Previous Posts: December 2021

This is a highly original and visually striking portrait of a royal prince by one of the leading painters working in Georgian Britain. Showing the future King William IV standing alone on the deck of a warship, dressed in his midshipman’s uniform, looking steadfastly out to sea and resting his hand on a sword, the portrait highlights both his youth and bravery. The work’s significance lies not only in its exceptional quality and interest as a painting; the portrait also provided the basis for a widely disseminated engraving that served to promote the modest, heroic virtues of the prince and his family at a time of profound national crisis. For all these reasons, this is a painting of great historical and art-historical importance.

The theme of next year’s symposium is ‘Alla Maniera: technical art history and the meaning of style in fifteenth to seventeenth century painting’. The symposium focuses on how technical research can provide additional insights or challenges concerning the style of an individual painter, a workshop or a group of painters. Stylistic similarities might indicate cultural, social, geographical or chronological connections in paintings, drawings, prints, applied arts, etc. as well as across artistic media.

It should be mentioned at the outset that in the catalogue no curator, conservator or official of the Museo del Prado expresses any opinion on the attribution of the painting, let alone downgrades it. Rather, as quoted in the article, Ana González Mozo, one of the five authors of the catalogue, reports, “Some specialists consider there was a now lost prototype, while others think the much debated Cook version is the original.”

In her subsequent brief discussion about a Youthful Christ image, included in the same Salvator Mundi paragraph, she writes: “Once again [our emphasis] there is no painted prototype.” It is also notable that the Gulf (Cook) version is not among the 75 illustrations in the catalogue.

Virtual Veronese is a research and development (R&D) project looking at how we can share research with a wider audience by using immersive technologies to explore new ways of telling stories. The project will enable us to understand how immersive storytelling can add depth of information, meaning, and emotion to Gallery visitors’ experiences of our paintings. 

For two weeks, we are inviting visitors to experience Veronese’s painting The Consecration of Saint Nicholas as it would have been seen in 1562 by using augmented and virtual reality headsets. This is a working prototype that will allow us to collect audience feedback to inform the development of this and other projects.

The Royal Collection contains an internationally important collection of 40,000 drawings and watercolours and 120,000 prints, from the fifteenth century to the present day. 

Taking on a wide range of curatorial activities, you’ll ensure that the collection is accessible to all, through study and group visits, public enquiries, learning events, loans and exhibitions. 

You’ll develop your expertise and in-depth knowledge, and uncover the stories behind our collection. And you'll share your knowledge through a wide range of platforms, creating and delivering talks and social media content that aim to inspire and engage with the broadest audience possible. 

You'll help make sure the records of the collection are expertly maintained and enhanced. And you’ll bring this knowledge to a worldwide audience, keeping our online database up to date and easy to use.

The exhibition Forgeries? Forgeries! mounted in Sternberg Palace on Hradčanské náměstí square will show imitations of medieval paintings, sculptures and drawings. It will present forgeries executed in the style of the Dutch Old Masters of the 17th century, as well as fake works allegedly by prominent Czech painters of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition, there will be objects imitating non-European works of art, such as Oriental carpets and arts-and-crafts objects. Works on paper will also be displayed. The exhibition will include a number of iconic vases from foreign collections that brought worldwide fame to their creators and it will acquaint visitors with forgeries that are in the National Gallery’s holdings. Attention will also be devoted to famous masters’ signatures on paintings, which are no proof whatsoever that the artists had actually painted them. 

Visitors to the exhibition will learn in an intriguing way about the methods used to verify the authenticity of works of art. This will give them the opportunity to acquire further knowledge about the “behind-the-scenes” work of the National Gallery’s whole team of specialists ⁠–⁠ from curators, to conservators-restorers, to chemists in the laboratory. The exhibition will explain to visitors the difference between a replica, copy, imitation and forgery, executed for purposes of financial gain.

Matthias Wivel — The Compass and the Mirror 

Elena Calvillo — Friendship, Medium and the Diverging Lives of Sebastiano del Piombo and Michelangelo   

Piers Baker-Bates — Copies and Versions in Sebastiano’s Art? The Christ Carrying the Cross 

Sheryl E. Reiss — A Word Portrait of a Medici Maecenas: Giulio de’ Medici (Pope Clement VII) as Patron of Art 

Arnold Nesselrath — Raphael: Of Heirs and Pretenders 

Matthias Wivel and Rachel Billinge — Sebastiano’s Vich Triptych 

Carlo Piga — Da Michelangelo a Sebastiano: antiche suggestioni e moderne invenzioni nel ciclo decorativo della Cappella Borgherini in San Pietro in Montorio a Roma 

Stefania Pasti — Aperietur in tempore: Sebastiano del Piombo and the Borgherini Chapel in the Light of Prophetic Readings 

Paul Joannides — A New Drawing by Sebastiano del Piombo for the Semi-Dome of the Borgherini Chapel 

Costanza Barbieri — Sebastiano as Portraitist and a Case Study: The Portrait of Michelangelo Pointing at His Drawings 

Oriana Sartiani — A Portrait of Michelangelo Attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo: Technical Examination, Discoveries, and Treatment 

Simonetta Antellini — L’originalità compositiva della Nascita della Vergine di Sebastiano del Piombo 

Daniela Luzi — ‘Il bel secreto’: La pittura sperimentale sulla pietra di Sebastiano nella Cappella Chigi 

Morten Steen Hansen — The Readings of Angels: Sebastiano del Piombo and the Politics of the Immaculate Conception 

Andrea Donati — Marcello Venusti, Michelangelo and the Legacy of Sebastiano del Piombo 

Charles Robertson — Michelangelo’s Last Judgement: Sebastiano del Piombo’s Contribution

This study investigates how lead isotopes in lead white pigment can be used as an additional diagnostic tool to constrain the production time of 17th century Dutch paintings. Analysis of 77 well-dated paintings from 27 different Dutch artists reveal significant change in the source of lead used in lead white at the start, middle, and end of the 17th century. Isotopic shifts are related to major historical and socioeconomical events such as the English Civil War and Anglo-Dutch-French conflicts. These observations offer the prospect that lead isotope analysis of lead white could aid attribution and authentication of Dutch 17th century paintings and provide insights into artists’ international travels as well as lead production and trading.

Ingrid Moortgat: Close family and guild ties: the Gabron dynasty of panel makers in seventeenth-century Antwerp

Justin Davies: Van Dyck’s use of panels made by the Gabron family: occurrences and new findings

Joost Vander Auwera: The 1660–1661 Antwerp court case about a series of Van Dyck’s Apostles: two new documents and some reflections on the course of justice and the potential for new discoveries

Joost Vander Auwera: The 1660–1661 court case on the Apostles series by Van Dyck: A Who’s Who of the Antwerp artistic scene in the post-Rubens and post-Van Dyck era

Andrea Seim: The Remigius van Leemput series in the Royal Collection: its importance for dating small panels

Justin Davies: The impact of JVDPPP’s dendrochronological findings for the dating and attribution of the small panels related to Van Dyck’s Iconography

Justin Davies: Anthony Van Dyck, his panels and panel makers: identifications and patterns

Joost Vander Auwera: Jordaens’s re-use and enlargement of panels in light of the studio practices and art theory of his day: the example of The Adoration of the Shepherds in Bristol

Justin Davies: The Adoration of the Shepherds: now found to have hung in Jordaens’s house in Antwerp

Alexis Merle du Bourg & Rafaella Besta: Reflections on the history of Van Dyck’s “Böhler Apostles”

Joost Vander Auwera: An Old Woman in the Fitzwilliam Museum: Jordaens not Van Dyck

This anonymous painting is a great rarity in British art, as a mid-seventeenth-century work that depicts a black woman and a white woman with equal status. It is not a portrait of real people, as far as we know, but the inscription reveals that it is in fact a sternly moralising picture that condemns the use of cosmetics, and specifically elaborate beauty patches, which were in vogue at the time. 

Although not distinguished artistically, its imagery relates in fascinating ways to contemporary stereotypes of women, fashion, and, through the juxtaposition of the figures, race. The fact that it has only recently emerged, and only one other related painting is known so far, and that it could be used to explore important aspects of black culture in seventeenth-century Britain, makes it particularly important that it remains in this country so that its meaning can be widely studied and understood. 

Further research could reveal how the picture connects with contemporary print culture and texts, and the contexts and purposes for which it might have been created and displayed.

The self-portrait was varnished in the mid-20th century and this coating eventually became yellowed and dirty, obscuring much of Van Gogh’s detail and deadening its full impact. A photograph of the work nearly half completed, in November, shows quite what a difference this makes. 

Although most of Van Gogh’s paintings are on canvas, this was done on cardboard. Hardly surprisingly, the edges of the board have become fragile, so earlier this year it was decided to mount the cardboard on a supportive backing.

...

Many of Van Gogh’s paintings have suffered colour changes, particularly with fading red pigments, due to light exposure. The Kröller-Müller self-portrait is no exception, and traces of the original stronger tones can be seen on the very edge of the board, where the image was protected by the framing.