The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are Hiring!
March 3 2022
Picture: fasmf.org
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco are hiring an Assistant / Associate Curator of European Paintings.
According to the job description:
Under the supervision of the Curator in Charge of European Paintings, the Assistant or Associate Curator will support the department in caring for, researching, documenting, interpreting, and displaying the Fine Arts Museums' permanent collection of European paintings. Strong preference will be given to candidates with some specialized knowledge of Dutch and/or Flemish art before 1700-whether paintings or works on paper.
This role includes wide-ranging research, interpretation, and collection care responsibilities, with special emphasis on their area(s) of specialty: drafting related interpretive text for multiple platforms (gallery, print, digital); offering lectures and gallery talks; proposing and developing original exhibition projects and gallery installations; and recommending to the Curator in Charge works for potential acquisition and deaccession. This position will regularly serve as a venue curator for exhibitions, involving European art, developed at other institutions and presented at FAMSF; this aspect of the position will require a wide-ranging, synthetic knowledge of European art history and a degree of comfort working outside the Assistant or Associate Curator's immediate area of expertise. This role will play an active role in the digital cataloguing of the permanent collection (TMS) and will be called upon to assist in related administrative matters: assessing and tracking loan requests; responding to collection inquiries; facilitating research visits; orchestrating gallery movements; etc. The Assistant or Associate Curator will collaborate closely with colleagues in European Paintings, in other curatorial departments, and in departments throughout the museum...
Neither an expected salary or closing date for applications has been posted.
Good luck if you're applying!
Casa Buonarroti Conserve two Michelangelo Bas-reliefs
March 3 2022
Picture: ansa.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Florence's Casa Buonarroti have shared news of the conservation and restoration of two bas-reliefs by the young Michelangelo. The Madonna della scala (pictured) and the Battle of the Centaurs both date to the early 1490s and were recently treated to some dusting and light-cleaning by conservators. Both artworks will be redisplayed in the newly renovated marble rooms of the museum which also features brand-new LED lighting.
Unexportable Velázquez sells for €4.27m
March 3 2022
Picture: abc.es
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The aforementioned portrait of an unknown gentleman attributed to Diego Velázquez achieved €4.27m (inc. commission) at the Abalarte auction house in Madrid yesterday. Two collectors were said to be involved in the final few bids. Furthermore, the new owner will have to keep the work in the country as it was declared an Asset of Cultural Interest by the authorities in Madrid in 2007.
Portrait of first Female French Academician coming up for sale
March 2 2022
Picture: Artcurial
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The French auction house Artcurial have uploaded the online catalogue of their upcoming Old Master & 19th Cent. Art sale due to be held on 23rd March 2022. Alongside the aforementioned €12m - €15m Chardin is this rather interesting portrait. Ascribed to 'French School 17th century', it depicts the flower painter Catherine Duchemin (1630-1698), who was not only the wife of sculptor François Girardon but also the first ever female artist accepted into the French Academy of Art. The catalogue note, which provides an interesting biography of the painter, is well worth a read.
The painting will be offered for sale carrying an estimate of €100,000 - €150,000.
The National Gallery are cleaning Reynolds's Captain Robert Orme
March 2 2022
Video: The National Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London have made this video regarding the conservation of Sir Joshua Reynolds's Portrait of Captain Robert Orme (1756). In particular, conservator Hayley Thomlinson explains why the artist's experimental techniques made his pictures so difficult to tricky to treat even in our modern age.
Mather Brown's rediscovered Death of Nelson up for sale
March 2 2022
Picture: newsanyway.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A rediscovered painting showing the Death of Nelson by Mather Brown (1761-1831) is to be unveiled at the The Chelsea Antiques & Fine Art Fair in London later this month. The picture was rediscovered in a private collection by the Nelson specialist and former-Sotheby's director Martyn Downer.
To quote the article linked above:
Martyn Downer explains: “Mather Brown was one of a small group of artists – such as his fellow American Benjamin West, who were well known to Nelson in London. That familiarity is evident in Brown’s vivid and theatrical representation of Nelson receiving his fatal wound at the battle of Trafalgar which, amid the smoke of conflict, offers us one of the most compelling and well-informed late portraits of the admiral. The re-discovery of Brown’s bold attempt to win the 1805 competition for the best painting of the dramatic scene is an exciting moment for Nelson enthusiasts and for scholars of eighteenth-century art, especially for followers of this fascinating and complex artist.”
The picture will be displayed at the Chelsea fair with an asking price of £350,000.
Rembrandthuis loaned a rediscovered Jan Lievens
March 2 2022
Picture: @rembrandthuis
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museum Het Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam have announced the loan of a recently rediscovered portrait by Jan Lievens. The Portrait of a Man with a Gold Chain dates to 1637/8 and has been loaned by its owners David and Michelle Berrong-Bader. Unfortunately, the sitter is yet to be identified.
Introducing the 'Viennese Salvator Mundi'
March 2 2022
Picture: KHM
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Kunsthistoriches Museum (KHM) in Vienna have shared news that it has completed a research project which has reattributed a painting to Titian. The museum embarked on the campaign in 2021 to investigate whether the following Christ with a Globe or the Viennese Salvator Mundi (as some have been calling it) could be the work of Titian during the 1520s. As is so often the case, the oil on canvas bears some old damages and rather unsympathetic overpainting (visible in the hair, nose and right eye, it seems).
X-rays have revealed that the present work was painted on top of a Virgin and Child:
The museum have started a crowdfunding campaign to have the work fully-restored in time for an exhibition in October 2022.
Manet and Renoir given the McDonald's Treatment
March 1 2022
Picture: DDB Athens & McDonald's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Greece that the advertising agency DDB Athens have just completed a new ad campaign for the fast-food giant McDonald's. The campaign features McDonald's packaging inserted into various paintings by Edouard Manet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir with the tagline Meant to be Classic written underneath.
Here is the Courtauld Gallery's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère given the chicken-nugget treatment:
And here is the MET's Renoir featuring a greasy paper bag:
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None of this is brand new, of course. Famous paintings have been featured in ad campaigns for many decades now. Will this be an increasing trend in the age of Open Access images, I wonder?
Superbarocco set to open in Rome!
March 1 2022
Picture: ansa.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Rome leg of the previously cancelled Genoese baroque exhibition is set to open this month. Superbarocco. Arte a Genova da Rubens a Magnasco will feature no fewer than 120 works produced in Genoa between the years 1600 and 1750.
The exhibition will be held in Rome's Scuderie del Quirinale between 26th March 2022 until 3rd July 2022.
The English exhibition catalogue can already be purchased here.
The National Trust conserve three Fathers of the Church
March 1 2022
Picture: The National Trust
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Trust have shared news of the conservation and restoration of three oil paintings of Saints, known as the Fathers of the Church. The works, which depict Pope Gregory I, Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, are in the collection of Chastleton House in Oxfordshire. It is believed the panel paintings date to around the time the house was built in the opening decades of the seventeenth-century.
The article linked above explains that the fourth 'father' is missing:
However, a fourth painting of Saint Ambrose, a fourth century theologian and Bishop of Milan, is missing. A magazine article in 1919 noted the four paintings as a set so while it is thought to have hung in the house until the early 20th Century, nobody knows where it is now.
“It is a mystery,” said Ruth Peters, Senior Collections and House Officer at Chastleton. “We have an idea of what it would look like as the paintings are based on - but are not an exact copy of - a set of four Flemish engravings. The last members of the family to live at Chastleton before it came into the care of the National Trust have no memory of the fourth painting. It might have been sold or given away and so could be hanging on somebody’s wall, unrecognised.”
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As a brief aside, I thought I would share this sneaky picture I took many years ago when I last visited Chastleton. It's a beautiful house filled with some interesting things. However, I could never quite understand why they decided to hang this rather fine Thomas Hudson (one of the collection's best pictures) well behind a rope off of a corridor.
The Burlington Magazine - Current Issue
March 1 2022
Picture: The Burlington Magazine
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Burlington Magazine's latest edition has been published both online and in their usual hardcopy format.
Here's a list of the articles featured in March's edition:
Piranesi’s ‘Catalogo delle Opere’ BY ANDREW ROBISON
Picasso’s ‘Faun musician’: revealing the making, contextualising the meaning BY KRISTI DAHM, FRANCESCA CASADIO, JEAN-LOUIS ANDRAL
Anthony van Dyck in London: newly discovered documents BY JUSTIN DAVIES, JAMES INNES-MULRAINE
Carlo Maratti’s additions to the ‘Barberini Venus’ BY GIOVAN BATTISTA FIDANZA
A pastel ‘Study for a head’ by Boltraffio in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan BY ANTONIO MAZZOTTA,AGOSTINO ALLEGRI
Dante 1321–2021
The Spanish Gallery, Bishop Auckland BY ISABELLE KENT
Obituary: Richard Kendall (1946–2021) BY JAMES A. GANZ
Obituary: John White (1924–2021) BY JULIAN GARDNER
Forbidden Fruit: Female Still Life at Colnaghi
March 1 2022
Picture: Colnaghi
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The dealers Colnaghi will be opening their latest old masters selling exhibition in April. This year's theme looks to be a very interesting one indeed, as it is dedicated to still lifes by female artists.
According to the company's press release:
COLNAGHI London presents a tantalising new exhibition devoted to female still life, the highlight of which is a spatially complex painting by the mannerist artist, Fede Galizia (pictured). An important rediscovery by Colnaghi, the work contributes to the reconstruction of Galizia’s corpus in her enigmatic final years. Forbidden Fruit: Female Still Life will include other rare works by Giovanna Garzoni, painter to the Medicis and one of the first women to practice the art of still life, as well as the only known painting by Caterina Angela Pierozzi, protégée of Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere. The exhibition will also feature the last painting by the hand of acclaimed Dutch botanical artist, Rachel Ruysch.
Open at Colnaghi London from April 27 through June 24, 2022, Forbidden Fruit builds upon Colnaghi's mission to spearhead new trends in art collecting, bringing the finest works in often overlooked categories to a new audience. This presentation includes work from the Renaissance to Baroque periods by: Giovanna Garzoni, Fede Galizia, Judith Leyster, Clara Peeters, Caterina Angela Pierozzi, Elisabetta Marchioni, Rachel Ruysch and others.
The Musée d'Orsay conserve a Monet
March 1 2022
Video: Musée d'Orsay
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée d'Orsay in Paris have just redisplayed a recently conserved painting by Claude Monet. Femmes au jardin (1866) has experienced a hard life, especially after being damaged several times and thus was covered by old campaigns of restoration. Fortunately, the work into researching and conserving the painting has been completed, nearly all of which can be accessed through the following webpage. The work was carried out by the Center And Search Restoration Musées De France (C2RMF)
Le décor impressionniste at the Musée de l'Orangerie
February 28 2022
Video: Musée de l'Orangerie
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Another exhibition that is opening on Wednesday is the Musée de l'Orangerie's show entitled Le décor impressionniste: Aux sources des Nymphéas. As the name of the exhibition suggests, it aims to show the relationship the Impressionists had with notions of the 'decorative' in art.
The exhibition will run from 2nd March 2022 until 11th July 2022.
'Renoir: Rococo Revival' in Frankfurt
February 28 2022
Picture: Städel Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Städel Museum in Frankfurt will be opening their latest exhibition on Wednesday. Renoir Rococo Revival explores the connections between French impressionism and eighteenth-century rococo art and will feature no fewer than 120 paintings (!)
According to the museum's website:
Whereas Rococo painting was considered frivolous and immoral after the French Revolution, it underwent a revival in the nineteenth century and was widely visible in Renoir’s lifetime. Having trained as a porcelain painter, he was also intimately acquainted with the imagery of artists such as Antoine Watteau, Baptiste Siméon Chardin, François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. He shared the Rococo’s predilection for certain subjects, among them promenaders in the park and on the riverbank, moments of repose in the outdoors, and the garden party. Renoir also frequently devoted himself to the depiction of domestic scenes and family life as well as intimate moments such as bathing, reading or making music. Yet he not only took orientation from the motifs of the Rococo, but also particularly admired its loose and sketchy manner of painting as well as its brilliant palette, aspects that would have a formative influence on him and many other artists in the Impressionist circle.
Trenchant juxtapositions of Renoir’s art with works of the eighteenth century as well as his own contemporaries – Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot – will provide an overview of Impressionism’s intense artistic examination of the Rococo.
The exhibition will show a total of some 120 outstanding paintings, works on paper and handcrafted objects from international museums such as the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, as well as private collections.
The show will run from 2nd March 2022 until 19th June 2022.
The National Museums Scotland are hiring!
February 28 2022
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Museums Scotland are hiring three Assistant Curators in Renaissance and Early Modern History, Modern and Contemporary History, and World Cultures.
To quote the job description for the Renaissance and Early Modern History role:
Based at the National Museum of Scotland you will support the work of the Department of Scottish History and Archaeology, primarily within the Renaissance & Early Modern Section of the Department. This is a full-time permanent post currently based within the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. The Section’s collections are also held at the National Museum Collection Centre, and the wider departmental collections are also held at the National War Museum, Edinburgh and the National Museum of Rural Life, East Kilbride. The ability to travel between these sites is essential.
The Renaissance & Early Modern section collections are representative of cultural, social, political, military and domestic history in Scotland from c.1450-1750, including decorative arts, jewellery, metalwork, furniture and weaponry, and objects relating to monarchical power, religion, trade and everyday life.
Duties will include working on the collections, their documentation, storage and display, making them accessible to researchers and other visitors. You will work across the Department towards delivering our strategic priority projects, our loans, exhibitions and digitisation programmes.
The jobs each come with a salary between £27,107 and £29,274 and applications must be received by 6th March and 16th March 2022 respectively.
Good luck if you're applying!
Sell the Dalà to Afford Council Wages says Trade Union Boss
February 28 2022
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The latest call for UK Councils to sell off prized artworks has appeared in Glasgow, Scotland. During a fierce debate to encourage Glasgow City Council to pay equal wages, top GMB Trade Union Boss Gary Smith has suggested that high value assets should be sold off to help foot the £500m bill. The Kelvingrove Art Gallery's Christ of Saint John of the Cross Painting by Salvador Dalí has been the focus of attention in this particular example.
According to the article linked above:
“If the council really thinks it can fix this alone then it had better start making plans to flog the Dali, because there is no way this discrimination is going to be paid for off the back of hard-pressed workers in a cost-of-living crisis.”
It seems that a similar suggestion was made in 2001 in relation to paying off the City Council's debts.
A council spokesperson has also been quoted in response to the story:
“We’re negotiating with trade unions and others representing claimants. We will only know the cost of settling claims once we have a deal – and that will determine any financial strategy.”
Painted Femininity in the Museo Campano di Capua
February 28 2022
Picture: ansa.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Italy's latest exhibition focusing on female inspired subjects has just opened in the recently renovated Museo Campano di Capua, situated just north of Naples. La femminilità dipinta features 30 works from the seventeenth to twenty-first centuries which focuses on various themes of feminine representations. Artists featured within the show include the likes of Luca Giordano, Filippo Vitale, Antiveduto Gramatica, Marco Pino da Siena, Polidoro da Lanciano, Pedro Nunez del Valle, Francesco Guarini, Francesco Solimena, Modigliani, Mimmo Rotella, Fernando Botero, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso. The show will run until 1st May 2022.
A Private Tour of Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours's Coypel Exhibition
February 27 2022
Video: Scribe Accroupi
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's a very interesting video tour (in French) of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours's ongoing exhibition entitled Le Théâtre de Troie. Antoine Coypel, d'Homère à Virgile. The show will run until 18th April 2022.
