Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco acquire a Marie-Guillemine Benoist
March 24 2022
Picture: artnews.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Fine Arts Musuems of San Francisco have announced their acquisition of the following Psyche Bidding Her Family Farewell (1791) by Marie-Guillemine Benoist (1768-1826). The painting had been sold for €292,000 at auction in 2020 and is now one of three works by the artist in US museum collections.
According to the article linked above:
“Having remained with the descendants of its first owner for over 200 years, the painting is magnificently preserved, allowing us to appreciate Benoist’s exquisite attention to detail,” Emily Beeny, the curator of European paintings, said in statement. “Note the tears that glisten on the queen’s cheek, the gleaming tendrils of Psyche’s hair, the flutter and weight of her draperies, the glow of pearls against flesh.”
Strawberry Hill need £25k to save this Hogarth (!)
March 24 2022
Picture: Private Collection
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Strawberry Hill Trust have launched an appeal to raise £25,000 to complete their acquisition of William Hogarth's portrait of Horace Walpole.
Fortunately, the trust has already managed to raise the majority of the £230,000 required to purchase the work. They have until 14th April 2022 to scrape-together the remaining sum.
According to the trust's press release:
This portrait is of exceptional interest for two reasons - it is the earliest surviving oil portrait of Walpole, and a rare and significant example of Hogarth’s early mature pictorial work. It also is the earliest-known commissioned picture of an identifiable sitter by Hogarth and his first-known portrait of a child.
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£230,000 really does seem like an absolute bargain for a painting this important and beautiful. Fingers crossed they will manage it!
Iron Men at the KHM
March 24 2022
Video: Kunsthistoriches Museum Wien
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I was given the opportunity to flick through an advanced copy of the Kunsthistoriches Musuem's upcoming exhibition catalogue a few days ago. Iron Men: Fashion in Steel is a wonderful excuse to examine historic arms and armour in the context of civilian fashions from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. These profusely decorated and embossed harnesses really did provide Emperors, princes and courtiers with sculpture that they could wear.
The show also contains an excellent selection of Old Masters which feature this highly-misunderstood art form (we have to blame Hollywood for that).
The show will run from 29th March 2022 until 26th June 2022.
Chardin's Strawberries make €24.4m
March 24 2022
Video: artcurial
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A new auction record for Jean-Siméon Chardin and for an eighteenth-century French painting was set in Paris yesterday. The artist's aforementioned Basket of Strawberries achieved no less than €24.4m (inc. fees).
According to the write-up from The Art Newspaper:
The work was bought by the New York dealer Adam Williams, who was bidding in the room. This was confirmed by the Old Master paintings specialist Eric Turquin who advised on the sale and wrote the catalogue entry. He also tells The Art Newspaper that the underbidder was a London gallery bidding for a private American collector and Eric Coatalem, a Parisian dealer, whose interest "pushed the picture up to €15m". Turquin will receive a small percentage of the sale proceeds.
Christie's new OMP Global Head
March 23 2022
Picture: BBC
Posted by Bendor
I'm interrupting my recent AHN purdah to congratulate Andrew Fletcher on his appointment as Christie's new Global Head of their Old Masters department. Here's their press release. Andrew has previously been up the road at Sotheby's, for 20 years! And I think I've known him all that time. Which is incredibly ageing, for in my mind we're both still just getting started in the Old Master game.
But now Andrew is an experienced older hand, and I can think of few better people to take charge of an international auction house's Old Master offering, especially in such unprecedented times. AHN wishes him good luck!
The photo above shows Andrew in action in an episode of Britain's Lost Masterpieces, where he was our expert guide in the works of Jan Brueghel the Elder.
Apologies...
March 17 2022
Picture: (?)
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Apologies for the slow service this week, I'm currently away lecturing.
Indeed, today I'll be expressing my enthusiasm for the artist who created this (one of my absolute favourite details, as it happens). Who painted it? I'll reveal all in due course.
Update - Well done to all of you who spotted that this detail is found in Van Dyck's Portrait of Margareta de Vos (Frick Collection).
Restored Rubens to be unveiled in Cologne on Easter Monday
March 15 2022
Picture: katholisch.de
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Peter Paul Rubens's recently restored Crucifixion of Saint Peter is about to be unveiled for members of the public. The painting, which has been in the Church of Sankt Peter in Köln (Cologne) since 1642, measures 3.5 x 2.5 m and has been undergoing sensitive conservation over the past two years. This recent campaign of restoration cost the church and diocese no less than €85,000. As in olden times, the painting is set to be unshrouded on Easter Monday for the congregation gathered in the building.
Printmaking in Prague at The British Museum
March 15 2022
Picture: The British Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The British Museum will be opening an exhibition of prints in a few day's time. Printmaking in Prague: Art from the court of Rudolf II will be opening on 17th March 2022 in Room 90 and will run until 28th August 2022.
According to the museum's website:
In this exhibition, learn more about printmaking in Rudolf's court in Prague during the highpoint of innovative and ambitious prints made from around 1580 until the early years of the 17th century.
After moving his court to the Bohemian capital of Prague, Rudolf transformed the city into a vibrant centre of art and science. He acquired objects from all over Europe and beyond, and amassed one of the largest and most diverse collections of his time. His collection of thousands of paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, and other objects of curiosity and wonder led him to be described as the greatest art patron in the world by biographer Karel van Mander in 1604.
Rudolf also sought out leading artists for his court, including painters and sculptors who specialised in creating elegant, elongated forms. Aegidius II Sadeler was appointed as the imperial engraver to Rudolf's court, and together with Hendrick Goltzius and Jan Muller, he reproduced these artworks as prints – a move that disseminated Rudolf's courtly style to a much broader audience.
The National Gallery partners with The Frame Blog
March 14 2022
Picture: nationalgallery.org.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London have announced that it will be entering into a Research Partnership with The Frame Blog. The blog, which was initiated ten-years-ago by the archivist, researcher and author Lynn Roberts, covers a huge amount of material relating to frames and their related histories. The span of periods is vast, and includes interesting examples featured within fine art sales and auctions.
New Layout at the Palazzo Spinola
March 14 2022
Picture: ansa.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The collections of the The National Gallery of Liguria in the Palazzo Spinola, Genoa, have been reorganised and refreshed for visitors. Their latest display entitled Nuove Luci particularly focuses on new acquisitions, donations and restorations of the art collection kept in the Palace. The collection includes important works by the likes of Giovanni Battista Paggi, Anthony van Dyck, Peter Paul Rubens, Bernardo Strozzi, Antonello da Messina and others.
Here's a video which shows a little more of the new displays.
The Walters Art Museum acquire Workshop of Flinck
March 14 2022
Picture: The Walters Art Museum via. @MarjoleineKars
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore have announced their acquisition of a Portrait of a Young Black Woman c.1650 by the Workshop of Govaert Flinck (spotted via. @MarjoleineKars). The acquisition was made possible by funds provided by the Alton Jones Foundation Acquisition Fund.
According to the museum's magazine:
This young Black woman was surely a member of the community of largely working-class Africans who by the mid-1600s had made one neighborhood in central Amsterdam their home. Rembrandt's large house was here, and he and his students, such as Govaert Flinck (1615-1660), often represented these neighbors in their history paintings and allegories. However, given the absence of attributes specifically indicating the subject's role as an allegorical or historical figure, this work appears to be a portrait of a specific, although still unidentified, woman. The feather in her hair, her pearls, and her chemise are all commonly seen in depictions of young women employed in Dutch bars and taverns, where they were tasked with amusing their male customers. As reflected as well in another recently acquired Dutch painting, Young Black Men Drinking in a Tavern (1630s), Africans were active participants in everyday life. When these two paintings are installed in the Dutch galleries, they will contribute to a nearly twenty-year campaign to bring the African presence in early modern Europe to the fore in our galleries.
Saving Ukranian Cultural Heritage & Art
March 14 2022
Video: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Alongside the horrific human suffering due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, many media outlets have also been covering the brave and heroic efforts of cultural and museum officials in saving their cultural treasures. Whole museum collections have been hidden away into safe places. Important historic buildings in cities like Lviv and Odessa have been scaffolded and covered up in hope that they will be protected against potential shelling.
From the Russian museums side of things, large institutions like the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg are demanding that all international loans are returned by the end of the month. This has particularly affected some exhibitions in Italy, it seems. The National Gallery in London will also "no longer be seeking" a Raphael from the Hermitage for their upcoming show.
Export Ban on £50m Reynolds
March 11 2022
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The UK Government have placed a temporary export ban on Sir Joshua Reynolds's Portrait of Omai. Regular readers will know (1, 2) that the painting was sold from Castle Howard in 2001 at Sotheby's for £9.4m (hammer price). There had been attempts to export the picture in 2002 and again 2012. Both of these resulted in refusals.
Interested parties will now have to find no less than £50m (?!) to keep the painting in the country.
Committee Member Christopher Baker has been quoted as saying:
This magnificent British portrait has a global resonance. It illustrates the connectivity of the world in the late eighteenth century through exploration and the spread of colonial ambitions, as well as the fascination that high profile cultural encounters inspired. Mai (c.1753-1779) (or ‘Omai’ as he was called in Britain) arrived in London from his home in Polynesia in July 1774, aboard HMS Adventure, which formed part of Captain James Cook’s second voyage. He was regarded as a celebrity and became the focus of written accounts and images, among which this sensational painting is undoubtedly the most potent.
Reynolds’ picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1776, just after its subject returned to the Pacific. It is a highly romanticised image, illustrating European perceptions, and has a special status in the evolution of grand portraiture of the period. Securing it for a public collection would have profound benefits and allow the numerous and riveting historical and artistic narratives it embodies to be fully developed and shared.
The Palace of Versailles scoop up a Nattier from Auction
March 11 2022
Picture: @DaguerreSVV
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
It has been announced on Twitter that the Palace of Versailles have acquired (pre-empted at auction) Jean-Marc Nattier's Portrait of a Lady presumed to be Philippine Élisabeth d'Orléans known as Mademoiselle de Beaujolais. The painting was sold by the auction house Daguerre for €150,000.
For any of you who might be curious as to what this instrument might have sounded like, here's a rather fine Tombeau by François Campion (1685-1747) played on a historic baroque guitar.
Fondation Custodia Acquisitions
March 11 2022
Picture: Fondation Custodia
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Fondation Custodia in Paris have announced that their latest acquisitions within their March newsletter. This includes Simon Kick's Genre Scene with Soldiers Playing Dice (c. 1645-50) (pictured), Reynier van der Laeck's Venus and Amor Lamenting the Death of Adonis and an Anonymous French tondo, 17th century?, depicting Soldier seen from Behind, Fighting Monsters.
To quote the newsletter's description of the Simon Kick:
The palette of browns, greys and beige is striking, as is the attention devoted to the doors and the coach on the left, the outlines of the straw and the structure of the stable where the action takes place. Wooden barrels serve as gaming tables. There are beautiful details, such as the still life of the hat that has fallen on the floor and the foreshortened boots that someone has taken off. The bow in the sash around the waist of the figure seen from behind is a delight and is reminiscent of Michael Sweerts’s paintings. And then there is the individual looking out of the canvas and searching for us. Germans have a neat expression for this: ‘Der Betrachter im Bilde’ (the viewer in the picture). As was not unusual in earlier art, it could be a self-portrait which means it could be Simon Kick, who was born in Delft and died young, who is looking at us. At long last he recently had a catalogue raisonné written about him by Jochai Rosen, who had to make do with an old black and white photograph for his entry about our painting.
Blue Walls Controversy at the Prado
March 10 2022
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A small controversy is brewing in Spain over the freshly painted bright blue walls chosen for the rooms that house the Prado's Spanish gothic paintings collection. The newly painted walls, unveiled only yesterday, were intended to (forgive the translation) "enhance the strong chromaticism inherent in most Gothic paintings and reinforce the idea that the works were not conceived only as objects in themselves but also as subjects dependent on environments endowed with a strong sensory dimension". The new colour has met with criticism from several commentators, who oppose the distracting effect of the colour.
As ever, all comments from AHN readers are most welcome.
Update - A reader has contributed the following observation:
As you ask, those blue walls make the gallery look like a public lavatory, so not ideal!
Recent Release: Catalogue of German, Dutch and Flemish Drawings at the Musee Bonnat-Helleu, Museum of Fine Arts Bayonne
March 10 2022
Picture: silvanaeditoriale.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musee Bonnat-Helleu, Museum of Fine Arts Bayonne have recently released a new complete catalogue of the museum's German, Dutch and Flemish drawings. The edition is edited by David Mandrella (and collaborateurs) and features works by the likes of Dürer, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Jordaens, Hans Baldung Grien, Adolf von Menzel, Abraham Bloemaert, Adriaen van Ostade, Jan van Goyen and others.
The Louvre are Restoring a Poussin
March 10 2022
Picture: @MilovanCavor
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Nicolas Milovanovic, Chief Curator at the Louvre in Paris, has shared some rather interesting images on Twitter of a conservation project on the museum's The Nurture of Bacchus by Nicolas Poussin. The clean, which is due to finish soon, looks rather promising indeed. Click through the link to see more images on Nicolas's Twitter page.
Boldini: Les plaisirs et les jours
March 9 2022
Picture: petitpalais.paris.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Petit Palais in Paris are set to open what looks to be a sumptuous visual display of late nineteenth-century paintings at the end of this month. Boldini Les Plaisirs et les Jours is scheduled to run from 29th March 2022 until 24th July 2022.
According to the gallery's blurb:
This first retrospective is an opportunity for visitors to discover or to renew acquaintance with Giovanni Boldini, a virtuoso painter and figure on the social, artistic and literary scene of Belle Époque Paris.
Born in Ferrara, Italy in 1842, Boldini spent most of his career in Paris. He was a close friend of Degas and also of Proust, and moved in aristocratic and upper middle-class circles. During his lifetime, he enjoyed considerable success, becoming the favourite portraitist of a rich, international clientele. In Paris, the fashion capital of the world, he had no equal when it came to portraying princesses and rich heiresses – always wearing the most beautiful dresses. His inimitable style, which was modern but at odds with the avant-garde, has made his works captivating and moving testimonies of that lost era in Paris.
Rediscovered Gabriel Loppé Mountain Views up for Sale
March 9 2022
Video: Artcurial
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The French auction house Artcurial have made this video about a pair of monumental Mountain landscapes by Gabriel Loppé (1825-1913) in their upcoming sale. The canvases of The Matterhorn seen from the Gornergrat and The Mer de Glace and the Grands Charmoz, Chamonix both sent to London in 1874 where they were displayed in a gallery in Conduit Street. The paintings had been considered lost until they were rediscovered rolled up in cylindrical shipping boxes in 2014. The video features the independent expert William Mitchell who catalogued the pictures for auction.
They will be sold on 23rd March 2022 carrying estimates of €300k - €400k and €350k - €450k respectively.
