Category: Research
Colección Banco de España
March 23 2021
Picture: Colección Banco de España
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I've spotted on Twitter (via. @cultura_hola) that Banco de España have digitised their art collection. The bank's collection of paintings is rather interesting, and filled with impressive works by many Spanish Old Masters. Equally impressive is the quality of images they have uploaded, which makes the experience even more enjoyable.
Thomas Lawrence: Coming of Age - Panel Discussion
March 23 2021
Picture: Bloomsbury
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A reader has kindly alerted me to this fascinating sounding panel discussion on the youthful works of Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830). More specifically, the panel will focus around author Amina Wright's new book on the artist (pictured). Other panellists include dealers Lowell Libson (Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd) and Ben Elwes (Ben Elwes Fine Art). The discussion will be moderated by the television art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon.
The discussion will be broadcast on Zoom on 25th March 2021 at 5pm (GMT). It's completely free to attend but registration is required.
Is this by Raphael?
March 22 2021
Picture: Accademia Nazionale di San Luca
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Italy are about to undertake an interesting project to determine the authorship of the fresco fragment above. It has long borne a traditional attribution to Raphael, but this new project will attempt to determine this more conclusively with conservation and scientific analysis. One of the sticking points is that it had belonged to the neoclassical painter Jean-Baptiste Wicar (1762-1834), who may well have passed off a copy as an original.
RKD Uploads Dulwich Picture Gallery Catalogues
March 22 2021
Picture: Dulwich Picture Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A reader has pointed out to me that the RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History) have uploaded Part One & Part Two of the catalogues of Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. The catalogues are completely free to access and will be of great benefit for anyone wanting to know more about this significant part of the gallery's collection.
New Release: Painting, Science, and the Perception of Coloured Shadows
March 18 2021
Picture: Routledge
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Routledge have announced their new release entitled Painting, Science, and the Perception of Coloured Shadows by the University of Warwick art historian Paul Smith.
As the book's blurb explains:
Many artists and scientists – including Buffon, Goethe, and Philipp Otto Runge – who observed the vividly coloured shadows that appear outdoors around dawn and dusk, or indoors when a candle burns under waning daylight, chose to describe their colours as ‘beautiful’. Paul Smith explains what makes these ephemeral effects worthy of such appreciation – or how depictions of coloured shadows have genuine aesthetic and epistemological significance.
This multidisciplinary book synthesises methodologies drawn from art history (close pictorial analysis), psychology and neuroscience (theories of colour constancy), history of science (the changing paradigms used to explain coloured shadows), and philosophy (theories of perception and aesthetic value drawn from Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty).
This title will be of interest to scholars in art history, art theory, and the history of science and technology.
William Hogarth Lecture Series at PMC
March 16 2021
Picture: Sir John Soane's Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art have announced a new public lecture course on the eighteenth century artist William Hogarth. Consisting of seven online lectures, the series will focus on some of Hogarth's key works including The Rake's Progress (pictured). The three lecturers who will lead the presentations are Mark Hallett (Director of Studies, Paul Mellon Centre), Meredith Gamer (Assistant Professor, Columbia University), and Elizabeth Robles (Lecturer, University of Bristol).
This free course, which requires no previous knowledge of British Art, will run from 8th April - 13th May 2021.
Yale University are Looking for a Works on Paper Fellow
March 15 2021
Picture: Yale University
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Yale University Art Gallery are looking for a new Florence B. Selden Fellow, a position which will be based in the department of Prints and Drawings.
According to the job description:
Reporting to the Curators of Prints and Drawings at the Yale University Art Gallery, the Florence B. Selden Fellow will supervise the department’s active study room and act as the primary liaison between the department and faculty teaching from the collections of works on paper. The Selden Fellow will prepare and follow through to publication the annual list of the department’s acquisitions on the Gallery’s website, conduct scholarly research to catalogue new acquisitions, answer queries about the collection, and interact with scholars, students, and the public on matters concerning the collection. The Selden Fellow will have the opportunity to propose acquisitions, conduct independent research, and assist with special exhibitions and permanent gallery installations. We welcome and encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds interested in working in the prints and drawings curatorial field.
The one year position will come with a salary between $40,000 - $45,000 and applications must be in by 2nd April 2021.
Good luck if you're applying!
Lecture Series on Frederico Zeri's Museums
March 12 2021
Picture: Fondazione Zeri
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Fondazione Zeri are hosting another very interesting set of free online lectures dedicated to collections of Italian paintings which had previously been edited by the Italian art historian Frederico Zeri (1921-1998). Collections featured within the series include the Galleria Spada in Rome, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Mason Perkins Collection of Assisi, the Saibene Collection in Milan, The Gallery of the Palazzo Cini in Venice and the Pallavicini Gallery in Rome.
This lecture series, broadcast in Italian between March and May, are free to join on Zoom and on Facebook.
Rubens: Reuniting the Great Landscapes
March 9 2021
Picture: The Wallace Collection
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Wallace Collection's Spring / Summer exhibition, which will see the reuniting of Rubens's two great landscapes, is shaping up to be one of the most exciting moments in the London art calendar for 2021. This will be the first time in two hundred years that the paintings will be hung next to one another, as they were originally intended in the artist's house in Het Steen. Indeed, this was only made possible due to the Wallace Collection's trustees recent overruling of Lady Wallace's 1897 bequest which specifically stopped the collection giving or receiving loans.
The dates of the exhibition haven't been announced on the museum's website yet, but it's likely that it will be opened once the UK comes out of the next stage of lockdown on 17th May 2021.
Furthermore, the museum have also released details of a very exciting two day online conference on 17th & 18th May 2021 which will dwell on many aspects to do with the paintings' various contexts and conservation histories. Speakers will include experts from Antwerp, the MET, The Kunsthistoriches Museum, the State Academy in Stuttgart, the Hamilton Kerr Institute and the National Gallery of course.
Women Artists in Early Modern Bologna
March 8 2021
Picture: Penn State University Press
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A new book entitled Women Artists, Their Patrons, and Their Publics in Early Modern Bologna is being published by Penn State University Press this month. It is written by Bette Bohn, Professor of Art History and Affiliate Faculty in Women and Gender Studies at Texas Christian University.
As the book's blurb explains:
This groundbreaking book seeks to explain why women artists were far more numerous, diverse, and successful in early modern Bologna than elsewhere in Italy. They worked as painters, sculptors, printmakers, and embroiderers; many obtained public commissions and expanded beyond the portrait subjects to which women were traditionally confined. Babette Bohn asks why that was the case in this particular place and at this particular time.
Drawing on extensive archival research, Bohn investigates an astonishing sixty-eight women artists, including Elisabetta Sirani and Lavinia Fontana. The book identifies and explores the factors that facilitated their success, including local biographers who celebrated women artists in new ways, an unusually diverse system of artistic patronage that included citizens from all classes, the impact of Bologna’s venerable university, an abundance of women writers, and the frequency of self-portraits and signed paintings by many women artists. In tracing the evolution of Bologna’s female artists from nun-painters to working professionals, Bohn proposes new attributions and interpretations of their works, some of which are reproduced here for the first time.
Is this Medici Marble a Nineteenth Century Imitation?
March 5 2021
Picture: Burlington Magazine
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Jeremy Warren's recent article in the Burlington Magazine definitely makes a strong case for it!
Warren's recent piece on the nineteenth century imitator Giovanni Bastianini (1830-1868), whose reproductions fooled many collectors of sixteenth century Italian art, has been made free to read online for a very short while.
The article provides a fantastic overview of Bastianini's work and collaboration with dealers who were often less honest that the sculptor was himself. In particular, Warren points out a set of the sculptor's marble renaissance busts that were sold in the Florentine dealer Giovanni Freppa (d.1870) estate sale during the end of the century. Most of these are accounted for. However, the Museum of Fine Arts in San Francisco's marble bust of Cosimo de' Medici (pictured), after a famous Cellini in Florence, comes from exactly the same source. It was purchased by the museum in 1957 and is still being catalogued a sixteenth century original. Is it time for the museum to face the facts that their prized marble is a nineteenth century copy?
Click on the link above to read the article while you can!
The National Art Library at Risk ?
March 4 2021
Picture: vam.co.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A petition has been started to encourage management of the V&A in London to rethink new proposals that will affect The National Art Library (NAL). The petition claims that proposals have been put forward to cut two thirds of staff who work in the library, amounting to the loss of around 20 jobs. Furthermore, it claims the proposals also include a plan to shut the NAL for twelve months for it to be replaced with an interim online service.
If these proposals are serious, one can imagine the enormous impact this will have on arts researchers. The NAL has an unrivalled collection of specialist books, not to mention their important archive holdings.
These drastic proposals have appeared alongside news that the museum will be making drastic cuts to its curatorial and research departments.
Update - Dr Christina Faraday has written a column for The Telegraph today about director Tristram Hunt's planned changes. It's behind a paywall alas, but I'm sure it's interesting.
New Edition of Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art
March 4 2021
Picture: Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art have published their latest edition online. Included within is a very interesting technical study of Rubens's The Conversion of Saint Paul in the Courtauld Collection. Also included are some articles on Joannes Fyt and Paulus Potter. It's wonderful to see that this series is free and available to read online.
Giacomo Farelli (1629-1706) Catalogue Raisonné
March 4 2021
Picture: Il Giornale dell'Arte
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that the Neapolitan painter Giacomo Farelli (1629-1706) has been treated to his first ever catalogue raisonné. The new publication Vita ed opere di Giacomo Farelli (1629-1706). Artista e gentiluomo nell’Italia Barocca has been penned by the art historians Riccardo Lattuada and Laura Raucci.
As is the custom on AHN, Lattuada and Raucci will now both inhabit the highly coveted 'Heroes of art history' section of this blog.
New Book on Doge Monuments in Venice
March 2 2021
Picture: Il Giornale dell'Arte
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Il Giornale dell'Arte have published an article on a new book by the Italian restorer Toto Bergamo Rossi. I monumenti dei dogi. Sei secoli di scultura a Venezia is the first to gather beautiful images (pictured) and historical details of the monuments and tombs of Venice's Doges. The publication is part of Rossi's wider directorial role in the International Venetian Heritage Foundation, which supports the preservation and research into the city's cultural history.
Kress Collection Digital Archive
February 24 2021
Picture: kress.nga.gov
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (NGA) have launched a new website to host the digital archive of the Kress Collection. The collection features materials relating to the collection of Samuel Henry Kress (d.1955), who gifted a great deal of art to US institutions. His entire collection consisted of over 3,000 works of art and was dispersed across 90 art galleries and museums. The NGA alone received 376 Paintings, 94 Sculptures, 1,307 Bronzes and 38 Drawings.
As the website explains:
The Kress Collection Digital Archive virtually unites objects in the Kress Collection and illustrates their history, acquisition, condition and care, and distribution. Gallery Archives staff compiled data about objects, related archival materials, object history (acquisitions and distributions), and associated people and organizations (artists, institutions, dealers and collectors, and historians and conservators). High-quality digital images of objects were obtained, and over 10,000 historical and conservation documents and images from the holdings of the Gallery Archives, the National Gallery of Art painting conservation department, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation Archive have been digitized so far. The significant scope of this resource will support new, complex art historical studies benefiting researchers from various disciplines.
Winchester College's Pictures and Watercolours
February 18 2021
Picture: Winchester College
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Winchester College in Hampshire have done a splendid job of uploading their collection of paintings and watercolours online. It's very easy to search through their online database or simply browse at leisure.
In terms of works on paper, they have some very nice examples by Thomas Gainsborough, Francis Towne, Turner, Girtin, Wright of Derby and later works by Hercules Brabazon Brabazon and Albert Goodwin (pictured).
Their selection of portraits are also rather intriguing. I'd particularly like to draw attention to Isaac Whood's charming set of eighteenth century portraits known as the 'Gentlemen Commoners'. Christopher Rowell published a very interesting article on these Georgian paintings in the British Art Journal in 2013.
The college will be uploading their collection onto ArtUK in the upcoming months. There are bound to be some discoveries made, particularly the watercolours and drawings ascribed to 'English School' I imagine. This Portrait of an Unknown Lady of the 1670s reminds me a little of the work of Mary Beale, for example.
Update - I've been informed that Beale had been suggested as a possible author in the past, but this was eventually rejected by a specialist at the Tate. Mary Beale had in fact lived in Hampshire for six years after her family escaped plague ridden London in 1665.
Jan van Mieris Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné
February 17 2021
Picture: CODART
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
CODART (The International curators network of Dutch and Flemish Art) have drawn attention to this new monograph and catalogue raisonné on the artist Jan van Mieris (1660-1690) by Margreet van der Hut.
To quote the website's brief biography of the painter:
Jan van Mieris was the oldest son and pupil of the famous Leiden painter Frans van Mieris I (1635-1681), who in turn had studied under Gerard Dou (1613-1675) and Abraham van den Tempel (1622-1672). Jan and his brother Willem (1622-1647) followed in the footsteps of their father by working in his manner. This is why their works are often difficult to distinguish from one another and nearly every painting of Jan van Mieris has been attributed to Frans I, Willem or even Willem’s son Frans II (1689-1763) at some point. Jan was not only a painter but a poet as well. Some five poems and a lyrical version of the play Aminta by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) have been preserved in a manuscript at the University Leiden.
As AHN likes to promote such stellar work, Margreet van der Hut will now feature in the prestigious Heroes of Art History section of this blog.
Early Colour Printing in the British Museum
February 13 2021
Picture: paulholberton.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Paul Holberton Publishing are about to release a new scholarly publication entitled Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum. Written by the curator and scholar Elizabeth Savage, the publication will examine works by the likes of "Erhard Ratdolt, Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung Grien, and Hans Burgkmair, as well as unfairly overlooked entrepreneurs and innovators like Erasmus Loy (and his daughter Anna)."
As the publishers blurb explains:
Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum offers significant new research, including previously unidentified examples of early modern colour-printing. Some are believed to be unique in the world; others were made decades before the landmark invention of colourful chiaroscuro woodcut in Italy in 1516. By modelling a printer- and technology-based approach to the history of printing, it contributes to scholarship by pinpointing attributions to printers—not just to artists or designers. In doing so, it lays the groundwork for a new understanding of the history of print, one that encompasses all forms of printed material.
History of Picture Frames Course at University of Amsterdam
February 12 2021
Picture: Rijksmuseum via. auricularstyleframes
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The University of Amsterdam are running what looks to be one of the most in depth courses on the history of picture frames available to scholars, arts professionals or any lover of art! Picture Frames 15th - 21st Century will consist of 2 hour lectures stretched over 4 weeks in April 2021. Furthermore, the course will be lead by Hubert Baija, Senior Conservator of Frames and Gilding at the Rijksmuseum, and cover all of the historical frame styles and periods.
This in depth online course begins on 1st April 2021 and will cost €350 to attend.
