Category: Discoveries
'Portrait of a Man'
April 17 2012
Picture: PCF/Your Paintings/Nottingham University
Last week I mentioned the forthcoming conference (25th April) at the National Gallery on the proposed new Oil Painting Expert Network (OPEN). OPEN will help under-resourced museums and galleries identify any mystery paintings in their collections, and provide advice on cataloguing and conservation. Thanks to those of who have signed up to come along - we now have over a hundred people attending. If you want to come you can still do so, and it's free. Here's the day's agenda.
I'll be giving a short talk at the conference, and will reveal a few hidden sleepers in our public collections. Here's a very simple example of how wider access to images can help with attributions. This portrait, in the collection of Nottingham University, is called 'English School', and described as 'A Portrait of a Gentleman with a Black Sash'. Most of you (I hope!) will know straight away who he is, and recognise the significance of the blue sash. Find the answer below, by clicking 'read on'.
Update - a reader writes:
Glad to hear of the OPEN initiative - it seems eminently sensible - but hasn't something along these lines been going on for the last few years. The National Inventory Research Project has published its results on the NICE website: sadly some (any?) of their conclusions are not reflected in the PCF data on Our Paintings. Lack of joined-up thinking?
There are more fundamental problems of course; aside from attributions [...] the searches in the online databases of the Royal Collection, the National Trust and Your Paintings simply do not work as they should and make interrogation a frustrating exercise.
As far as I can see, there are major probems with data-field definitions, resulting in inconsistencies.
None of this would have happened if the major collections in this country, and the PCF, had taken a joint approach to database development and cataloguing. The databases at the BM and the V&A are excellent - despite the sheer range of types of object they have to deal with: in the case of the former one can even search on previous owners, which is great for provenance research of course.
If these organisations have been able to come up with something workable, why haven't the others? It appears there was nothing to stop the development of a national database covering everything, not just paintings.
I agree that the BM and V&A sites are excellent, and models for everyone to follow. I know that the PCF and the Royal Collection have developments ongoing to improve searchability. Hopefully, it won't be too long before all these sites work well together. And if a body like OPEN gets up and running, we can nail as many incorrect and dubious attributions as possible.
When the PCF began, it was interested in merely photographing and recording the paintings in the national collection, taking the view that to try and do that alongside any attributional exercise would be impossibly time consuming. I think this was the right approach.
Our Van Dyck discovery at the Ashmolean
April 16 2012
Picture: BG
Yesterday, I went to the Ashmolean Museum to see the Portrait of a Young Girl by Van Dyck we recently discovered. Forgive me if I tell you I felt burstingly proud standing in front of her - from auction house sleeper to museum wall in 18 months. It is there on loan from a private collector. Curiously, she looked far better at the Ashmolean than she ever did at our gallery. It may have been the red walls, or the lighting. Or the good company!
'Some like it Hot', c.1792
April 16 2012
Picture: Philip Mould
As featured in The Sunday Times yesterday, here's a homegrown discovery for you: the only oil portrait of the Chevalier D'Eon, one of the most famous transvestites in history. He was also a spy, diplomat, soldier and author. This portrait was sold in a minor auction in the USA, where it was catalogued as 'Portrait of a Woman with a Feather in Her Hat'. The giveaway is the medal of the Order of St Louis, which was awarded to D'Eon by Louis XV for his services as a spy in the Secret de Roi. the picture was long thought to be by Gilbert Stuart, but is in fact by the English artist Thomas Stewart.
You can read more about the picture and its history by clicking 'Read on'.
Update: story covered by The Daily Telegraph here.
Exclusive - A new Titian at the National Gallery?
April 11 2012
Picture: National Gallery
One of my sharper-eyed readers has alerted me to the new upgrading of a Titian at the National Gallery. For may years thought to be a copy, recent conservation has convinced the National Gallery that this portrait of a man thought to be Girolamo Fracostoro can be displayed as 'Attributed to Titian'.
I'm not a Titian specialist, but I can see that the argument has merits. The composition is of course very Titian-like for a work of the 1520s, and the handling of the cape and elements of the face seems right. However, the main problem with the picture is its condition. In parts, particularly the darks (which are the softest pigments, and are the first to be lost in over-cleaning) there is little left to see but bare canvas. So it's unlikely we can ever really be sure about the attribution.
You can see the picture in room 12. There is no illustration online at the National Gallery, but the above is a photo prior to restoration.
Lost Rossetti to be sold
April 10 2012
Picture: Telegraph/Christie's
From Colin Gleadell at The Telegraph:
A portrait redolent of one of the most famous romances of the Victorian era has surfaced for sale from a private collection in Scotland where it has been, unrecorded and unknown to scholars, for over a hundred years.
Painted in 1869 by the pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, it represents his muse, Jane Morris, who was married to Rossetti’s business partner, the artist and designer William Morris.
Artist and sitter first met and were attracted to each other in 1857, but as Rossetti was already engaged to Elizabeth Siddall, she married Morris instead. However, after Siddall tragically took her life in 1862, and the Morris marriage appeared to flounder, the relationship was rekindled.
The year 1869 is generally thought to be when Rossetti reconciled his grief for Siddall with his love for Jane Morris. Though gossip levels ran high, lack of documentary evidence has left historians guessing at the degree of intimacy achieved between them.
Each destroyed the correspondence with the other during those crucial years. The title of the painting, ‘The Salutation of Beatrice’, associates Jane with Dante’s Beatrice, the incarnation of beatific love and the object of Dante’s courtly love. A sonnet by Dante pinned to the wall extols the virtues of courtly love: ‘My lady looks so gentle and so pure…’
The highest price for Rossetti is the £2.6 million paid by Australian collector, John Schaeffer, in 2000 for a pastel drawing of Jane Morris entitled ‘Pandora’, also dated 1869. He subsequently re-sold it in 2004 for £1.7 million. The rediscovery, which is a rare oil painting, is estimated to fetch between £1 million and £1.5 million at Christie’s next month.
The catalogue is not online yet - I'll link to it when it is, and put up a better photo.
The one that got away
April 4 2012
Picture: Christie's
Remember this? Last year, it was in a minor sale as 'follower of Saenredam' with an estimate of £3-5,000. At the last minute the picture was withdrawn. Then, Saenredam scholar Gary Schwartz saw the picture on this blog, and published a fascinating analysis showing how the picture was not only by Saenredam, but showed his house in Assendelft. And now it is to appear at Christie's in the summer, fully catalogued, and with an estimate of £400,000-£600,000. I wonder if AHN will get a credit!
Optimism
April 4 2012
Picture: Mail/SWNS.com
We've had a few cases lately where the press have picked up on 'discovery' stories, only for there to be absolutely no evidence to support the claims. For example, the stolen 'Van Dyck seized by police in Rome, which wasn't a Van Dyck. And now here's another example, a coloured in drawing bought for £3 in a junk sale from a drug addict, which is claimed as a £1.3m work by the ten year old Warhol. Despite there being nothing to back up the claim, the story has gone global.
3PP on the Prado Mona Lisa
April 3 2012
Picture: Prado/3PP
Three Pipe Problem commends the Prado for their comprehensive publication of their analysis of the Mona Lisa copy:
Commendably, the Prado has now released a significant deal of technical information, free to access online. Previously such details would be reserved for gallery technical bulletins or journal publications. It is a wonderful step forward for transparent reporting of findings that this information was made available relatively quickly after the public announcement a few weeks ago. Those particularly interested in the technical details are directed towards the video presentation by Ana González Mozo, researcher in the Museum’s Technical Documentation Section and Almudena Sánchez Martín, a restorer at the Prado.
Van Dyck discovery on show at Ashmolean
April 3 2012
Picture: Philip Mould
Shameless boast alert: a Van Dyck discovered here at Philip Mould has gone on display at the Ashmolean Museum.
The Duke's not-so-new Rembrandt?
April 2 2012
Picture: Guardian
Following the exciting news from Woburn Abbey last week of a Rembrandt 'discovery', a reader has alerted me to a must-read post by the leading art historian Gary Schwartz. Here's the nub of his argument:
The “discovery” is in fact nothing of the kind. The painting in Woburn Abbey is included in every single catalogue I know of the paintings of Rembrandt, from John Smith in 1836 to Leonard Slatkes in 1992. Only one colleague, Christian Tümpel, ever assigned it to a pupil of Rembrandt’s rather than the master. When the painting was exhibited in 1950 in Edinburgh, Jan van Gelder, one of the greatest art historians and connoisseurs of the 20th century, wrote this about it: “... always wrongly placed within the chronology of Rembrandt’s work is the portrait of an Old Jew. After cleaning we find it signed and dated 1643, not 1633 (see Bredius 185). There can be no doubt about its authenticity.” (J.G. van Gelder, “The Rembrandt exhibition at Edinburgh,” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 92, nr. 572, November 1950, p. 328.) Although this may be phrased a bit defensively, I know of no printed record of doubt concerning the authenticity of the painting.
Important new conference for UK collections
April 2 2012
Picture: Philip Mould
Regular readers will know that I occasionally bang on about the need to establish a panel of experts to advise regional galleries on their art collections. This is particularly necessary now that deaccessioning is increasingly taking place in the UK, for we must avoid the situation in the US, where good pictures are sometimes deaccessioned by mistake (as copies for example, like the above Romney). As a dealer, I've profited from such mistakes - but I don't want to see the same happen here. So I've been making the case for a panel of experts for some time, not only on the site here, but also at a conference last year on deaccessioning at the National Gallery, in The Art Newspaper, and in a chapter in the new Museums Etc book, Museums and the Disposals Debate, edited by Peter Davies.
So I'm delighted to report that this is actually going to happen, and all thanks to the Public Catalogue Foundation. The PCF is perfectly placed to be the lead body on this, not least because they have put together the invaluable photographic database of every publicly owned oil painting in the UK. On 25th April, the PCF is organising a conference at the National Gallery to look into the various issues. The project is to be called OPEN - the Oil Painting Expert Network. Here's what the PCF says:
Over the last nine years the PCF’s team of researchers has had unparalleled access to the nation’s oil painting collection. This has provided valuable insights into the state of painting catalogue records and the guardianship of these paintings. Unsurprisingly, it has found that the state of records varies greatly between collections and that there are significant gaps in knowledge about paintings’ artists, subjects and execution dates.
There are a few reasons for this. Only a fraction of the participating collections have staff with fine art expertise or other relevant knowledge. This is because many of the institutions involved in the project are small museums with limited resources or non-art specialisms and others are not museums at all. Furthermore, many of the museums – both large and small – have lost fine art expertise due to financial cutbacks.
The PCF has also found that those collections without expertise often do not know where to turn for help.
There will be a number of speakers, including Peter Funnell of the National Portrait Gallery, Nigel Llewellyn of Tate, Francis Russell of Christie's, Matthew Hargreaves from the Yale Center for British Art, Val Boa of the McLean Museum, and, er, me. If you would like to attend the conference, or would like to contribute to OPEN in any way, please contact the PCF: open[at]thepcf.org.uk. And if you know of anyone else who may be interested, or whom OPEN could do with hearing from, please spread the word.
"absolutely cock-a-hoop"
March 29 2012
Picture: Guardian
Exciting news from Woburn Abbey, home of the Dukes of Bedford. It turns out their overlooked 'Portrait of an Old Man' is a Rembrandt, and has been approved as such by Rembrandt connoisseur Ernst van de Wetering. From The Guardian:
"We were all so excited at the expert verdict – the Duke was absolutely cock-a-hoop," said Abbey curator Chris Gravett, who had noticed the evident quality of the painting during his nine years working for the duke, and had become increasingly intrigued by it. This was despite competition from a collection that includes 10 paintings by Van Dyck, 12 by Reynolds, three Gainsboroughs, and a room virtually wallpapered with 24 Canalettos bought by the 4th Duke on the Grand Tour in the 18th century. [...]
Since its brief outing to an exhibition of treasures from Woburn Abbey at the Royal Academy in 1950, where its authenticity was questioned, The Old Rabbi has hung high up in the private library among a group of paintings which have turned out not to be what previous dukes of Bedford had hoped, including a "not Van Dyck", a "not Hogarth", and two others not by Rembrandt.
Although there is no reference to The Old Rabbi in the family archives before a mention of it being cleaned in 1791, Gravett believes it was probably acquired with the two "not Rembrandts" in the 1740s.
It will now be taken down and displayed at head height, as the star exhibit among the display of gold and silver in Woburn Abbey's vaults when the house reopens to the public next weekend.
Should pay a few bills. Woburn Abbey's website gives more details on the scientific analysis of the discovery, and reveals that the Portrait of an Old Man is a pendant to another previously overlooked Rembrandt in the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin:
As Professor van de Wetering has highlighted: “This painting is one of Rembrandt’s most impressive evocations of dignity in old age. The way the light makes the figure emerge from the dusky space and illuminates the wrinkled skin of the face, and the hands resting on a stick, makes it an outstanding specimen of Rembrandt’s art.” It is therefore implied that this is more than a study of old age. It is believed that the Woburn picture and a painting in the Gemaldegalerie, Berlin (thought to be a portrait of Rembrandt’s wife, Saskia) were intended as a pair. Both were painted in 1643 on a mahogany panel taken from the same sugar case. This along with the similarities of design and biblical style: the prominent hands each displaying a ring on the little finger, the black hat with fine decoration and the decorative chains has led to the suggestion from Professor van de Wetering that the pair are depicting the Old Testament biblical story of Boaz and Ruth.
Are these Nazi trucks carrying looted art to a mine?
March 26 2012
Picture: Bild
Achtung! A team hunting a huge cache of Nazi-looted art believe they may be on the verge of an astonishing discovery in a mine on the German-Czech border. The lost pictures, from the collection of the Hungarian-Jewish industrialist Baron Ferenc Hatvany, include works by Monet and Cezanne. From the Mail:
Viennese historian Burkhart List, 62, says he has acquired documents from old Wehrmacht archives that report a mass shipment of the Hatvany collection to two subterranean galleries, measuring 6,000 by 4,500 feet, in the Erzgebirge Mountains.
With the permission of the mayor of nearby Deutschkatherinenberg, Hans-Peter Haustein, he deployed a neutron generator inside the mountain to probe for the secret chambers.
The device revealed that, 180 feet down, there are workings detailed on no maps and they appear to be man-made, not natural.
Mr List said: 'In the winter of 1944 - 1945 the records indicate that a mysterious transport arrived here from Budapest that was coded top secret.
'One of the photos [above] yielded up by the archives was of the Sonnenhaus, a large building directly in front of the Fortuna mine where I believe the art is stored.
'It shows a large contingent of SS. There was no military or logical state purpose for them to be here on a secret mission, unless it was to deliver the artwork into chambers which, climactically, are ideal for the storage of art.'
So far the explorations have yielded only a Schmeisser machine gun, a Nazi gas mask, plastic explosive detonators and a safe deposit key.
A Murillo discovery at Maastricht
March 23 2012
Picture: BG
A picture I liked yesterday at Maastricht was this small oil by Murillo of The Vision of Saint Anthony of Padua. It was with the Madrid gallery, Caylus, and had been plucked from under everyone's noses (including mine!) at an Old Master auction in London, where it had been catalogued at Christie's as 'Studio of Murillo'. It sold for just £10,000. The picture is a little gem, and since the vetting at Maastricht is fairly tough, there can't be much doubt about the elevation from Studio to autograph. Caylus have also established some solid provenance for the painting, going back to Marechal Soult, Napoleon's famous general.
On the subject of vetting, I heard yesterday of a picture previously offered by an auctioneer for many millions which was vetted off by the committee at Maastricht. Ouch. I'd love to tell you about it, but am sworn to secrecy. (Oh alright then, it was from Sotheby's).
Science 1 - Connoisseurship 0
March 20 2012
Picture: Independent
A still life dismissed by experts as not being by Van Gogh has now been re-attributed thanks to an x-ray analysis of the picture beneath. Van Gogh re-used a canvas on which he had painted a scene of two wrestlers, and now, for the first time, the wrestlers have been found. From The Independent:
The wrestlers’ existence was known only from a reference in one of the Dutch master’s letters, written aged 33, just four years before his tragic death. On 22 January 1886, he wrote: “This week I painted a large thing with two nude torsos – two wrestlers.”
There is no other painting of wrestlers. It is this painting that now confirms the still life’s authenticity. They are both on the same canvas. Van Gogh painted the still life over his wrestlers which could not be seen until now.
The still life was acquired in 1974 by the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Holland, which boasts one of the world’s largest Van Gogh collections. But the painting’s link to Van Gogh had been repeatedly dismissed over the years because it was thought to be “uncharacteristically exuberant”.
In 2003, it was finally “deattributed” on stylistic grounds and unceremoniously relegated to a back room out of public view, listed merely as “artist: anonymous”.
Drilling for Leonardo - Martin Kemp's view
March 19 2012
The noted Leonardo scholar, Professor Martin Kemp, has written some penetrative insights on the results from the Leonardo drilling in Florence. And you have to say that, from the drillers' point of view, they're not good:
The search is important. It has been underway, on and off, since the late 1970s. It needs to be resolved one way or the other. Maurizio Seracini, who is leading the investigation, has the skills to pursue it. If the unfinished Battle of Anghiari - the central knot of fighting horsemen - is discovered in legible condition, it will be one of the greatest art finds of any era - much like the unearthing of Laocoon. The timing and handling of the announcement is, however, unfortunate, and is clearly driven by political, media and, I guess, financial imperatives. The mayor is pressed by critics, and Maurizio presumably needs funding to be sustained. The timing is also related to screening of the National Geographic TV programme on the search. The whole project over the years has been dogged by premature ejaculations via the press. This, as I know from the story of the portrait in vellum, is precisely how not to secure scholarly assent. I have been fed bits of somewhat garbled information by the media.
It is said that there is "proof" that Leonardo's lost Battle has been discovered. My reactions are:
1) the published data about Vasari having built a wall specifically to protect Leonardo's painting is inconclusive;
2) I have seen no evidence that the layers behind Vasari's fresco feature a continuous, flat, primed and painted surface;
3) the "manganese" pigment that has been identified in the core sample taken by the small bores is said to match that in the Mona Lisa. Manganese is a standard component in umber or burnt umber, and cannot be taken specifically to signal Leonardo;
4) the "red lacquer" in the press reports is presumably a red lake pigment - based on an organic dye. The best red lakes were expensive but were used in tempera and oil painting. They could also be used on walls with a binder;
5) it is claimed that there was no other painting in the Council Hall from its construction in 1494 until Vasari's intervention. The idea that the hugely important Council Hall would have been left with bare plaster walls during the almost 20 years of the Republic is untenable. The precise location of Leonardo's horsemen is not certain, and the pigments could well be traces of other decorations in the hall, such as heraldic shields;
6) if Vasari did wall up Leonardo's painting, what might remain? The long-term adhesion of oil paint on a wall in such circumstances is hugely questionable. We might well have only a micro-jigsaw puzzle of fragments fallen off the surface.
This all seems to undermine the confident messages coming from Florence. Meanwhile, over on the indispensable 3 Pipe Problem, we find news that a total of six holes were drilled (a planned seventh was abandoned), as well as the views of Dr Cristina Acidini, the Superintendent of the Polo Museale in Florence. She seems to be more persuaded than Kemp that the pigments found so far can certainly be linked to Leonardo. But note the final sentence of her remarks:
We are dealing with a winding road. Now it is necessary to go deeply into these initial results of the investigation and months will be required to carry out the necessary analyses. When we reach the end, there might be a disappointment. As of today, our only certainty is that there is an intervening space and that there are the same substances that Leonardo used for the Gioconda and the Saint John the Baptist....it is now necessary to proceed step by step, using non-invasive methods.
In other words, if you think we're going to start removing more bits of Vasari to get to the Battle of Anghiari - if it remains - think again.
Regular readers will remember that when the drilling plan was first mooted, I was fairly relaxed about it. As Professor Kemp notes, to find even a fragment of Leonardo's lost work will be exciting. But there is something grating and unnecessarily flamboyant about the way the latest procedures and results have been announced to the world. So far, the evidence that we are dealing with a lost Leonardo is very thin. For example, it looks as if the sophisticated endoscopic cameras inserted into the supposed gap behind the Vasari can show a great deal of information, and relay easily viewable images. I suspect, therefore, that if they had spotted anything like a flat painted surface, we would know about it. There is, of course, the possibility that the best bits of footage are being kept for the National Geographic's programme - perhaps there really will be a glimpse of a hoof, or a finger.
And yet I can't shake the sense that the discovery of a few old flakes of paint, which may or may not relate to Leonardo, constitute an anticlimax for the team behind the search. For if they had found that glimpse of finger, they wouldn't need to test any paint. It would incontrovertibly be the Leonardo. In the meantime, we have beamed images to millions of people around the world which say that no matter how implausible your theory (and please let's get over this Da Vinci Code-like idea that just because Vasari wrote 'Cerca Trova' he was suggesting there was a Leonardo behind his painting) it's ok to start drilling into old masterpieces. Is art history really the winner in all this? Not yet.
Stolen masterpieces recovered!
March 19 2012
Picture: AHT
Or perhaps not? There was a flurry of excitement in the press recently when it was announced that police in Rome had recovered 37 stolen masterpieces, by, amongst others, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Poussin. However, the image used to illustrate the Van Dyck manifestly did not show a picture by Van Dyck, so I didn't get that excited. And over on Art History Today, art historian and Poussin scholar Dr David Packwood casts doubt on the 'Poussin':
A clumsy composition- and those cherubs! As I spent a lot of time in my doctorate days looking at religious paintings by NP, I think I’m qualified to pronounce on this. So the owners bought a picture they thought was by Poussin, and the thieves stole it thinking the same? My guess is an Italianate painter trying to emulate Poussin, not very successfully. Or it could be a collaboration between Gaspar Poussin- Poussin’s brother-in-law-and an Italian artist? But the figures are too monumental for Gaspard, yet parts of the landscape recall NP.
Getty acquires new Watteau discovery
March 16 2012
Picture: Getty Museum
Exciting news from Los Angeles, where the Getty has acquired the above picture by Watteau, The Italian Comedians. There is, however, a twist. Not everyone agrees it is by Watteau. From the LA Times:
Depending on which expert you ask, it is either a rare large canvas by one of France's greatest artists, Jean-Antoine Watteau, or the work of somebody else.
Scott Schaefer, the Getty's senior curator of paintings, said that before deciding about a month ago to buy the oil painting from a London art dealer, museum leaders sought opinions from "almost all major Watteau scholars in the world," each of whom had seen the painting in person.
The vote was 7-3 in favor of it being either solely by Watteau, who was 36 when he died in 1721, or a canvas the master had left unfinished, to be completed by another hand — possibly his student, Jean-Baptiste Pater, to whom the painting was sometimes attributed during the 20th century.
"It's so emotionally engaging that, for us, it can only be by Watteau," Schaefer said from Maastricht, the Netherlands, where he was attending the annual European Fine Art Fair.
The doubters, he said, did not say who they believed had painted the piece, which is 3 feet wide and slightly more than 4 feet tall. "But everyone, including the naysayers, thought it was a magnificent picture."
As revealed on AHN here at the time, the picture came up at auction last year in France, where it was catalogued as 'Circle of Watteau', and with an estimate of EUR40-60,000. The picture was enticingly catalogued, with plenty of supporting evidence to suggest the picture was by Watteau, such as preparatory drawings by him. I remember thinking it looked like a very fine picture, but that other specialist dealers who knew more than I do about French painting were sure to bid on it. And lo, it made a hammer price of EUR 1 million. You can watch a video of it selling here. Although I haven't seen the picture in the flesh, I don't doubt that the Getty wouldn't have bought it unless they and others were absolutely sure it was by Watteau. So many congratulations to them, and to the London dealer who bought it. It's always good to see the art trade contributing to art history with important discoveries like this.
More details on the Getty site here.
"Prado copy proves Mona Lisa was painted later"
March 15 2012
Picture: Museo Prado/Royal Collection
The latest theory spinning off from the Prado's much-hyped copy of the Mona Lisa is that it proves Leonardo finished the original much later than thought, possibly up to 1519. He began it in 1503. This is because, say specialists at the Prado, infra-red images of a part of the background in the copy relate to a drawing of rocks by Leonardo in the Royal Collection, which is dated on stylistic grounds to 1510-15. From The Art Newspaper:
When the Prado copy was being studied, infrared images revealed that a section of the original design for the rocks beneath the paint surface had been based on a drawing now in the Royal Collection. Martin Clayton, the senior curator at the Windsor print room, dates the drawing to 1510-15 on stylistic grounds.
The Prado copy of the Mona Lisa was worked on side by side with the Louvre painting, so this connection has important implications for the dating of Leonardo’s original.
Louvre specialists went back to photographs taken of the original Mona Lisa in 2004. They realised that the design for part of the rocks on the right side in the Prado copy also appears in the underdrawing of the original, in a blurred form. This can just be made out in an emissiograph, an image made using an x-ray technique.
I must say, I don't like conclusions based on images that 'can just be made out' in x-rays. Anyway, have a look for yourself at the images, and see if you can spot the compelling similarities between the rocks in the Royal Collection drawing, and the rocks in the under-drawing in the Prado copy. No - I can't either. They look vaguely similar, that's all.
So it seems we're back to over-interpretation of the infra-red images again. Incidentally, if the Mona Lisa really was painted over a much longer period than previously believed, doesn't that make it less likely that the Prado's copy was painted alongside it? I can't quite get my head round the concept of Leonardo beginning a painting in 1503, and then having some student sit alongside him, in different countries, following him slavishly till as late as 1519. It doesn't make any sense. And who was this long-suffering student of whom we have never heard?
At Maastricht, an important new Van Dyck discovery
March 14 2012
Picture: Agnews
Much of the world's art trade has now decamped to a cavernous conference centre outside Maastricht, for The European Fine Art Fair (known as TEFAF). Every year, literally hundreds of dealers descend on the small Dutch town for what has been the leading art and antiques fair in Europe, if not the world. It's a highly impressive set up. Usually they're followed by just as many private jets, carrying collectors, advisers and, best of all, sheikhs. But last year sales were down, and there is talk of the fair losing some of its lustre (not least because London, which has always lacked an international antiques fair, is at last getting its act together with Masterpiece).
As ever, the trade will have some tantalising recent discoveries to present. A good example this year is from Agnews, who have an important grisaille by Van Dyck (above). It is a previously unknown first design for Van Dyck's most important English painting, The Great Peece [Royal Collection], showing Charles I, Henrietta Maria, Charles II and Mary, Princess Royal. You can zoom in on the grisaille here, and the finished picture here. Note how the figures differ in the final composition.
