Previous Posts: articles 2023

Executed in the late 15th/early 16th century, The Man of Sorrows is a masterful late period work by the artist, when Botticelli was greatly influenced by the fanatical Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola and adopted a style characterized by Christian symbolism and visionary spirituality. The portrait of the resurrected Christ reveals an important coda to Botticelli’s well-known earlier career, while also encapsulating the artist’s singular style with a stunningly modern and human portrayal of Christ.

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The Man of Sorrows was first recorded in the collection of Mrs. Adelaide Kemble Sartoris (1814-1879), a famed English opera singer, who along with her husband, were two influential socialites in Victorian England and in Rome. The painting descended in the family to Adelaide’s great granddaughter, Lady Cunynghame, who sold it at auction in 1963 for £10,000 ($28,000). Since then, it has remained in the same distinguished private collection, practically unseen until its recent inclusion in the major monographic exhibition devoted to the Florentine master at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt in 2009–2010.

MAIN DUTIES

• To bring innovation and excitement to Dulwich Picture Gallery, drawing public attention and  developing new audiences through innovative displays, exhibitions and interpretation;

• To work with The Sackler Director, Deputy Director and Senior Leadership Team to  maximise the Gallery’s unique potential – its building, art, gardens, people and location.

• To take responsibility for the planning, supervision, delivery, documentation and monitoring of  conservation care, display, loans and storage to the highest collection management standards.

• To develop and deliver partnerships to further the understanding and reach of the Collection  through active networking, publication, lecturing, and communications.

• To act as an ambassador for the Gallery, and to contribute to fund-raising and income-generation activities.

Women artists played a vibrant yet overlooked role in Italy around 1600. The first exhibition solely dedicated to Italian women artists at the Wadsworth, By Her Hand explores how important women artists succeeded in the male-dominated art world of the time. Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–after 1654), one of the most fascinating seventeenth-century Italian painters, takes center stage. 

The Wadsworth’s Self-Portrait as a Lute Player is compared with a related painting from the National Gallery, London—a rare opportunity to see these paintings side by side. Gentileschi’s pioneering depictions of strong women, such as her Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes from the Detroit Institute of Arts, will also be on view. 

Beyond Gentileschi, the accomplishments of a diverse and dynamic group—from the court painter Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625), to the Venetian pastel artist Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757), among other talented and virtually unknown Italian women artists—are introduced and celebrated.

The significance of this new AI method of authentication is potentially groundbreaking. Devoid of human subjectivity, emotion and commercial interests, the software is coldly objective and scientifically accurate. Many questionable works were attributed to Rubens at the beginning of the 20th century… There is today a distinct need for more reliable methods of connoisseurship.

With Class Society. Everyday Life as Seen by Dutch Masters, scheduled from 26 November 2021 to 27 March 2022, the Hamburger Kunsthalle is devoting a comprehensive show comprising some 150 works – paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and videos – to a chapter of an extremely multifaceted epoch of European art history. The exhibition is primarily based on the Hamburger Kunsthalle’s superb holdings of Dutch 17-th century paintings, which at the same time are the main emphasis of the museum’s Old Masters Collection and are meant to be acknowledged accordingly with this show. Another essential part of the presentation is dedicated to overarching aspects and, based on socio-cultural developments and political factors, it draws up a characteristic image of Dutch society in the 17th century that the selected artists seem to have portrayed in their paintings. 

Beyond this, the exhibition evaluates the representations on display according to socio-critical issues of the 21st century and thus links them to our own everyday reality. The art of the Old Masters, as well as the context it was created in, often appear far removed from current debate, as their original intention seemingly has nothing in common with the complex contexts and topics concerning our society today. The exhibition wants to break with these prejudices by discussing controversial theses. 

“The face is very well painted. I discovered during the technical examination that it has actually been partially repainted. Her cheeks and nose have been made slimmer and it looks as if he’s slightly painted out a double chin. Also, the hairstyle has been changed. Perhaps she thought that she looked a bit porky when it was done first time round. I just think that’s hilarious.”

20 October 2021           Gabriele Finaldi (Director of the National Gallery) 

03 November 2021        Kaywin Feldman (Director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) 

10 November 2021        Thelma Golden (Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem) 

11 November 2021        Iwona Blazwick (Director of the Whitechapel Gallery) 

24 November 2021        Maria Balshaw (Director of Tate) 

11 February 2022          Eve Tam (Former Director of the Hong Kong Museum of Art)

During the central decades of the 17th century a type of painting was produced in Andalusia that was notably representative of both the high levels achieved by the principal painters of the region and the expectations and tastes of one of the most active sectors of their clientele. These are works structured as series, most of medium size and commissioned by private individuals for domestic interiors or private oratories. They depict a “story” taken from the Bible or the hagiographies, either in the form of an individual’s life story recounted in greater or lesser detail, or the different stages within one biographical episode. The format allowed artists to display not only their use of compositional devices but also their skills as narrators of sequential episodes. 

The content of the series and the way the artists chose to depict the subjects often reflect the contemporary world of the individuals who commissioned them, their codes and aspirations, while also providing us with an insight into part of their material culture. 

With the aim of learning more about these works and structured around the series of six, recently restored canvases of Murillo’s “Prodigal Son” series, generously loaned by the National Gallery of Dublin, the exhibition includes the four paintings in the collection of the Prado associated with that series by Murillo; the “Story of Joseph” series by Antonio del Castillo, which has survived complete; and most of the paintings from the series on “The Life of Saint Ambrose” by Juan de Valdés Leal. A comparison between these works by three of the leading names in Andalusian Baroque painting reveals both affinities and differences with regard to technique, style and approach to narrative.

This is the first detailed analysis of elite men’s clothing in 17th-century Scotland and its influence on English male fashion. Focusing on the years 1566 through 1701, it centers on the clothing choices of five Stuart royals: James VI and I, Prince Henry, Charles I, Charles II, and James VII and II.   

The engaging text brims with details about the wardrobes and habits of Scottish royalty, such as how the men selected fabric and kept clothes clean. The book is organized along three themes: the significance of the Stuarts’ Scottish heritage in the style they developed; the role of Scots in exporting their style to London and beyond; and the reception of Stuart style among the male elite in Scotland. Maria Hayward explores how Stuart style was displayed in sport, at political and social events, and at church. The book also reveals the importance of vital supporting players—namely, the courtiers who helped kings and princes develop their style, as well as the tailors who disseminated it to men beyond the royal court.

‘Uncommon Power’: Lucy and Catherine Madox Brown is the first exhibition dedicated to the life, art and feminist legacies of sisters Lucy Rossetti (1843-1894) and Catherine Hueffer (1850-1927).   

Commonly referred to as the daughters of Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893), these two creative women grew up at the heart of the Pre-Raphaelite world and, as this exhibition demonstrates, became talented, professional artists in their own right.

Bringing together Rossetti and Hueffer’s rarely exhibited works - notably Ferdinand and Miranda Playing Chess (1871, Private Collection), A Deep Problem: 9 and 6 make – (1875, Birmingham Museums Trust) and the recently conserved The Fair Geraldine (or The Magic Mirror, 1871, Private Collection) - with archival material, including a family photograph album, personal correspondence and painting palettes, the exhibition explores themes of their Pre-Raphaelite upbringing, artistic training, kinship, female friendship and creative motherhood.

The striking portraits depict a member of the military aristocracy and an unmarried woman from New Julfa, the Armenian district of Isfahan, which was the cosmopolitan capital of Persia in the 17th century. Paintings of this  style are known to have hung in the houses of Isfahan’s wealthy merchant classes.

The figures are dressed in luxurious fabrics including Persian silks, which the Armenians of Isfahan famously traded across the globe. Both portraits include European details, such as a Venetian wine glass, a German clock and Dutch flowers, signifying affluence through access to luxury international commodities.