Previous Posts: articles 2018
Another Art History first!
April 26 2012
Picture: BBC
Our newly discovered portrait of the Chevalier D'Eon, the earliest certainly known oil painting of a male transvestite, appeared on the BBC comedy show Have I got News for You recently. You can see the clip here at 34 minutes in.
Fakeski?
April 26 2012
Picture: Mail/Christie's
A Russian Oligarch is suing Christie's this week in the High Court, saying that the above picture he bought for £1.7m is in fact a fake, and not by the famous Russian artist Boris Kustodiev. From the Mail:
The battle to prove the the providence of the painting will last 19 days, and centre around a tiny signature in cyrillic script - said to be that of Kustodiev and dated 1919. Henry Legge QC, for Aurora Fine Arts, through which the painting was purchased, said careful analysis of the signature showed it 'running over' existing cracks in the paint and indicated that it was not written until the late 1940s. Kustodiev died in 1927.
Also highlighting the use of an aluminium-based pigment on the canvas, the QC said it was of a type which was not commonly used by artists until after Kustodiev's death. 'Odalisque' was returned to Christie's after doubts about its authenticity were raised after the sale. The painting was placed on an easel in court for Mr Justice Newey to view.
However, the case began with a dispute over which side should have physical custody of the painting, which Aurora's legal team wants to subject to further tests.
Mr Legge said microscopic, extremely high resolution, photography of the signature could prove conclusively whether it was appended in 1919 or 'considerably later'. [...]
James Aldridge, for Christie's, did not object to fresh photographs being taken, but said cross-sectional testing would be 'unethical' and 'extraordinarily invasive', given the very small size of the signature. Through a detailed comparison between 'Odalisque' and authenticated works by Kustodiev, Christie's insists that the technique, subject matter and other similarities support the attribution to the Russian master. They also say the Aluminium-based pigment identified in the painting was in use by artists in 1919, although not as commonly as in the 1930s.
The High Court hearing - the legal costs of which are likely to equal - if not exceed - the sum paid for the painting seven years ago, continues.
As lawyers say, 'all good things end in litigation'. The case will likely throw up some fascinating questions of how experts assess art, and of course connoisseurship. In fact, the Russian government has already decided the work is a fake, and has published it as such in a list of 900 fake Russian pictures, many of which have been sold in the salerooms in the last few years. One thing to note about this particular case though is that the picture was previously sold by Christie's in 1989, and to me that might argue in its favour as a genuine work. I know there has been a major industry in making Russian fakes to supply the recent boom in modern Russian art - but I don't know the extent to which it started before the collapse of the Soviet regime.
Queuing for Munch
April 25 2012
Picture: ATG
The Antiques Trade Gazette asks:
Is this the longest queue ever to view a single lot coming up at auction?
More than 7500 people turned up to take a look at Edvard Munch's The Scream as Sotheby's staged a five-day exhibition of the picture in London prior to its sale in New York on May 2.
With unprecedented security arrangements for what seems likely to become the most expensive object ever sold at auction, people queued for up to 45 minutes, passing under two airport-style scanners before reaching the hushed serenity of the darkened room. Around eight to ten people were permitted to view the picture at a time...
Update - a reader writes:
We hear a lot about Edvard Munch's "The Scream" as if he had painted only one of it. It would be clearer to refer to, say, the version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" that is in such-and-such a place ... or his copy of it, or his pastel version of it, or not the version or copy of it that was stolen, etc etc, or whatever.
A valid point. It’s interesting that in the Old Master world, some people can talk rather sniffily of the difference between ‘the prime’ version of a composition and later derivations (of a Rubens, for example). But in the modern art world all versions of a work seem to have equal validity. At least, they do when people are trying to sell them…
Today...
April 25 2012
Picture: Samuel Johnson Birthplace Trust
...sorry for the lack of AHN (as if news of the Double Dip* wasn't bad enough). I was at the Oil Painting Expert Network conference at the National Gallery. It was a good day, about which more anon. In the meantime, here's another little discovery from the Public Catalogue Foundation, which I mentioned in my talk. The portrait belongs to the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Trust, and shows Johnson's friend, Dr John Taylor. It is listed as 'attributed to John Opie', but is a good example of a 1760s Joseph Wright of Derby. It appears to be in excellent condition. Fortunately, the attribution to Wright found favour today at the conference. A 'Dr John Taylor' also appears in Wright's correspondence.
* official - the longest downturn in British history.
That 'Bronte discovery'
April 25 2012
Picture: J P Humbert
That 'newly discovered' portrait of three anonymous women by nobody in particular 'the Bronte sisters by Landseer' has been withdrawn from tomorrow's auction. The auctioneers say that 'dramatic new evidence' has come to light. Curiouser and curiouser...
A lost work by Angelica Kauffmann
April 24 2012
Picture: BBC/PCF/Russell-Cotes Art Gallery
Many apologies for the slow service these last couple of days. Filming for the second series of 'Fake or Fortune?' isn't leaving much time for the day job, to say nothing of blogging...
I'm also scratching my head trying to write a paper for tomorrow's conference at the National Gallery, on the proposed Oil Painting Expert Network (OPEN). I will mention some of the excellent discoveries readers have sent in identifying sitters in lost portraits - so thanks again for those.
I shall also be moving onto the more perplexing area of attributions, and in particular attributing anonymous paintings. In other words, connoisseurship, or, as some art historians say, 'the C-word'. One of the pictures I'll mention will be the above portrait of an unknown sitter at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery in Bournemouth. Described on the Your Paintings website as a copy 'after Beechey', it is in fact a very fine portrait by Angelica Kauffmann. I'm pleased to say that the Kauffmann scholar Professor Wendy Wassyng Rowarth agrees with the attribution (on the basis of photographs).
How do I know this? The answer is of course connoisseurship - the ability to look at a painting and tell, sometimes with no other evidence at all, who painted it. Some people (mainly those who can't do it) think connoisseurship is a dastardly, complicated and snobbish word. But in fact it's a very simple concept, and merely reflects hard work and looking at lots of paintings. And there's nothing snobbish in that. The word itself is derived from the Latin 'cognoscere', to get to know - and if you look at enough Kauffmanns over the years, pretty much anyone can 'get to know' what a Kauffmann looks like. That's all there is to it!
Update - a learned reader writes:
Blessings on your last on ‘connoisseurship’. Which is why serious museums and galleries need curatorial photo-archives. Tell that to the Tate.
Quite! And I also learnt today at the OPEN conference that the noted military historian Andrew Cormack has identified the uniform of the sitter in the above Kauffmann as being the Cheshire militia. Now we just need to figure out who he is. Any ideas?
Over-hyping the auctions
April 24 2012
Picture: Christie's/Gerhard Richter, 'Seestuck'
Over at Forbes, Abigail Esman has an interesting piece looking at the dangers of auction house hyperbole:
I cannot recall a time ever before when an auction season kicked off with as much hype and bluster as is now blowing about the upcoming May sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York – the first of the two annual sales of modern and contemporary art that set the tone for the market and establish artist prices for the season. [...] the auction houses are outdoing themselves, tripping over one another in their efforts to locate – and then to sell – the “lost” “forgotten” “unknown” “fresh-to-market” masterpieces that, they promise, represent a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see, let alone to own, the most important, valuable, spectacular, significant, critically-acclaimed, influential, coveted art treasures of all time.
True, marketing has always been the domain of the superlative, and art writing the realm of the adjectival phrase. And with prices at or above pre-recession levels – meaning that a single sale can be worth literally millions of dollars in commission – high competitiveness between the two largest auction houses for the most lucrative of the year’s sales is somewhat to be expected. But there comes a point where not only do these sales pitches begin to sound ridiculous, but arguably place the art market itself in a precarious overdrive.
Christie’s, for instance, which boasted $5.7 billion in revenues for 2011, has announced the sale of “an exceptional selection of six important works by Gerhard Richter” at its Postwar and Contemporary sale on May 8. (See catalogue here .) What will they do, then, with the next batch of “important” Gerhard Richter works? Or will they be “even-more-important”?
More significantly, should these “exceptional works” fail to meet their estimates (however unlikely that may be given the current Richter fever), the ramifications on the Richter market could be enormous: after all, if these “exceptional” pieces don’t do so well, what about the less-exceptional ones? It is, in fact, difficult for me to discern what makes these individual works so particularly remarkable in comparison to many other Richter paintings I’ve seen out there for less – with the single exception of “Seestück,” a 1969 seascape that recalls the glowing light of Frederick Turner, and the turbulence of Caspar David Friedrich’s haunting 1807 “Fog” and classic 1808 “Monk by the Sea.”
And in truth, with the market so flooded now with abstract Richters — ubiquitous at every art fair – the possibility that several of those in this group would fail to sell is not entirely unthinkable. (One can only hope that Christie’s PR’s declaration of this as a “landmark event in the Richter market doesn’t prove to be the wrong kind of “landmark.”)
All too true. When it comes to modern and contemporary sales, auction houses are increasingly behaving like estate agents, who seem to describe everything, even one-bedroom flats, as 'stunning'.
That stolen Cezanne...
April 24 2012
Picture: Buhrle Collection
...has finally been returned to the Buhrle Collection in Switzerland. From the Washington Post:
Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said the painting was flown Monday to Switzerland on a special flight. He says “(I) hope they guard it well” from now on.
Today...
April 23 2012
Picture: BG
...I'm filming for the second series of 'Fake or Fortune?' at the National Art Library. So I'm afraid posts may be rare.
Amazing location, don't you think?
Why armed museum guards are a bad idea
April 23 2012
From NBC:
A security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art accidentally shot himself in the leg Friday afternoon.
The FDNY said he was being transported to New York Hospital with a minor injury. Officials said he was taking his gun out of its holster in the locker room, away from the public areas, when it went off.
I was ticked off again at the National Gallery last week by a room guard - for 'looking at the pictures too closely' - and in the usual brusque manner. I'm glad he wasn't armed...
Update - a reader writes (delightfully):
Re: Armed Guards and your close encounter, when I was in the Barber Institute (Birmingham) once, peering at works with my new reading glasses (I have since progressed to varifocals) I ventured so close to a canvas in order to focus my ailing vision that my nose touched the canvas - the guard barked out a threatening warning, embarrassing at the time but in retrospect totally over the top (imagine being charged with threatening a work of art with one's nose!).
In Ottawa, the exhibits at the fabulous Museum of Mankind were not cordoned off when I visited years ago but had bells that sounded ear-shatteringly if one approached too closely - they sounded every other minute! What's the answer? - obviously better spectacles (if I could only afford them!) - but the best collections use superior non-reflective glass for (their own) works that allows close viewing. Non-glassed works are often loaned canvases, and many collections cannot afford 'superior' glass.
It reminds me of when I was once in the old Courtauld Institute galleries and watched in horror as a demonstrative lady pointed out some (presumably) strong opinion to an ignorant companion about Gauguin's sublime 'Nevermore' by punching the bare canvas several times with her forefinger so vehemently that the whole work vibrated violently in response - the room steward leapt to life from his apparent doze with a room-shattering expletive warning, that the lady (by virtue of her birth, status and wealth) hardly registered. Had that guard been armed, can you imagine the blood-letting that might have ensued? Can you visualise the Bateman cartoon?
The Lost Prince found
April 23 2012
Picture: PCF/BBC/Wellcome Library
More lovely discoveries from Your Paintings have been coming in - continued thanks. I'll put them all up soon. In the meantime, a particularly sharp-eyed reader has sent in this fine contemporary portrait of a 'Portrait of a Young Man', or Henry, Prince of Wales (1594-1612). Henry, a much forgotten figure, was the eldest son of James I and considered the great hope of the Stuarts. His tragic death at the age of 18 paved the way for Charles I.
Later this year, a new exhibition on Henry will open at the NPG in London, so it's nice to add this portrait of him to our records. I think the head type was originally by Robert Peake.
Crowd-sourcing the national art collection
April 20 2012
Pictures: Your Paintings/PCF/BBC
I've had some excellent responses in the quest to find lost paintings on the new Public Catalogue Foundation website, Your Paintings. Thanks to all of you for writing in.
The title of Chief Sleuth this week goes to the director of the Avoncroft Museum, Simon Carter, who has identified the following impressive list of previously unnamed portraits: Archbishop Laud in the collection of Hampshire Country Council (after Van Dyck); Robert Burns at the Atkinson Art Gallery (after Nasymth); Anthony Van Dyck at the Worthington Art Gallery (my hero, above, hooray!); and Charles James Fox at the Haslemere Education Museum (after John Raphael Smith). Simon used to be a curator at the Palace of Westminster, so knows his portrait onions.
Meanwhile, my colleague Lawrence Hendra spotted the below portrait of Samuel Johnson, called 'Old Man at a Desk'. We don't know the artist yet, but it relates to this engraving, and appears to be a good example of a 19th Century genre picture.
And finally, I can add this not particularly distinguished portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh at Maidstone Museum, which is taken from this engraving. Now it may be that none of the portraits we've uncovered so far this week are great works of art. But, along with the others we've discovered so far, it shows the immense value of having collections online with decent sized photos. Who knows what else we'll find?
Update - a reader writes:
I think the Johnson portrait may be by Edward M Ward; he did a similar one of Johnson and Chesterfield.
Sewell on Hampton Court 'Mistresses' exhibition
April 20 2012
Picture: Christie's
The Great Man doesn't like it. Which is perhaps to be expected, given the original way the exhibition is laid out (which I liked). But he makes a connoisseurial blooper in relation to the full-length of Nell Gwyn, above:
Always attributed to Peter Lely, it seems a wretched nude when compared with his convincingly erotic tumble of more substantial nymphs snoozing by a fountain in the Vale of Lethe (a masterpiece in Dulwich), painted perhaps a decade before Charles II came to the throne and perhaps evidence of a licentious tendency in English culture well before the Restoration. That these two paintings are by the same hand and same imagination is quite improbable; a prime original of the Gwynn portrait has yet to be discovered.
Sewell's mistake no.1 - comparing Lely's later works with his earlier pictures. Lely is a rare artist, in that he seems to get worse as he gets older. The picture Sewell refers to in Dulwich is perhaps his best early painting, from the early 1650s. The Nell Gwyn is a later work, from the 1670s.
What explains the difference? I don't know - but I suspect - that Lely's decline was partly due to idleness. Note, for example, his extensive reliance on the studio system. But perhaps most of all we must blame ourselves - for we English in the 17th Century just weren't that interested in painting itself, from an artistic point of view. We were the philistines of Europe. Portraits of ourselves we loved, but, generally, we weren't cultured enough to tell the difference between an exquisite piece of brushwork by a master hand, or a plodding piece of drapery by a studio assistant. (After all, these portraits were meant to hang in dark, candlelit dining rooms, so it didn't particularly matter.) This partly explains why there are so few really talented native English artists, and why those foreign artists that did come here tended to decline in their powers as they churned out portrait after portrait, and realised that they could get away with less and less effort. Compare for example Van Dyck's later English portraits with his earlier Antwerp works. Compare also Kneller's portraits; his earier English pictures are far better than the later ones, in which he relies increasingly on studio assistants. Happily, by the eighteenth Century we Brits had become a little more cultured (thanks in part to things like the Grand Tour), and we were at last able to contribute meaningfully to art history with the likes of Reynolds, Gainsborough, Hogarth and Lawrence.
And Sewell's mistake no.2: condition. As I was muttering earlier this week, not enough critics take into account condition issues when looking at paintings. The Lely in Dulwich Sewell takes as his reference point is in excellent condition. The Lely of Nell Gwyn is not, and has been both flattened during a relining, and abraded through over-cleaning - which partly explains why it failed to sell twice at auction recently. Personally, I'm in no doubt about Nell's attribution to Lely, and nor that it was the portrait Charles II had in his private rooms.
'Portrait of an Artist', or...
April 19 2012
Picture: PCF/Atkinson Art Gallery
More lost picture hunting fun from the PCF/BBC/Your Paintings website. After my call to arms, a particularly sharp-eyed reader writes:
What fun! [...] I found the BBC's site and clicked on "unknown artists" and got to page 4 before finding this gem [catalogued as 'Portrait of an Artist', by an Unknown Artist at the Atkinson Art Gallery in Southport]. I can't imagine why this isn't an autograph version of the Christian Seybold self portrait to be found in Leichtenstein (on copper) [below].
It's hard to assess from the above image whether it is by Seybold - is the mouth a little awkward? - but it's certainly of him! I'll try and track down a better photo.
Keep 'em coming please. So far this week we've added to the national collection portraits of a king, a celebrated composer, a Prime Minister, and now a famous artist. Not bad...
Romani restituted in US
April 19 2012
The painting by Girolamo Romani that was dramatically seized by the FBI from an exhibition in Florida has been restituted to the heirs of the jewish family from whom it was stolen during the war. The picture will now be sold at Christie's this summer, and is thought to be worth up to $3.5m. More here.
Museums - lock up your jades
April 19 2012
Picture: PA/Mail
The dizzying demand from China for antique jade is having alarming implications for museum security. Recently, thieves stole millions of pounds worth of jade from Durham University. And now up to £18m worth has been stolen from the Fitzwilliam. More here.
The Sun, naturally has the best headline:
'£18m jade snatch by merciless Ming gang'
Here, incidentally, is a heretical thought. Given the sudden and astronomical rise in value of these previously rather neglected items, and given the fact that UK museums have literally tons of the stuff, should they consider selling some of it, perhaps to bolster acquisition funds?
'Portrait of an Unknown Man', or...
April 18 2012
Picture: PCF/Rochdale Arts & Heritage Service.
... a four time Prime Minister? A reader has sent in this excellent spot from 'Your Paintings'. More please!
'Portrait of a Man in Blue', or...
April 18 2012
Picture: PCF/Herbert Art Gallery & Museum
... a portrait of certain well known composer?
I'm continuing my roams around the new Public Catalogue Foundation website Your Paintings in preparation for my talk at the OPEN conference next week, looking for lost paintings. You should try it - it's great fun for us nerdy art history anoraks.
Here is the picture catalogued as 'Portrait of a Man in Blue (possibly the Reverend G Greenway)' at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry. Below is the original portrait, by Thomas Hudson, in the University Library of Hamburg. Click here to find out the sitter.
If you come across any other good examples, let me know.
New Raphael exhibition the Prado
April 18 2012
Picture: Louvre, Raphael's Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione
This sounds like a must-see:
This will be one of the most important exhibitions ever to be devoted to the work of Raphael (1483-1520) and his studio and the first to focus on the final phase in the artist’s career when he became the most influential painter in Western art.
Organised in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre (where the exhibition will take place following its showing at the Museo del Prado), the 40 paintings and 30 drawings that comprise this exhibition will be displayed chronologically. As such they will cover the last seven years of Raphael’s life, from the start of the pontificate of Leo X (1513) up to the artist’s death in 1520. This period includes famous works such as the Saint Cecilia Altarpiece (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale) and the portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, from the Louvre. Space will also be given to the work of Raphael’s principal pupils and followers, Giulio Romano (c. 1449-1546) and Giovanni Francesco Penni (1488-1528), who worked under the master’s close supervision on the late commissions he received.
12th June - 16th September.
Reporting arts discoveries
April 18 2012
Picture: JP Humbert
Regular readers will know we've had a few art history stories in the press lately that seem to question the thoroughness of art historical reporting. First, there was the recovered haul in Italy which apparently included a Van Dyck, a Rubens, and a Poussin, but which was in fact just a load of copies and pastiches. Then there was the bizarre story of the 'early Warhol'. Both stories enjoyed global media coverage.
Today we have an interesting case study in how discovery stories are picked up by the media. This morning I received a press release from local auctioneer J P Humbert about a newly discovered 'portrait of the three Bronte sisters', above, which has been attributed to Landseer (why?). You can find the text of the press release below, by clicking 'Read on'. Now see if you can spot the difference between the press release, and the story as it appeared on The Daily Telegraph website soon afterwards.
You can see the same auctioneer's previous two 'Bronte discoveries' here.
