HSDS for wider dissemination.
The part-time role, fixed for 6 months, comes with a salary of £11,622 and applications must be in by 27th April 2026.
Good luck if you're applying!
Schongauer's Madonna of the Rose Bower being Conserved
March 23 2026
Picture: wikipedia
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The German news site dw.com have published some photographs of the restoration of Martin Schongauer's Madonna of the Rose Bower. The painting, which is owned by the Dominican Church in Colmar, France, is being restored for an exhibition in the Louvre at some point in the near future. As the restoration is taking place in the church, visitors to the building will be able to watch the process live in action.
MET acquire Rosso Fiorentino
March 20 2026
Picture: MET
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York have announced their intended acquisition of Rosso Fiorentino's Madonna and Child with Saint John the Evangelist.
According to the press release:
Madonna and Child with Saint John the Evangelist, thought to be lost for centuries, was newly identified during a recent conservation treatment that removed a layer of overpaint on the canvas, revealing the remarkable figure of Saint John the Evangelist in the foreground of the picture plane. The reemergence of the figure—after perhaps centuries of being overpainted—made clear that this is the seminal painting described in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists as the work that launched the young Florentine artist’s career. [...]
Stephan Wolohojian, John Pope-Hennessy Curator in Charge of the Department of European Paintings, added: “Paintings by Rosso are exceedingly rare, numbering only about two dozen, and many of his most celebrated works remain undocumented or unfinished. The discussion of this painting in Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, often described as the first book of art history, gives the work the added distinction of having been part of art-historical discourse since the discipline’s inception. Executed on canvas and preserved in remarkably good condition, it is the artist’s earliest recorded painting to survive. This work will anchor The Met’s collection of 16th-century religious paintings, an exceptional and complementary group that elucidates key developments in painting for private devotion during the first quarter of the 16th century in Italy.”
Rediscovered Hans Süss Von Kulmbach up for sale
March 12 2026
Picture: Giquello / Drouot
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News has arrived that a rare rediscovered head study by Hans Süss Von Kulmbach, a contemporary of Dürer, will be offered by Giquello at Drouot on 31st March 2026. The work, which was researched by Cabinet Turquin, will be offered carrying an estimate of €200,000 - €300,000. Click on the link above to read the full catalogue note.
Upcoming Release: Titian & Save Venice - Conserving Six Masterpieces
March 12 2026
Picture: Save Venice
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Venetian conservation organisation Save Venice are releasing a new book next month detailing the restoration of six Titians which they have supported over the years. The publication was edited by Dr. Davide Gasparotto and Dr. Gabriele Matino.
According to their website:
During his career, Titian produced some of the most innovative paintings of his time, becoming the most celebrated Italian painter in Europe. Since 1971, Save Venice has supported the restoration of many of his masterpieces, including "Saint Mark Enthroned" (Basilica della Salute), the "Assumption of the Virgin" and the "Madonna di Ca’ Pesaro" (Basilica dei Frari), the "Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple" (Gallerie dell’Accademia), the "Annunciation" at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, and the "Annunciation" in the Malchiostro Chapel in Treviso Cathedral. Funded by Save Venice with the support of Christopher Todd Page, this volume presents discoveries from these conservation campaigns, offering new insights into Titian’s creative process and technique, and publishing previously unseen details from the Save Venice photographic archive, alongside reflections by conservators and leading scholars.
El Greco in the mirror: two paintings in dialogue at the Castel Gandolfo
March 11 2026
Picture: villepontificie.va
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Vatican Museums are opening a new exhibition at the Castel Gandolfo on Saturday (14th March) dedicated to the recent conservation of a painting by El Greco of the Redeemer, a work which was gifted to Pope Paul VI in 1967. The work had previously been covered by extensive and poor quality overpainting. Research has also revealed two other compositions underneath the paint surface. It will be displayed alongside a St Francis by the same artist.
Michelange-eerrrr-no...rediscovered?
March 6 2026
Picture: lesoir.be
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Michelangelo rediscoveries are coming in thick and fast these days. Social media has been awash with news from Belgium that a Michelangelo, which is clearly not a Michelangelo, has been 'rediscovered' in the country. The work was purchased by a collector in an Italian auction who has since discovered 'monogram' potentially by the artist. The attribution was purportedly revealed to the press by Michel Draguet, former director and CEO of The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.
Bust Reattributed to Michelangelo by Archival Researcher
March 5 2026
Video: TG2000
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that a bust of Christ the Saviour, kept in the Basilica of Sant’Agnese in Rome, has been reattributed by independent researcher Valentina Salerno to Michelangelo. Although considered the work of the master in the early nineteenth century, the attribution had fallen out of favour in subsequent centuries. Salerno's work has focused on archival materials relating to what happened to the artist's works after his death, and how the bust may have ended up in the Basilica (we will await more precise details).
Michelangelo's Last Judgement Up Close
March 2 2026
Video: @Vaticanmuseums
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Vatican Museums have published this rather pleasing video of the continuing conservation of Michelangelo's Last Judgement. The details, made possible by a scaffold, are quite spectacular to admire even in this short segment.
El Greco's Martyrdom of Saint Maurice to be Restored
February 27 2026
Video: El Debate
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's a video showing the transportation of El Greco's The Martyrdom of Saint Maurice from the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial near Madrid to conservation studios ready for treatment. This latest campaign of restoration, undertaken by Rafael Alonso, is expected to take several months before its redisplay and eventual return to the monastery.
Raphael Visitation Returning to L’Aquila after 371 years
February 26 2026
Picture: Prado
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Raphael's Visitation, dated to 1517, will be returning for a special exhibition in L’Aquila after being taken from the town by Spanish troops in 1655. The picture, which is now housed in the Prado Museum, will be placed in a special exhibition exploring the dialogue between the master's work and Pontormo’s Visitation of Carmignano. The display will open at the National Museum of Abruzzo on 27th June 2026.
Prado Conserve Van Orley
February 25 2026
Video: Prado via Instagram
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Prado in Madrid have published the following video on their Instagram page regarding the recent restoration of Bernaert van Orley's The Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John.
Upcoming Publication: Holbein's Wit
February 17 2026
Picture: Harvey Miller
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Cambridge professor Alexander Marr's new book entitled Holbein’s Wit Pictorial Ingenuity in Renaissance Art will be published by Harvey Miller in the summer.
Here's the blurb:
Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8–1543) is renowned as an outstandingly realistic painter—the acme of Renaissance naturalism. In fact, he was a purveyor of cunning ambiguity. Holbein’s Wit: Pictorial Ingenuity in Renaissance Art reveals the artist at play, juggling the uncertainties and paradoxes that arise in the enterprise of imitation. Spanning Holbein’s career in Basel and London, and encompassing his portraits, devotional paintings, and designs for prints and the decorative arts, the book explores this celebrated artist’s subtle pictorial wiles. Holbein was immersed in the multi-faceted world of Renaissance ingenium or ‘wit’, which could mean innate talent, mental acuity, generative capacity, and a person’s unique nature. In dialogue with witty patrons such as Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas More, Holbein advanced an ingenious kind of artmaking characterised by visual jokes, puns, and internal contradictions. Responding to humanism’s literary conceits with an inventive pictorial language, he upended conventional assumptions about naturalism and the status of painting to assert the worth of an autonomous artistic intelligence.
The Goltzius Family at the Limburgs Museum
February 9 2026
Picture: Limburgs Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Limburgs Museum in Venlo, the Netherlands, have just opened a new exhibition on the Goltzius family of painters.
According to the museum's website:
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Goltzius family, originally from Venlo, grew into one of Europe’s most well-known families of artists. Their innovative and much-loved work can be found everywhere: from living rooms to royal palaces.
In The Goltzius Family – Masters from Venlo, the Limburgs Museum brings together the full story of the family for the first time. See how generations of the Goltzius family inspired each other, how they worked together and how their talent spread across Europe. Their prints show not only great craftsmanship, but also a close family bond that manages to bridge time and distance.
Michelangelo's Foot realises $23.1m Hammer
February 5 2026
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The aforementioned study of a foot by Michelangelo at Christie's New York soared past its $2m - $3m estimate this afternoon to realise a total of $23.1m (hammer), which is $27.2m including commission. An impressive work of art, and a now staggering price to go along with it, considering its size.
The National Gallery's Dürer is right, says new Taschen volume
February 4 2026
Picture: Taschen / The National Gallery, London
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A portrait in The National Gallery, which was featured in the gallery's 2024 German paintings catalogue as a copy of a lost original by Albrecht Dürer, has been upgraded to the artist in full in a new volume of the complete paintings published by Taschen (which was released back in November 2025). The lead author of the volume, Christof Metzger, chief curator of Albertina Vienna, has described the work 'Quite simply: it is of outstanding artistic and technical quality and bears no trace of being a copy'. Click on the link above to read the full story.
