Michelangelo's Shoes Suggest Artist was Short
September 7 2021
Picture: livescience.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's a curious story that appeared in the press a few days ago.
A group of scientists from the Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology and Bioarchaeology Research Center (FAPAB) in Avola, Italy, have been studying a set of shoes allegedly owned by Michelangelo surviving in Florence's Casa Buonarroti Museum. Using some clever analysis, the group has estimated that Michelangelo's must have been no taller than 5 feet 2 inches (1.6 meters).
According to the article:
While this is relatively short for a European adult man by today's standards, at the time Michelangelo was alive (1475 to 1564) that height would not have been unusual, said scientists with the Forensic Anthropology, Paleopathology and Bioarchaeology Research Center (FAPAB) in Avola, Italy.
FAPAB researchers Francesco Galassi, a paleopathologist, and Elena Varotto, a forensic anthropologist, measured the shoes and then calculated the wearer's foot dimensions and height, and their results aligned with a description of Michelangelo by the 16th-century artist and writer Giorgio Vasari. Vasari wrote that Michelangelo was "broad in the shoulders" but the rest of his body was "somewhat slender in proportion" and his stature was average, according to the study.
40 Lady Waterford Pictures Donated to Lady Waterford Hall
September 7 2021
Picture: ford-and-etal.co.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Apologies, here's a story which I missed two weeks ago.
The Lady Waterford Hall in Northumberland has received a donation of 40 paintings by the Victorian aristocratic artist Louisa Beresford, Marchioness of Waterford (1818-1891). The collection of works includes paintings, watercolours and sketches by the artist. It was amassed by Peter Stickley and Stewart Hamilton over the course of 50 years and has since been gifted to the Hall which contains Waterford's famous frescos.
A new exhibition of the collection will open over the weekend. Indeed, there's a ticketed opening being held on the 9th September, in case any readers might be in the area!
Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace
September 6 2021
Picture: RCT via AB
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I've been meaning to point how magnificent the current exhibition at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace is. I visited Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace earlier in July and spent many more hours that I had planned enjoying each of the paintings on display.
Naturally, historic house settings are very evocative for the display of pictures. I will never tire of visiting places such as Windsor Castle, which is always full to the brim with the Queen's best Van Dycks and Royal Portraits. However, there's something rather special too when such masterpieces can be displayed in gallery conditions such as at the Queen's Gallery. This setting really encourages you to hone in on the sheer quality of the pictures assembled.
The arrangement into Dutch, Flemish and Italian schools works very well. There are walls of Rembrandts to admire as well as top pictures by Van Dyck, Rubens, Canaletto, Claude, Titian, Jan Steen and others.
I should recommend getting an early time slot, as you'll almost certainly have the galleries to yourself. It's also possible to get right up close to these pictures as many of them are glazed for protection. In contrast, it's impossible to see them in such proximity when they're hanging in the Palace. Take this opportunity while you can.
Finally, I was thinking that there are probably very few galleries in the world that would let you get so close to a Vermeer. It is even possible to read my favourite wisdom inscribed onto the case of the virginal:
MVSICA LETITIAE CO[ME]S MEDICINA DOLOR[VM] / Music is the companion of joy and the balm of sorrow.
Frick Hogarth to be loaned to Tate
September 6 2021
Picture: The Frick Collection
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Guardian have published an article on news that the Frick Collection will be loaning their William Hogarth portrait of Mary Edwards of Kensington to an upcoming exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London. This is said to be the first time the painting has returned to London in a century.
The article quotes Assistant Curator Alice Insley:
She trod her own path and contravened the social mores of the time. Mary will be a highlight of the exhibition and it is the kind of loan from the Frick Collection in New York that only happens in exceptional circumstances. Luckily for us, there is building work at the gallery and so the painting cannot be displayed there.
The Tate's upcoming exhibition Hogarth and Europe, which will feature 60 works by the artist, will be opening on 3rd November 2021 and run until 20 March 2022.
New Arts & Crafts Museum for St Petersburg, Florida
September 6 2021
Picture: TAN
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Art Newspaper have reported on news of a new museum dedicated to the Arts & Crafts Museum. The new The Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement (MAACM) has been founded by Florida-based pharmaceutical businessman Rudy Ciccarello and will house his private collection and the holdings of the Two Red Roses Foundation, a non-profit educational organisation Ciccarello founded in 2004. His collection contains more than 2,000 objects related to the American Arts & Crafts Movement.
According to the article:
With more than 40,000sq. ft of gallery space, the new museum will be housed in a five-storey, 137,000sq. ft structure designed by the Tampa-based architect Alberto Alfonso. The institution will also have an outdoor garden, an education studio, graphic studio, research library, theater, event space, café, and restaurant.
Flowers and Gardens in Pre-Raphaelite Art
September 6 2021
Picture: Ashmolean
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I have spotted this upcoming online lecture which is bound to be an aesthetic delight. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford are hosting an online lecture this Wednesday 8th September 2021 entitled Cultivating Beauty: Flowers and Gardens in Pre-Raphaelite Art. The talk will be presented by Dr Lindsay Wells.
According to the blurb:
From lilies and roses to poppies and pansies, flowers are ubiquitous in the art of the British Pre-Raphaelites. This talk will explore how Pre-Raphaelite painters engaged with Victorian gardening trends to craft their distinctive floral imagery.
The online lecture will be broadcast at 2pm (BST) and cost a mere £4 to attend.
Uffizi Acquire Tibaldi and Gnocchi Saint Paul
September 6 2021
Picture: Uffizi
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence have announced their acquisition of a full-length Saint Paul by Pellegrino Tibaldi and his Milanese pupil Giovanni Pietro Gnocchi. The work, dated to c.1585, was purchased after an export ban was placed on it by the authorities in Italy. Recent research undertaken by the scholar Agostino Allegri has established that the work was produced for the Milanese private chapel of the heirs of San Carlo Borromeo in 1585. Indeed, the painting was mentioned in a 1587 text by Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo and managed to survive the bombings of 1943 when the chapel was badly damaged.
Shredded Banksy Back on the Block
September 6 2021
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Interesting news emerged last week that Sotheby's will be re-auctioning Banksy's Love in the Bin in October. Famously, the work was shredded during a live auction in 2018 just after it was sold for £1,042,000. The work will now reappear with an estimate of £4m - £6m.
________________
The 2018 gimmick caused quite the stir back in the day. Let's wait and see if the hype has been sustained over these past three years.
Burlington Article Reveals Jacques-Louis David Secrets
September 6 2021
Picture: MET
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
September's edition of The Burlington Magazine contains a fascinating article on recent discoveries made on Jacques-Louis David's 1788 Portrait of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) and Marie- Anne Lavoisier (Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, 1758– 1836). This study was undertaken by staff at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Vast technical analysis has shown the many changes were undertaken during its early history. This included the removal of a fancy hat, now missing of course, and the fact that their scientific instruments were a later addition. It is believed that these alterations were made to try and distance the sitters from looking too much like tax-collectors, a profession which ultimately led Lavoisier to the guillotine in 1794.
TEFAF Funds Restoration of Manet Portrait
September 6 2021
Picture: National Museum Wales
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Apologies, I missed this story the other week. The National Museum Wales has completed the restoration of Portrait de Monsieur Jules Dejouy by Édouard Manet. The painting, which dates to 1879, was acquired by the museum in 2019 through the acceptance in lieu scheme. Conservation was paid for through funds donated by The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) Museum Restoration Fund as well as help from the Friends of the Museum and The Finnis Scott Foundation.
Coustou Sculptures Restored
September 2 2021
Picture: rue89lyon.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from France that two sculptures representing allegories of the Rhône and the Saône by Nicolas and Guillaume Coustou have been restored. The large early eighteenth century bronzes had originally adorned a statue of Louis XIV at the Place Bellecour in Lyon. Their restoration has taken place in the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon where they will be displayed at the foot of a staircase.
Busts Return to Genoa
September 1 2021
Picture: finestresullarte.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Two seventeenth century busts are heading back to Genoa. The two marbles depicting Tommaso Gentile and Ginetta Pinelli, completed for the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata del Vastato by sculptor Daniele Solaro (Genoa, 1649 - 1709), had long thought to have been destroyed during the war. The rediscovery was made after research was commissioned by a private collector into their histories. It is not known exactly how the pair came to leave the city, however, they have since been reacquired by the authorities in Genoa.
Rijksmuseum Acquires and Reattributes Sluter Crucifix
September 1 2021
Picture: Rijksmuseum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has acquired a carved wooden crucifix that it has reattributed to the fifteenth-century Dutch sculptor Claus Sluter.
According to the article above:
Research conducted into art historical and technical aspects of the work has led multiple experts to conclude that this exceptional object can be conclusively attributed to Haarlem-born Claus Sluter, who was the court sculptor to Philip the Bold in Dijon, France, from 1389 to 1406. This makes the work the first by Sluter to be held in a Dutch collection.
La Dynastie Francken
September 1 2021
Video: museedeflandre.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée de Flandre in Cassel, France, will be opening their delayed exhibition La Dynastie Francken on the 4th September 2021. Here's the museum's 'teaser' published on Facebook.
The show will run until 2nd January 2022.
Refurbished Rooms in Venice's Gallerie dell'Accademia
September 1 2021
Picture: finestresullarte.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice has recently reopened a set of newly refurbished rooms which house their collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century paintings. The new Selva-Lazzari rooms contain 63 works with many having been recently restored for the occasion.
One of the most significant restored works include Tiepolo's 13-meter-long painting Punishment of Snakes (pictured).
The Bank of England Removes Portraits and Busts
August 31 2021
Picture: telegraph.co.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News has emerged that the Bank of England have removed 10 painted portraits and 7 busts of governors and directors with known connections to the slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. Images of those removed include Gilbert Heathcote, the Bank's founding director and a governor, James Bateman, Robert Bristow, Robert Clayton, William Dawsonne, William Manning and John Pearse.
A Bank of England spokesperson has been quoted saying:
The review is now complete and artworks depicting former Governors and Directors, where we have been able to establish links to the slave trade, have been removed from display.
We have also appointed a researcher to work in our Museum to explore the Bank's historic links with the transatlantic slave trade in detail. This work will inform future Museum displays interpreting these connections.
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As the new wave of Puritanism marches on, we wonder why it wasn't possible for the likes of Heathcote and Bristow to see into the future. Trying to untangle the 'inexcusable connections' through the removal of art seems like a rather interesting place to start.
A Fake Gaugin in the Tate (?)
August 31 2021
Picture: Tate
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Art Newspaper has reported on the rather shocking news that the above painting of Tahitians, reputedly by Paul Gaugin in the Tate Collection, has been downgraded as a fake. The picture's fall from grace has been noted due to its absence in the latest catalogue raisonné by the New York-based Wildenstein Plattner Institute. The decision to exclude the painting was made by the scholars Richard Brettell (who died in July 2020) and Sylvie Crussard, although their precise reasons have not yet been disclosed.
The article quotes the 'Gaugin enthusiast and now a researcher on authenticity of his works' Fabrice Fourmanoir:
Fourmanoir is convinced that the Tate work is a fake. “It is a stereotypical colonial Tahiti scene, whereas Gauguin was looking for more primitive compositions. The poses, dresses and even the European accordion held by the woman show Tahitians ‘corrupted’ by European customs,” he says.
The Tate are said to still accept the work as authentic and will 'keep the work under review'.
Frick Collection Gifted Works on Paper
August 31 2021
Picture: Mme Rouillé by Maurice Quentin de La Tour via. Frick Collection
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Frick Collection in New York has announced that it has received the promised gift of works on paper from the collection of former trustees Elizabeth and Jean-Marie Eveillard. The gift includes eighteen drawings, five pastels, two prints, and one oil sketch with works by the likes of:
...François Boucher, Edgar Degas, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Thomas Lawrence, and Jean-François Millet.
The group also introduces to the Frick’s holdings works by artists not yet represented in its primary collecting areas, including Gustave Caillebotte, Maurice Quentin de La Tour (pictured), Jan Lievens, John Singer Sargent, and Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun.
It is expected the works will be displayed in a special exhibition by Autumn 2022.
Dendrochronology via CT Scanning
August 30 2021
Picture: Rijksmuseum & PLoS ONE
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
For those of you who like the more technical side of art historical research, the Science Journal PLoS ONE have published a fascinating article (free to read online) on the use CT scans to date wooden panels. Dendrochronology uses tree rings, compared against vast databases of historic examples, to date wooden panels. This piece combines the research of several scholars headed up by the Department for History of Art at the University of Amsterdam.
Essentially, the paper examines how CT scanners can be used to gather non-invasive information on the age of panels. This is particularly useful when old paintings have been stuck onto other panels in later centuries, often causing all sorts of problems for those wishing to examine such complex structures. In particular, the article examines a Rijksmuseum painting of Cadmus sowing dragon's teeth by Rubens. It seems that Rubens had painted onto a panel made of tropical wood which was later backed by an oak panel, perhaps with 'deceiving intentions' to mask the rarity of the original support.
New Release: He Ringatoi o NgÄ TÅ«puna
August 30 2021
Picture: aotearoabooks.co.nz
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's an interesting new release from New Zealand focusing on colonial portraits made by the British artist Isaac Coates between 1841 - 1845. He Ringatoi o Nga Tupuna: Isaac Coates and his Maori Portraits has been written by the Nelson historians John and Hilary Mitchell.
According to the book's blurb:
Isaac Coates was an Englishman who lived in Wellington and Nelson between 1841 and 1845. During that time he painted watercolour portraits of 58 MÄori from Nelson, Marlborough, Wellington, Waikanae and KÄpiti. Some of these portraits have been well-known for nearly 180 years, although their creator was not definitively identified until 2000. The discovery in 2007 of a Coates book of portraits in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University added many previously unknown images to his body of work.
The portraits depict MÄori men and women from chiefly whakapapa, as well as commoners and at least one slave. Coates’s meticulous records of each subject’s name, iwi and place of residence are invaluable, and his paintings are strong images of individuals, unlike the more stereotyped work of some of Coates’s contemporaries. WhÄnau, hapÅ« and iwi treasure Coates’s works because they are the only images of some tÅ«puna, and they are reminders of those who risked their lives to bring their people to a better life in the Cook Strait regions of Kapiti coast, Wellington, Nelson and Marlborough.
