Previous Posts: articles 2023
Rembrandt in Wales
June 16 2022
The latest iteration of the National Gallery's Masterpiece on Tour programme has seen their Rembrandt portrait of Saskia go to Powys in Wales. The scheme is very worthwhile, and I see from Andrew Dickson's Guardian story that it is set to be expanded:
“We wanted to try and take down some of the barriers,” says Susan Foister, the gallery’s deputy director when we speak. “People should have access to great art locally.”The scheme’s first iteration involved one painting spending around six weeks at three regional galleries each year. Now, the NG wants to build multi-year partnerships, working closely with spaces that haven’t borrowed works before to share expertise and select works that might resonate with their visitors. Last year, Oriel Davies and its collaborating galleries took temporary possession of Chardin’s tender 18th-century portrait of a boy, The House of Cards. Once Saskia has done her stint, she’ll be followed by a flamboyantly colourful Tobias and the Angel by the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (c.1470-5), which will tour in 2023.
NG's virtual Jubilee exhibition
June 16 2022
Picture: National Gallery
The National Gallery in London has started doing excellent virtual exhibitions. You can move around with ease and even zoom in on the pictures tolerably well. There's even an augmented reality option, on mobile devices. Their latest celebrated the Queen's platinum jubilee:
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is the longest reigning monarch in British history. She has witnessed many changes of government and has advised no fewer than 14 successive Prime Ministers. This year, she became the first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, commemorating 70 years of service.
To mark this unprecedented milestone, we have brought together 28 paintings from our collection that shed light on the notion of queenship, including portraits of female rulers from different times and countries as well as images that relate to some of the attributes most frequently associated with female monarchs past and present.
More here.
The Parthenon Marbles (ctd.)
June 16 2022
Picture: BG
I was interested to see that the Chair of the British Museum trustees, George Osborne, said 'there's a deal to be done' on the Parthenon Marbles. Speaking to Andrew Marr on LBC he said:
“They’re an amazing testament to human civilisation. In the British Museum, they tell a story about civilisation compared to all the other civilisations, China, India, other parts of the Mediterranean. In Greece, they tell the story, just of Greek civilisation. I think there’s a deal to be done but I think there’s a deal to be done where we can tell both stories in Athens and in London.”
You can listen to the full excerpt here. The reason I think this represents a movement by the British Museum (or at least, its trustees) is that the BM has had a longstanding policy of being happy to loan the Marbles (or some of them) back to Greece for display, but Greece won't accept a loan because it would mean surrendering all claims to title. So ostensibly Osborne is signalling he's prepared to go beyond this. Perhaps some form of joint title would be appropriate, recognising their historical status?
It's also interesting that the UK government has repeatedly said this is a matter for the BM's trustees, rather than just outright say, 'the Marbles will stay in the UK', which is what you might expect from our current culture war-ing government. So, if the Trustees do decided to do something different, it's hard to see how the UK government could block them.
How much do museums make from NFTs?
June 13 2022
Picture: TAN/Uffizi
Museums have so far been reluctant to declare how much they've been making from selling jpegs NFTs. In The Art Newspaper, Gareth Harris reports that the Uffizi has sold a single Michelangelo NFT (above) through its commercial partner, Cinello, for €240,000. The Uffizi's cut? Just €70,000. And of that, I suspect they spent a fair deal on legal fees setting up the scheme.
According to Gareth's piece, however, much of the controversy in Italy over the sale seems to be about who 'controls' the NFT, and thus the image:
The move has sparked concerns however about whether major works are up “for sale”. An article in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica last month asked: “Who owns Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo?.... who has the legal rights linked to the work? If the buyer ever decides to exhibit it, can he do it without the permission of the Uffizi? Basically: do we not risk losing control of our heritage in a time when we are increasingly moving towards the metaverse?” The newspaper adds that Italian government ministers have also raised concerns about the deal with Cinello.
In a lengthy statement, the Uffizi says: “Basically: do we not risk losing control of our heritage… In reality, [existing laws] give punctual and precise answers to those questions long before the invention of the technology in question, i.e., the Ronchey law of 1994, and again the Urbani code of 2004…. the rights [linked to the works] are in no way alienated, the contractor has no right to use the images granted for exhibitions or other unauthorised uses, and the assets remain firmly in the hands of the Italian Republic.”
For those of us who do our bit to help spread appreciation for Old Masters to new audiences, it's despairing to hear major museums like the Uffizi obsess about who has 'control' over images of publicly owned artworks. Nobody needs to control these images.
Artemisia and 150 other works by female artists
June 13 2022
Picture: Muskegon Museum of Art
In the US, the Muskegon Museum of Art has announced a donation of 150 works by female artists, including an Artemisia Gentileschi, as part of a gift to create a special wing of the museum dedicated to female artists. The gift is said to be worth $12m, and has been made by Steven Alan Bennett & Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt. More from Tessa Solomon at ARTNews here, and you can get better images of the artworks here.
Restitution win for 101 year old Resistance veteran
June 13 2022
Picture: Guardian
I love these restitution stories; Bischoff van Heemskerck, the daughter of a Dutch doctor who went into hiding rather than collaborate with the Nazis, and who was herself a member of the Resistance, has been reunited with a portrait by Caspar Netscher, more than 70 years after it was looted by the Germans from a Dutch bank. Dalya Alberge has more in The Guardian here. The picture has been consigned to Sotheby's in July.
'Young Falconer with Dogs'
June 13 2022
Picture: Millon
This adept piece of auction house photography caught my eye. Presumably the live dog is not included. If you'd like to find out, it's lot 118 at Millon in France.
Tate to deaccession '£20m Bacon archive'
June 8 2022
Picture: Copyright Barry Joule, via The Guardian
In The Art Newspaper, Martin Bailey reports on one of the most curious national museum stories of recent years; Tate is to deaccession a Francis Bacon archive given to it almost 20 years ago, at which time it was apparently valued at up to £20m. Now, however, Tate has cast doubt on many of the items said to have been connected to Bacon himself (this follows the Francis Bacon estate casting doubt of the material last year, as reported by Dalya Alberge in The Observer). And though Tate normally cannot deaccession works of art, there are different rules for its archive (as very long-standing AHN readers may remember, from back in 2012). The Bacon material is first to be offered back to its donor, Barry Joule, a friend of the late artist (above).
'Grinling Gibbons & his Contemporaries'
June 7 2022
Picture: Paul Mellon Centre
The art historian and curator at the Wallace Collection Ada de Wit has published a new book on Grinling Gibbons, which looks excellent. From publisher Brepols:
One of the greatest artists of the English Baroque, Grinling Gibbons (1648–1721) was born in Rotterdam to English parents. He moved to England at the age of nineteen and embarked on a spectacular career. His exuberant lifelike carvings in limewood can be admired at Hampton Court Palace and at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. But what was the Dutch tradition that shaped him? And what set him apart from the other carvers of his time? This book explains the importance of woodcarving and provides new insights into the work of woodcarvers in the Netherlands and Britain. Full of discoveries and new images, it discusses little-known interiors, objects, craftsmen and their patrons, and provides a rich introduction to the ornamental world of woodcarving.
You can order the book here.*
*(Although actually at the time of writing, you can't, since the link doesn't work. AHN says to Brepols, your website seems often to make it difficult to buy your books, please fix it!)
New Burlington Magazine
June 7 2022
Picture: Burlington Magazine
The June edition of the Burlington Magazine is out, with many good things as ever. The cover story places the newly discovered (and recently sold) Michelangelo drawing in context; another new discovery is a still life by Frans Snyders (above); and other articles include new documents on Jan van Belcamp in London in the 17th Century. The editorial wonders what future generations will come to assess as 'Elizabeth II style', in the same way we routinely say 'Georgian' or 'Regency' now. More here.
New sculpture gallery at the Prado
June 7 2022
Video: Prado
The Prado in Madrid has opened a new sculpture gallery, above is a timelapse of the installation. More here.
NFTs are safe investments (ctd.)
June 7 2022
Picture:NFTNewsPro
More news on the precarious nature of NFTs; the Twitter account of NFT king Beeple was hacked, leading to tens of thousands of dollars being lost by people who fell for the scammer's trick. In response, Beeple said, “Stay safe out there, anything too good to be true IS A F******G SCAM.” And well, he should know. More here.
Restitution and the V&A
June 7 2022
Video: V&A
The video above sets out the story of a gold ewer restituted to the Turkish government, apparently by the V&A museum; the video is on the V&A's website, and the V&A's director, Tristram Hunt, is at the handover ceremony. The ewer was acquired in 1989 from an antiquities dealer who, it has since been discovered, was up to no good, handling illegally excavated and exported items from Turkey. So far so commendable.
But, sharp-eyed restitution watchers among you will know that the V&A, much like the British Museum, has traditionally taken the line that it cannot deaccession such items (and especially not historicaly looted items), even if it wanted to; UK law prevents such it. Discussions with the Ethiopian government over items looted by British troops in the 19th Century, for example, have so far only discussed long term loans. For the V&A's own criteria on deaccessioning, see section 4.3 here.
So what's going on? Though the ewer appeared to be part of the V&A's collection, was shown in its galleries, and appeared on their website, it officially formed part of the Gilbert Collection, of works acquired by the late Sir Arthur Gilbert. The Collection originally had its own galleries in Somerset House, but struggled to make the finances work, and in 2009 the collection was 'incorporated' into the V&A. So technically the ewer could be returned.
Why is this interesting? Because I think it gives an insight into how some national museum directors, like Tristram Hunt, would handle restitution requests if the law was changed to allow them to do so. At the moment, the government's response in such cases is to say; 'it's up to museums', while museums say 'it's up to the government'. That at least is the British Museum's mantra. But I detect changes afoot, and hopefully directors like Tristram are working on more flexible procedures behind the scenes. We'll see.
'No reserves' at Christie's
June 7 2022
Picture: Christie's
Christie's in New York has an interesting sale, of Old Masters online with 'no reserves'. Unreserved pictures - where the vendor is happy to get rid of the lot whatever it fetches - aren't unknown at auction, but there's rarely more than one or two in each sale (and even then, they're not trumpeted; I remember sitting in a Christie's sale in London about ten years ago when a really beautiful and large Philippe de Champaigne came up, estimated in the tens of thousands, and the bidding started at £500. I didn't have my wits about me fast enough to bid, and it only made a few thousand. I still regret it). In this sale there are 105 lots, all from different vendors, and I wonder how Christie's managed to persuade so many people to take the risk. Perhaps there was no choice.
But it's worth keeping an eye on the sale, if you're after a bargain. As things stand, you could assemble an entire collection of decent Old Master names for less than $5k. There's a perfectly nice Jan Wijnants landscape (above) estimated at $30k-$50k, currently selling at $1,700; a Daniel Mytens portrait of Sir Henry Hobart (est $20k-$30k) for $300; and an interesting small head study on panel, of the kind done in Rembrandt's studio by his pupils, attributed to Govaert Flinck currently at $400 (est $15k-$20k).
The picture I was most drawn to, an oil study catalogued as 'Circle of George Romney' has alas already gone some way over its estimate of $3k-$5k and is currently at $15k. I suspect this reflects the fact that it looks plausibly Romney-like, and though it's included in Alex Kidson's excellent new Romney catalogue raisonné as 'does not appear autograph' it seems he was writing when the picture was untraced (no.1736mm), and he had to judge it from an old black and white illustration in Herbert Maxwell's biography of Romney (where it is illustrated, p.105, as by Romney). If it is by Romney, it would be a repetition of a first version in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which he sometimes did.
Good luck if you're bidding. It will be interesting to see how the sale does. In recent years, the bigger auction houses have stopped doing these lower value sales for Old Masters, since they were deemed not to be worth the cost of gathering, cataloguing, displaying and auctioning the pictures. But if the whole thing can now be done online, with no risk of lots failing to sell, then the economics presumably become more attractive. Personally, I think it's important for Sotheby's and Christie's to keep offering lower value paintings, as a way to develop the market for collectors, and so keep newer generations on a pathway to bid for the more valuable stuff. For this format to work best, however, they'll need to improve their digital offering, with better images, a slicker website (which works on tablets and phones), and something more than just basic catalogue text.
Update - in the end most things sold quite well, with only a handful of the 105 lots not making their initial lower estimate. The Wijnants made $44k, the Romney $37k. The sale total was $1.3m, which must represent quite a good return for Christie's, in terms of commission, without so many of the traditional costs of putting on such a sale.
Piero da Cosimo's fingerprints
June 7 2022
Video: National Gallery
Here's another nice video from the National Gallery's head of conservation, Larry Keith. He tells us about some conservation treatment on Piero da Cosimo's Satyr Mourning a Nymph, and reveals how the artist applied most of the blue sky with his fingers, leaving prints.
Apologies
June 6 2022
Not much on the blog today, it's too exciting, watching the Conservative Party attempt to defenestrate the PM. I'm cautiously optimistic he might lose. If not outright, then by a result which makes it clear he cannot continue. We'll find out at 9pm.
Update: Well that was a shame, he limps on. As Basil Fawlty says, it's the hope that gets you.
Monet's mega May
May 31 2022
Picture: Christie's
On the Live Art blog, Marion Maneker points out that in just one month, auction sales of paintings by Monet have achieved a record $310m:
More art by Claude Monet was sold in New York’s May sales than trades in even the biggest years for the artist. A full $310 million was traded for Monet paintings last month. That’s more than sold in 2019, a banner year for the artist. Though only a few of the works were bid above the estimates, one of the most prominent works sold in May was Anne Bass’s view of the Houses of Parliament (above) painted by Monet during a sojourn at the Savoy hotel in London during 1904. The Bass painting made $75.9 million.
The estimate for the Bass Monet was $40m-$60m. So what's going on? There seems to be a mini art boom happening. For NPR, Robert Griffiths looked at some of the recent prices, with a few comments from market observers (including me).
Tintoretto by Stanley Tucci
May 31 2022
Video: National Gallery of Art
Tintoretto died on this day in 1594, which gives me an opportunity to share this video from the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC about the artist. It's narrated by the great Stanley Tucci.
Go to bed with Frans Hals
May 31 2022
Picture: Muurmeesters
The Frans Hals Museum now sells large size reproductions of their works, profits of which go to support the museum. It all looks quite tastefully done, and certainly more worthwhile than selling NFTs. But then the Dutch just have innate good taste don't they. If you're interested, order here.
