Category: Discoveries
National Trust picks up a bargain
November 16 2012
Picture: Christie's
Good to see that the National Trust is not averse to a spot bargain hunting. Curators at Dunham Massey will soon be receiving the above portrait of George Booth, 1st Lord Delamer, bought at Christie's in New York for just $2,125. In their Arts Bulletin, the Trust reveals that it found some extra provenance linking the picture to the house. But despite their purchase, the Trust seem cautious about firmly identifying the sitter, although it's a dead ringer for their other portrait of Delamer, attributed to Lely.
More on that lost 'n found Renoir
November 16 2012
Picture: Washington Post. Susan Helen Adler, niece of Saidie Adler May, poses outside the Baltimore Museum of Art. On her T-shirt is a photo of the stolen Renoir.
That Renoir bought in a flea market for just $7, and which turned out to have been stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art, has renewed tensions between the museum and the family of the collector who donated the picture to the museum, Saidie Adler May. From The Washington Post:
The relatives said they believe that the museum has not always safeguarded their family’s donations. Until late October, the descendants didn’t know that art donated by May’s sister, Blanche Adler, a prominent BMA donor, also had been stolen from the museum. They also complained that the museum does not display enough of May’s art.
Museum officials said the thefts happened a long time ago, and security has been beefed up considerably since. They noted that the museum can show off only so much from one family’s collection, and that May’s mix of classical and Egyptian works, Renaissance textiles, 20th-century European paintings, and even a Jackson Pollock, was given with no strings attached.
More on the Prado's new Titian
November 13 2012
A reader has kindly alerted me to the above video, in which we can briefly see the Prado's St John the Baptist by Titian before it was restored. It looks very damaged, but much better.
I've asked the Prado for an image of the picture in its stripped down state, but answer comes there none...
How not to restore Titian toes
November 7 2012
Picture: Museo Prado
A reader has secretly sent me a high-resolution image of the Prado's newly restored Titian discovery. Just for now, I'll treat you to a close-up of the toes.
Giotto, or Grotto?
November 7 2012
Picture: Telegraph
Restoration work at the Chapel of St Nicholas in the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi, which was damaged in an earthquake in 1997, has revealed evidence to suggest the frescoes may be the work of Giotto. More here.
Update - a reader writes:
If Ghiberti thought he was at Assisi it's good enough for me. If you look at his evolution between the Arena Chapel in 1305 and the Bardi Chapel in 1325, the St Francis cycle could be the same painter in the 1290s. The secondary figures in the Arena Chapel are like figures from Assisi. Giotto is the moment painting starts walking on two legs. I don't think he ditched the icon style overnight.
New Titian discovery unveiled at the Prado
November 5 2012
Picture: Museo Prado
In September, I mentioned (actually, it was a bit of scoop, in English at least) that the Prado would soon be unveiling a newly discovered Titian of St John the Baptist from their collection. Now, the restoration of this previously over-looked and much damaged original has been completed, and the picture will be the subject of a new mini-exhibition. From the Prado website:
Saint John the Baptist is the only work by Titian in the Prado not to have originally been in the Spanish royal collections. Rather, it came via the Museo de la Trinidad, entering the Museum in 1872 as by an “anonymous Madrid School artist of the seventeenth century”. As such it was sent fourteen years later to the parish church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen in Cantoria in the province of Almeria.
[...] in 2007 the Museum embarked on a study of the work, reaching the conclusion that it was not a copy but an original by Titian. Technical characteristics such as the preparatory layer of white lead with added calcium carbonate as well as the similarity between the landscape and those found in other works by the artist of the early 1550s allowed for its date to be established.
The painting arrived at the Museum in extremely poor physical condition. The recent, outstanding restoration by Clara Quintanilla has recovered the composition’s legibility by re-establishing the balance between the figure and its setting. Furthermore, in the less damaged areas (the sky and landscape) it is now possible to appreciate Titian’s grandeur and subtlety. The importance of this new Saint John the Baptist is not, however, aesthetic (the work is too damaged) but rather documentary. Firstly, research has shown that this was one of the artist’s most popular religious compositions in Spain, evident in the large number of copies that have been identified. The fact that the earliest are from Zaragoza and nearby suggest that the painting’s first owner lived there, who may well have been Martín de Gurrea y Aragón, 4th Duke of Villahermosa (1526-1581). Secondly, the painting constitutes an exceptionally important record of how Titian repeated his compositions (see below). Finally, it provides information on the other two versions of the subject, strengthening the arguments for the autograph status of the El Escorial painting, which has recently been questioned.
All very interesting, but excuse me for saying that, on the basis of this photo, the restoration leaves something to be desired. The formless drapery, the overly rendered face, and in fact most of the body (what's with those curious toes?), looks as if it has been restored in the same workshop as the famous Fresco Jesus. It's interesting that the Prado has not published a high resolution image - surely, if the museum wants us to believe that, despite the damage, this is really a Titian, we need to not only see a decent photo of the picture as it is now, but, more importantly, one showing the picture stripped down, so that at least we can see what remains of original Titian there are left (not much, I suspect).
Update - find more coverage in The Art Newspaper.
Update II - a reader writes:
In light of the most recent case (Titian, ‘St John the Baptist’, Prado) do you agree that restorers should, in such drastic cases, be strictly prohibited from extensively repainting canvases? The most important value of any painting, whatever remains of it, is artistic, and that lies solely in the original and not in any subsequent repainting that hopes to represent what the original might have once looked like. In such drastic cases (here, of the entire work, only the lamb seems to have been left relatively undisturbed) they might as well have started a fresh canvas, perhaps then placing it alongside the damaged but stabilised work for the sake of comparison. What’s the point of covering up a Titian??
Take your important Queen Henrietta Maria Van Dyck as a valid case in point. Whatever the state of the original was, you vested all of your primary interest in the overpainted hand of Van Dyck. This understandably justified the stripping away of the perhaps more compositionally pleasing 18th Century additions, and this despite running the risk of ending up with no composition to appreciate at all. In Spain’s latest Titian case, the thought process was totally reversed. I’m guessing the Fresco Jesus Fever (FJF) didn’t help when deciding the original’s fate. Perhaps the Prado are looking for a new pop icon? They in fact used the same… logic? as Ms Gimenez.
Titian approves of this message.
In this case, I think I agree. Though of course I would want to see an image of the stripped down Titian first.
Elizabeth I goes to Moscow
November 1 2012
Picture: Kremlin Museum
The earliest full-length portrait of Elizabeth I is the star attraction at a new exhibition on the English Tudor and Stuart court at Moscow's Kremlin museum. The picture is a favourite of mine - when Philip Mould bought it in 2007, I spent a long time researching it with Dr David Starkey. Amazingly, it had never been published before, so there was plenty of work to do. Philip wrote a chapter on the process in his book, Sleuth.
The exhibition is being put on jointly by the V&A, and the portrait will be displayed at the V&A next year from 9th March. In the meantime, you can find more details on on our research here.
Rehabilitating Velasquez
October 24 2012
Picture: Prado/Met
The Prado has borrowed the Met's recently re-discovered Velasquez. This video about the restoration of the picture is worth a click.
Both the Prado and the Met call it an unknown sitter. To me, it feels like a self-portrait, both compositionally and in its unfinished state. It looks very like him too, don't you think? The picture bears a close resemblance to a head on the far right in Velasquze's Surrender of Breda, which was once thought to be a self-portrait, though the Prado's website says that this idea 'is no longer accepted'. Personally, the head in question in The Surrender also feels to me like a cheeky self-portrait, in the way it beckons you towards it at the edge of the canvas. Such a conceit is of course not uncommon.
Sleeper of the week?
October 24 2012
Picture: Brussels Auctions
A reader alerts me to a high price made for the above 'Ecole Italienne' view of the Vatican, which made EUR215,000 (hammer) against a EUR2-3,000 estimate. Regular readers will remember the Gaspar van Wittel potential sleeper which fetched a whopping £718,850 at Sotheby's last year. Has Wittel struck again?
Of course, I completely missed both of them...
A Holbein sitter identified?
October 15 2012
Picture: Royal Collection/Telegraph
Conservation of a Holbein in the Royal Collection has revealed more clues about the identity of the sitter. I'll try and get more images, like x-rays, from the Royal Collection. But I'm a bit pushed for time today, so for now, find the basic story here.
Update - see more images and the x-ray here.
Update II - find further details here at the NPG, and watch a talk by Royal Collection curator Clare Chorley here.
Long live Charles III
October 4 2012
Picture: Highland Council/PCF
Fellow Jacobites will be pleased to see this portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie firmly catalogued as 'Charles III' on the Your Paintings website. It belongs to the Highland Council, which gives you some idea of the residual Jacobite loyalties up in highland Scotland.
The artist is given as 'Attributed to Pompeo Battoni'. But it is of course a Hugh Douglas Hamilton type, and would appear to be by him. You can see another version here at the NPG. It's a rare portrait of Charles as an older man, and rather sad.
Van Dyck's Henrietta Maria on display
October 1 2012
Picture: BG
Thanks for your kind messages everyone - I'm glad you liked the final episode of 'Fake or Fortune?'. We had another strong audience showing - 4.3m viewers, peaking at 4.8m. The programme started off with 3.8m, then steadily put on another million viewers, despite the XFactor starting halfway through on ITV.
Here's a shot of the picture on display at the Banqueting House, where it hangs alongside one the best known studio of Van Dyck version (left). It's very instructive to see the two side by side - if you go and see them, let me know what you think. The BH's opening times are a bit sporadic, so it's best to check out their website first. In the middle is the remainder of the larger 18thCentury canvas. I'm afraid the lighting in the case could be better - we're hoping to improve it.
On the 'Isleworth Mona Lisa' - Kemp speaks
October 1 2012
Picture: TAN
If you haven't already seen it, Leonardo scholar Professor Martin Kemp has written a much-needed take down on the 'Iselworth Mona Lisa'. Money quote:
The book claims that none of the evidence of scientific examination indicates that the Isleworth picture is not by Leonardo. Nor does it show that it is not by Raphael. Even this ineffectual claim, with its double negative, is not justified. The infrared reflectogram and X-ray published on p. 253 do not reveal any of the characteristics of Leonardo’s preparatory methods. Leonardo, as the infrared images of the Louvre painting show, was an inveterate fiddler with his compositions even once he had begin to work on the primed surfaces of his panels. The images of the Isleworth canvas have the dull monotony that would be expected of a copy.
He also highlights the growing over-use of 'technical evidence', and how it alone seems to carry an unimpeachably convicing aura:
I see lots of dossiers of “scientific evidence” attached to purported Leonardos. It often seems enough to have the texts with the data, diagrams and images to “prove” the authenticity, whether or not the they actually tell us anything that actively supports Leonardo’s authorship.
Sadly, none of this will feature in the press. The story has had its splash, the media caravan has moved on, and the public will remain as confused as ever.
Before 'n After
October 1 2012
Picture: Philip Mould & Company
Many thanks to all of you who wrote in and had a go at my 'Test Your Connoisseurship' on this picture.* Sorry it was so fiendish. One or two of you spotted the difference in quality between the head and the rest - well done.
If it's any consolation, I had no idea that it might be two paintings in one, so to speak, from the online image, and subsequently no idea of the inherent quality. I was sure it was an 18th Century copy - the hands and drapery were, to me, a clear sign that it was out of period. It was only until I stood in front of the picture in the auction room that I began to see how the head shone out from the canvas, how the curious 'tide mark' of over-paint beneath Henrietta Maria's cheek marked the transition from one painted area to the next, and how the cracking seams of the smaller rectangular shape of the original picture were beginning to emerge from the larger additions.
So, for any sleeper hunters out there, the moral of the story is, good digital images are useful. But nothing beats first-hand inspection of the work in question. And that's enough tricks of the trade for now...
* For overseas readers who may not have been able to see 'Fake or Fortune?', the story, briefly, is this: we bought this picture as 'After Van Dyck'. We had a hunch that underneath the oceans of blue and rather clumsy over-paint, there might be an original Van Dyck underneath, showing Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, as Saint Catherine. The composition was, until now, only known through copies. Over one thousand hours of conservation later (and five hundred scalpel blades) we were able to reveal the above picture. We don't know by whom or exactly when the picture was over-painted, but it was possibly done because it was unfinished, as can be seen by the areas of ground around the hand, and parts of the hair and crown. Van Dyck's typical umber under-drawing strokes can also be seen in the picture. Van Dyck scholar Dr Christopher Brown concluded the programme by saying, after he had had a first opportunity to examine the picture, that he thought it was certainly unfinished, certainly from Van Dyck's studio, and had a good chance, following further comparison and research, that areas such as the head were by Van Dyck himself. He was happy, until then, to call the picture 'Attributed to Van Dyck'. It is now on display at the Banqueting House in London, where Henrietta Maria used to live.
Henrietta Maria mid-clean
October 1 2012
Picture: BG
I thought I'd put this picture up of the Henrietta Maria in mid-clean. What an amazing job our restorers Rebecca Gregg and Jo Gorlov did. What you see here is the exciting nature of what lay beneath the 18th Century over-paint. The revealed drapery was in pleasingly good condition - there is no re-touching here at all.
As you can see, the over-paint was not removed as systematically as you might imagine - it was a case of following a good 'seam' of over-paint, almost following the strokes of the paint as it had been applied.
That $7 Renoir
September 28 2012
Picture: Potomack Auction
Turns out it might have been half-inched.* More here.
*[that's 'pinched' in rhyming slang]
'Early Mona Lisa' unveiled
September 27 2012
Picture: Sky News
The picture has been unveiled to the press, but so far there are few specific details revealed. The 'Mona Lisa Foundation' website is still not available, but it says it will be at 3pm. Ooh, they are a tease. The evidence so far seems a little underwhelming, at least according to the quotes on the Press Association.
Apparently the key summation is this:
"So far, not one scientific test has been able to disprove that the painting is by Leonardo," said art historian Stanley Feldman, a foundation member and principal author of a foundation book Mona Lisa: Leonardo's Earlier Version.
Which is a long way from saying tests have proved that it is by Leonardo. Usually, scientific analysis can tell you what a painting is not, not what it is. As far as I know, even proponents of exclusively scientific attributions have yet to come up with an 'is it by Leonardo' test.
But there is at least a fat book you can buy! Tho' it seems you have to read it with white gloves...
'A' for effort
September 27 2012
Picture: Mona Lisa Foundation
Sorry folks, move along, nothing to see here. It surely is, as Martin Kemp says, a copy. The Mona Lisa Foundation has done a great PR job, with judicious leaking, a nice website, a video, and all sorts of technical sounding tests. But the evidence behind the claim starts off with some interesting facts, in terms of documentary material, and then becomes more and more obscure until, by the end, we're left with nonsense about age regression.
None of this would satisfy, say, the National Gallery in London, and nor should it satisfy you. Was the simplistic face, above, painted by the greatest artist that ever lived? No. It's just an early copy. If they cleaned the picture, its deficiencies would become painfully obvious. As it is, they are hidden by a pleasingly antique-looking layer of dirt and old varnish, the sort of obfuscatory layer that allows for optimistic conjectures.
You can zoom in here on various details of the picture (or, top tip, click 'save image' on the detail and download a high-res version of the whole thing). Then compare it here with the real thing, of which below is a detail [Picture: Louvre].
Update - a reader writes:
For once, you got it all wrong! Surely, it's the Mona Lisa… after a visit to Harley Street! Every little cosmetic surgery helps…
And another:
Alas, its not just a copy: its a pretty bad copy at that.
The story has done well in the press so far. But for how much longer will the media keep reporting arts discovery stories, if the 'discoveries' are so often nonsense? Will it end up like the boy who cried wolf? Will there be a time when genuine arts discoveries are greeted with a shrug of the shoulders, and ignored?
Update II - another reader asks about the mystery early provenance:
Seeing as the Mona Lisa Foundation is now supposedly revealing all about its Mona Lisa to the world, it is surprising it does not tell us who Hugh Blaker bought the picture from in 1913 - the person who inherited it (or whatever) from the aristocratic 18th century Grand Tourist of the Somerset manor house? Why should that have to be a secret? Issues of confidentiality and delicacy perhaps? Or perhaps Hugh Blaker forgot to make a note of the name of the Somerset nobleman? Or have I missed something?
Sleeper of the week
September 27 2012
This fine Lely surfaced in a country sale today - but unfortunately we were outbid. One of the other underbidders was (as announced on Twitter) none other than Waldemar! An impressive bit of connoisseurship - well done.
Here, we think the sitter might have been William Brouncker, the famous mathematician.
Behold, 'The Isleworth Mona Lisa'
September 25 2012
Picture: TAN
The Art Newspaper has a better photo of the 'first version of the Mona Lisa'. It will be unveiled in Geneva on 27th September. Martin Bailey has more details here.
