Previous Posts: articles 2018
Pooh$ticks
December 10 2014
Picture: Sotheby's
The original E.H. Shepard drawing of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin playing 'poohsticks' sold for £314,500 at Sotheby's yesterday. That's a new record for any book illiustration at auction.
What a lovely thing.
Guffwatch - 'Process-based art'
December 9 2014
Picture: FT
Apparently, 'process-based art' is the new Big Thing. I think 'process-based' means that people actually make something, which I know is pretty revolutionary these days. But it's not as straightforward as making in the old-fashioned sense, as Pernilla Holmes explains in the FT's 'How to Spend It':
Anyone who has ever had a tooth drilled knows the feeling of leaving the dentist’s office with lips involuntarily grimacing as the anaesthetic numbs the senses. Now imagine a painter who has similarly lost all feeling in their hands. This is just one of the techniques that New York-based Ryan Estep – one of the cutting-edge artists at the forefront of the current zeitgeist for process-based art – has devised in his highly performative, almost ritualistic art practice, where his methods and materials are as important as the abstract paintings themselves.
“I layer the lidocaine [the numbing agent used by dentists before uncomfortable procedures] onto the white,” explains Estep, “which has been painted around the edges with black paint.” At this point he takes the canvas off of the stretcher and, in a nod to his former work as an art technician, restretches it, but this time disturbing the still-wet borders and creating smudgy mistakes as he loses all feeling in his hands. This audacious dulling of the senses raises questions of authorship, randomness and the very idea of painting – while also creating beautiful works.
“The materials and methods sit mostly within the canon of manual labour,” Estep explains, hinting at the discrepancy between the physical work that goes into his paintings and their eventual impracticality. Asked about the safety of the procedure, Estep, a robust and charismatic 33-year-old, shrugs his lack of concern. More worryingly, he then laughingly recalls one time when he got the measurements wrong and lay completely immobilised on his studio floor for several hours.
Update - a reader writes:
A step too far - the artist's numbness appears to stretch much further north than just his hands.
Koons take down
December 9 2014
Picture: Exposition-Paris
There's a good review of Jeff Koons' new show at the Pompidou centre in Paris by Jackie Wullschlager in the Financial Times. Here's the main conclusion:
As the market has endorsed and enriched him, Koons has swollen, in his two latest series “Antiquity” and “Gazing Ball”, into the most tedious self-imitation. “Balloon Venus” blends his own inflatables lexicon with the archaic forms of the Venus of Willendorf. Outsize plaster replicas of classical figures – “Farnese Hercules”, “Ariadne” – bearing bright balloon-like glass spheres are destined, no more and no less than the garden ornaments they incorporate, for manicured suburban lawns.
“He says, if you’re critical, you’re already out of the game,” announced Koons’s dealer David Zwirner when these repetitive follies launched last year. Dollar power goes some way to explaining why Koons’s smooth sales-speak – “when people make judgments, they close all the possibility around them” – is not seen for what it is: a reversal of the spirit of intellectual openness that has allowed art to flourish since the Enlightenment. And of course it is obvious why Koons, like any entrepreneur boasting a luxury monopoly, directs his factory to produce a controlled stream of high-end, high-tech baubles. Less obvious is why this trading currency for the super-rich should interest the rest of us, or why museums and critics are endorsing it.
Quite. But then I'm "out of the game".
Burrell Collection at Bonhams
December 9 2014
Picture: Burrell Collection
There was much debate last year (including here on AHN) about whether the Burrell Collection in Glasgow should be able to send its treasures out on loan, even overseas. Previously, they weren't able to, but a change in Scottish law now allows loans to be made, bringing in much needed funds while the buildings which house the collection are renovated.
The first stop for the collection is Bonhams in London, where (with free admission), you can see 50 items including the above Rembrandt self-portrait from 15th December to 9th January. I think this is a commendable initiative from Bonhams and the Burrell collection, and the works will look very fine in Bonhams' snazzy new showrooms.
While I'm on the subject of art trade loan exhibitions, pray allow me to plug one at John Mitchell Fine Paintings, which is just down the other end of Bond Street. They're having a show on depictions of Harrow School. Some of them are even for sale, if you're looking for a stocking filler for that hard-to-please Old Harrovian.
Update - a reader writes:
The Burrell has always been able to make loans within the UK: the Rembrandt was at the National’s exhibition of self-portraits a few years ago and a substantial group was shown at The Hayward in the 1970s.
What’s new is being able to loan abroad, which was not permitted under the terms of the original gift. Maybe in future, if it needs the money, the Wallace might consider breaking the will of its donor?
It is sometimes a shame that the Wallace can't lend.* That said, at least at the Wallace they go in for generous hanging, with two or even three rows of pictures, so there isn't too much of an issue of works remaining unseen in storage.
They still don't dust their frames though.
Update II - more on the Burrell items on display here in The Guardian.
* I earlier said that the Wallace can't borrow, which is wrong; it has a small exhibition room downstairs, where many fine shows can be seen.
Turner exhibition at Petworth
December 9 2014
Picture: Tate/National Trust
They're having a Turner exhibition at Petworth House, where Turner stayed and painted, and where much of Mike Leigh's new film 'Mr Turner' was made. More here.
Agnews
December 9 2014
Picture: Agnews
Blouin Artinfo reports that Agnews, now under new ownership and run by Lord Anthony Crichton Stuart, has taken on the lease of a four storey townhouse in St James' in London, at 6 St James' place. It's good to see that the dealership, and the Agnews brand, is being revived.
All change for the CEOs... (ctd.)
December 9 2014
Picture: TAN
For what it's worth, the press seem to be pretty convinced that Christie's CEO Jim Murphy was fired. Here's Bloomberg, quoting 'people familiar with the company's plans':
Murphy, 60, was informed of the management change at a meeting with Pinault in late November, one of the people said. Christie’s and Murphy said Dec. 2 the decision was mutual.
Bloomberg also hints at significant re-structuring within the company, under the new CEO, Patricia Barbizet.
So one has to ask, what did owner Fnacois Pinault not like about Murphy's work? Some are looking towards 'profitability', especially in relation to the mega sales like the '$852m' modern and contemporary sale. Says the Financial Times:
Mr Murphy’s resignation raises questions about whether he paid too high a price for rapid growth in his four years at the helm, squeezing profits by expanding into India and China, while competing intensely for prestigious sales by offering guarantees and side deals to entice family estates and wealthy sellers. The irony of the art auction world is that the record-setting London and New York auctions for which they are best known can produce little, if any, profit.
“It has increasingly become the case that these types of sales — for both houses — are not centres of profitability in any way,” says Michael Plummer, co-founder of the New York-based advisory firm Artvest. “The competitive pressure gets worse every year, as do the amount of guarantees, and consequently the risks for both houses.“
Meanwhile ArtNet news wonders if those famous guarantees have anything to do with it:
According to auction house executives in Miami for Art Basel, multiple cases in which guarantees on major lots garnered heavy media attention but no profit for Christie's resulted in Murphy being pushed out from his post as CEO.
“You've got two CEOs who've been battling madly for market shares and their margins seem, by many accounts, to have got smaller and smaller," commented an industry insider who spoke to artnet News on the condition of anonymity. “So in one case, a slightly aggressive, disrupted board, and in the other case a company owner, appear to have said ‘enough is enough'."
“We are at a record time for the art market, but it seems these two have battled so hard they might not have turned that into record profits," she added.
Other reasons suggested might be the $50m sunk into a new online platform.
Anyway, we're unlikely to know what's really gone on, as Christie's is a private company.
6 Years
December 9 2014
Picture: IG/Express
The man who punched a hole in a Monet in the National Gallery of Ireland has been jailed for six years. He also had paint stripper on him at the time, but didn't get a chance to use it. When police raided his house, they found a large cache of stolen paintings. More here.
One has to say that this is a good deterrent sentence. It beats the two years given to the nut who defaced the Tate's Rothko.
Re-gilding the Paston Treasure
December 9 2014
Video: Art Fund
Here's a good cause - the Norwich Castle Museum is hoping to raise £14,500 to re-gild the wooden frame that surrounds their 'Paston Treasure', a large late 17th Century still life which records a number of treasures owned by the Paston family in Norfolk. At some point (we're not told when, perhaps at some trendy point in the '70s) the gilding was stripped from the original frame.
Here's the blurb on the Art Fund's 'Art Happens' website:
Research has shown that the ornately carved frame was in all likelihood made for the painting, but it would not have looked like this in the 17th century. It would have been gilded – the dazzling finishing touch to the depiction of a dazzling collection. Six years ago, we raised money to have the painting cleaned and conserved. Now we want to re-gild the frame and restore this masterpiece in its entirety to its former glory.
The museum hopes to raise the money in time for an exhibition in 2016, when they'll assemble many of the treasures depicted within the painting. The funding total is currently at 1% - can you help them out?
Update - a reader writes:
I'm all for having the 'Paston Treasure' re-gilded (and I might consider bunging them a few quid) but £14,500!!?? Is this the best quote they could get?!
I'm clearly in the wrong business.
Alas, gilding, I know from experience, is very, very expensive.
National Gallery chair announced
December 8 2014
Congratulations to Hannah Rothschild, who has been appointed chair of the National Gallery trustees. She replaces Mark Getty. This means - and quite right too - that the trustees have a new chair in place before making the appointment of the new director, which process is already well advanced.
Says the National Gallery press release:
The Trustees of the National Gallery are delighted to announce that Hannah Rothschild has been appointed by them as Chair of the Board.
Hannah Rothschild will take over as Chair from Mark Getty, who will step down from the role when his current term comes to an end on 10 August 2015.
Hannah Rothschild, a writer and filmmaker, has served on the Gallery’s Board since March 2009. She will be the first woman Chair of the National Gallery.
Speaking on her appointment, Hannah said “From a very young age, the National Gallery has been a source of inspiration and solace. It is a great honour to be elected as its Chair to succeed Mark Getty in August 2015 and to work with fellow trustees to ensure that the collection is protected, that general admission remains free and that the National Gallery’s exhibition, education, science, academic and conservation programmes continue to be internationally respected and challenging.”
Mark Getty said “Hannah Rothschild has been an outstanding Board member for more than 5 years and I am delighted that she is to succeed me as Chair. With her passion for and commitment to the National Gallery, she will work alongside the next Director to provide the leadership the Gallery needs in the years ahead.”
National Gallery Director, Dr Nicholas Penny said “Hannah Rothschild has defended the National Gallery interests and supported its ambitions with energy and imagination. She will be an exceptionally committed Chair.”
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Sajid Javid said “The National Gallery is one of this country’s most important and well-loved museums and galleries - a cultural success story with visitor numbers at unprecedented levels of over six million a year. So I welcome Hannah Rothschild's appointment as their next Chair. Her experience of the gallery will build on the successes achieved under the chairmanship of Mark Getty. I am confident that the National Gallery's development as a home of artistic, educational and research excellence will continue.”
Hannah Rothschild’s first term as Chair will last until March 2017 when she will be eligible to serve a further term, subject to the Prime Minister’s consideration at the appropriate time of any reappointment as a trustee.
This means that my earlier speculation that Lord King might get the nod was, er, wrong.
The Great Brian
December 8 2014
Picture: Sunday Times
I'm told Brian Sewell has resigned from the Evening Standard. This is very sad news indeed, and brings to an end one of the greatest art critic columns ever written.
Update - a reader writes:
This is very sad if unsurprising news.
Reading his column massively brightened the commute home and his writing was not only hugely entertaining but a great way into art. Proof, as he would say, that if you don't dumb down and underestimate your audience you will take them with you.
p.s. If you haven't read them, his memoirs include some gold standard anecdotes. The Salvidor Dali one takes some beating.
I have indeed read them, and splendidly written they are too, if, at times, a little eye opening...
Losing our marbles?
December 5 2014
Picture: Guardian
The British Museum has lent one of the Elgin Marbles to the Hermitage. What do we think of this AHN-ers? The Greeks are outraged, of course, but then they always are.
I can't personally see too much of a problem, culturally; I'm all in favour of letting other countries see what we have, if it means we might also get to see what they have. That said, politically, it does come at a moment when we're supposed to be being beastly to President Putin, on account of his expansionist jaunts.
Update - areader writes:
You asked for some thoughts on the British Museum’s loan of one of the Parthenon marbles to the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad. In principle I’ve no objection to the BM lending one of the sculptures that it owns and as for the objections of the Greeks, or anyone else for that matter, they can go to hell. Their nationalist whining is sickening and only makes me more determined that they should never, ever have the Parthenon sculptures back in Athens!
I am, however, very concerned that the British Museum is so determined to lend its objects to any and every quarter of the globe while failing abjectly to provide comprehensive, public display of its collections at the main museum in Bloomsbury. For example, the Museum of Mankind closed in 1997 but the BM still has not opened displays of its collections of Central & South American cultures ( other than Mexico ), Australasia and Oceania: this despite galleries for these collections being in their development plans and then disappearing when the new exhibition building was mooted. How long, for instance, do those who want to visit and study the finest collection of Pacific art in existence have to wait before it is displayed in London?
Or take the Egyptian collection. Four exhibition rooms have “disappeared” since the late 1990s; three swallowed up by the Great Court. Is it any wonder then that the display of Egyptian culture at the BM is so piece-meal and arbitrary? Where can you see Egyptian pottery or Amarna sculpture at Bloomsbury , for example? You cannot: there is no chronological or coherent display at all as the galleries jump around from Early Dynasties to mummies to 18th Dynasty wall paintings. Rare and important objects such as the 6th Dynasty wooden statue of Meryrehashtep or the gold bracelets of Prince Nimlot are never exhibited at all in Bloomsbury these days ( but I saw the latter on loan to the Met the other month).
It seems that any old exhibition or museum can count on borrowing objects from the BM while the British visitor ( and tax payer ) and international visitors are deprived of wonderful collections and individual objects which they should be able to see, study and experience in London.
Another wonders:
The question is: having lent it are we going to get it back, given Lilyputin's demonstration of acquisitiveness in the Crimea?
Update II - in The Scotsman, Tiffany Jenkins thinks the loan a bad one, as does Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times, and the Grumpy Art Historian is having none of it.
Update III - another reader writes:
A few thoughts on the Marbles. Regarding lending them out, seems a good thing although this isn't part of an exhibition. Lending to Russia, less so but perhaps it's a victory for culture over aggression.
But on the wider Marbles debate which is not quite the issue at hand but as everyone else will mention it.
This issue gets caught up in Las Malvinas-esq nationalism but put simply, it would be better if the remaining marbles were on display together, in their original layout and in sight of the building which they not only adorned but were part of (which is why Elgin's men had such difficulty getting them). A building which UNESCO considers so important it uses it as it's logo. It would be interesting to hear someone claim a gloomy, grey room in Bloomsbury is a more appropriate setting.
Returning them would not be about giving in to Greek demands, it would be about reunifying two parts of a wider artistic whole. I cannot see how a lover of art would not be curious to see the remaining pieces, which are of such importance to Western culture, together again.
Would it not be a better scenario to have the originals in Athens and the casts in London? Thereby still allowing their impact on world culture to understood.
And no you can't restore all of them or indeed rebuild the Parthenon in the same way you can't undo Lord Duveen's 'cleaning' but no one is suggesting that and you should never let best become the enemy of better.
Achtung! Fake?
December 5 2014
Picture: br.de
Here's a story I've been looking into for a while; in southern Germany, state prosecutors have begun investigating the work of an art restorer, called Christian Goller (above), after it was alleged that he has been producing 'Old Master' pictures that have subsequently been sold as the real thing. He specialises, it is alleged (put 'it is alleged' after everything you read below), in German 16th Century paintings, especially Cranach. The prosecutors are looking into 40 paintings, which have apparently been sold for hundreds of thousands of euros, some in the London art market. Apart from being an exceptionally talented creator of 'old' paintings, Goller's best trick, it is said, is not to make exact copies of known Old Masters, but to make subtle variants. That is, he'll take a known composition, but alter it slightly, with the inclusion of a new detail, or a slight variation in a limb, pose, or background.
The allegations seem to come in main part from a German art historian who specialises in Cranach, Dr Michael Hofbauer. You can look at his Cranach online database here. The story first broke in Der Spiegel magazine (subscription required), and was then picked up by the wider German press (for example here and here).
The story has yet to travel any further. But it's possible this could end up being one of the greatest fake scandals of recent times - if some of the works attributed to Goller turn out to indeed be by him. He could potentially be one of the best art forgers ever. We must wait to see how the investigation proceeds.
However, Herr Goller has form in the fake line; one of his works was sold in 1974 to the Cleveland Museum of art as a Matthias Grunewald, for $1 million. Here's a link to that picture on their website. Above is an image of it, and below is an image of the back of the panel. It's hard to believe from the features and handling that anyone could really have thought the picture was by Grunewald. But as you can see from the crack in the panel and the 'damages' and woodworm holes in the back, this was no mere 'imitation', but an extremely cunning attempt to create something that looked 16th Century.
In this piece in the New York Times from 1991, Goller says that he paints only in the 'style' of Old Masters, and sells them as legitimate copies:
"Whoever calls me a forger," Mr. Goller insists, "is lying. I only paint in the style of the Old Masters. I add patina and crackle for decoration. You can't call that a forgery." He goes on: "I think copies make art accessible. Everybody can afford to hang a Grunewald in his house." Mr. Goller emphasizes that he does not add any artist's signature to what he calls his reconstructions, and he sells them for what they are. He says he is not responsible for the claims others make for them.
Of course, 'it wasn't me guv' is a line regularly trotted out by fakers.
One of the pictures identified by Michael Hofbauer as a 'Goller' fake happened to be coming up for sale in a recent Christie's Old Master sale in Amsterdam. The portrait (below) purported to be of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and was catalogued as 'Circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder', with an estimate of €25k-€35k. When I first saw it in the catalogue, before the fake story broke, I certainly didn't for a minute think it was fake, such was the craquelure and overall quality of the picture. But in light of Hofbauer's allegation, I looked again.
A few things then struck me as potentially unusual. First, it was not a known type of Charles V, and had never been published before; odd for an apparently unique portrait of such an important figure. Despite the presence of a Habsburg double eagle in his hat, the sitter was not wearing the Golden Fleece - which again is something unthinkable in a portrait of Charles V - and the sitter certainly looked like him, with that Habsburg jaw. The only provenance was from a 'copy' of an old certificate by a German art historian who saw the picture in the Munich area in the 1950s - I've forgotten his name, and the catalogue entry has now been taken off line. It was hard to see from the images, but in some parts substantial areas of paint seemed to go over the cracks. Perhaps it was later over-paint, perhaps it was evidence of fakery. The medium was described as 'oil on panel, laid onto canvas, laid onto panel'. That's not unheard of, but one of the key ways to date a panel painting is by dendrochronology, and if you make the main surface layer impossible to date (the original panel would have been shaved too thinly to date by dendrochronology), then that's one potential hurdle overcome.
There was, AHN-ers, only one way to find out if the picture was real or fake, and that was to see it. So, for your benefit dear readers, off I dashed on a flight to Amsterdam... only to find that the picture had been withdrawn. I wasn't under any circumstances allowed to look at it. The picture is 'under investigation', and so far I've heard nothing else. So I don't know what to make of the picture. Hofbauer said confidently it was a 'Goller', but he seems (from what I was told in Amsterdam) not to have actually seen it in person. In which case, it's a bold claim by Dr Hofbauer. Christie's are, or rather were, pretty adamant it was 16th Century. All I can say is that if it is a fake, then (from the photos) it's the best I've ever seen, and better than anything I'd ever have expected to see. It would be alarmingly good.
Some of Hofbauer's alleged 'Goller' fakes seem more obviously 'wrong'. For example, this picture (above) sold at Christie's in London as 'Circle of Cranach the Elder' (that is, as 16th Century) is most odd in the face (detail below) and the modelling of the body, which looks like it has come from a 1970s tattoo catalogue, and certainly not the 16th Century. That said, the overall 'age' of the picture, in the craquelure, does look more genuine. Therefore, if it is a fake, as Hofbauer says, then it tells that someone, somewhere has pretty much perfected the art of making a new panel painting look passably ancient.
The picture made £103,250 in December 2008. Which means that as of yesterday, it's outside the 6 year window in which Christie's would need to give a refund. Caveat emptor...
Update - a reader points out the similarities parts of Cranach's 'Justice' on the left (private collection, at the Musée du Luxenbourg), and his 'Lucretia' in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, on the right. I believe the technical term for this is a 'mash up'.
Update II - a reader tells me that the 'certificate', a copy of which was provided with the Charles V, was written by a German art historian called Alfred Stange. Wikipedia tells me he was a Nazi. The provenance of the 'Charles V' was 'Southern Germany' for 'the last 40 years'.
Update III - the provenance of the 'Justice' sold at Christie's in 2008 was listed as 'Andreas Seefellner, Obernzell, Bavaria'. Michael Hofbauer, however, says (in this article) that there was no such person, and that the only person who might have been this Seefellner who lived in Bavaria never owned a Cranach.
Update IV - a reader says of the Charles V Golden Fleece question:
The collar (ie chain) worn in the “Charles V” portrait is in fact that of the Order of the Golden Fleece but without the fleece badge (ie pendant) itself. Although I’m a bit of an anorak on such things, I don’t know if the collar was ever worn without the badge, though I suspect not.
It's certainly a very odd omission - one would expect a contemporary painter to have realised that the inclusion of the Golden Fleece was essential.
Update V - another reader comments on the collar:
The Emperor Charles V while not wearing the badge of the Order of the Golden Fleece is wearing the collar of the order. However, I have never seen the one without the other and since it was made of gold would not appear red!
Update VI - 16.1.26 I just noticed that the Charles V was reoffered at auction in Germany with a clean bill of health from the Gemaldegalerie in Munich. Lot 224 here.
UK government's £44.3m buying spree
December 5 2014
Picture: Arts Council
We're lucky in the UK to have something called the Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) scheme. This allows those with a bill for inheritance tax to offset some of that tax by allowing the government to acquire a work of art, or an item of cultural importance. This year's AIL report has just been published, and it's well worth a read, with interesting entries for each item, from portraits by Lawrence to Lucian Freud's collection of Auerbachs.
The figure for works acquired this year is £44.3m, which is a little down on the previous year's total of £49.4m, but still significantly higher than previous years, thanks to the Chancellor's decision raise the financial cap on acquisitions. The total includes works given to the government under the new Cultural Giving scheme, which works in the same way to AIL, but doesn't afford the donor a 100% tax write off - it's partly philanthropic.
Now, I don't like to make a habit of lauding the government, but in this respect they deserve considerable praise. You often read in the press of works acquired under AIL being 'given' or 'bequeathed' to the nation by their previous owners, but it is in fact no such thing. It's a straightforward purchase by the government, with an amount of tax foregone. This year, therefore, the government spent £44.3m funding acquisitions for our national and regional museums. So next time you hear of savage cuts in the arts and heritage sector, remember that, along with the changes to allow National Lottery good cause money to be spent on objects (rather than projects), this is one of the most generous times for acquisitions ever known.
The system works very efficiently. I've recently been asked to help assess a picture offered under the AIL scheme, and not only is each case rigorously judged to see if it is of 'pre-eminence' - that is, suitable for display in a museum - but there is then a thorough investigation of the object's value. Often, and perhaps understandably, those submitting a work under the AIL scheme hope to write off more tax than the government thinks the work might be worth.
Incidentally, I see from the report that Freud's Auerbachs have not yet been formally allocated. There was some debate here on AHN earlier about whether these should go to the Tate en masse, or be split up and given to more than one gallery. Given Tate's tendency to display on a fraction of their works, it seems to me a no brainer that the works should be more evenly distributed around the country.
Update - a reader writes:
I mentioned a while back that I thought certain collections seem to be favoured in the allocation of AIL items. A crunching of the numbers from the reports covering the last five years now provides some interesting results.
It should be borne in mind that the figures below only include entire cases where an allocation has been confirmed: it does not include cases which consist of groups of objects split between institutions, as individual valuations are not available.
Since 2009, tax written off in AIL cases amounts to £97.74 million. Of this total the following are the main beneficiaries:
1. The Ashmolean, Oxford £14.97 million (15.6%)
If one considers the University of Oxford as a whole, a further £1.17 million needs to be added to this total to cover The Bodlian.
2. The National Trust £13.63 million (14.2%)
Allocations include land. The amount is not surprising given the Trust previously accepted property without chattels and these are surrendered on a regular basis.
3. The Fitzwilliam, Cambridge £11.51 million (12%)
4. The National Gallery, London £5.60 million (5.9%)
5. The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh £3.4 million (3.7%)
Probably these figures show that, as with anything concerning acquisitions, success mostly comes down to the enthusiasm and effort put in by the museum staff themselves. Whether it's buying outright or acquiring through a scheme like AIL, acquisitions take up a lot of time and paperwork, and sometimes (to be frank) this can be offputting for some museums. So, congrats to the Ashmolean for coming out top.
Art world bureaucracy
December 5 2014
A word of warning for any picture buyers out there; did you know that if you buy an 'old' painting in Spain, and want to export it, you need an export licence, even if it's worth just 1 Euro? It also doesn't matter if the picture has been in Spain for less than a week. If it's there, and 'old', you need an export licence.
I bought a picture at auction there in October, and am still waiting for the licence to come through. The picture in question can hardly be considered Spanish cultural heritage, since it only ended up there in the last decade or so, having been bought by the previous owner in London. But it's a nice job creation scheme for someone in the Spanish civil service. As a dealer also waiting for a licence said to me, you might as well pay someone to paint the grass green.
The varying export licences around the world make for interesting comparisons. In the US, there is no export licence system at all. In Italy, you're lucky to get anything out of the country, the effect of which, in practice, means that if you own a nice painting in Italy, it isn't worth much, unless you can smuggle it out, which happens. It seems to me that the UK's system - of only stopping works where a museum can make a case for its acquisition - is the fairest way to go. That said, it's always dependent on the resources available at that particular moment.
Update - a Spanish reader writes:
As a keen follower of your blog, I could not resist to write you about your experience with the Spanish export license. It is true you need such a license for everything older than 100 years (not 50 years as the in the EU rule) and that the evaluating committee meets only once every month. The system is slow, and the criteria are not entirely clear, but in general it works. Besides, it is free of taxes when you are exporting the work to another EU country.
Otherwise, there is an interesting, yet relatively unknown exception to this rule. As a way to encourage the import of art works, if you quickly report such an import to Spain, then the imported work gets an automatic 10 years exemption of the export license, meaning you do not need it to export it outside Spain. I think it is a good thing to do if you are a foreign dealer trying to sell something in Spain.
Bargain of the week?
December 4 2014
Picture: Sotheby's
So the Old Master sales are over, and I didn't buy a sausage. To be honest, there wasn't much in the sleeper line, at least nothing in my little niche of what some have been kind enough to call expertise.
I did have a go at the above picture, however, which was a bit off piste for me, in that it was Spanish. It was catalogued as 'After Goya'. Regular readers may know that I'm not exactly a Goya fan, at least not when it comes to his skills as a portraitist.
However, the picture seemed to me to be in with a very strong chance of being by Goya. It's a copy of Velasquez's celebrated portrait of Innocent X, the prime version of which is in the Doria collection in Rome. There was, though, a replica of the head by Velasquez in the Spanish Royal Collection, which Goya would have known, not least when he made his many engraved copies of Velasquezs in the Spanish Royal Collection. That picture is now in the Wellington Collection at Apsley House, below, it having been given to the 1st Duke of Wellington.
The picture on sale at Sotheby's had previously carried a (probably 19th Century) inscription attributing the work as a copy by Goya after Velasquez (below). It had been published in almost every Goya catalogue raisonné going as a work by Goya, including by the late José Gudiol, one of the more renowned Goya scholars. It was exhibited as recently as 1989 as a Goya. But the current crop of Goya specialists evidently doubted it,as did Sotheby's.
Now I'm not saying that just because a painting used to be attributed to one artist that it must still be. Of course, scholarship moves on. But in art history, or at least the art market's view of art history, there is a curious tendency to disregard the work and attributions of an art historian as soon as they're dead. So in this case, the opinion of Gudiol and all those others who'd accepted the attribution didn't matter, but the opinion of the current, living Goya scholars did, whether they've written as much as a catalogue raisonné or not. I don't think you'd get the same in other disciplines; Einstein has been dead for decades, but E still equals MC squared.
The picture at Sotheby's was in almost pristine condition, and at first sight looked in parts as if it wasn't 'period', that is, that it was painted later than the 18th Century. But I came to the conclusion that it was period, and that it was most likely by Goya on the basis not only of some of the handling, but of the very idiosyncratic characterisation. In other words, whoever painted the portrait made the sitter look not like Velasquez's Innocent X, but Goya's Innocent X. It wasn't a copy of the Velasquez in the conventional sense - there must be hundreds of those around - but more a portrait of a portrait, if that makes sense.
Often, portrait artists develop a way of 'drawing' faces which they use repeatedly for the basic construction of their sitte's heads, and it is sometimes very easy to identify; at one extreme, it's the reason why some say all of Lely's sitters look the same. For an idea of what I mean in relation to Goya, see Goya's early self portrait from the 1770s, the same period the Sotheby's picture used to be dated to, which seems to me to have a similar characterisation to the portrait at Sotheby's:
Anyway, I can't easily understand how any other artist would set out to make a copy of a Velazquez, but intentionally make it look like a Goya, and very convincingly, unless the picture at Sotheby's was a modern fake, which it wasn't. The Sotheby's catalogue implied that the picture was a copy after Goya's own, lost copy of the Velasquez. But in my view it was too spirited and animated to be the work of an imitator of Goya copying Goya's own copy after Velasquez.
Goya is known to have made a number of copies in oil after Velasquez, but the others are lost, so we don't have anything directly comparable to look at. All I could deduce in my research was that they appeared to be the same size as the Sotheby's picture. Maybe in time they'll be found, and maybe in time opinion on the Sotheby's picture will swing back to Goya again.
The picture sold for £37,500 against an estimate of £10,000-£15,000. You might ask why I didn't go further, if I was so sure it was by Goya, for a genuine Goya copy of a Velasquez should be very valuable indeed. Two Spanish greats for the price of one! But the picture represented a long term 'hold', and wasn't much of a commercial prospect in the short term. My expertise, such as it is, doesn't cover Goya at all, and I doubt anything I said could sway the opinion of Goya scholars any time soon. It's the sort of picture that will probably remain 'after Goya' for some time, no matter how unjustified that attribution is.
If you bought it, kudos, and good luck...
Update - a reader writes:
If Goya painted this copy of Velasquez's Pope Innocent X - quite a reasonable idea I think- Why did he first paint in the greyish beard and then apparently paint it out again with reddish flesh coloured paint? Did he, or whoever the copyist was want to imagine what the Pope would have looked like without a beard? If so why?
Not sure I noticed it quite like that myself.
Duke's Titian declared genuine
December 4 2014
Pictures: Museo Prado
The Times alerts me to the conservation and re-attribution of a picture by Titian, which belongs to the Duke of Wellington. The picture, a Danaë, was cleaned by the Prado, and proved to be the original painting that once belonged to Philip II of Spain. Painted in about 1551-3, it entered the Wellington collection when it was given to the 1st Duke, following his victories over the French in Spain. It was recently thought to be a copy, but it is in fact an autograph repetition of Titian's first Danaë, which was painted in 1544/5, but with the addition of the old woman on the right. The photo below shows the picture in its stripped down state.
More here on the Prado's website, including videos.
Sleeper alert?
December 4 2014
Picture: Sotheby's
This curious picture, of Icarus and Daedalus, made £332,500 at Sotheby's day sale, against an estimate of just £8,000-£12,000. Catalogued as '18th Century follower of Van Dyck' the picture was in fact a 17th Century work, and also the original of that composition, which is known in a number of copies. The subject was a very popular one in the 17th Century. The picture was engraved in the late 18th Century as by Van Dyck. The condition was disarmingly good, which may have led some to think it was a later copy. I had a good look at the picture on Monday. But I didn't bid on it. I'm not sure who it's by, but I don't think it's Van Dyck. It's someone good though, like a Willeboirts Bosschaert type figure, or one of the many talented figures just downstream of Van Dyck. Of course, I am always prepared to be wrong...
Why Penny will be missed
December 4 2014
Picture: Timothy Foster/Apollo
There's a good interview by Thomas Marks in The Apollo with National Gallery director Nicholas Penny, who has been named the magazine's 'Personality of the Year'. The article neatly distills his directorial philosophy, which I hope will in some way live on after his departure.
Do read the whole thing, but here are two key points. First, on the importance of thinking in a scholarly, even connoisseurial way, for the long term:
For Penny, the mandate of a public museum has meant working to a far longer time frame than a more impresario-minded director might allow for: ‘Museums and art galleries’, he says, ‘weren’t really established for “the public”, in the sense of today’s living people, they were always intended to be regarded from a far higher altitude in terms of time – they were for posterity.’ He continues: ‘People talk all the time about how it’s really important to get more young people in, which is perfectly good, but I really think it’s more important that people in my position should be thinking about what’s going to happen in 30 years’ time. If you do that, you’re keener to look after – and I don’t just mean protect, but actually research and think about – all the most unpopular art that happens to be in the National Gallery today.’
That means heeding less fashionable Old Masters, as well as the ‘tickety-boo’ paintings that bring so many tourists to the gallery each year. Penny points out the correlation between a moribund market for Old Masters and an alarming diminution in experts in the field: ‘When you look at old auction catalogues from 20 or 30 years ago, it’s quite dramatic. There were 10 times more museum-quality works. If museums aren’t buying in these areas, they won’t value having curators in them, and the auction houses will have fewer experts. You can actually see that some areas of connoisseurship are shrinking.’ It is a disquieting situation, but one that might be said to have spurred Penny on at the National Gallery: ‘A place like this has to make itself a centre for expert knowledge about the pictures we have. We can’t rely on university art history departments producing people who’ll help us decide whether a Gaudenzio Ferrari really is by Gaudenzio Ferrari. We have to be a centre for study and scholarship – I think I’ve done quite a lot for that at the National Gallery.
[...]
’Penny has not pushed building projects at the National Gallery; his interventions in this respect have been more delicate than grand. ‘The most important thing about the permanent collection in my time as director,’ he says, ‘is that by the time I leave, every single Victorian or Edwardian ceiling – with the original day-lit arrangements and plasterwork – will have been exposed and restored.’ Here, as elsewhere, Penny has looked to the past for examples. But this year has also seen a cluster of developments that will modernise visitor experience, including the introduction of Wi-Fi in the galleries; reversing the ban on photography; and the launch of the museum’s first membership scheme. ‘The gallery’s got to respond to what you might call the common expectation of a visitor. It will always change in that way.’ Even here, however, in thinking about what these policies might entail, the importance of precedent is palpable: ‘New forms of antisocial activity arise at different times. In the Ashmolean Museum in the 1920s, all the undergraduates started whistling and the curatorial staff were driven absolutely crazy. They thought there was nothing more important in the world than stopping whistling.’
Turner hits £30m
December 4 2014
Picture: Art Daily
Congratulations to Sotheby's for achieving a record price for Turner last night; £30.3m for 'Rome, from Mount Aventine'.
Regular readers will know why I've used the above photo.
Sotheby's sale total last night was £53.9m. So even without the Turner they'd have comfortably beaten Christie's total of £13.9m, by some £10m. Other strong results included: a Canaletto of St Mark's square, at £5.48m; a Pieter Brueghel the Younger village scene at £2.6m; and a still life by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder at £1.02m. This last picture has a relatively new attribution, having been previously attributed to Ludger tom Ring II. A large and interesting English landscape of c.1665 failed to sell at £400,000-£600,000.
Update - in The New York Times, Scott Reyburn has a good piece on the Turner price and the rest of the week's sales.
