Category: Exhibitions
Pictures re-united at Osterley Park
March 4 2014
Video: National Trust
I'm looking forward to this greatly - a Osterley Park the National Trust have re-united the house with some of the great pictures in the Jersey Collection (kindly lent by the Earl of Jersey). In the above video, the NT's new curator of pictures, David Taylor, has an amusing take on the difference between Van Dyck and Dobson. The former artist, alas, is not returning to Osterley - at least not yet. The Van Dyck self-portrait which the NPG is trying to buy at the moment was sold by the Earl of Jersey in 2009.
More here in the Guardian.
'The craze for Pastel', new exhibition at Tate Britain
February 18 2014
Picture: Tate, via Jan Marsh
Here's an interesting new exhibition coming up later this year at Tate Britain, 'The Craze for Pastel'. Says the Tate website:
Celebrating the recent acquisition of Ozias Humphrey’s pastel portrait Baron Nagell’s Running Footman c.1795, this display will explore the emergence of pastel in the 18th century and its phenomenal, if relatively short-lived, success as a fashionable alternative to oil paint. Tracing its evolution from natural chalk – long used for figure and landscape sketches – into a full colour medium, this display will include many rarely exhibited works from the Tate collection. Featuring experimental pastel drawings by Thomas Gainsborough alongside finished portraits by leading pastellists such as John Russell and Daniel Gardner, it aims to demonstrate the central importance of the medium to the increasingly competitive 18th-century British art world.
I had missed Tate's acquisition of the Humphry pastel (above), which looks like a splendid painting.
Readers wanting to know more about why pastels had such an intense but brief moment in the art historical sun should head towards the blog of pastel king Neil Jeffares, here, and also his recent piece for The Burlington website here.
The show runs from 7th April to 5th October.
Update - this is weird; a reader alerts me to the fact that the above story has been copied, unacknowledged, by this website, but seems to have been auto-translated into a foreign language, and then back into English. So the last paragraph reads like this:
Readers wanting to know some-more about because pastels had such an heated though brief impulse in a art chronological object should conduct towards a blog of pastel aristocrat Neil Jeffares, here, and also his new square for The Burlington website here.
'Strange Beauty' at the National Gallery (ctd.)
February 18 2014
Picture: Telegraph
I reported earlier on the National Gallery's new exhibition of German 16th Century art, which hasn't gone down terrifically with some critics. But in the Guardian, Mark Brown relates a fascinating snippet about the National's rushed sale of similar works in the 19th century, when they were considered quite, quite ghastly:
One of the most extraordinary and excruciating episodes in the National Gallery's history is laid bare in an exhibition opening to the public on Wednesday: the state-sanctioned sale of paintings because they were German.
Susan Foister, co-curator of the show, Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance, described the disposal of 37 works in 1856 as a "surprising" and little-known story. "It was the first and only time that the gallery had an act of parliament passed in order to rid itself of excessive German paintings," she said.
The main issue was that for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, German art was considered ugly and certainly hugely inferior to anything produced in Italy. Sir Charles Eastlake, director of the National Gallery from 1855-65, once said he found the work of Matthias Grünewald "repulsive".
In 1854, William Gladstone, then chancellor of the exchequer, bought 64 German Renaissance paintings from the 15th and 16th centuries for the gallery. It was considered a scandal. One newspaper called them "frightful" and a parliamentarian said the purchase was the "worst ever" – what was the National Gallery thinking of?
Foister said that "there was an idea of what should be collected and what should be admired". And German paintings did not fit the idea.
Within just two years the gallery's trustees felt they had to get rid of them. That resulted in an act of parliament permitting their deaccession and 37 were sold, including most of an altarpiece from the Benedictine abbey of Liesborn in Germany.
The story is a reminder how fashion can change, even for Old Masters. Think of this next time a 17th Century religious picture appears in an Old Master sale near you, with a derisory estimate. Like the giant and well-painted Luca Giordano Crucifixion of St Peter sold at Sotheby's New York in January for just $25,000 - bargain!
Also, on a related theme, can 'brown furniture' get any cheaper? The Antiques Trade Gazette reports that its value is still declining, even though you can now furnish your house with good 18th Century antiques for less than a trip to Ikea.
Update - a reader tells us that two of the pictures have ended up at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, see here and here.
'Strange Beauty' at the NG
February 17 2014
Picture: Telegraph
The National Gallery has another of their predominantly own-collection exhibitions on, as upstairs rooms are cleared to make way for the forthcoming Veronese show. Entry, £7. Alistair Sooke in the Telegraph is not that impressed, calling it 'threadbare':
I happily passed an hour or two in this exhibition reacquainting myself with old favourites from the National Gallery’s collection, as well as considering works that perhaps previously I had overlooked. But charging seven pounds for a full-price ticket feels inappropriate to me: while it does contain more than 30 loans from other British collections, including Holbein’s spellbinding miniature of Anne of Cleves from the V&A, Strange Beauty is predominantly a reshuffle of the permanent collection – and usually it is possible to admire, say, Holbein’s The Ambassadors for free.
Moreover, it is only a couple of years since a major show about the Northern Renaissance at the Queen’s Gallery in 2012, while there have been recent exhibitions in London devoted to Dürer (at the British Museum in 2002), Holbein (Tate Britain, 2006), and Cranach (the Royal Academy, 2008).
In addition, there isn’t much of a narrative to Strange Beauty, aside from the idea that the popularity of particular schools of art can wax and wane from era to era. Though this is interesting – I was fascinated to read, for instance, that 19th-century viewers of the famous (Netherlandish, not German) Arnolfini Portrait, on display in the first gallery, were amused by the stiffness of the figures as well as the bizarre appearance of their clothes – it is hardly sensational or groundbreaking.
The threadbare concept behind the exhibition is writ large in its final room, which does not contain any artworks at all. Instead, visitors encounter toe-curling questions emblazoned on the walls such as “Is ugliness more authentic than beauty?” and “Can art be both inventive and true to nature?” These heavy-handed if well-meaning questions brought me out in a cold sweat, as though I were about to sit an exam – which is not a feeling that ordinarily I would like to pay to experience.
Amsterdam's giant group portraits to go on display
February 13 2014
Picture: DutchNews.nl
A series of 30 giant 17th Century group portraits is to go on display in Amsterdam at the end of this year. From DutchNews.nl:
The Hermitage museum in Amsterdam is to host a permanent exhibition of some 30 enormous paintings by Rembrandt and his contemporaries which have never been seen together before.
The exhibition, with the working title Gallery of the Golden Age, focuses on Dutch citizenship during in the 17th and 18th centuries when Amsterdam was at the height of its international powers.
The works - group portraits of wealthy Amsterdammers - are held by the Rijksmuseum and Amsterdam Museum but are so big they are rarely on show.
Rembrandt's Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum is the most famous picture of the genre and will remain in its present setting but his Anatomy Lesson of Dr Deijman will be part of the new exhibition.
'We have many more paintings than we can display. This is a great opportunity to go big on these massive group portraits,' said Amsterdam Museum director Paul Spies.
The exhibition will open in November.
How did they do that?
February 11 2014
Picture: National Gallery
The National Gallery has found £15.6m to buy its 'first US artwork', a painting by George Bellows. The picture also becomes the first Bellows to enter a UK public collection. The money came principally from the acquisition fund established by the late Sir Paul Getty, and other anonymous donors. In other words, no public funding body, such as the HLF, was involved. That's testament to the National Gallery's impressive fundraising operation. More details on the purchase in the NG's press release here.
Given that the picture was painted in 1912, and so lies outside the 1900 cut off date that has traditionally been followed by the National Gallery, some have wondered how this affects both the National's and Tate's future acquisition policy. The BBC's arts editor, Will Gompertz, writes, on the BBC website:
Tate and the National Gallery have an agreement that is renewed every decade that sets the parameters of each institution's collection strategy to avoid overlap and competition. The line has hitherto been drawn around 1900, the point at which the National Gallery hands the story of Western art over to Tate Modern.
The acquisition of the Bellows blurs that line as it was produced in the second decade of the 20th Century, which has always been very much Tate territory. It raises the prospect of the two national galleries competing for certain paintings in the future, which either could argue fits within their historical art narrative.
The picture was de-accessioned by the Maier Museum, part of Randolph College in Virginia, in the US. This has created a bit of to-do, because the institution in question, Randolph College, is using the money to fund general operating costs, not for its art collection. The CAA has its say here.
The acquisition is a rare, and pleasingly welcome, case of a UK institution buying a US de-accession. The boot is usually on the other foot...
Update - a reader points out that there are of course many other 'American' paintings in the NG:
A couple of things about the reporting on this: much has been made that this is only the second American work in the NG’s collection, after the Inness landscape. Which, by the way was cleaned recently and has been displayed on the main floor of the Gallery. More important, and somewhat overlooked, is the fact that while the Bellows is the second work by an American artist in the collection OF an American subject, there have been, and are, other works BY American artists in the collection. The Sargent of Lord Ribblesdale still forms part of the collection and Whistlers like this one have also been displayed there relatively recently. The press releases for the acquisition of the Bellows make something of its relationship to artists like Manet but, of course, both the Whistler and the Sargent are more closely connected so are they now going to form part of the main display?
One further thing: the division of the spoils date-wise between the NG and Tate has never been absolute or logical. Tate has hung on to one of the loveliest of Degas pastels - the drawings and sculptures by Degas can’t be transferred – and Tate clearly wasn’t interested in taking the Nationals latest complete work.
Another reader wonders where all these new pictures will go:
The Bellows is a wonderful addition to the National Galleries collection, but makes the pressure on wall space, if the break off period is now 1910, for the NG/Tate divide, critical. I wonder when the National Gallery will bite the bullet, and start to built a brand new extension on the Radisson Blu Hotel it owns to the east in Whitcomb St.
Another reader asks, why did they do that?
Congratulations to the National Gallery for acquiring its first significant American painting. However, one is left to wonder about the true cost of the £15.6m George Bellows canvas, 'Men of the Docks.'
Last year an important painting ('Richmond Hill') by renowned American artist, Jasper Cropsey, was subject to a temporary export ban by Ed Vaizey to provide a last chance for a British museum or gallery to save it for the nation. The National Gallery declined to step in to meet the £5m asking price and the painting, in the UK since it was originally painted 150 years ago, was lost overseas.
The importance of the Cropsey painting (an artist not represented anywhere in the national collection) was recognised by the National Gallery itself in 2000 when it was also at risk of going abroad and the then Director, Neil MacGregor, campaigned for it to be saved. So why the change of mind?
In the past twelve months, export stopped paintings by Domenico Puligo and Niccolo Gerini have also been lost despite their importance and exceptional works by Benjamin West (born in America) and Alonso Coello are currently at risk. None of these artists are represented in the permanent collection of the National Gallery and all four would cost less than two thirds of the price of the Bellows painting.
Bold acquisitions from overseas are to be encouraged but is it right that this should be at the expense of equally as important works more closely associated with this island's history which continue to leave these shores with depressing regularity?
A rarely seen Monet
February 6 2014
Picture: The Times
The Times reports that a previously unseen Monet, Sur Les Planches de Trouville, will be exhibited at the Musee Marmottan's forthcoming exhibition of Impressionist works in private collections. Sur Les Planches de Trouville apparently belongs to the Freud family.
The blockbuster effect
February 4 2014
Picture: The New Yorker
Interesting piece in the New Yorker on how the Frick coped with the crowds for their recent Mauritshuis exhibition.
Van Gogh sunflowers re-united
January 29 2014
Video: BBC
I've come to this a little late, but if you're in London it's well worth going down to the National Gallery to see two of Van Gogh's sunflower paintings hanging together for the first time since 1947. In the clip above, Martin Bailey, who has just written the definitive book on Van Gogh's sunflower paintings, 'The Sunflowers are Mine', explains the history of the two pictures.
Both sunflowers are at the National till 27th April. You can read more about the display here.
Update - a reader writes:
I joined the queues at the weekend and enjoyed the opportunity to see them side by side – I hope it’s not too partisan of me to say so, but it’s actually a reminder of how good the London original is!
The much-vaunted display of ‘new research’ is a bit bizarre – the information panel about the x-rays they have done reveals absolutely nothing that can’t be seen by the naked eye from a few feet away.
And one more minor grumble – I was disappointed to read that that there had been no discussion of the possibility of showing these paintings (where the impasto application of paint is especially important to the effect) without a glaze, given that they could have had an attentive security guard each for this sort of special occasion. My eyes may have been playing tricks on me, but it seemed like the glass was more reflective and disruptive on the Amsterdam version.
Plymouth bids for Reynolds' first self-portrait
January 28 2014
Picture: Plymouth Art Gallery
Here's a noble cause, Plymouth Art Gallery are raising funds to buy Sir Joshua Reynolds' first self-portrait in oils (above), painted in c.1746. I'm not sure what the total asking price is, but bodies such as the Art Fund are helping out with a generous £63,000, and to help unlock funds from the HLF, the Friends of the museum have pledged to raise £10,000. They have already raised £6,500 so, need just £4,500 more by March. More details here.
I've done my bit. If you can, please do yours!
Guffwatch - the Random Exhibition Title Generator
January 23 2014
Picture: Rebecca Uchill
Stuck for a contemporary art exhibition title? Then try out Rebecca Uchill's excellent Random Exhibition Title Generator.
Rembrandt and Guardi on display at the Ashmolean
January 22 2014
Picture: BBC News/Ashmolean
The Ashmolean museum in Oxford has acquired the above landscape byFrancesco Guardi, through the UK government's Acceptance in Lieu scheme. Says director Christopher Brown:
The picture is an enchanting early view painting which shows the Fondamenta Nuove busy with small boats and gondolas, the island of San Michele and beyond the snow-capped Dolomites. It was painted for a British Grand Tourist in 1758, and is now on display in the Britain and Italy Gallery. This Guardi work is marvellously fresh and instinctually responsive to the beauty of his native city.
The Guardi was worth more than the tax amount liable against the donating estate, so the acquisition had to be topped up by the Art Fund. So well done them.
Brown also, in his column for the Oxford Times, adds that the museum will be borrowing Rembrandt's Portrait of Catrina Hoogshaet (below):
[The] picture has been lent to the Ashmolean from a private collection and it is a particularly exciting event for me as a historian of Dutch and Flemish art. The Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet by Rembrandt van Rijn ranks amongst the finest Old Master paintings in this country. It has just been hung in the Mallet Gallery at the heart of our outstanding collection of great European paintings. Painted in 1657, it shows the 50-year-old Catrina Hooghsaet, who lived in Amsterdam. She was a member of a Mennonite — a radical Protestant community — and dressed in the restrained style they favoured. She was, however, a very wealthy woman and wears a rich silk dress with a lace collar and holds a tasselled lace handkerchief. She looks towards her pet parakeet, of which she was evidently very fond. The painting is one of the finest portraits ever made by Rembrandt. It is an enormous privilege to be able to show it at the Ashmolean where it can be seen by millions of visitors over the next few years.
'A game changing gift'
January 13 2014
Picture: Denver Post
Lucky Denver Art Museum, which has just announced the donation of its first Van Gogh, Cezanne (above), and Caillebotte as part of a 22 piece Impressionist donation from philanthropist Frederic C. Hamilton. More here.
Crowdsourced curating
January 9 2014
Picture: MFA Boston
Here's an interesting idea - at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, they're asking locals to vote on which pictures they'd like to see in an exhibition. The website for 'Boston Loves Impressionism' currently has (quelle surprise) Monet and Van Gogh in pole position, and will open on Valentines Day. So top marks to the PR persion who came up with that idea. All the pictures on offer are, as far as I can tell, from the MFA's own collection. So there's no chance of upsetting potential lenders if a picture gets voted out.
Wright of Derby - in Bath
January 9 2014
Picture: Holburne Museum
Poor Joseph Wright of Derby - a first rank British artist, deserving international status, unfairly stuck with a provincial appellation. A new exhibition at the Holburne museum in Bath (25th Jan-5th May) will soon examine the time when he was Joseph Wright of Bath (between 1775-77). From the Holburne website:
Wright came to Bath to paint portraits, hoping to build on the success of Thomas Gainsborough who had recently left for London. The exhibition will include the three remaining portraits that the artist certainly made in Bath, including his painting of the elderly Rev. Thomas Wilson with the young daughter of Catharine Macaulay, the radical historian.
Whilst in Bath Wright worked up landscape studies he had made in Italy, producing spectacular views of Vesuvius in Eruption and the dazzling firework displays of Rome, the highlight of a visit to the artist's studio in Brock Street. It was whilst in Bath that he first began to explore subjects from sentimental contemporary literature, which in turn have a strong impact on his portrait composition, and the exhibition will include some of his most beautiful depictions of figures alone in the landscape.
The Holburne will also have a Wright study day on Monday 24th February, which looks interesting:
The Holburne Museum will bring together speakers from a variety of disciplines including regional historian Peter Borsay, Joseph Wright expert Stephen Daniels and the conservator Rica Jones to examine in greater depth Wright's little-known Bath period and its contexts. The morning session will explore the cultural life of Bath in the 1770s through recent historical research and ask whether Wright's place in this complex and creative society has been misunderstood. In the afternoon the focus will turn to other places: Derbyshire, Liverpool, Italy and the London exhibition galleries, and their influence on the artist's life and work.
More information here. The exhibition, which has been sponsored by the London-based dealer Lowell Libson, will travel to Derby Museum and Art Gallery after the Holburne.
The world's greatest painting?
January 8 2014
Picture: Wikipaintings
I'm very much looking forward to the National Gallery's new Veronese exhibition, which opens on 19th March. In The Guardian today there was an interesting piece on preparations for the show. Apparently one key loan has yet to be confirmed (from an Italian church). Many of Veronese's best works are monumental in size. It sounds like quite a challenge. So we must all sympathise with the show's curator, Xavier Salomon.
I suppose it's forgivable when doing PR for an exhibition, but Salomon and Nick Penny make some bold claims for Veronese (who I accept is undeniably one of the greats). The artists' c.1564 Martyrdom of St George (San Giorgio in Braida, Verona, above), for example, is cited as 'arguably the world's greatest painting'. Then there's this quote from Salomon:
"Without Veronese there would be no Rubens, no Van Dyck,"
Which is over-egging things just a bit. As his Italian sketchbook shows, Van Dyck (at least) was far more beholden to Titian than he ever was to Veronese.
Spot the difference
January 7 2014
Picture: NPG, London (left), National Gallery, London/Executors of the late 9th Marquess of Londonderry (right)
A new loan has recently gone on show at the National Gallery in London - Sir Thomas Lawrence's magnificent and important portrait of Charles Stewart, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry (above right, and zoom in here). The picture, lent by the executors of the 9th Marquess, means that two Lawrences of the same subject are in adjacent museums, for next door in the National Portrait Gallery (image here) is another version of the same picture (above left).
The question is, which came first? Despite the NPG and NG websites dating the pictures 1812 and 1814 respectively, it's not entirely clear (according to Kenneth Garlick's Lawrence 1989 catalogue raisonne) which one Lawrence painted first.
The NPG version shows the sitter's star and sash of the Order of the Bath, which he was awarded in 1813, but these are in fact a later addition, and in any case,the portrait is clearly signed and dated '1812'. Interestingly, though, Lawrence's friend Joseph Farington called the NPG version Lawrence's 'second* portrait of the General', which complicates matters a little. It's possible that there is another, now lost, earlier portrait of the same sitter by Lawrence, which led Farington to call the NPG picture Lawrence's 'second' portrait, and it is true that an untraced portrait of Londonderry by Lawrence was exhibited at the RA in 1811. However, Garlick notes that the 1811 may in fact relate to the NG picture, which is not signed or dated. So it's all quite confusing.
A first hand inspection would doubtless reveal which version had the more spontaneous, and thus original handling, but - alas! - the NPG version is not currently on display [a reader, below, assures me that - contrary to their website - the NPG picture is on display].
*this crucial word 'second' was unaccountably omitted from the NPG's catalogue entry on the picture in their 2011 Lawrence exhibition.
Update - a reader writes:
I visited both the NG & the NPG last week, both versions of the Lawrence portrait of the Marquess of Londonderry were on display. The version on loan to the NG in my opinion is the most spontaneous, it looks very fine, British Gallery.
Another reader reminds me that the below unfinished portrait by Lawrence of Londonderry was sold in New York in 2006 at Christie's (for $174,000). In the catalogue entry, Garlick speculates that this picture could be the portrait exhibited in 1811, but (rightly, I think) wonders if it is too unfinished to be an exhibited picture. Christie's dated it to c.1813-15. Farington tells us in any case that the picture exhibited in 1811 was a half-length.
Update II - I went to see both pictures today. There's not much doubt in my mind that the version now in the National Gallery was painted first. It is altogether more spontaneous, and more vigorous in the handling, with many 'wet in wet' passages where the paint has been melded seamlessly together. One gets a clear sense that Lawrence was exploring the canvas, colour and details with his brush, whereas in the NPG version it seems clear that he knew what was going where. The NPG version is all autograph, but it just feels as if Lawrence was painting something for the second time. For example, the handling in areas such as the red and gold braid around the sword is almost pedestrian in the NPG version, but in the NG picture the paint feels more alive. There is also what appears to be a pentimenti in the NG version, between the sitter's neck on the left hand side and the end of the sword.
It's possible that Lawrence, who very rarely signed pictures, put his name to the NPG version specifically to make sure that people knew he himself painted the second picture (rather than a studio assistant, as often happened with replicas). The fact that the NG picture came first makes sense of the Farington passage I quoted above, where he describes the NPG version as Lawrence's 'second' portrait (and remember, we know he had seen the first one before in 1811). Therefore, I suspect that Garlick's 1989 hunch was right, that the NG picture was that exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1811.
NG London acquires rare Van Gogh
January 7 2014
Picture: National Gallery
Here's a story I (and practically everyone else it seems) missed from December - the National Gallery has acquired the above portrait by Van Gogh. You might expect a Van Gogh acquisition to be big news. But probably just a few days before Christmas isn't a good time to issue a museum press release. More details on the picture here, and a zoomable image here. Strangely, the story was picked up by the Chinese government press agency Xinhua.
The picture was acquired through the government's new Cultural Giving Scheme, which gives tax concessions for donations of cultural objects. In the past, you could only get such concessions if you were dead, through the Acceptance in Lieu scheme. (This was one of the recommendations of the Arts Taskforce I served on in 2008/9. Just sayin'.)
Update - a reader writes:
I wonder if one of the reasons it may have been missed is that the painting was on loan to the NG from late 2011 and the label was then changed to record it as an acquisition on 20 December 2013.
Another adds:
Probably worth noting that works from this period are not THAT rare – van Gogh was really quite prolific – as there’s another Nuenen portrait in Edinburgh and two other pictures from this period in other collections in the UK.
Nonetheless It is good to see the National get a portrait by him at last: they were offered a major late one in the early 1980s and there’s a complaint somewhere in their Annual Reports at the time that they didn’t receive enough Grant-in-Aid for acquisitions to be able to afford it. And this when they did have a discrete acquisitions grant from government and, indeed, in that remarkable period when, following an agreement under the Labour administration up to 1979, they were allocated sums up to £3.3 million (in 1983-1984) for just this purpose.
One other point about van Gogh portraits in the National Gallery’s collection – they did have one before, for a short period of time. See the provenance record [of this work now in the US].
The value of art history
January 6 2014
Picture: El Pais
Here's a maddening comparison for you, one that tells us a great deal about the museum world's skewed priorities. Below, I posted the news that an Assistant Curator at Tate Britain (PhD preferable) gets paid just £23,360. And here, in the New York Times, is a report that a US museum is paying about the same ($31,000) to transport a single painting to an exhibition from Europe. The picture in question is probably not even worth as much as the transport bill - it's a fake Vermeer, by Han Van Meegeren, 'The Head of Christ' (above).
The fake belongs to the Museum Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, which is insisting, as it does with all loans, that the picture be flown with a personal escort who must travel first class.
What a load of phooey. It's stories like this which prompted one former leading museum director to confide in me recently how the 'conservation mafia' sometimes made his job completely impossible with their inflexibility. Ridiculous (but entirely routine) 'conservation' demands like the Van Beuningen's (why must the escort go first, or even business class?) are driving up museum and exhibition costs, which, in turn, are (at least partly) forcing museum salaries down. With a bit of common sense, the picture in question could be shipped for one tenth of the cost. And hey presto, there's your Curatorial Assistant salary for the year.
Update - a reader writes:
This curatorial First Class travel is a racket; if the courier does not carry the paintings within the cabin, there can be no justification for a more expensive seat. In the UK, this could be interpreted by HM Revenue & Customs as a benefit in kind, and taxable. Also, years ago, company executives would trade in a First Class ticket for a combination of one Business & one Economy, thus allowing them to fly with a spouse or 'secretary'.
