Previous Posts: articles 2018
Lost Murillo found in Wales
November 23 2017
Picture: Sotheby's
A previously lost portrait by Murillo, of Don Diego Ortiz de Zúñiga, has been found at Penrhyn Castle in Wales. The painting is now in the Frick's Murillo exhibition - but as a last minute addition. It is published in the catalogue as a copy, because, as The Guardian reports:
One of the US exhibition’s curators, Xavier F Salomon, said [...] that he regretted relying on previous judgments by other art historians. “Most scholars have written that there are two versions [of the portrait], both copies after a lost original. One copy was in Seville, which I’ve seen and is clearly a copy,” he said.
Painted around 1751, the copy is thought to have been commissioned by the sitter’s family when the original Murillo was sold. Now attributed to the 18th-century Sevillian painter Domingo Martínez, it hangs in Seville town hall.
When it came to the Welsh example, Salomon said the literature featured “terrible old black and white photos”. He requested a colour image for his exhibition catalogue and featured it as a “copy”, even though he recalled his first impression was that “this looks really good”.
“I thought ‘people have always said it’s a copy, it’s got to be a copy’. Which is, of course, a mistake art historians should never make. Go with your gut feeling and you should follow up. I didn’t.
Don't be too hard on yourself Xavier - at least your initial reaction was right!
Restoring Dresden's Vermeer
November 23 2017
Video: SKD
The Gemaldegalerie in Dresden is restoring their Vermeer of the Girl Reading a Letter by a Window. Says the gallery:
Considering its age, the painting, created circa 1657–1659, is well preserved and is in a stable conservation condition. However, the surface is compromised due to darkened layers of varnish, old retouching and over-painting. A major reason to restore the painting was the reduced readability of Vermeer’s original painting.
Work will continue until 2019. You can follow progress on the project on the SKD's website here.
Lost Mary Queen of Scots portrait found? (ctd.)
November 22 2017
Picture: SNPG
In Apollo, David Taylor (curator of art at the National Trust) has written more about that discovery of a hidden portrait of Mary Queen of Scots.
Canova's lost bust of Murat
November 22 2017
Video: Christie's
Christie's have discovered a lost bust by Antonio Canova, of the Napoleonic general and King of Naples, Joachim Murat. The bust will be offered for sale on 28th November in Paris, lot details here. Susan Moore has written a piece for Apollo on the discovery here.
Rubens' Clara Serena comes to Scotland
November 21 2017
Picture: Rubenshuis
Regular readers may remember the story of the discovery of Rubens' portrait of his daughter Clara Serena, mistakenly deaccessioned by the Metropolitan Museum as a copy. The picture has now gone on display at the National Gallery of Scotland up here in Edinburgh, until 28th January. More here.
My TAN diary
November 21 2017
The Art Newspaper kindly asked me to write an 'art historian's diary', which you can read here. Grayson Perry's pink dinnerware features.
A real fake!
November 21 2017
Picture: A P Diemen auctions
A genuine, signed Han Van Meegeren (the forger of all those Vermeers in the 1930s and 40s) is on sale in Amsterdam, with an estimate of just 500-700 Euros. It was the fact that nobody valued his genuine paintings which made Van Meegeren turn to forgery.
More virtual reality Old Masters
November 21 2017
The Kremer Museum from The Kremer Collection on Vimeo.
Video: Kremer Museum
The Kremer Collection - a private collection of Dutch and Flemish Old Masters put together by George Kremer - is building a virtual reality museum. From Codart:
For the creation of the museum, each painting has been photographed between 2,500 and 3,500 times using the ‘photogrammetry’ technique to build one ultra high resolution visual model for each painting, allowing the museum’s visitors to enjoy a deeply immersive experience with the paintings. Using VR technology, visitors will be able to examine the artworks’ surface and colors up-close, as well as view the reverse of the paintings to explore each work’s unique stamps of provenance.
Discussing the establishment of the Kremer Museum, George Kremer says, “Our journey as collectors has always been about finding the highest quality artworks and simultaneously finding ways to share them with as many people as possible. My wife Ilone and I believe we can make a greater contribution to the art world by investing in technology rather than in bricks and mortar for our collection.”
London Old Master sales
November 21 2017
Picture: Sotheby's
The December London Old Master sale catalogues are online. Sotheby's Evening sale here, Day sale here. Christie's Evening here, day here. Bonhams here. Sotheby's are offering the above late Titian portrait - who's an old friend from my London dealing days - at £1m-£1.5m. I'm looking forward to seeing him again.
Off with his head!
November 21 2017
Picture: James Mulraine
When the art historian James Mulraine was visiting Hampton Court recently, he noticed that the in the famous painting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, someone had once cut off Henry VIII's head. It turns out (James is one of the best at finding out these things) that some bored Spanish courtiers had done it in the early 17th Century, as one contemporary recorded:
’The last weeke the Sp Ambr had long audience in the Gallerie at Whitehall with [The King] … that tyme his followers were in the next roome, where are many good pieces as your Lordship knoweth amongst others the siege of Kinsale and K:H8 his going into Bolloigne (wch is one of the best there) out of theise were many peeces cutt where the Spaniards received any disgrace in the first where a Spaniard is hanged at Kinsale and in the other the kings head cutt off… this is much spoken off.’
More here.
'Salvator Mundi' - the most expensive artwork ever sold (ctd)
November 21 2017
Video: Christie's
Here are the edited highlights from the sale night. Christie's Jussi Pylkannen makes auctioneering look easy; it's anything but. And here he produced an auction performance for the ages. Bravo.
There's been a lot of comment on Christie's decision to put the picture in a contemporary art sale, rather than an Old Master sale. Many say that the sale was a 'triumph of marketing and branding', and that somehow the picture made an unjustified price, or that Christie's pulled a fast one.
But Christie's made a conscious decision to turn its back on the politics that can sometimes dominate an Old Master sale. Despite the scholarly acclaim that has greeted the Salvator Mundi, we've seen that if enough sceptical voices decry the picture, it can become 'disputed' - even if those voices lack the necessary authority to be cited as experts. We might call them 'neinsagers', after the phrase used by the art historian Max Friedlander:
As the 'No' man imagines that he stands above the 'Yes' man - and probably also to others to seem to stand higher - critics will always feel the impulse to attack genuine works in order to win the applause of the maliciously minded. The 'Yes' men have done more harm, but have also been of greater usefulness, than the rigorous 'no' men, who deserve no confidence if they never have proved their worth as 'Yes' men.
The view for your average major Old Master sale is full of 'neinsagers'. It can get quite nasty at times. And this was the atmosphere that Christie's decided to remove the Salvator Mundi - the most important Old Master to be sold in recent times - from entirely. Those in the business of selling Old Masters ought to reflect on this.
Incidentally, for the last two years, the most expensive paintings sold in the world have been Old Masters (last year's being the Rothschild Rembrandts).
Virtual reality Bellotto and Canaletto
November 21 2017
Video: Sotheby's
Here's one of those fancy virtual reality art videos, this time on some Bellottos and Canalettos coming up in Sotheby's forthcoming Old Master sales.
New Constable discovery at Sotheby's (ctd.)
November 21 2017
Video: Sotheby's
I mentioned recently that Sotheby's would be offering a newly discovered Constable in December in London. Here's a video on the picture, which is an interesting addition to the oeuvre of auction house videos; there's no specialist interview or voiceover, just text and nicely shot images. I like it.
'Conserving Michelangelo'
November 16 2017
Video: The Met
Here's a Met video on conserving a Michelangelo drawing.
'Breaking news'
November 16 2017
Video: CBC
The Canadian broadcaster CBC went live last night to Christie's New York to cover the last $200 million.
'Salvator Mundi restored'
November 16 2017
Video: The Guardian
The Guardian has made a time lapse video of the Salvator Mundi, from the images made available by Christie's in their catalogue.
'Monet's personal collection'
November 16 2017
Video: Christie's
'Salvator Mundi' - the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction
November 16 2017
Picture: Robert Simon Fine Art
It's 1am here in the UK and I've just witnessed the most extraordinary moment of auction drama at Christie's New York (via Facebook live). Leonardo's Salvator Mundi has sold for £400m hammer, or $450m with fees.
The lot was first announced as 'selling' at $80m, which I presume represents the level of the guarantee. Bidding was then brisk to the high $100ms, before, to audible gasps in the room, the picture broke through the $200m mark. Thereafter it was a battle between two phone bidders. The winning bidder kept making unilateral bids way above the usual bidding increments. Their final gambit was to announce, with the bidding at $370m, that their next bid was $400m. This finally knocked the competition out, and - after 19 minutes - the hammer came down. Whoever it was evidently has some serious cash to burn.
And so an Old Master painting has become the most expensive artwork ever sold. It will have completely overshadowed everything else in the sale. The next lot, a Basquiat (usually a high point for contemporary sales) bought in as the room buzzed with Leonardo chatter. Will the sale prompt people to now look anew at Old Masters? Maybe. It will surely end for good now the tired clicheé that the Old Master market is dead.
Some immediate thoughts. First, the guarantor has made a few quid, and deserves it - guaranteeing that picture at this stage in its history (post rediscovery, and in the midst of an ugly legal battle between the vendor and his agent) was quite a risk. Second, the vendor - Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev - has made about $180m. He's in the midst of a legal battle with the person he bought the picture from, an art agent called Yves Bouvier, alleging that he was over-charged (it has been reported that Bouvier bought it from Sotheby's for about $80m, and sold it to Rybolovlev for about $125m - allegedly). I'm not sure how that over-charging allegation plays out now.
Third, Christie's just did something that re-writes the history of auctioneering. They took a big gamble with their brand, their strategy to sell the picture, and not to mention the reputations of their leadership team, and they pulled it off. They marketed the picture brilliantly - the best piece of art marketing I've ever seen. Above all, they had absolute faith in the picture. AHN congratulates them all.
Finally, despite the fact that this picture enjoyed near universal endorsement from Leonardo scholars, and had a weight of other technical and historical evidence behind it, there was a tendency in many quarters to be sniffy about it. I found this puzzling - not just because (for what it's worth) I believed in the picture myself - since the determination amongst some to criticise the picture was in inverse proportion to their art historical expertise. It sometimes seems that the more famous the artist, the more people assume they are an expert in them. And with Leonardo being the most famous of them all, the armchair connoisseurs have been having a field day these last few weeks.
Anyway, I'm going to bed. What a ride. I was sure the picture would sell, but never imagined it would make this much. We must all now wonder where the picture is going to end up next.
Re-discovered Lawrence portrait in Edinburgh
November 15 2017
Video: Lyon & Turnbull
The Edinburgh auctioneers Lyon & Turnbull have an unfinished portrait of a young girl by Sir Thomas Lawrence in their next sale. It's an early work, and can be dated to c.1790. The estimate is £30k-£50k, and the catalogue entry is here. [Disclaimer, I'm on the board of L&T!]
Government review of UK museums
November 14 2017
Picture: DCMS
The UK government's Department for Culture has published a review into the nation's museums. It's called the Mendoza Review, and it's very disappointing. It's full of jargon (the dreaded "upskilling" features), and makes few useful and specific recommendations beyond urging institutions to 'work together' with each other and 'strategise'. Most worryingly of all, it ignores many elephants in the room: there is nothing meaningful on Brexit, nothing serious on how to get artworks out of storage and on display; and the problem of deaccessions from local authority museums is ignored. Perhaps a reason the report is so weak becomes clear when we look at the team behind it; they're almost all current or former museum employees. In other words, the report is entirely 'sector led'. What it really needed was some outside voices, not least someone to properly represent museum users.
I'll focus on three areas here briefly. First, the report appears to encourage a fresh look at deaccessioning. Here's an excerpt from page 45:
At the other end of the collections cycle is disposal or transfer. Many museums would like to rationalise their collections in an ethical way to improve collections management; make best use of the most important and interesting objects; and reduce pressure on storage. Guidance does exist on making appropriate disposals: the Museum Association’s Code of Ethics sets out strict guidelines55 and the process is governed by ACE’s Disposals Toolkit. Disposal or transfer is often prevented by lack of resources, acceptable process in the individual museum, or confidence: museums reported they would like explicit ‘permission’ to make disposals. The Review team suggests that museums should have an active programme of assessing and, where appropriate, rationalising their collections. [My italics]
The really bold thing would have been to explore how local authority collections should be nationalised, to prevent cash-strapped councillors selling local treasures.
Secondly, the report ignores one of the issues of concern to the art historical community at the moment - image reproduction fees. The only mention of these fees is a condoning reference to museums using them to raise revenue:
Digitised collections offer new opportunities for both research and commercial purposes. For research, digitisation offers the opportunity to look at metadata in new ways, link collections from disparate sources, and conduct new forms of analysis. Museum trading arms are increasing their use of digitised collections to generate income, for example, by licensing images from the collection, while also allowing free use for educational and research purposes. Art UK, an online centralised platform for art museum collections, is exploring how it can offer a licensing service to generate income for its members.
Finally, the report appears to recommend that 'good cause' funding from the the Heritage Lottery Fund (which traditionally adheres to the principle of 'additionality'; that is, the money should only be in addition to regular government funding, not in place of it) should be reviewed:
HLF should focus its museums funding on capital projects with a significant impact, whether major transformation or much-needed repair of valuable buildings. It should consider how to interpret ‘additionality’ in the contemporary context where museums need to use investment to tackle buildings conservation and maintenance backlogs, attract and maintain new audiences, and generate new funding streams.
