Prado cleans Caterina Cherubini Saint
March 21 2025
Picture: Prado
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Spanish art account @Boro_RR on 'X' has shared news that the Prado in Madrid have conserved this rather nice oil on copper of St Agnes by Caterina Cherubini (1730-1811) presumably for display in the very near future.
Rediscovering Edith MacDonald-Brown at the MSVU Art Gallery
March 21 2025
Picture: MSVU Art Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Interesting news from Canada that the MSVU Art Gallery in Halifax, connected to Mount Saint Vincent University, opened an exhibition last month dedicated to Edith MacDonald-Brown (1886-1954). Believed to be Canada's first black female artist, Edith was born in Africville, a historic African Nova Scotian enclave in Halifax, and produced many of her paintings throughout her teenage years. The show will run in Halifax until 26th April 2025 and click on the link above to read more about her life and career.
Upcoming: Pietro Bellotti at the Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia
March 21 2025
Picture: gallerieaccademia.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia will be opening a large monographic exhibition dedicated to Pietro Bellotti (1625-1700) this September. The show has coincided with the Accademia's acquisition of two works by the artist, including a Self-Portrait as an Allegory of Amazement and another genre scene set in Venice. Supported by loans from major European museums, this is the first exhibition on the artist in Venice since 1959.
It will run from 19th September 2025 until 18th January 2026.
New Release: Works in Collaboration - Frans Snijders and Other Masters
March 20 2025
Picture: brepols.net
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The latest volume of the Corpus Rubenianum has just been released, this time focusing on Works in Collaboration - Frans Snijders and Other Masters.
According to the volume's blurb (worth reproducing in full, I think):
Peter Paul Rubens already had assistants working for him in his studio when he first gained admission to the Antwerp Guild of St Luke in 1598. At this period too he began to co-operate with other masters, such as Jan Brueghel the Elder; a separate volume, dedicated to that collaboration, was published in 2016 (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, XXVII (1): Jan Brueghel I & II). On his return from Italy in 1609, not only did Rubens’s studio assistants increase in number, so too did the co-operative projects that the artist undertook. Rubens continued to work with Jan Brueghel the Elder until 1621. When Brueghel died in 1625, his son Jan continued the partnership with Rubens until the latter’s death in 1640.
Similarly productive was the collaboration between Rubens and the still life and animal painter Frans Snijders. It began shortly after Rubens's return to Antwerp and is reflected in various large-format works for the courts of Brussels and Madrid [?], but also in smaller ‘cabinet’ paintings, some of which were executed by members of the respective workshops of the two masters. The collaboration soon extended to the studio of the animal painter Paul de Vos, whose sister Margriete had married Snijders in 1611. One such joint painting was still in Rubens’s possession at the time of his death and was listed in the 1640 catalogue of the works for sale from the artist’s estate. This document also reveals that, among the paintings by other masters that he owned, Rubens possessed a surprisingly large quantity by the Dutch landscape and genre painter Cornelis Saftleven. Rubens had worked with Saftleven during his stay in Antwerp at the beginning of the 1630s, and evidently appreciated his talent, even if this collaboration can be represented only by a single painting.
The present is devoted to Rubens’s fruitful partnership with Frans Snijders, as well as to his collaborations with Paul de Vos and Cornelis Saftleven. It thus contributes not only to the documentation of Rubens’s oeuvre, but also to the understanding of workshop practices and the lives and social networks of painters in the city of Antwerp.
Adriana Verelst, not Maria Verelst
March 20 2025
Picture: Oud Holland
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Readers of this blog might remember me posting (perhaps a bit too boastfully) about a newly discovered work by Maria Verelst a few weeks ago, which I happened to spot on ArtUK belonging to a museum in Wales (more on that picture another time). Well, very kindly Richard Stephens, editor of the Journal for the Walpole Society - the go-to journal for primary source materials relating to British Art, has drawn my attention to a fascinating article published in Oud Holland last year by Peter Hancox (who happens to be a computer scientist) on the Verelst family. The paper draws on some rather in-depth research, mostly focusing on archival and primary-source material, and makes a rather strong case that 'Maria Verelst' never existed. In fact, records show that the daughter of Herman Verelst and his wife Cecilia Fend was a Adriana Verelst, not Maria (a mistake which appears to be found in a publication dating to as late as 1816).
Overall, the paper points out how little is known of this complex family of artists (in fact, this is generally the case for lots of painters and female artists of the period), and where many confusions have arisen. I had consulted R.W. Goulding's notes on Maria and the family at the NPG, which was compiled over a century ago now. There are apparently some signed and dated works with this same face pattern and type, including on a painting of Lady Mary Howard last recorded in the collection of the Earl of Haddington's collection, however, these often plainly record Mdme or Mrs Verelst and not her Christian name.
More news on the Welsh picture in due course.
Introducing Classic Art London
March 20 2025
Picture: classicartlondon.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm glad to report that a new organisation has been formed by members of the London art trade entitled Classic Art London. Regular readers will remember the closing of London Art Week last December, so it's wonderful that a new grouping has appeared with such speed.
According to their press release:
A new collegial event launches this summer joining together leading dealers in old and modern master paintings, drawings, sculpture and works of art under the umbrella of Classic Art London from 23 June to 4 July. At the height of the capital’s Summer Season, galleries will stage important selling exhibitions that coincide with sales at the major auction houses and a wide range of antiques and art events such as the RA’s Summer Exhibition, Treasure House Fair and Trois Crayons.
Classic Art London will focus international attention on London’s pre-contemporary art market and features specialist dealers centred mainly around St. James’s and Mayfair. A robust talks programme has been devised to discuss academic and engaging subjects of interest to museum curators, collectors and aficionados as well as the public. Classic Art London pinpoints the capital as an exciting destination for buyers of art from all periods, ancient to twentieth century.
Cornelis de Wael at the Palazzo Bianco
March 19 2025
Picture: museidigenova.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Palazzo Bianco in Genoa will be opening a new show on the Flemish emigree artist Cornelis de Wael (1592-1667) today. Under the themes of Naturalness and Truth, the artist's unique contribution alongside the busy artistic scene in Genoa (which included the more celebrated Jan Roos, Giacomo Liege and Van Dyck during this period) will be examined.
The show runs until 22nd June 2025.
Andrea Appiani at the Musée national des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau
March 19 2025
Picture: musees-nationaux-malmaison.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée national des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau opened a new exhibition last Sunday on the neoclassical painter Andrea Appiani (1754-1817). With about a hundred paintings, drawings and engravings, the show is the first retrospective on the artist in France.
The exhibition will run until 28th July 2025.
16th Century Panels Restored at Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille
March 19 2025
Picture: Palais des Beaux Arts
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille has shared news of the recent restoration of four 16th century panels depicting the annunciation. The works, which are amongst the largest early German panels in any public collection in France, were treated by Centre de recherche et de restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF). Click on the link above for better images.
AI Fails Again
March 19 2025
Picture: The Art Newspaper
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Art Newspaper has run another curious AI art authentication story, this time in relation to a version of Rubens' Diana discovered by Actaeon (pictured) which was unveiled by the Zurich-based Art Recognition at the Art Business Conference at Tefaf Maastricht (do get in touch if any readers were in attendance). The story is particularly complicated to the survival of a badly damaged and reduced 'fragment' in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, which may or may not have been the original from which many copies were produced. The presentation was delivered by Dr Carina Popovici, who you might remember was behind the reoccuring claims about the NG's Rubens back in 2021.
Most intriguingly:
After their latest investigation, Popovici and Art Recognition concluded that the painting, while not the original The Bath of Diana, could be by Rubens and his studio. “It was an authenticity evaluation not a confirmation,” Popovici says. “We concluded that it is partially by Rubens. Our AI cannot know who did the rest but one possible interpretation would be the [artist’s] workshop contribution.”
Click into the story to read the further claims, which include the ways AI is now hoping to show which parts are and are not by the hand of an artist such as Rubens.
____________
I find it rather mysterious that AI is not happy with the National Gallery's Samson and Delilah, yet is perfectly happy (it seems) with duds like this.
Update - Bendor adds: Yes. Oh dear.
Recent Release: Taddeo di Bartolo - Siena's Painter in the Early Quattrocento
March 18 2025
Picture: brepols.net
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The publishers Brepols have recently released the following two volume publication on Taddeo di Bartolo by the scholar Gail Solberg.
According to the blurb:
Taddeo di Bartolo, Siena’s premier painter in the years around 1400, is the focus of a cultural history of a great Italian school in an understudied period. His patrons commissioned important fresco cycles and the most impressive polyptychs of the age. In part a travelogue, the text follows Taddeo (ca 1362-1422) from training in straitened times at Siena across central and northern Italy. Ten years of itinerancy drew him to various Tuscan centers, along the Ligurian coast from Genoa to Provence, probably to Padua, and into Umbria. About 1399 he resettled at Siena to rapidly become the preferred painter of his commune. His mural cycles made a greater imprint on Siena’s civic iconography than has been acknowledged while his efficient Sienese shop produced outstanding panel paintings for, among others, the most dynamic religious orders. Until his last years he received grand commissions in and from beyond Siena. He drew a pope’s portrait and was employed by a cardinal at Rome. Attention to his production methods shows how his busy shop ensured variety in numerous paintings for mid-level clients by a flexible design system. Taddeo’s works, including rediscovered and reconstructed paintings, come alive in beautiful illustrations. This chronicle of an indefatigable and successful late medieval career positions the painter, his colleagues, and his patrons in their political, economic, and social circumstances. It provides new insights on Siena’s artistic culture at the start of the Renaissance.
Andrea Solario at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli
March 18 2025
Picture: Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan will be opening their latest exhibition devoted to Andrea Solario later this month (spotted via @Mweilc).
According to the museum's website:
An unprecedented exhibition project dedicated to the painter Andrea Solario (1465-1524), one of the most original interpreters of the Lombard Renaissance, comes to life at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
The exhibition, the result of a scientific collaboration with the Musée du Louvre, brings together for the first time a selection of about 36 works from prestigious collections in Italy, France and England. An unmissable opportunity to admire masterpieces that reveal the technical mastery and stylistic evolution of an artist influenced by great masters such as Giovanni Bellini, Antonello da Messina and Leonardo da Vinci.
The show will run from 26th March until 30th June 2025.
Assist with Exhibitions at The National Gallery
March 18 2025
Picture: The National Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London are hiring an Exhibitions Assistant.
According to the job description:
The National Gallery is seeking an Exhibitions Assistant to support the organisation and delivery of a range of exhibitions for our Trafalgar Square and Touring Exhibitions programme. Working concurrently on multiple projects, supporting different Exhibition Managers, you will need to be a highly organised, positive individual with a keen eye for detail. You will bring experience of working in a busy administrative role and can show yourself to be a calm, considerate and collaborative team member with the ability to work well with departments across the Gallery as well as with a number of external stakeholders.
The job comes with an annual salary of £30,088 gross per annum and applications must be in by 6th April 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Reattributed Mantegna Displayed in Vatican Museums
March 18 2025
Picture: finestresullarte.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Finestre sull'arte has published news that a painting, reattributed to Andrea Mantegna, has gone on display in the Vatican Museums for a special display. The work was discovered in Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary in Pompeii and has been subject to a conservation and research project looking into its attribution and physical properties. Click on the link above to read the full story.
Flowers at Chatsworth
March 17 2025
Picture: with permission from @country_house_curator via Instagram
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Chatsworth, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Devonshire, will be celebrating Flowers in this year's temporary exhibition which opened over the weekend. As usual, this is a wonderful chance to see some paintings up close which are usually hung elsewhere (as per these pictures on display in the Sculpture Gallery).
According to their website:
Flowers in all their forms take centre stage in The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth, our 2025 exhibition in the house and garden.
The exhibition features both historical and contemporary works of art from the Devonshire Collections, and is supported by key loans from national and international museums, and new artist commissions.
Inspired by the estate itself, The Gorgeous Nothings builds on the work of an important lineage of landscape designers, gardeners, scientists and botanists who, over the last six centuries have planted, gathered, foraged, researched, collected and preserved an array of botanical treasures at Chatsworth, from rare botanical volumes and illustrated manuscripts in our library to coveted specimens in our garden and grounds.
The display will run until 5th October 2025.
Police take 'no further action' on Portrait Vandalism
March 17 2025
Video: Evening Standard
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from the BBC that the Cambridgeshire Police force will take 'no further action' against activists who slashed with box cutters and spraypainted Philip de László's portrait of Lord Balfour at Trinity College Cambridge last year.
According to the article:
A Cambridgeshire Police spokesperson said: "A thorough investigation was carried out but the investigation has now been filed pending any new information coming to light."
In a statement, Trinity College said it "continues to condemn this act of vandalism in the strongest terms".
It continued: "Trinity College will continue to cooperate with the police in the event further evidence becomes available so that the perpetrators can be brought to justice.
"The portrait of Lord Balfour by Philip Alexius de László is undergoing restoration"
Time will tell what precedent this sets for the safety of art in the UK.
Update - Bendor adds: FFS.
Fake FBI confiscate Fake Rembrandt
March 17 2025
Picture: Dalton Wisdom
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
It seems that a contemporary art gallery in New York wanted to pull a fun prank on their drinks reception guests over the weekend. In the middle of proceedings, a group of dressed up 'FBI officers' raided the gallery to remove what seemed to be Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, a picture stolen from the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in 1990 (and still missing). Alas, any eagle eye watcher of this video will notice that the 'Rembrandt' is in fact an oleograph, one of those cheap printed out photographs which is touched up with varnish to give the effect of being 'painted'. A nice try, I suppose!
Zurbarán in Barcelona
March 17 2025
Picture: Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona are about to open their leg of the travelling exhibition Zurbarán (super) Natural.
According to the museum's website:
The MNAC, the Musée des Beaux Arts de Lyon and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston are collaborating in this exhibition that will bring together for the first time the three versions of Saint Francis of Assisi according to Pope Nicholas V's Vision, a major work by Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664). The absolutely exceptional possibility of comparing the three paintings sheds light on each of them. The work preserved by the MNAC has undergone a thorough restoration process that has allowed it to recover its original appearance and bring to light details hidden by the passage of time.
The show will run in Barcelona from 21st March until 29th June 2025.
Culprit of Boughton Van Dyck Theft Exposed
March 17 2025
Picture: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Guardian have run a very interesting story regarding the theft of this Van Dyck grisaille from Boughton House in 1951. The piece focuses on research by Dr Meredith Hale which is going to feature with the newly revamped online edition of The British Art Journal (a cause for celebration in itself). It transpires the small panel was pinched by LGG Ramsey, the then editor of The Connoisseur, who managed to offload the picture onto the art market before it was eventually acquired by a museum in the US. Click on the link to read the full story!
A Guido Reni uncovered at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Libourne?
March 14 2025
Video: lalibre.be
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Interesting news from France that a conservation project undertaken on a painting in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Libourne may have uncovered an autograph work by Guido Reni. Donated to the museum in 1949, and long thought to be a copy, conservation work undertaken by the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF) has concluded that it may in fact be earlier than the two other autograph versions known in Madrid and Naples.
The work has gone on display today at the Chapelle du Carmel in Libourne so that the public may go and have a look for themselves.
