Previous Posts: February 2025
Jeffrey and Carol Horvitz gift AI of Chicago 2,000 Works
February 13 2025
Picture: Artnet
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from the US that collectors Jeffrey and Carol Horvitz have gifted 2,000 works to the Art Institute of Chicago. Containing works that span from the 16th - 19th centuries, press reports suggest it 'will allow the museum to provide a “300-year panorama of French art” that is unique outside of France.' The gift includes works by François Boucher, Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Théodore Géricault, and Charles Le Brun, Marie-Gabrielle Capet, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Anne Vallayer Coster, and Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun, Jacques Bellange, Reynaud Levieux, and Nicolas Prevost.
Sir William and Lady Hamilton at the Gallerie d'Italia - Napoli
February 13 2025
Picture: Gallerie d'Italia - Napoli
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm rather disappointed with myself for having failed to spot this exhibition which opened at the end of last year. The Gallerie d'Italia - Napoli are currently running a show dedicated to Sir William and Lady Emma Hamilton, whose influence on the arts both in Naples and Britain is very widely known.
According to the gallery's website:
In the wake of the important studies by Carlo Knight (who recently passed away) and the great exhibition at the British Museum in 1996, the Gallerie d'Italia - Naples is dedicating its 2024 autumn exhibition to William Hamilton, His British Majesty’s ambassador at the court of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon and his wife Maria Carolina of Hapsburg. Diplomat, antiquarian and volcanologist, Hamilton, with his multifaceted personality, found fertile ground in the “Enlightened” Naples of the second half of the 18th century to affirm and develop his great passions, antiquity and science.
The sections through which the exhibition will unfold will highlight his great interest in volcanology, landscape painting, music, and collecting, as well as the role he played in Neapolitan society of the time, amplified by the sometimes legendary figure of Lady Emma Hamilton. In reconsidering and promoting the extraordinary human, political and intellectual story of a man who was undoubtedly one of the greatest interpreters of his time, leaving a profound mark on the city, the exhibition will also trace the fruitful cultural and artistic exchanges that took place between Italy and the United Kingdom at a key moment in European history.
The exhibition runs until 2nd March 2025.
University of St Andrews are Hiring!
February 13 2025
Picture: University of St Andrews
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The University of St Andrews are hiring a Lecturer in Early Modern Art History (1400-1800).
According to the job description:
You will be required to contribute lectures and tutorials on our first-year survey modules. You will also be expected to offer attractive and accessible research-led undergraduate courses, giving students as much first-hand experience of works as possible. For the Academic Year 2025-26 you will be required to teach two of our current available modules. These include: AH3106 Experiencing Sculpture in the Early Modern World; AH3107 Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasties from a Global Perspective; AH3235 Spanish Painting in the Age of Velázquez; AH4176 Early Modern Cities; AH4182 Principles and Protagonists of Italian Renaissance Architecture; AH4183 The Senses, Objects, and Buildings in Early Modern Europe; AH4185 Michelangelo: Sculptor, Painter, Architect; AH4206 Raphael and His Reception; AH4222 Art, Theatre and Performance in France 1600-1800; AH4236 Images of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe; AH4241 Leonardo da Vinci, 500 years later. [...]
The job comes with an annual salary of £46,735 per annum and applications must be in by 28th March 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
The Farnese in Sixteenth-Century Rome
February 11 2025
Picture: Capitoline Museums
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Capitoline Museums in Rome have just today opened an exhibition exploring the history of The Farnese in sixteenth-century Rome. The show draws together one hundred and forty masterpieces including ancient sculptures, bronzes, paintings, drawings, manuscripts, gems and coins, all of which tell the story of the collection and the various figures who contributed to it.
The exhibition will run until 18th May 2025.
The Fitzwilliam Museum are Hiring!
February 11 2025
Picture: Fitzwilliam Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge are hiring a Curator, Historic & Modern European Paintings and Drawings (Maternity Cover).
According to the job description:
We are now looking for a fixed-term curator to work with our outstanding collection of European historic and modern paintings and drawings, ranging from the 12th century to the early 20th century. You will contribute to the overall care of, and public access to, the collections through display and interpretation, teaching, and public engagement, in support of the Museum's Mission and Vision. They will work with wider curatorial colleagues on changes to the collection displays, enhancing documentation, enable research access and other curatorial duties. The role may include supporting the acquisition of new artworks and objects in line with the Collections Development Strategy.
The job comes with an annual salary of between £41,421 - £55,295 and applications must be in by 21st February 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Burlington Magazine - Latest Issue
February 11 2025
Picture: Burlington
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The February edition of The Burlington Magazine has just been published.
Here's a list of the main articles in this month's edition:
An Islamic tent in S. Antonio in Polesine, Ferrara - By Federica Gigante
Lucchese patronage in Papal Avignon: the chapel of Carlo Spiafame in Notre-Dame-des-Doms - By Geoffrey Nuttall
Two paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi in the Potsdam collection of Frederick the Great - By Franziska Windt
The elder sisters of the ‘The Campbell sisters’: William Gordon Cumming’s patronage of Lorenzo Bartolini - By Lucy Wood & Timothy Stevens
‘Victory at San Pietro in Casale’ in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome - By Stephanie C. Leone & Alessandro Serrani
Ménage de Pressigny and his art collection - By Yuriko Jackall
Lusieri’s mysterious ‘Wooded lake’ identified- By Dyfri Williams
Funded PhD to Study Angelica Kauffman Prints and Material Culture
February 10 2025
Picture: wrocah.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities at the University of Leeds and The National Trust are inviting applications for a funded studentship / doctoral award on the subject of At Home with Angelica Kauffman: The Material and Print Culture of an Eighteenth-Century Artist.
According to the project summary:
Angelica Kauffman was one of the most renowned and recognizable artists in the eighteenth century. Her oil paintings, prints, and engravings were widely reproduced for and by British consumers. This project seeks to reexamine the reproduction, retranslation and consumption of Kauffman’s visual artworks, focusing on three-dimensional, small-scale works including ceramics, needlework, textiles (embroidery and needle pictures), and fans, among others. Drawing on the National Trust's extensive collections, including print and manuscript sources, the project will show, for the first time, the rich and varied depth of Kauffman's influence on aesthetics and the domestic interior.
The studentship comes with an annual maintenance grant of £20,780 and applications must be in by 5th March 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Portrait found underneath Ecce Homo
February 10 2025
Picture: news.artnet.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Artnet have published a rather interesting news story regarding a piece of scientific research undertaken on an Ecce Homo by the Andreas Pittas Art Characterization Laboratories in Cyprus. Surprisingly, x-ray results have shown that the composition, a version of Titian's famous Ecce Homo (or Christ Shown to the People) of c.1565-70 which exists in Saint Louis and the Prado, was painted on top of a portrait.
The question remains as to why this occurred and how this affects its dating (although, I think costume historians will be able to work out what has happened here with relative ease), yet, according to the article:
Bakirtzis [APAC director Nikolas Bakirtzis] added that Titian effectively painted the new composition directly onto the portrait, which he said, “points to an experienced, confident artistic hand.”
The tone of the two paintings is markedly different. One is a portrait of an unknown professional man, and the other is a narrative scene from a known episode from the passions of Christ.
“They were intended for different clients and audiences. Unfortunately, this is as far as we can go until further research allows us to either identify the depicted man or we find ways to date the paintings,” Bakirtzis said. “We cannot really estimate how much earlier the first painting is. Any suggestion remains hypothetical and based on stylistic observations.”
The painting and results are on display at the Limassol Municipal Arts Center in Cyprus until 10th March 2025, in case you'd like to go and have a look for yourselves.
Leonard A. Lauder Publication Grants
February 7 2025
Picture: metmuseum.org
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art are inviting applications for publication grants 'in the field of modern art and theory, and modern visual culture'. Six grants are available per year, with a value of typically between $4,000 and $7,000, with no single grant more than $12,000 to be awarded.
Applications must be in by 31st March 2025.
Upcoming: The Brilliance of the Spanish World in Milwaukee
February 7 2025
Picture: Milwaukee Art Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Visitors to Milwaukee in May 2025 will be able to visit their latest exhibition entitled The Brilliance of the Spanish World: El Greco, Velázquez, Zurbarán.
According to their website:
Featuring works from the most significant collection of Hispanic art outside of Spain, The Brilliance of the Spanish World: El Greco, Velázquez, Zurbarán presents more than 50 paintings by renowned and influential Hispanic artists of the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain established the first worldwide empire through exploration and colonial conquest, generating wealth that led to the flourishing of art and literature. This exhibition offers a glimpse into this era of artistic ambition and cultural complexity. The resulting artworks range from powerfully emotive paintings of saints and biblical scenes created in service of the Roman Catholic faith in Spain and its many colonies to starkly secular formal court portraits of influential, wealthy, and, in some cases, infamous figures.
The show will run from 5th May until 27th July 2025.
Funded PhD to Study Female Miniaturists
February 7 2025
Picture: wrocah.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities at the University of Leeds and the National Portrait Gallery in London are inviting applications for a funded studentship / doctoral award on the subject of The Female Miniaturist 1680-1840: Recovering lives, practices and representations.
According to the post online:
This project is a collaboration between the University of Sheffield and the National Portrait Gallery. It investigates an overlooked aspect of female artistic practice: the portrait miniature. During the period 1680 to 1840, miniature production was increasingly dominated by women, yet there is no definitive study of the female miniaturist: her importance obscured by a focus on male counterparts, and her achievements sidelined by an increasingly institutionalised art world. In reconstructing the lives and practices of female miniaturists in the period, the project will draw on the National Portrait Gallery’s rich collection of miniatures and archival material as well as a range of literary and non-literary sources. The result will be an important contribution to the history of art and culture in the period.
The studentship comes with an annual maintenance grant of £20,780 and applications must be in by 5th March 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Louvre Conserves Van Dyck's Charles I
February 7 2025
Picture: Louvre
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
C2RMF (Center And Search Restoration Musées De France) have published an article on the recent restoration of Van Dyck's Charles I à la chasse. The article features a brief history of the various campaigns of restoration in the past, followed by some nice zoomable images.
As it happens, I was lecturing in Paris this week and was blown away by the freshness of the colours. What a striking difference compared to its appearance in the RA's Charles I exhib back in 2017.
Sotheby's New York Results
February 7 2025
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Yesterday's Sotheby's New York Master Paintings Part I sale realised $27,528,000 with a sell-through rate of 59.2% / 50.9% including withdrawn lots.
Several pictures soared past their estimates, including Pieter Brueghel the Younger's Nest Robber which achieved $3m over its $1.2m - $1.8m estimate, Cornelis de Vos' Portrait of a Young Girl which made $2,040,000 over its $600k -$800k estimate, a Tintoretto portrait which achieved $2,160,000 over its $800k - $1.2m estimate, a Workshop of Botticelli tondo which made $660,000 over its $100k - $150k estimate and a Bay Cob by Stubbs which made $540,000 over its $150k - $200k estimate.
The Aso O. Tavitian single-owner sales will begin today (featuring many fine Old Masters), so this total is likely to be higher once those are done.
Christie's New York Results
February 6 2025
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Yesterday's Old Masters auction at Christie's New York realised $24,487,900 (all figures include premiums) with 75% of lots sold / 70% including withdrawn lots.
Several lots managed to soar past their estimates, including Wtewael's Adam and Eve which realised $2,046,500 over its $1m - $1.5m estimate, Van Dyck's Saint Jerome which realised $403,200 over its $100k - $150k estimate, Pieter Brueghel the Younger's Seven Acts of Mercy which realised $1,865,000 over its $700k - $1m estimate, and a portrait of Mary, Duchess of Burgundy, which made $239,400 over its $40k - $60k estimate. Other works by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Van Goyen, Ruisdael and Pieter de Hooch also achieved impressive results.
Here's the latest news from Artnet regarding the withdrawal of the El Greco, which (subject to the outcome of this review) seems like it may be offered by the auction house again in due course.
Omai heading to Bradford, Cambridge and Plymouth
February 5 2025
Picture: NPG
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Art Newspaper has reported on news that the National Portrait Gallery in London will be sending their jointly acquired £50m Portrait of Omai on tour this year. He'll be heading to the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford from 22nd May to 17th August 2025, and then onto to the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge from 17th October to 1st February 2026, and then finally The Box in Plymouth from 14th February until 14th June 2026. Once his UK tour is complete he'll be heading to the Getty in Los Angeles in time for the 2028 Olympic Games.
Harvard Gifted Munch Treasure Trove
February 5 2025
Picture: Harvard Art Museums
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Harvard Art Museums have announced that they have received a gift of 62 prints and 2 paintings by Edvard Munch from the collection of Philip A. ’37 and Lynn G. Straus. The works will feature in an upcoming exhibition which opens on 7th March 2025.
According to their website:
“It is hard to overestimate the significance of Munch’s painting ‘Two Human Beings (The Lonely Ones).’ Capturing the tension between proximity and distance — spatial as well as emotional — the work addresses the universal theme of the human condition,” said Lynette Roth, the Daimler Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum at the Harvard Art Museums. “The Strauses had generously loaned their painting for the inaugural installation of the renovated Harvard Art Museums building that opened in November 2014, and we are thrilled to be able to teach with and display it alongside the other significant paintings from their collection going forward.”
On the Same Wavelength: Art, Science and Conservation at the Nasher Museum of Art
February 5 2025
Picture: today.duke.edu
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina, have just opened an interesting sounding exhibition entitled On the Same Wavelength: Art, Science and Conservation.
According to the website linked above:
Technical art history brings together art historians, conservators and scientists to gain deeper insights into works of art and the methods and intentions of their makers. A new exhibit opening Jan. 30 at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke, “On the Same Wavelength: Art, Science and Conservation,” explores the challenges and many accomplishments of these efforts.
Using microscopes, specialized cameras, scanners, and different wavelengths of light, the team examined objects from the Nasher Museum’s permanent collection, ranging from ancient American ceramics to a contemporary artwork made from found plastic.
Through the ever-evolving lens of technical art history, On the Same Wavelength presents the discoveries about these objects’ materials, original uses, and the techniques used to create them. This exhibition also highlights the role of the museum in navigating challenges related to an object’s condition, display and evolution over time because of aging and conservation.
The show will run until 22nd June 2025.
US Embassy in Paris sends George Washington to be Conserved
February 4 2025
Picture: US Embassy, Paris
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The US Embassy in Paris is sending their portrait of George Washington to France’s Center for Research and Restoration of Museum of France (C2RMF) to be conserved. According to the article linked above, when the painting was bequeathed to the US State Department in 1989 it was believed to be a straightforward copy. Only when technical analysis was undertaken in 2022 was it declared a work by Charles Willson Peale in full.
Colour & Light in Bedford
February 4 2025
Picture: The Higgins Bedford
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Higgins in Bedford, Bedfordshire, will be opening their latest temporary exhibition in a few days' time dedicated to Colour & Light.
According to their website:
Colour and Light is a captivating new exhibition exploring the fascinating relationship between colour and light in art from the 18th century to the present day.
The exhibition will showcase a dazzling array of works from The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery Collection, including iconic pieces by JMW Turner, John Singer Sargent, Sonia Delaunay, Peter Blake, and Chila Kumari Singh Burman.
The show will run from 15th February until 2nd November 2025.
Upcoming Release: Holbein
February 4 2025
Picture: Yale University Press
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Exciting news that Yale University Press will be publishing a new in-depth biography on Hans Holbein the Younger in November 2025. The volume has been produced by Elizabeth Goldring, who has published widely on Tudor subjects including Nicholas Hilliard and Robert Earl of Leicester.
According to the book's blurb:
This landmark scholarly biography of Hans Holbein the Younger (c.1497–1543), court painter to Henry VIII, is the first in more than a century. This definitive account breathes new life into Holbein’s story. From his early days in Augsburg and Basel to his lasting impact on British art and culture, Holbein sheds light on the artist whose paintings would shape perceptions of the Tudor court for five hundred years. [...]
Beautifully illustrated, and including rarely seen paintings from private collections, this volume weaves the latest research – including new archival discoveries and scientific analysis – into a fresh examination of Holbein’s life and work.
