Previous Posts: December 2021
'A Photo Archive Changed my Life'
December 31 2021
Picture: PMC
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Bendor has written a short piece for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art on how a photo archive changed his life. In short, the article celebrates how important photo archives are for art history and connoisseurship in general. Brilliant resources such as the recently published online Paul Mellon Centre Photo Archive makes the process of research easier than ever before.
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Indeed, instead of shedding tears of frustration into the stacks and boxes often held within London basements, we can now do so from the comfort of our own armchairs at home. Is this progress? I think so.
Spain's Ministry for Culture Buys €237k worth of Art
December 31 2021
Picture: culturaydeporte.gob.es
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Spain's Ministry for Culture and Sport have announced that they have recently spent €237,100 on purchasing art for the nation. This includes a Goya drawing entitled En Voyage for the Prado Museum. Of greater interest perhaps is the €152,200 spent on 17 oils on copper by the Mexican artist José Joaquín Magón (active between 1742 and 1764) (pictured). These rare and interesting works, which depict scenes from the Life of Mary, will go to the Museo de América.
Manet's Philosophers Reunited at the Norton Simon Museum
December 31 2021
Picture: @NortonSimon
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Norton Simon Museum in California opened an exhibition earlier this autumn dedicated to reuniting three of Manet's Philosophers. This is the first time in over 50 years the paintings have been exhibited in the same space.
According to the exhibition's blurb:
In 1865, Édouard Manet (1832–1883) traveled to Spain to “see all those beautiful things and seek the counsel of maestro Velázquez,” as he wrote to a friend, later declaring “the philosophers of Velázquez” to be “astounding pieces” that were “alone worth the journey.” Indeed, Diego Velázquez’s paintings of Aesop and Menippus, both c. 1638, would provide a model for Manet, whose guiding artistic ambition was to relate art historical tradition to contemporary life.
Shortly before and after his trip to Spain, Manet painted three of his own “philosophers,” which, along with an earlier painting of an absinthe drinker, were loosely grouped as a series when he sold them to his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, in 1872. The works depict disheveled, down-and-out male figures, all of whom would have been legible urban types to viewers of the mid-19th century. Portraying the men at nearly life size against an indecipherable dark background, Manet borrowed Velázquez’s format and updated it to offer a modern equivalent.
This special installation reunites three of Manet’s Philosophers for the first time since the artist’s major retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1966-7: The Norton Simon’s Ragpicker, c. 1865–70, and two paintings on loan from the Art Institute, Beggar with Oysters (Philosopher) and Beggar with a Duffle Coat (Philosopher), both dated 1865/67. Together, these richly resonant works reveal Manet at his most provocative, harnessing the authority of an established style to convey dignity on a class of people overlooked by French society.
The exhibition will run until 28th February 2022.
Reynolds's and Lawrence's Van Dyck Up for Sale
December 30 2021
Picture: L - Sotheby's / R - Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I thought it may be of interest to point out that a Van Dyck owned by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Thomas Lawrence is up for sale at Sotheby's New York's upcoming Nelson Shanks Collection Sale on 27th January 2022 with an estimate of $100k - $150k. The work is a head study of Saint Anthony of Padua which appears in large painting kept at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. As the catalolgue note explains, the picture was rejected in the 2004 catalogue raisonné, a project that didn't provide much attention at all to head studies. Fortunately, scholars have since given the work back to Van Dyck in full.
Curiously, the same picture was sold at Christie's in 2012 (right image), given to Van Dyck in full. Comparing pictures, isn't it astonishing how quickly varnish can discolour! (unless one of the images is photoshopped, of course)
Spanish Church Sells 'Workshop of El Greco' (?)
December 30 2021
Picture: wikimedia.org
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Some of the Spanish Press have published a curious story (which has since been removed it seems from abc.es) that the Parish of Orgaz in Spain have sold a workshop version of El Greco's Disrobing of Jesus. The autograph version is kept in the Sacristy of Toledo Cathedral, however, this copy has sometimes been suggested to be the work of the artist's son Jorge Manuel Theotocópuli. The sale is reported to have been brokered to a Swiss collector with residency in Spain. Press reports claim that the money, an undisclosed sum, was intended for use on restoring churches.
Italian Warehouse Crucifix turns out to be Sixteenth Century
December 30 2021
Picture: tp24.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that a forsaken wooden crucifix rediscovered in a warehouse has been redisplayed in the Museo diocesano di Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, as an early sixteenth century original. The work, which has since been carefully restored, had been placed there long ago by a Parish church and was duly forgotten. It has since been dubbed Cristo salvato (the saved Christ).
Still Life Exhibition at the Louvre for Oct 2022
December 30 2021
Picture: Louvre
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Louvre in Paris will be opening a large exhibition on Still Lifes in October 2022 entitled Les Choses: Une histoire de la nature morte depuis la Préhistoire. As the title suggests, artworks will span from antiquity to the twentieth century, and will also include works outside western culture. The exhibition is scheduled to run from 13th October 2022 until 23rd January 2023.
Recent Release: Thomas Robins and the Art of the Georgian Garden
December 30 2021
Picture: Stephen Morris
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's a recent release that I missed a month ago. Cathryn Spence's latest book entitled Nature’s Favourite Child: Thomas Robins and the Art of the Georgian Garden has recently been released by Stephen Morris.
According to the blurb published by johnsanddoe.com:
Thomas Robins the Elder (1716-1770) recorded the country estates of the Georgian gentry – their orchards, Rococo gardens and potagers – like no other, with both topographical accuracy and delightful artistry, often bordering his gouaches with entrancing tendrils, shells, leaves and birds. His skill was honed by the delicacy required for his early career as a fan painter and is shown too in his exquisite paintings of butterflies, flowers and birds. This ravishing and scholarly study emerges from many years’ research by Dr Cathryn Spence, the curator and archivist at Bowood House who has also worked for the V&A, the American Museum, the Bath Preservation Trust and the National Trust. This is the first full study of Thomas Robins since John Harris’s Gardens of Delight, published in 2 vols in 1978; Harris in fact made over all his research notes to Spence in 2005 when she embarked on her work. Chinoiserie is everywhere – a wooden bridge over the Thames, delicious kiosks in a garden, a view of Bath with sampans and Chinese fishermen on the river. There are also fascinating views of Sudeley Castle and other great houses that incorporated more or less ruined monastic structures, destroyed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Spence has tracked down many previously unknown paintings by Robins, and sets his elusive life and work in the framework of his patrons.
Framed: Stealing a Picasso from the NGV
December 28 2021
Video: SBS Australia
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Subscribers to SBS Australia will be able to enjoy a new four part documentary on the 1986 theft of Picasso's The Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Australia.
Painting En Plein Air 1780 - 1870
December 28 2021
Video: Beaux Arts Magazine
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Fondation Custodia in Paris opened their latest exhibition earlier this month entitled PEINDRE EN PLEIN AIR 1780–1870 SUR LE MOTIF. Artists featured within the exhibition include the likes of Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, Achille-Etna Michallon, Camille Corot, Rosa Bonheur, John Constable, Joseph Mallord William Turner, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, Johan Thomas Lundbye, Vilhelm Kyhn, Johann Martin von Rohden and Carl Blechen.
According to the exhibition's blurb:
The exhibition brings together over one hundred and fifty oil studies from the collections of the Fondation Custodia in Paris, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and a private collector, offering a fresh look at open-air landscape painting in Europe between 1780 and 1870.
Occupying a place between painting and drawing, these études – or studies – were small-scale works, mostly executed on paper, and painted quickly before the motif in order to train the hand and the eye in capturing fleeting effects of light and colour. Though some were later embellished in the studio, they were not seen as finished pictures intended for sale or exhibition, but as a precious resource which artists could draw upon to bring a sense of freshness and immediacy to their official work. At the time, they would only have been known to an intimate circle of friends, colleagues or students.
The exhibition will run until 3rd April 2022.
Update - I've been reminded by a reader that the exhibition will travel to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, on 3rd May 2022 and will run there until 29th August 2022.
Michelangelo's David Action Figure
December 28 2021
Picture: Amazon
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The season of gift-giving is nearly at an end. However, since AHN is dedicated to bringing its readers only the best in art history related ephemera, this one was too good to miss.
I've spotted on Twitter (via. @SocialCultura) that a company called FREEing are selling a Michelangelo's David action figure on Amazon. The plastic figure can assume all different sorts of poses and will cost you a mere €274,90.
Wine Sale to Fund Painting Restoration
December 27 2021
Picture: Palazzo Barberini
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Palazzo Barberini in Rome are funding the restoration of Sant’Onofrio by Battistello Caracciolo (1578-1635) by the sale of wine from the Caparzo di Montalcino Estate. Work on the painting, which is currently obscured by lots of dirt and old varnish, will begin in 2022.
Recent Release: Rembrandt, Vermeer, and the Gift in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art
December 27 2021
Picture: Amsterdam University Press
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Since it is the time of gift-giving, here's a recent release from the Amsterdam University Press that I missed earlier in the Autumn. Rembrandt, Vermeer, and the Gift in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art is the latest book by Michael Zell.
According to the blurb:
Rembrandt, Vermeer, and the Gift in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art offers a new perspective on the art of the Dutch Golden Age by exploring the interaction between the gift's symbolic economy of reciprocity and obligation and the artistic culture of early modern Holland. Gifts of art were pervasive in seventeenth-century Europe, and many Dutch artists, like their counterparts elsewhere, embraced gift giving to cultivate relations with patrons, art lovers, and other members of their social networks. Rembrandt also created distinctive works to function within a context of gift exchange, and both Rembrandt and Vermeer engaged the ethics of the gift to identify their creative labor as motivated by what contemporaries called a "love of art," not materialistic gain. In the merchant republic’s vibrant market for art, networks of gift relations and the anti-economic rhetoric of the gift mingled with the growing dimension of commerce, revealing a unique chapter in the interconnected history of gift giving and art making.
Capodimonte Museum Restores a Filippino Lippi
December 27 2021
Picture: finestresullarte
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Capodimonte Museum in Naples has completed the conservation and restoration of Filippino Lippi's The Annunciation with Saints John the Baptist and Andrew (pictured). The project was completed by the Neapolitan company Temi SpA and was funded in its entirety by a private individual. In addition, the museum's Portrait of the Infante Francesco di Borbone by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun was also restored as part of the same project.
Intriguingly, the necessary funding was achieved through an 'Art Bonus mechanism' which provides patrons with a tax deduction of 65%.
Prado will Redistribute Hundreds of Paintings
December 27 2021
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Spain that the Prado Museum is the latest European institution to commit to redistributing its art collection around Spanish museums. Director Miguel Falomir recently said in a speech that more work is being done to liase with regional museums who would like to borrow artworks relevant to their particular region, including the likes of Andalusia and Catalonia. It is estimated that only around 11% of artworks owned by the Prado are on display. Greater efforts have been made to loan artworks to various regions and now 48 out of 50 regions of Spain have works on loan from the museum.
Falomir also detailed some of the losses due to the ongoing virus crisis, including the fact that museum only welcomed 850,000 visitors in 2020 compared to the 3 million it expected.
New Project Saves Paintings from Destruction (?)
December 27 2021
Picture: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Guardian published an interesting story yesterday regarding a new research project into a set of paintings held by the Leicester Museum & Art Gallery. The piece focuses on the work of Tara Munroe who has been researching a rare and intriguing set of 'casta' paintings created in eighteenth century Mexico. These paintings, donated to the gallery in 1852, depict race and class divisions as they were perceived around two hundred and fifty years ago.
The article also claims that the set of five paintings in the Leicester Museum & Art Gallery "had been marked for destruction by the gallery."
The article quotes Munroe:
A lot of people had looked at these paintings before, and they were just being used to train picture restorers before they were destroyed. It was only because I was working there that I saw something in them. There is a new level of understanding that comes when you have different people working somewhere.
This image of one of the canvases does seem to show various attempts at a cleaning test in the sky, presumably undertaken some time ago:
Fortunately, efforts to restore and redisplay the works will be completed later in 2022.
Christmas Greetings
December 24 2021
Picture: Bristol Museum of Art
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Wishing all readers of AHN a very Merry Christmas.
Thank you for sticking with the blog, particularly during those odd periods of absence. As ever, I'm most grateful for all readers who get in touch with stories and comments.
I do hope that you and your families are continuing to keep safe during this prolonged period of uncertainty. Although 2021 hasn't ended quite as we'd hoped, let's hope that 2022 will be a better one indeed!
New Lighting for the Madonna del Parto
December 24 2021
Picture: ansa.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Piero Della Francesca's fresco known as the Madonna del Parto has been illuminated with a new LED lighting system. The lighting for the work preserved in the Musei Civici Madonna del Parto, Monterchi, had not been updated since the 1990s. It is claimed that the new system finally does justice to the artist's original intentions, particularly in regard to colouring.
James II 'Under Review' in Downing Street
December 24 2021
Picture: Government Art Collection
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's a story I missed last week. It has emerged that John Michael Wright's portrait of King James II in the Government Art Collection (GAC) is currently 'under review' for a project exploring colonialism and 'hidden narratives.' In particular, it has been suggested that James's portrait is being 'interrogated' by the GAC's project due to the King's involvement with the Royal African Company. The painting is currently situated in the Drawing Room of No.11 Downing Street, London, the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There has been no suggestion that the painting will be removed from display.
New Release: Pre-Raphaelites in the Spirit World
December 24 2021
Picture: Peter Lang
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's a curious new release for December 2021. Peter Lang have just published a scholarly book entitled Pre-Raphaelites in the Spirit World. In particular, the edition focuses on a séance diary kept by William Michael Rossetti, one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.
According to the blurb:
William Michael Rossetti’s séance diary is a remarkable document in both the history of Pre-Raphaelitism and nineteenth-century spiritualism. In this previously unpublished manuscript, Rossetti meticulously recorded twenty séances between 1865 and 1868. The original motive was the death, in 1862, of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s wife, Elizabeth Siddal. He felt a profound sense of guilt about her and began these séances to reassure himself that she was happy in the afterlife. Messages came from many spirits within the Pre-Raphaelite circle and provide an unprecedented record of spiritualist activity in the late nineteenth century. Questions and answers fill the pages of the diary, many of them communicating uncannily accurate information or details that could be known only to the participants.
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As it happens, I accidentally rediscovered some transcripts of Victorian séances while researching for my PhD (click the link to watch a short video if you'd like to hear more about that). The short stories of M.R. James have proved that Christmas and Ghost Stories really do go together.
