Previous Posts: articles 2018
Spot the fake!
July 13 2016
Picture: Sky Arts
Sky Arts is making a programme about seven fakes that have been hung at galleries across the UK. It's competition of sorts I think, and the idea is that if you can spot all seven, then you win a prize. The seven pictures are illustrated here among genuine works, so you can have a go at sleuthing online. It's pretty easy, I think you'll find - whoever made the fakes has not tried especially hard to mimic the Old Master ways. But I'm all in favour of things like this - anything to make people look more closely at the object. Well done to those participating galleries. More here.
"How Rembrandt made his etchings"
July 13 2016
Video: Christie's
Nice short video by Christie's on how to make an etching.
Did Abramovich buy the £44m Rubens?
July 13 2016
Video: Christie's
Colin Gleadell in the Telegraph wonders, and reports that whoever bought the Rubens also bought a number of other pictures, including the set of Four Seasons by Brueghel the Younger.
Rembrandt pair at the Rijksmuseum
July 13 2016
Video: Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum has made a nice video about their new Rembrandt acquisition (made jointly with the Louvre) of the portraits of Marten and Oopjen Coppit. Meanwhile, in the New York Times, their former owner Eric de Rothschild has spoken of the process of selling them.
London Old Master sales (post-sale)
July 10 2016
Video: Bonhams
I think there were two main stories from last week's London Old Master sales: first, Brexit didn't have as much of an impact on the overall market as some might have feared (as ever, the OMP market just plods along, whatever the economic weather); and second, Christie's are back in play in the Old Master field. Christie's evening sale total was £65.3m (pre-sale estimate £36.4m-£54.9m), compared to Sotheby's £16.4m (est. £20.m-£31.2m). (All sale prices quoted here include premium).
Of course, the greater part of Christie's total was made up of the £44m Rubens, but then we should also consider the major Old Master works that Christie's sold in the previous week as part of their British Art sale, including a £14m Constable and a £3.7m Reynolds. Christie's success marks something of a turnaround in their OMP fortunes - for the last few years they have lagged behind Sotheby's.
The impact of Brexit will inevitably take some time to be felt in the UK domestic market. As I wrote here for The Art Newspaper, I'm not optimistic. But in the short term it seems the suddenly weaker pound encouraged overseas bidders to keep taking an interest in what London had to offer. For dollar buyers, the exchange rate meant effectively a 15% discount. On major lots that's equivalent to waiving the buyer's premium. I heard one report of a vendor ringing the auction house to demand that their estimate be increased, in light of the weak pound. A sign perhaps of the inflation to come...
One can perhaps also begin to discern the effect of Brexit in the middle market. Some obviously British pictures in the day sales, such as this perfectly nice Lely portrait estimated at £15k-£20k (which one would have expected to sell to domestic buyers) did not attract any bidders. But it's probably too early to tell here.
Anyway, it was overall a heartening series of sales, from which those of us in the Old Master game could take much comfort. Yours truly even managed to sell four pictures - nothing stellar, but enough to keep the show on the road for a wee while longer.
So let's look at some of the indivudal lots. The main story of the week was obviously the Rubens of Lot and his Daughters, which made an impressive £44.8m against an estimate of £20m-£30m. Although I thought the picture would sell, I didn't expect it to do that well. It just goes to show how difficult it is to value Old Masters. Many thought that the subject matter was, in terms of desirability, some way off that of the last major Rubens to break into the £40m category, the Massacre of the Innocents which made £49.5m in 2002. But 14 minutes of bidding demonstrated that people and insitutions are still prepared to pay significant sums for undoubted masterpieces. Another Rubens from the Beit collection, a sketch for Venus Supplicating Jupiter, sold for £1.3m.
Another impressive price at Christie's was the rare complete set of all Four Seasons by Breughel the Younger, which made £6.4m (est. £3m-£5m). This and the £506k (est. £300k-£500k) for yet another version of The Payment of the Tithes showed that the Breughel the Younger market seems to be as strong as ever. I speculated a while ago that a decline of Russian bidders might affect this market, but it seems I am wrong, and someone in the know about these things assures me I am. The only Van Dyck to sell last week did well enough, the previously unknown Portrait of a Lady making £170k, over its estimate of £100k-£150k. A pair of Bellottos in good state made £3.5m (est.£2m-£3m). A William Larkin portrait of lady (below) made an encouraging (for British art lovers) £266k against an estimate of £40k-£60k. This is the sort of Old Master picture which increasingly fits contemporary taste, with its naivety and colouring, and the fact that it's on panel. Some years ago it would most likely have been a Day Sale kind of picture.
One major Old Master name that didn't fare so well at Christie's was Titian, whose full-length portrait of Guidobaldo II delle Rovere failed to sell at £2m-£3m, probably due to its condition. An intriguing 'Dutch School' portrait of a man in a hat painted in c.1655 made £385k - I wonder if we'll soon see it again cleaned, and with an artist's name attached.
I was surprised to see a copy of Caravaggio's Boy Peeling Fruit (above) sell so well at £218,500. I happened to see the original recently (in the Royal Collection) and the picture at Christie's was some way off even being called 'Studio' of Caravaggio, if indeed he had a studio. But marketing a copy, which would normally be catalogued as 'circle of' or 'after', as 'Associate of Caravaggio' perhaps gave the picture an air of being closer to Caravaggio than it really is. The original has a pentiment of a leaf behind the peeled fruit - which presumably would only have emerged through the white drapery after a period of time. In the copy at Christie's that pentiment has itself been copied, but as a kind of smudge or shadow in the drapery, which suggests the copyist didn't really understand what was going on in the original. So one wonders quite how close to Caravaggio the copyist was, even in date.
Sotheby's established a handsome new record for the work of the French pastellist Liotard, this time for an oil of A Dutch Girl at Breakfast (above), which made £4.4m (est. £4m-£6m). The previous Liotard record was €1.4m in 2012, for a pastel. A Rubens sketch of The Chariot of Apollo showed the market for Rubens' studies is still as strong as ever. Indeed, a pair of putti in Sotheby's day sale selling for £245k (est. £80k-£120k) showed that Rubens seems to be especially favoured at the moment - the two pictures were perfectly nice, but were in fact fragments from a larger picture which had been cut up by a dealer in the mid-18th Century (shame on you, M. Wachters), and much repainted in parts by restorers over the years. Another strong Ribera price (£293k, est. £100k-£150k) at Sotheby's showed that even the most 'boring' religious subject, of a bearded saint looking up and wearing brown (below), can sell well if it's painted by someone as dazzling as Ribera. A recently restituted Jan Brueghel the Elder still life of flowers (seized in by the Nazis in 1939 from Baron Alphonse von Rothschild sold for £3.84m (est. £3m-£5m). A still-life of glasses and fruit by Pieter Claesz was unsold at £1.8m-£2.5m. It does seem that the Dutch 17th C market is softer than it once was. A rather rubbed late-English period Van Dyck portrait of a lady in red didn't sell at £400k-£600k - this picture had been up before in 2012 at Christie's and also failed to sell. Sotheby's sold three out of the four Dominic Serres views of Havana.
Bonhams had one of their best Old Master sales for many years. They sold a good Claude for £722k, and the star of the show, a self-portrait by William Dobson, soared above its £200k-£300k estimate to make £1.1m. In the back of the room I saw the great Waldemar (perhaps the world's biggest Dobson fan) directing a film of the bidding (above). The curiously cheap Ribera I mentioned in an earlier post made £218k (est. £20k-£30k). It would have made more, I am told, but for hesitancy over its mid-WW2 sale history. A London dealer won some strong bidding for an attractive Romney portrait of Elizabeth Burgoyne (below), which made £314k (est. £70k-£100k), and proved that the market for later 18thC 'peaches and cream' English portraiture can still be strong. That said, a portrait of her husband Mr Burgoyne (in just as good condition, and attractive enough in a red jacket) failed to sell at £30k-£50k. The portrait market is very subjective, and value is often all in whether the sitter is good looking or not. Sad, I know - but at least it means that great examples of portrait painting can be had cheaply - a perfectly decent Gainsborough can be yours for £10k if you don't mind it showing an aged old lady.
Some of my Old Master colleagues wondered if the strength of the London sales was due to a transfer of affections by some collectors from the contemporary and modern market - post-Brexit and ahead of the expected economic uncertainty. I doubt it, but here's hoping. And a glimmer of hope might be that, as Ermanno Rivetti reports in The Art Newspaper, the Rubens of Lot and His Daughters was bought by a client dealing with Christie's head of post-war and contemporary art, Frances Outred. If the Rubens was indeed bought by a 'contemporary collector', then that will energise the market somewhat.
Oh - I must also mention that Sotheby's sold their Lely self-portrait drawing for £869,000, which was a great result.
Apologies (ctd.)
July 10 2016
Well it seems another week has gone by without much activity on the blog - I am sorry. But the Old Master sales week has kept me busy, and we're in the home straight of our new BBC4 series, which airs on 14th September. It seems I'm on a plane somewhere at least three times a week at the moment. I hope to have more time to catch up on stories on Tuesday and Wednesday.
London Old Master sales (part 2)
July 3 2016
Picture: BG
Today I went to view Christie's Old Master sales at King St. And what an impressive sight it was - this year Christie's has put together an extremely strong sale. The weight of great art on show at King St. is also added to by a loan exhibition of works from private collections, which is displayed in some newly refurbished rooms on the ground floor. The exhibition includes works by Bacon, Freud, Gainsborough, Canaletto, Lawrence, and Turner. I also enjoyed seeing Landseer's famous Monarch of the Glen (above), which I don't recall seeing before. The exhibition is on until July 15th, and is well worth a visit.
As expected the most important painting of Christie's Evening Sale is the early Rubens of Lot and his Daughters. This is officially described as 'estimate on request' in the catalogue, but an estimate of £20m-£30m has been widely discussed. It's a great picture (and I know that's an over-used phrase in the art trade), in excellent condition, and I expect it to sell well. As mentioned earlier on AHN, Rubens is also included in the sale with a sketch of Venus Supplicating Jupiter from the Beit Collection (£1.2m-£1.8m).
There is a rather lovely, and entirely 'right', previously unknown portrait of a lady by Van Dyck. It is in perfect 'dealer bait' condition, cheaply estimated at £100k-£150k, and the temptation to take off the old varnish will be great. It should blossom into an engaging and important late English period Van Dyck - and will surely sell above the estimate. A full-length Titian is on offer at £2m-£3m, which price probably reflects the condition of the picture - it's a little thin in parts, which is alas so often the case with Titian. It seems that pictures by the most famous artists have, over time, been cleaned far more regularly than those by minor ones - and have consequently suffered from the attentions of over-enthusiastic 'restorers'.
A rarity on offer at Christie's is a complete set of Peter Breughel the Younger's 'Four Seasons' estimated at £3m-£5m. Individual 'seasons' have made strong prices in the past, and I'd expect the set at Christie's to make more than the lower estimate. That said, the Breughel market has been affected by a recent decline in Russian buying. For some reason Russian buyers were particularly keen on Breughel the Younger, and for a while in the last decade his pictures became something of an art historical currency. A 'Payment of Tithes' by Brueghel the Younger is also in the sale £300k-£400k. Other pictures I liked included a Paulus Potter 'Milkmaid' at £250k-£350k, and a small Canaletto 'View on a River' at £700k-£1m.
The Christie's Day Sale catalogue is here, and includes a fine picture of giraffes by Jacques-Laurent Agasse (£40k-£60k). If I had the space, I'd buy this massive landscape by Jan Looten and Jan Wyck, a bargan at £15k-£25k.
Christie's drawing sale catalogue is here, with a nice 'colour beginning' by Turner at £150k-£200k.
London Old Master sales (part 1)
July 2 2016
Picture: Ishbel Grosvenor
Greetings from London, where I've come down for Old Master week, and also for two days filming for my forthcoming BBC4 series. Today I went to see Sotheby's and Bonhams' offerings - Christie's was shut, and I'll go there tomorrow. In between auction viewings the Deputy Editor and I joined the 'March for Europe' from Park Lane to Parliament Square.
Anyway, before I give my pick of the Sotheby's and Bonhams sales, I must note the success of Christie's 'Defining British Art' sale, which was held last week. Christie's has decided that strictly period-defined sales are a thing of the past, and so we can expect to see more sales fashioned out of themes that cross the centuries. I think it's a good idea. So last week we saw works by Joshua Reynolds and John Constable sold alongside works by Henry Moore and Francis Bacon. There's a loan exhibition on at Christie's King Street of great treasures of British art, till 15th July (more here).
The bidding was strong, and it seems overseas buyers were keen to take advantage of the post-Brexit cheap pound, and buy works with an in-built discount of at least 10%. The Bacon painting made £20.2m, while the Moore, a reclining bronze, made a record £24.7m against an estimate of £15m-£20m. On the older side of things, a John Constable study 'View on the Stour near Dedham' made £14m, the second highest auction price for Constable. A fine 50x40 inch portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds (above) soared above its already punchy estimate of £2m-£3m to make £3.7m.
At Sotheby's today I enjoyed seeing an exquisite oil painting by Liotard - A Dutch Girl at Breakfast (above) - which was recently in the Liotard exhibition at the Royal Academy. This is estimated at £4m-£6m. Other highlights included a Rubens oil sketch 'The Chariot of Apollo' at £1m-£1.5m; a trio of fine Joseph Wright of Derby Italian landscapes, all in unusually good condition (here, here and here); and a series of views by Dominic Serres of the British capture of Havana in 1762 (the last four lots here). Sotheby's evening sale catalogue is here, and the day sale here.
In Sotheby's drawing sale there is (as I've already mentioned) the exceptionally rare self-portrait drawing by Sir Peter Lely (above, est. £600k-£800k). I was again struck by how reasonable some Old Master drawings by top names are - worth having a flick through the Sotheby's drawing catalogue if you're interested. I particularly liked a study of a pollarded willow by John Constable - large, in good condition, and priced at £2k-£3k. It's the sort of tree Constable adopted enthusiastically from the works of Thomas Gainsborough, who was also a fan of the pollarded willow one often sees in Suffolk. When Constable went on his own travels on Suffolk he said, 'I fancy I see Gainsborough in every tree'. At it's still like that today in many parts - every time I go there, I can't help but think the same.
Bonhams have put together a very strong sale. Not only do they have the William Dobson self-portrait already covered on AHN (which seems cheap at £200,000-£300,000), but a large and very fine Claude landscape estimated at £600k-£800k (it should sell for over a £1m). My bargain of the week is also at Bonhams, a Jusepe de Ribera painting of St Sebastian (above) which is estimated at just £20k-£30k. If I thought it had any chance of selling for that I'd be bidding myself, but it will surely fly some way above that level. There is apparently another version in a museum in Seville, but the Bonhams picture is signed, and in excellent condition.
As ever, if any readers want advice on anything in the sales, just ask.
Update - I noticed at Sotheby's that beneath the usual labels giving title, medium and estimate, they now have a short descriptive label giving basic information about the artist and the picture. I think this is a great initiative - and could help encourage those new to the world of Old Master collecting. I don't think those of us in the art trade realise quite how challenging Old Masters can be for new collectors.
Apologies...
June 29 2016
Sorry for the lack of posts recently - been rather tied up with telly, and also dealing with the fallout of our ongoing revolution.
Brexit: “We have chosen the way of Hogarth over Turnerâ€
June 27 2016
Picture: Tate
I wrote a piece for The Art Newspaper on what Brexit might mean for both the arts and the art market in the UK, at least in the short term.
Update - Colin Gleadell in the Telegraph has more on how Brexit might affect the art market. His conclusion:
It could go either way.
Update II - a dealer writes:
I'm very low in the food chain but even boot fairs were dismal sellling spaces last weekend. The only thing that has gone up is gold prices so unless you have a stash somewhere, which I dont, we will all need to start scraping the leaf off picture frames in the future.
An Inglorious Revolution
June 24 2016
Picture: Barcroft Media
The United Kingdom has voted to leave the EU. As I write, at 5.31am, the pound has fallen to its lowest level against the US dollar since the 1980s. It has even fallen against the Zimbabwean dollar. The FTSE futures promise a significant fall when markets open. Everybody in my country has become instantly poorer. The future is frighteningly uncertain. But Boris Johnson says today is our 'independence day'. Apparently we are now 'free'. But free from what? Free to commit economic suicide? Free to undermine European solidarity and peace? Free to break up the UK (Scotland will surely hold another independence referendum soon)? I am truly baffled. And, to be honest, terrified. Above all I am sad. We are a divided nation. In terms of our system of government, we have taken the most momentous decision since the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688, when we evicted the Stuarts and James II. I see no glory in this new revolution. God help us.
Update - thanks for your emails, it seems most British AHNers wanted to stay in the EU. I entirely respect the views of those who didn't - and congratulations on your victory. One reader, however, wrote:
I enjoy reading your blog for art news, but your recent foray into political commentary has really highlighted how removed you and your peers in the art industry are from the everyday person. You are just as up yourselves as the idiots who promote contemporary 'art' when push comes to shove. Learn some humility and stick to your day job please.
If I may, here's a few words about my day job. AHN is not my day job. I earn nothing from it, and despite offers have kept it advert free. I devote as much time as I can to it every week because I want to raise awareness about art history, and because I enjoy the interaction with readers. My day job - the thing that pays the mortgage, and the school fees, and everything else (and gives me the time to write AHN) - is being an art dealer in Old Master pictures. That wasn't easy before the Brexit vote, and it is even harder now. Hence my concern above.
In my experience, people only buy paintings if economic times are good, and they are feeling both prosperous and confident in the future (in terms of earning power). That depends in turn on economic growth - and above all stability. Take that stability away, and suddenly things begin to look very different. Brexit changes everything. And for this art dealer, self-employed with a new business, a family, and also facing the prospect of not only years of economic uncertainty, but living in a new country (I'm based in Edinburgh, and the art market operates almost entirely out of London) things look pretty grim right now.
On Thursday, before the Brexit result, the UK was the fifth largest economy in the world. Immediately after the result, we became the sixth. It's that bad. Last week we were just getting on with our lives. Now, we're wondering just how different life is going to be. You'll just have to forgive me if my feelings on this occasionally stray onto AHN. It does say 'opinions' on the masthead.
Update II - thanks for your further emails. One intrigued me:
I have discovered a scholar who is charging $24.95 annually (cheap at twice the price) for his Early Christianity blog to keep the haters at bay. Last year, he raised more than $100k and donated 100% to non-profits for the homeless and hungry. Aren't there art history students who need a scholarship/travel stipend? Museums that need conservation projects funded? Sleepers that need to be purchased and donated?
{/box}
I think I will always keep AHN free to access. But I would like to do more to raise funds for various art historical causes, with readers' generous help. We might call it a voluntary AHN tax. I will think further on this.
Update III - a reader asks:
{box}
Is the oil of Boris on canvas or board? this is an art blog isnt it…
{/box}
Plank.
Derby museum scoops two Wrights
June 20 2016
Picture: Guardian/Derby Museum
We often hear about how difficult it is for museums to buy at auction - time is tight, and it's almost impossible to raise large amounts of money on both a speculation and within weeks. But Derby Museum has audaciously secured a pair of Wright of Derby landscapes from a recent sale at Christie's in New York for $293,000. They had just ten days to raise the money.
The landscapes relate to the famous industrialist, Sir Richard Arkwright; one shows his mill at Cromford (above), and the other his home, Willersley Castle. The pictures were offered at Christie's in New York as part of their Classic Art Week, and were estimated at $300,000-$500,000 (which I thought was cheap). The final price, which includes premium, means they sold for well under the lower estimate, and represents a bargain for two works in good condition. The money was raised through the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Art Fund, the V&A Purchase Fund and the museum's own Friends organisation. A starring role was played by the Duke of Devonshire. More here in The Guardian.
So, many congratulations to Derby Museum and everyone involved for showing such ambition and energy. Other museums, take note - it can be done.
Alleged Cranach fake - verdict soon?
June 20 2016
Picture: TAN
The Art Newspaper carries an interview with the man at the centre of a series of new discoveries, some alleged to be fake, including a Cranach the Elder of Venus (detail above). We don't learn a great deal new from this latest piece on Giulano Ruffini, except that apparently a decision by the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France at the Musée du Louvre, who were tasked by a French judge with investigating the authenticity of the Cranach, is due 'soon'.
Should it be proved to be a fake, then I suspect we will hear a lot of this line of defence:
Ruffini said that he was also lucky enough to find paintings that could have been done by Jan or Pieter Brueghel, Van Dyck, Correggio, Bronzino, Parmigianino, Solario, Van Bassen, Grimmer, Coorte and others. They were all put on sale. Indeed, several were then authenticated as genuine works by these artists and some were even exhibited in museums around the world. But Ruffini insists he never presented a single painting as the real thing. “I am a collector, not an expert,” he says.
But then of course, the Louvre might not say it's a fake.
Leighton's 'Flaming June' returns to London
June 20 2016
Picture: Guardian/Museo de Arte de Ponce
In The Guardian, Maev Kennedy reports that Lord Leighton's masterpiece, Flaming June, is to return on loan to the studio where it was painted in London (now the Leighton House Museum). She also recounts the picture's extraordinary history after Leighton's death in 1896:
In the early 20th century, when Victorian art was already falling out of fashion, Samuel Courtauld, the millionaire collector and founder of the Courtauld Institute, called it “the most wonderful painting in existence”.
It was on loan to the Ashmolean in Oxford in the early 1900s, but vanished for decades before being rediscovered in the early 1960s, boxed in over a chimney in a house in Battersea. The composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose own collecting helped revive serious interest in the art of the period, never forgave his grandmother for refusing to lend him £50 to buy it when he saw it soon afterwards in a shop on the Kings Road. “I will not have Victorian junk in my flat,” she told him.
The picture was bought by the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico in 1963.
A Modigliani found in the trash?
June 20 2016
Picture: AP
So an antiques dealer finds a Modigliani near a rubbish bin in Rome, and gets the picture approved by a PR firm doubling as the 'Amadeao Modigliani Institute'. What could possibly be curious about that? Nicole Winfield of AP investigates:
It’s a story almost too fantastical to be true: A flea market dealer finds a painting near a subway trash bin, submits it to laboratory analysis and emerges convinced he has a Modigliani on his hands.
No one would believe it, given the modernist master is one of the most sought-after and forged artists around.
But a public relations firm in Rome that doubles as the Amedeo Modigliani Institute is claiming a signed portrait of “Odette” could be a real deal. It’s putting the work on public view next week saying it hopes to start an academic debate on its authenticity.
“I assure you, this isn’t a fake and we are dealing with a discovery,” insisted Luciano Renzi, the institute’s president and head of an eponymous publicity firm. While acknowledging that experts must make such a certification, he said he wouldn’t put it up to critical review “if the institute didn’t firmly believe it.”
However, the institute has no role or expertise in authenticating Modigliani works, has a financial interest in drumming up publicity for its exhibit, and even the lab it hired refuses to date the painting.
More here.
Update - a painter writes:
The face of the alleged Modigliani painting looks1960's just as the female faces in Van Meergeren's fake Vermeers look in retrospect like silent film stars. Difficult to spot at the time? Interesting too that the canvas is attached to the stretcher with staples. Staple guns for this purpose seem to have appeared in 1934 at the earliest. Modi died in 1920. He probably couldn't have afforded one anyway.
New Van Dyck self-portrait at the National Gallery
June 17 2016
Video: National Gallery
I was delighted to see in the above video, for the National Gallery's new Painters' Paintings exhibition, a newly discovered Van Dyck self-portrait I helped unearth. The picture was bought by Philip Mould back in 2012 on behalf of a private client from a minor German auction, where it was described as a copy. An inspired and brave purchase (the bidding went way above €500,000), and probably the most exciting picture I worked on when I was working for Philip, he later sold it to a US private collector. It has been on loan at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, but now makes its London debut.
I remember going to see the painting with Philip at the auction. Anxious that we were being watched, we dared not look at the painting for any prolonged period. Philip knew within a second that it was 'right', even though it was extensively overpainted. It took me a little longer.
More on the picture here.
Italian Museums (ctd.)
June 17 2016
The Washington Post has a good piece on the continuing struggle to reform Italian museums. The Italian culture ministry has shaken things up at the directorial level, hiring a slew of new and often foreign directors. But the legacy of bad practice still runs deep:
A larger problem has been that under current laws, the new directors don’t have the power to hire staff. Nearly 37% of the ministry’s workforce is made up of security guards. The lack of art historians, curators or art marketing experts has made it very difficult to address the museums’ chronic weakness in communications, strategy and fundraising, the directors said.
Anna Coliva, director at Rome’s Borghese Gallery, would like to outsource some of the museum’s services such as managing the ticket office or running restaurant services, but she lacks a staffer with experience in organizing a bid. “We can control our own budget now, which is good, but we don’t have a budget director,” she said.
At the Reggia di Caserta [above], halls are dusty, toilets are dirty and the palace’s 18th century garden is in disrepair because of lack of staff. Mr. Felicori is trying to reallocate some of his 230-strong staff to address the problems, but most are security guards and he can’t make new hires.
When the air conditioning at Capodimonte broke last year, the museum became a “steam bath” when a heat wave swept Italy. But the red tape in securing extra funds to repair the air conditioning was so thick that it remained broken until recently, Mr. Bellenger said.
Politics
June 16 2016
There’s a grimness in Britain tonight. Jo Cox, a Member of Parliament, was stabbed and shot by one of her constituents, Tommy Mair. The motive is not known, but a number of witnesses heard him shouting ‘Britain First’. The attack was vicious, prolonged and deliberate. She was 41, and leaves behind two young children.
The backdrop to this horrible murder is the referendum, to be held next week, on whether the UK should leave the EU. In principle, referenda are the purest exercise in democracy a nation can enjoy. In practice, they are poisonous, divisive things. I hope we never have another.
Lost Gauguin found
June 16 2016
Picture: TAN
The Art Newspaper reports on the discovery of a long lost Gauguin still life in the US. It was identified by Litchfield County Auctions after the work was consigned to them. The owner had no idea it was a lost Gauguin, but the painting matches a black and white illustration in the Wildenstein catalogue raisonneé of Gauguin's work. The picture will be sold on June 29th, and the estimate is $800,000-$1,200,000. The catalogue entry is here.
Sleeper alert?
June 16 2016
Picture: Christie's
The above painting described as 'After George Stubbs' was offered in a minor Christie's New York 'Living with Art' sale earlier this week, with an estimate of $3,000-$5,000. It sold for $215,000.
The picture was deaccessioned by the Huntington Art Collection in California.
But its status as 'not Stubbs' is new. The picture is listed in the recent Yale catalogue raisonné as a genuine work by Stubbs. It was acquired by the Huntington as a Stubbs. It is signed (lower right) and is on panel, as is often the case with Stubbs. From the (not especially good) online photo I can see why the picture might have struck some as being 'right'. According to the catalogue note, the painting is now 'understood' to be a copy of another work, even though the whereabouts of that work is not currently known, and could only be judged on the basis (it seems) of a photo from 1958.
Hmmm. Has a bish been made here? If so, it's one of the biggest deaccessioning blunders of modern times. The Huntington is not awash with Stubbs, and has only one other painting by him. Or is it the most expensive Stubbs copy in history?
Either way, here's what I don't really understand about these deaccessioning cases. The picture was offered 'without reserve', which means that the Huntington were happy to literally give it away. If only one person had bid $50, then that's what they would have been obliged to sell it for. But that being so, then why bother selling it in the first place? The picture had evidently been recognised as a genuine Stubbs for many years. It was dirty and apparently overpainted in parts - and thus impossible to judge with certainty whether it was by Stubbs or not. So why take the risk of getting it wrong? And why have such little institutional curiosity as to not investigate the possibility of Stubbs' authorship more fully, if only as an interesting academic exercise?
