19th Century
What happened to the Duchess of Alba's Renoir
January 7 2026
Picture: elmundo.es
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Spanish news outlet El Mundo have published an article following the later and winding history of Renoir's The Cherry Hat. The picture was acquired by the Duchess of Alba in 1973 and was later divided amongst her children on her death in 2014 (rather than kept in the family's foundation). The picture has now turned up in a dealer's collection in the USA. Click on the link to read the full story.
Pearlman Foundation Gifts on Display at LACMA in February
January 7 2026
Picture: lacma
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will be opening a new exhibition in February dedicated to the The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation which have been gifted to the Brooklyn Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York respectively. The gift includes works by Cézanne, Van Gogh, Modigliani, Degas, Soutine, Manet, Gauguin, Toulouse Lautrec, Sisley and more.
According to their website:
Comprising an exceptional group of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and modern artworks, the Pearlman Collection will be gifted across the three institutions in a novel sharing arrangement that will enhance access to larger and more diverse audiences through continually changing contexts.
In recognition of the late Pearlmans' generous spirit, the collection will travel as an exhibition before being placed under the care of the respective institutions. From February to July 2026, the exhibition Village Square: Gifts of Modern Art from the Pearlman Collection to the Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, and MoMA will be on view at LACMA, and in the fall of 2026 the collection will travel to the Brooklyn Museum. In the near future, MoMA will also present an exhibition of the Pearlman gifts.
Colnaghi Cleans Sorolla
December 30 2025
Picture: @colnaghi1760 via Instagram
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The dealers Colnaghi have shared some rather pleasing before and after photos of the recently cleaned Little Elena at her Desk by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida.
According to their post:
Exhibited internationally between 1901 and 1911, the work was reproduced in Hispania as Portrait of my daughter and remained in the Sorolla family collection.
Painted Mineral Cabinet Soars
December 22 2025
Picture: drouot
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The following painted Mineral Cabinet, showing specimens belonging to the King, soared at auction in France last week. Painted by Alexandre-Isidore Leroy, the work flew past its estimate of €20,000 - €30,000 to achieve €530,000 (hammer) at Beaussant Lefèvre & Associés.
Turner's Auction Acquisitions
December 17 2025
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Christie's have published an interesting article online by Melissa Chaplin, head of their archives in London, on the acquisitions JMW Turner made at auction. Click on the link to read the full article.
MET acquires Købke
December 10 2025
Picture: MET
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm slow to news (which has been picked up here by La Tribune de l'art) that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has acquired Christen Købke's portrait of his sister Sophie Købke.
According to the museum's website:
Christen Købke was one of eleven siblings. He portrayed his elder sister Sophie in the parlor of the Kastellet, the fortress of Copenhagen, where their father served as overseer of the bakery. The casual refinement of Sophie’s middle-class respectability is of a piece with the up-to-date Biedermeier style of the setting. This painting served a dual function: first, as an independent portrait and, second, as the model for the far larger portrait of another sister, Conradine Feilberg (private collection).
Cataloguing Turner's Sketchbooks Ends
December 10 2025
Video: Paul Mellon Centre
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A collaborative project to catalogue JMW Turner's sketchbooks has just ended. This mammoth task, shared between Tate and the Paul Mellon Centre, has seen the cataloguing of 37,000 drawings, sketches and watercolours by the artist. Click here to access the website which allows visitors to have for themselves!
Women Artists of Düsseldorf
December 2 2025
Picture: kulturstiftung.de
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm slow to news that the Düsseldorf Kunstpalast opened a new exhibition in September drawing attention to the female artists of the Düsseldorf School of Painting. Drawing on artists from the 19th and early 20th centuries, the show will include works by the likes of Paula Monjé (1844–1919), Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann (1819–1881), Marie Wiegmann (1820–1893) and Gabriele Münter (1977–1962).
The show will run until 1st February 2026.
The Pattle Sisters at The Watts Gallery
November 27 2025
Picture: The Watts Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Watts Gallery in Surrey are opening a new exhibition today dedicated to the Pattle sisters.
According to the gallery's website:
This exhibition brings to life the legacy of seven extraordinary Anglo-Indian sisters whose influence rippled through the worlds of art, literature, photography, and society.
Nicknamed “Pattledom” by the writer William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), the sisters’ world was one of rich cross-cultural exchange, where Anglo-Indian heritage, European influence, and artistic experimentation converged in a vibrant social sphere that defied Victorian convention.
Whilst the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) is today the most celebrated of the seven Pattle sisters, this exhibition uncovers their collective impact through artistic experimentation, intellectual exchange, and the creation of an extraordinary cultural salon at Little Holland House in Kensington. Here, artists, writers, scientists, musicians, and politicians gathered each week, drawn into the orbit of the dynamic Pattle women and the visionary painter G F Watts, who lived and worked amongst them.
The show will run until 3rd May 2026.
Russian Pictures Soar
November 26 2025
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
One of the corners of the market that is performing consistently well these days are Russian pictures and decorative arts. The Sotheby's London Fabergé, Imperial & Revolutionary Art sale realised £14,164,231 (all prices inc. commission) yesterday. This is actually more than several of the Old Master Evening sales in London over the past few years. The six fully-attributed works by Ivan Aivazovsky, the master of the marine genre, soared past their combined high estimate of £5.05m to achieve £6.16m in total. These pictures were sourced from European private collections including those from Italy and Sweden (according to the catalogue notes).
BBC Turner Documentary
November 20 2025
Picture: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm late to news that a new BBC Documentary, which aired in the UK yesterday evening, has explored the 'Secret Sketchbooks' of JMW Turner. The Guardian's article on the programme draws attention to claims from officials at the National Autistic Society that Turner may have been neurodivergent. Read more via the link above.
Scharf Collection on Display in Berlin
November 17 2025
Picture: Alte Nationalgalerie
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin opened a new exhibition at the end of last month dedicated to works on loan from the Scharf Collection.
According to their website:
The Scharf Collection, one of the most significant private art collections in Germany, is being showcased in a large-scale exhibition for the very first time. The collection primarily consists of French art from the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as international contemporary artworks.
The exhibition in the Alte Nationalgalerie presents a selection of some 150 items, including prominent artworks by the likes of Auguste Renoir, Pierre Bonnard, Edgar Degas and Claude Monet, and takes visitors on a journey through the collection: from Goya and French Realism to the French Impressionists and Cubists to contemporary art. One special highlight is a selection of prints by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, which have been fully preserved in the collection.
The show will run until 15th February 2026.
Constable 250 in Ipswich
November 16 2025
Picture: Ipswich Museums
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Ipswich Museums in Suffolk will be celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the birth of John Constable with a series of special exhibitions at Christchurch Mansion in 2026.
According to their website:
To commemorate his life and work Colchester and Ipswich Museums present Constable 250, a programme of exhibitions and activities at the heart of which will be three landmark exhibitions at Ipswich’s Christchurch Mansion, featuring works from CIMS own collections alongside major loans from across the UK.
Here are the three main exhibitions that will be on display alongside their respective dates:
Constable: A Cast of Characters
28 March – 14 June 2026
Constable: Walking the Landscape
11 July – 4 October 2026
Constable to Contemporary
24 October 2026 – 28 February 2027
Sir Francis Grant's Society Sketchbook at Dickinson
November 13 2025
Picture: simondickinson.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The London dealers Dickinson will be opening a special selling exhibition next week of sheets from the portrait painter Sir Francis Grant's sketchbooks.
According to their website:
This winter, Dickinson will open a major selling exhibition of the drawings of Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A. (1803 – 1878). This group of drawings is the largest collection of Grant’s works assembled today and numbers over 250 individual pieces, all of which have descended directly in the artist’s family. [...].
None of the works included in this exhibition have ever been exhibited or offered for sale. Indeed, they were never intended by Grant for public exhibition, as the vast majority are sketches of personal subjects. His numerous pen-and-ink drawings of his beloved wife and children are particularly sensitive and intimate. The same can be said of his often humorous and insightful sketches of his large coterie of aristocratic, artistic and sporting friends. Through these drawings, we can build an accurate picture not only of the life of Victorian high society at work and at play, but also of Grant as a warm and sociable character – a skilled artist who was constantly absorbed in observing and sketching his companions.
Click here to see the full online catalogue. The display will run from 19th November until 19th December 2025.
Wadsworth Atheneum acquire Frederic Church Meteor
November 13 2025
Picture: Wadsworth Atheneum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Wadsworth Atheneum announced their acquisition earlier this year of Frederic Church's The Meteor. The picture was acquired from a private collection through the dealers Hazlitts.
According to the museum's Facebook post:
A rare meteor procession streaked across the North American skies on the night of July 20, 1860.
Frederic Church saw it from his farm near Catskill in upstate New York. The extraordinary sight seared itself into his memory. He captured the meteor on paper in this magnificent painting which he kept his entire life.
Church saw the fiery comet as a warning of national catastrophe as tensions over slavery threatened to tear the country apart. A #Hartford native, Church believed American democracy was born in our city—yet in the summer of 1860, he saw it in crisis. The Civil War began less than a year later.
Two Van Gogh Sunflowers in Philadelphia in June 2026
November 10 2025
Picture: artnews.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Philadelphia Art Museum will be opening a new show next summer dedicated to the reuniting of two flowerflower paintings by Vincent Van Gogh.
According to artnews.com:
The exhibition, which is set to run from June 6 to October 11, 2026, will be titled “Van Gogh’s Sunflowers: A Symphony in Blue and Yellow”. It will feature the PAM’s Sunflowers (1889), with its distinct turquoise background, and the artist’s original iteration of the subject Sunflowers (1888), with the better-known yellow background.
The exhibition is part of an ongoing collaboration between the two institutions. The PAM loaned its Sunflowers to the National Gallery last year for an show, marking the first time the work had left the museum since its acquisition in 1963. The National Gallery Sunflowers, which it acquired in 1924, has only traveled abroad four times.
Update - Here's the original exclusive article from The Art Newspaper.
$12m - $18m Turner in Christie's New York 20th Century Evening Sale
November 7 2025
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Interesting news that Christie's New York will be offering a magnificent Turner in their 20th Century Evening Sale (alongside all the usual big-ticket 20th century artists) on 17th November 2025. Ehrenbreitstein, or The Bright Stone of Honour and the Tomb of Marceau, from Byron’s 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' will be sold from the collection of Elaine Wynn carrying an estimate of $12m - $18m.
The picture last sold at Sotheby's London in 2017 where it made £18,533,750 (inc. commission) over its estimate of £17m - £25m.
Sleeper Alert!
November 6 2025
Picture: Dreweatts
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Amongst the lots that soared in the Dreweatts sale yesterday was the following 'Circle of Horace Vernet' which realised £120,000 (hammer) over its £3 - 5k estimate (spotted via @Auctionscion). Quite a few lots in the sale did rather well, click through to have a browse through the entire auction results.
Unseen Renoir to be offered in Paris
November 6 2025
Video: PBS
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
American broadcasters have reported on news of an unseen Renoir that is coming up for sale at Drouot (via Christophe Joron-Derem) on 25th November. The picture depicts the young Jean Renoir, future filmmaker, and Gabrielle Renard, the painter's nanny and muse. It will be offered carrying an estimate of €1 - 1.5m.
Direct the Watts Gallery
October 27 2025
Picture: Peridot
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Watts Gallery in Surrey are looking for a new Director.
According to the job advert:
Working collaboratively with the board of trustees, staff and volunteers, the Director will provide clear and focused leadership to shape a bold, creative and resilient future for Watts Gallery.
With a focus on driving financial sustainability, accentuating our point of difference and developing current and new audiences, our next Director will be an enabling, proactive and sensitively progressive leader with a can-do and creative approach.
Who we are looking for
We are seeking an experienced leader, capable of driving empathetic modernisation and change, and who brings the vision, creative energy and commercial aptitude to safeguard the future of Watts Gallery Trust for generations to come.
The job comes with a salary of £75,000 - 85,000 per annum and applications must be in by 10th November 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
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This news provides another opportunity to share my enthusiasm for the following videos produced by former Watts Gallery curator Richard Jefferies.
