"convincingly re-attributed"
July 11 2011
Picture: V&A
Self-congratulatory post alert: the V&A have agreed with me that their Portrait of an Unknown Woman and Child formerly attributed to Joseph Highmore is in fact by Andrea Soldi. I first made the suggestion here a few weeks ago. The V&A have even been kind enough to give me a generous credit on their online catalogue:
Formerly attributed to Joseph Highmore (1692-1780), in 2011 the painting was convincingly re-attributed by Bendor Grosvenor (see History 2, curator's comments) to Andrea Soldi (ca. 1703-71), a Florentine painter who arrived in London in 1736.
Read the full argument here. It's great that the V&A put full historiographical information on their website, and are happy to have discussions over attributions. It's also (sorry, I can't resist this) quite a contrast with the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, who, despite eventually heeding my suggestion that they had the wrong Prince, only ever spoke to me to say I was wrong...
