Previous Posts: articles 2023
Erasmus Darwin's Mother Repaired and Back on the Wall
February 4 2022
Picture: lichfieldlife.co.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I was pleased to see this piece of local news from Lichfield, Staffordshire, that a portrait of Dr Erasmus Darwin's mother Elizabeth Darwin, née Hill (1702–1797), has been restored and redisplayed. The painting, belonging to the Erasmus Darwin Museum in the city, had fallen off the wall last February and been badly damaged (pictured). The ArtUK website shows that the portrait had been gifted to the museum as recently as 2010. Thankfully, the painting has been repaired and conserved by Tadley Services Ltd and has been redisplayed for visitors.
Examining Watts's Lady Dalrymple
February 4 2022
Picture: @WattsGallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Watts Gallery in Compton, Surrey, have published an interesting blog regarding the recent technical examination of GF Watts's Lady Sophia Dalrymple. The work has been scanned and analysed before it heads off to the RA's Whistler exhibition set to open later this month.
Recent Release: Scottish Portraiture 1644-1714
February 4 2022
Picture: brepols.net
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Brepols have recently published an enormous two-volume scholarly work entitled Scottish Portraiture 1644-1714: David and John Scougall and Their Contemporaries by Carla van de Puttelaar. The publication seems like a must-have for serious art libraries.
According to the book's blurb:
This book is the first comprehensive publication on Scottish portraiture from the period 1644 to 1714, with an emphasis on the painters David Scougall (1625-1685), and his son John Scougall (1657-1737). It is based on in-depth art historical and archival research. As such, it is an important academic contribution to this thus far little-researched field. Virtually nothing was known about the Scougall portraitists, who also include the somewhat obscure George Scougall (active c. 1690-1737). Thorough archival research has provided substantial biographical information. It has yielded life dates and data on family relations and, also, it has become clear that David Scougall had two parallel careers, as a portrait painter and as a writer (solicitor). The legal community in which the Scougalls were embedded has been defined, as well as an extended group of sitters and their social, economic, and family networks. The book includes a catalogue raisonné of the oeuvre of David Scougall.
The most important contemporaries of the Scougalls were the portraitist L. Schüneman (active c. 1655/60-1667 or slightly later), his successor James Carrudus (active c. 1668-1683 or later), whose work is identified for the first time in this book, David Paton (c. 1650-in or after 1708), Jacob Jacobsz. de Wet (1641/42-1697) and Sir John Baptist Medina (1659-1710). Their lives and work are discussed. An extensive survey of Scottish portraits, with an emphasis on the work of the Scougall painters, is presented for the period 1644 to 1714. Numerous attributions to various artists and sitter identifications have been established or revised. An overview of the next generation is provided, in which the oeuvres and biographical details are highlighted of the principal portrait painters, such as William Aikman (1682-1731), Richard Waitt (1684-1733) and John Alexander (1686-1767). Countless paintings have been photographed anew or for the first time, and have been compared in detail, which had hardly been done before, while information is also included on technical aspects and (original) frames. The resulting data have been complemented by analysing the social and (art-) historical context in which the portraits were made. The works of the portrait painters in Scotland from this period, as this book shows, now form a solid bridge between the portraits painted prior to George Jamesone’s death in 1644, and those by the renowned Scottish painters of the eighteenth century.
As is the ancient custom, due to the fact this publication contains a catalogue raisonné of the oeuvre of David Scougall, Carla van de Puttelaar has earned a place in the much coveted Heroes of Art History section of this blog.
Burlington Magazine - February Edition
February 4 2022
Picture: Burlington Magazine
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
As usual, this month's edition of the Burlington Magazine is filled with many interesting pieces of exciting research.
Here is a list of the articles in February's edition:
Margaret van Eyck, a house called ‘The Wild Sea’ and Jan van Eyck’s posthumous workshop BY JAN DUMOLYN, SUSAN JONES, WARD LELOUP, TOON DE MEESTER, MATHIJS SPEECKE
The ‘Weston Altarpiece’ in the Museum of the Order of St John, Clerkenwell BY RICHARD WEST
‘The crucifixion of St Peter’: Gerard Seghers, Michelangelo and Caravaggio BY ANNE DELVINGT
Christian VII of Denmark’s lost British portraits BY SARA AYRES
The Art of Conservation: XVII: Jan Cornelis Traas, paintings restorer of the Van Gogh family collection BY ELLA HENDRIKS
Colossal orders and a Classical facade: Hoefnagel and Nonsuch revisited BY MARTIN BIDDLE
Christian Theuerkauff (1936–2021) BY MARJORIE TRUSTED
The finding of the infant Bacchus BY LARS HENDRIKMAN
Apologies...
February 3 2022
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Apologies for the slow service this week, I'm rather tied up with a few urgent matters at the present. With any luck, I hope to post a full round up of news tomorrow.
The Recovered Masterpieces at Versailles
February 1 2022
Video: chateauversailles.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Palace of Versailles will be opening a fascinating exhibition in a few days time on several sculptures that have been recovered (and conserved - see the video above) for their collection.
According to the exhibition's website:
The Palace of Versailles is presenting two masterpieces of 18th-century sculpture, commissioned by Louis XIV and Louis XV respectively: Zéphyr, Flore et l’Amour, and L'Abondance. These works, recently rediscovered and identified after many years of searching, and are now entering the Palace of Versailles’ collections. The exhibition is an opportunity to retrace the unique journey of these works, from their creation to their entrance in the national collections.
L’Abondance represents an allegory for renewed prosperity under the auspices of the peace-making king. In 1773, it was placed in the gardens of the Château of Menars (Loir et Cher), inherited by Marquis of Marigny Abel-François Poisson from his sister, the Marquessa of Pompadour. As the Director of the King’s Buildings from 1751 to 1773, Marigny benefited from Louis XV’s generosity. This included the donation of many sculptures kept in the royal warehouses, one of which was Zephr et Flore in 1769. This prestigious collection of sculptures was broken up and dispersed at a sale in 1881, with brothers Alphonse and Edmond de Rothschild both acquiring some of the finest works. This is how Zéphyr et Flore and L’Abondance joined the collections assembled by passionate lover of art, Alphonse de Rothschild, in his iconic Parisian hotel on Rue de Saint-Florentin.
The exhibition will include several loans, including paintings and tapestries which show the works in-situ, and will run from 5th February 2022 until 5th June 2022.
'Workshop of Cranach' finally back in Poland
February 1 2022
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A Lamentation of Christ, attributed to the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder, has finally returned to the walls of The National Museum in Wrocław, Poland. As I reported back in 2020, the painting was rediscovered in the collections of The National Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, having been purchased in good faith at auction in 1970. It had since been revealed that the picture had gone missing from the Polish museum in 1945-6 and the Swedish authorities decided to restitute the picture back to Poland.
Christ & His Cousin: Renaissance Rediscoveries
January 31 2022
Picture: The National Gallery of Ireland
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin opened their latest exhibition over the weekend entitled Christ & His Cousin: Renaissance Rediscoveries. The show will be accompanied by some fascinating online talks and lectures too, which are worth browsing through.
According to the exhibition's blurb:
Over the last fifteen years, a selection of sixteenth-century Italian paintings from the national collection have been carefully conserved by the Gallery’s Head of Conservation, Simone Mancini. This free exhibition will showcase eight works depicting the Madonna and her infant child, Jesus Christ, with his cousin Saint John the Baptist. Many of these dramatically restored paintings have never been displayed before. Christ & His Cousin: Renaissance Rediscoveries will explore the symbolism and traditions that underpin these playful and lively compositions, and encourage visitors to reconsider what are often dismissed as conventional and familiar images.
This free exhibition will run until 8th May 2022.
The 1973 Cincinnati Rembrandt Heist
January 31 2022
Video: WCPO 9
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
For those of you who like a good heist story, the Cincinnati Enquirer have written a long format piece on the 1973 theft of two Rembrandts from the Taft Museum of Art. The story is a rather long and curious one, do click on the link if you want to read it in full.
Carlo Crivelli at the Ikon Gallery
January 31 2022
Picture: The National Gallery, London
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz
The Ikon Gallery in Birmingham will be opening what looks to be a very interesting exhibition later in February dedicated to Carlo Crivelli (c.1430/5-1495). Shadows on the Sky is said to be the first exhibition in the UK dedicated to this Venetian born artist.
According to the gallery's website:
Shadows on the Sky highlights his experimental use of perspective, trompe l’oeil (optical illusion) and sculptural relief to create illusions of illusionism. Such cleverness was conveyed with consummate craftsmanship and foiled by an extraordinary elegance. Crivelli’s paintings both suggest and undermine his own visual trickery to explore the coexistence of material and spiritual realities.
Organised in partnership with The National Gallery, the exhibition also includes loans from other leading institutions such as the National Trust, the Vatican Pinacoteca, the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Wallace Collection, and the Gemäldegalerie. Through these major loans – some for the first time – we are invited to reconsider Crivelli’s sophisticated understanding of the relationship between art and what it represents. With a sense of irony, found five hundred years later in Magritte’s Ceci n’est pas une pipe (1929), he subtly denies the possibility of one being confused with the other.
The exhibition will run from 23rd February 2022 until 29th May 2022.
Sleeper Alert!
January 28 2022
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Some readers might remember this painting that I highlighted on the blog on 9th January catalogued as Follower of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
The painting was sold this morning in New York for $1,593,000 over its $50k - $70k estimate.
Notably, this painting had been published as 'Bruegel's earliest work' in a 1955 publication by Fritz Grossmann. It seems that many Bruegel writers continued to republish Grossmann's verdict until it was questioned at some point during the 1970s.
This might be a story to follow in the near future, especially if it reappears somewhere interesting.
Manchester Deaf Museum acquires work by Charles Webb Moore
January 28 2022
Picture: @OlympiaAuctions
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Olympia Auctions (formerly the 25 Blythe Road collective) in West London has shared news that a portrait sold by them in May 2021 has been acquired by the Deaf Museum in Manchester. The painting was created by the deaf artist Charles Webb Moore (1848-1933) and depicts and unknown gentleman wearing a black suit and white shirt.
According to the original catalogue note:
Moore was described as the "doyen of deaf artists" by the inventor Arthur James Wilson, himself a prominent figure in the deaf community of 19th and early 20th Century Britain. The artist was born into a family of artists and craftspeople based in London. All of his immediate family were also deaf, and they were part of the deaf community that centred largely around St Saviour's Church, Oxford Street (now relocated to Acton), the only purpose-built church for the deaf in London.
Museum of Fine Arts Besançon hangs its new Vouet
January 28 2022
Picture: @villedebesancon
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museum of Fine Arts and Archeology of Besançon have hung their latest acquisition, Simon Vouet's Angels Bearing the Column of Passion. The work was purchased at Sotheby's Paris in November 2021 for €252,000 (inc. commission). Most importantly, the acquisition allows the work to be hung next to another canvas of angels to which it was originally joined.
Refurbished galleries at the Ulster Museum
January 28 2022
Picture: Twitter via. @annemillarstew1
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Senior Curator of the Ulster Museum Anne Stewart has shared this very impressive preview of the newly refurbishing galleries of the museum. The museum, with its brand-new lighting for its picture collection in a display called Renaissance to Romanticism, will be reopening to visitors on 1st February 2022.
__________________
Is it just me, or are there absolutely no details about the refurbishment or display featured on the museum's website?
Marquess of Downshire Pictures coming up at Sotheby's in April
January 28 2022
Picture: artscouncil.org.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
An eagle eyed reader has alerted me to a posting on the Private Treaty Sales section of the Arts Council website. The post explains that a selection of eleven pictures from the Marquess of Downshire's collection will be coming up for sale at Sotheby's London on 4th April 2022. This includes paintings by the likes of Attrib. George Gower, Sir Peter Lely, Studio of Kneller, Michael Dahl, Bernard Lens and Filippo Lauri. Another four will be heading to sale at Tennants later in April 2022.
Sotheby's Results
January 27 2022
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Today's Sotheby's New York Master Paintings and Sculpture sale realised a total of $90,970,160 (all prices include commission) with 74.55% of lots sold. This total includes the $45.45m achieved by the Botticelli and a $9.91m Egyptian statue. This is only a little down on the $114,502,900 made last year, which included a ($92.1m!) Botticelli, of course.
There were a few disappointments though. The Correggio, Bellini, Vrel and van Baburen were all bought in.
Some of the pictures that soared include a portrait by Goya which achieved $2,198,000 (all prices include commission) over its $400k - $600k estimate; Pieter van Mol's Diogenes which realised $5,779,200 over its $2m - $3m estimate; Gerrit Dou's candlelight scene which made $746,000 over its $150k - $250k estimate; a pair of portraits by Pickenoy which made $1,084,800 over their $450k - $550k estimate; a Rachel Ruysch still life which realised $365,400 over its $80k - $120k estimate; a portrait by Charles Wautier which made $189,000 over its $60k - $80k estimate and a head study of a man by Gaetano Gandolfi which made $818,600 over its $300k - $500k estimate.
Botticelli's Man of Sorrows makes $39.3m (hammer price)
January 27 2022
Picture: Sotheby's via. Facebook
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Sotheby's New York have just sold Sandro Botticelli's Man of Sorrows for $39.3m (hammer price) with the pre-sale estimate mooted at around $40m. With commission this adds up to $45.4m.
Bidding opened at $33m, climbed to $38m where it stalled for a short while with increments of $200k, $500k, $700k, $900k until it hit $39m. Bidding slowly crept up with $100k increments to $39.3m where it finally sold to a phone bidder with Liz Lobkowicz.
And we're off...!
January 27 2022
Picture: Sotheby's via. Facebook
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Sotheby's New York Master Paintings sale has just begun! What will the Botticelli make? Will the Correggio, van Mol, Cranach, Coorte, de Sarto and Artemisias soar?!
All will soon be revealed!
Update - The first picture to break its top estimate is Ambrosius Benson's Mary Magdalene which was knocked down at $1.6m (hammer price) over its $500k - $700k estimate. All pictures have just about managed to hit their low estimates thus far.
Update 2 - Pieter van Mol's Diogenes just managed to break its top estimate to achieve $4.8m (hammer price) over its $2m - $3m estimate. I managed to have a good look at this at the London previews. It's a stunning picture which surely has a glorious clean in it. An auction record for Pieter van Mol too.
The sale has gotten off to a good start, it seems!
Update 3 - The first passes, lot. 7 and 8.
Update 4 - Giovanni Bellini's Mother and Child was just bought-in at $2.9m (hammer price) under its estimate of $3m - $5m. Perhaps bidders are saving their pennies for the Botticelli?
Update 5 - Andrea del Sarto's Portrait of a Man just scraped $1.8m (hammer price) under its $2m - $3m estimate.
Update 6 - Correggio's Magdalen Reading was bought-in (meaning it didn't manage to hit its reserve) at $4.4m (hammer) under its $4.5m - $5.5m estimate. A shame, as it was very close.
Update 7 - A 'Dutch School' portrait of a Boy managed to realise $214,200 (inc. commission) over its $40k - $60k estimate. An impressive result, I wonder if someone has managed to work out who painted it.
Update 8 - Artemisia's Portrait of a Lady sold for $2.2m (hammer price) over its $2m - $3m estimate.
Musée Fabre acquires Judith by Filippo Vitale
January 27 2022
Picture: maurizionobile.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A reader has pointed out news that the Musée Fabre in Montpellier have acquired a Judith and Holofernes by Filippo Vitale (c.1585-1650). The work had formerly been on display at TEFAF with Maurizio Nobile Fine Art and was only recently donated to the museum by the painting's new owner Mr. Didier Malka.
Visitors to the museum will now be able to see the work hanging as part their aforementioned exhibition La Beauté en partage.
The Caravaggio Conference to End All Caravaggio Conferences
January 27 2022
Picture: caravaggio.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
It seems like the Italian Art Historical community have been having an absolute blast this week with a vast online conference dedicated to The Enigma of Caravaggio. The conference, running between the 12th and 28th January, has included the participation of no fewer than 40 Italian and international scholars on Italian baroque painting.
For those of you who can understand Italian, much of the conference has been uploaded to YouTube. Hours and hours of fascinating material to enjoy, I'm sure!
