Owner Sought for Stolen Eugene Boudin
July 28 2021
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Swindon Advertiser have published an article about the strange fate of a stolen painting by Eugene Boudin that has ended up with an antique dealer in Royal Wootton Basset. The dealer had bought the picture in good faith from a Lady whose father had acquired the picture at a London flea market. It turned out that the work was stolen from a Mayfair gallery in 1990. An appeal has been made for further information.
Barok in Teylers
July 28 2021
Picture: Teylers Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Teylers Museum in Haarlem opened their latest exhibition last month dedicated to Italian Baroque Drawings from their collection. Barok in Teylers will feature important works on paper by the likes of Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Guercino, Salvator Rosa and Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, many of which were acquired from renowned collections in the late eighteenth century.
The show will run until 7th November 2021.
National Galleries of Scotland to lead Slavery and Colonialism Review
July 28 2021
Picture: The National Gallery of Scotland
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Times Scotland have reported on news that the National Galleries of Scotland will be leading a review on artworks with links to slavery and colonialism. This review includes public acknowledgements of 'works associated with slavery, racism and colonial exploitation.'
One of the paintings that has already been subject to changes is the description of Allan Ramsay's portrait of the philosopher David Hume (pictured). The signage that accompanies Hume's portrait now features references to his discriminatory attitudes towards certain nations and races, alongside his role in the Enlightenment.
_________________
It seems that the National Galleries of Scotland no longer want people to look with their eyes but with their ears instead. It is becoming rather popular these days to encourage individuals to view absolutely everything through a political lens. When it comes to art, are there no other forms of reasoning that are valid apart from the political and moral?
Hermitage to Sell NFTs of Artworks
July 27 2021
Picture: State Hermitage Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, is the latest museum to jump on the bandwagon of selling NFTs of its collection. Works up for sale including digital reproductions of works by the likes of Van Gogh, Leonardo, Kandinsky and Monet (pictured).
The article linked above contains quotes from the museum's director:
Mikhail Piotrovsky, the general director of the Hermitage, said in a statement that the sale was “an important stage in the development of the relationship between person and money, person and thing,” adding that NFTs “create democracy, make luxury more accessible, but are at the same time exceptional and exclusive.”
It is intended to “ensure a new level of accessibility to the Hermitage collections and emphasize the democracy of the museum, and emphasize the importance of digitalization as a new stage in the art collection world.”
Tate Unveil 2022 Programme
July 27 2021
Picture: Tate
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Tate in London have unveiled their 2022 programme of exhibitions. Tate Britain will host two retrospectives dedicated to Walter Sickert (pictured) and Cornelia Parker. In addition, Tate modern will have large shows dedicated to Surrealism and Cézanne respectively.
The Art Loss Register are Hiring!
July 27 2021
Picture: @artlossreg
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Art Loss Register in London are looking for a Researcher.
According to the job description posted online:
The role includes work in due diligence and on research projects related to the dispossession of art and cultural objects due to Nazi persecution and WWII, as well as management duties related to our clients such as international auction houses and dealers worldwide.
Fluency in German is required, and some experience in or knowledge of provenance research is helpful. A clear interest in building and strengthening relationships with clients is vital. Knowledge of a third language and office experience in a commercial art environment would be an advantage but are not essential.
No salary is indicated, and applications must be in by 6th August 2021.
Good luck if you're applying!
Wallace Collection to Loan Poussin for First Time in 121 Years
July 27 2021
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
As I suspected back in April, the Wallace Collection in London has announced that Poussin's Dance to the Music of Time will be loaned to the National Gallery's October exhibition Poussin and the Dance. This will be the first time the work has been loaned in 121 years as the trustees of museum overturned the rules of Lady Wallace's 1897 bequest a few years ago.
According to the press release:
Over twenty paintings and drawings from public and private collections in Europe and the USA, including the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (The Empire of Flora, 1630-31); The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (The Triumph of Bacchus, 1635-36); Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (Bacchus and Ariadne, 1625-1626); the National Galleries of Scotland (Study for A Dance to the Music of Time, ca.1634) and a series of drawings generously lent by Her Majesty the Queen, will be shown for the first time alongside some of the celebrated Classical antiquities that inspired them: The Borghese Vase, first century CE and The Borghese Dancers, second century CE, both from the Musée du Louvre, Paris. These works are being seen together for the first time in a generation and will allow visitors to trace Poussin’s influences and the sophisticated translations he made between marble, paint and paper.
Anonymous Buyer Purchases Restituted Courbet for Budapest Museum
July 27 2021
Video: artnews.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's some curious news from Hungary that an anonymous buyer has purchased a restituted painting by Gustave Courbet for the Budapest Museum. The painting has a long back story since it was confiscated twice from its original Jewish-Hungarian owner Baron Ferenc Hatvany during the twentieth-century. The painting resurfaced recently was restituted to Hatvany's heirs. It was eventually sold at Sotheby's earlier in May for $320,000 to an anonymous buyer who has lent the work to the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts.
A Michel Sittow Rediscovered in Spain (?)
July 27 2021
Picture: Twitter via. @Inde
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Interesting news from Spain that a rare work by the enigmatic fifteenth century artist Michel Sittow has been reportedly rediscovered in the Museo de Arte Sacro de Teruel. The Intercession of the Virgin Mary before God the Father and Jesus Christ (pictured) has been reattributed by the scholar María del Carmen Lacarra. Sittow, who was probably born in Estonia but is often considered Flemish, worked for the Habsburg monarchs in Spain and the Netherlands. In a 2011 catalogue raisonné the art historian Matthias Weniger included 111 works with only 13 attributed with absolute certainty.
We'll wait and see if other scholars rally around this new attribution.
Rembrandt Exhibition in Warsaw
July 27 2021
Video: Zamek Królewski w Warszawie - Muzeum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Royal Castle in Warsaw has recently opened their latest exhibition entitled Rembrandt's World. Artists. Burghers. Explorers.
According to the exhibition blurb:
Girl in the Picture Frame and Scholar at His Writing Table by Rembrandt are the jewels of the art collection in The Royal Castle in Warsaw. They are also among top most precious paintings in Poland. This summer both masterpieces are exhibited among over 200 artworks that were created in the Age of Rembrandt. The exhibits come from Polish state museums and libraries as well as from private collections. All the artworks had been carefully chosen to illustrate the background of Rembrandt’s life and thus enable better understanding of his art. Exhibition focuses on several topics: Power, War, Dutch Landscape, Colonies, Science, Religion and Philosophy, Burgher’s Home, Art and Culture, Entertainment. Each room presents a single engraving by Rembrandt which is a point of reference for other exhibits. Rembrandt himself – through his engravings – acts as a discreet guide leading us through the exhibition. Due to the fact, that the engravings should not be exposed for a long time to the light, they will be replaced by another set of Rembrandt’s graphics at the beginning of the August.
In the video above the Polish photographer Andrzej Dragan attempts to recreate a Rembrandt in film.
The show will run until 19th September 2021.
The MET are Hiring!
July 26 2021
Picture: MET
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York are looking for an Assistant Curator of Northern European Drawings, Prints, and Illustrated Books in the Department of Drawings and Prints.
According to the job description:
As part of the curatorial team in the Department of Drawings and Prints, the Assistant Curator will be responsible for contributing to all curatorial duties, including: researching, studying, interpreting, and publishing works in the collection under his/her curatorial responsibility; planning and executing exhibitions and programs; and building the collection. The candidate will be in charge of the department’s collection of Northern European (German, Dutch, and Flemish) drawings, prints, and illustrated books from the 15th through the 19th centuries. The Assistant Curator will participate in gallery installations, writing labels and online features, and database management; respond to public inquiries and assist scholars; help in the organization of loans; contribute to the Museum’s public education programs; research the permanent collections and identify and recommend acquisitions for purchase; and actively engage with supporters and colleagues both nationally and internationally, in addition to other related duties.
Neither a salary of closing date for applications seems to have been supplied.
Good luck if you're applying!
Online Conference: The cultural dimension of Dutch overseas expansion
July 26 2021
Picture: globalnetherlandishart.sites.uu.nl
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The University of Utrecht's program Histories of Global Netherlandish Art, 1550-1750 are running a free online conference at the end of August entitled The cultural dimension of Dutch overseas expansion.
The conference asks the question of:
But what, if any, was its impact [Dutch expansion] on culture and the humanities? This conference brings together historians of culture, art, books, and literature to arrive at a fuller picture of the cultural dimensions of Dutch overseas expansion.
The conference will be run on 27th August 2021. Attendance is free although registration is required.
Family & Friends: Reynolds at Port Eliot
July 26 2021
Picture: The Box Plymouth
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Box Plymouth have just opened a fascinating sounding exhibition entitled Family & Friends: Reynolds at Port Eliot.
According to the exhibition blurb:
15 miles west of Plymouth in the Cornish countryside stands Port Eliot. Home to the Eliot family since 1565, the house contains the largest surviving group of early portraits by Joshua Reynolds in the South West. In 2007, many of them joined The Box’s permanent collections through the Government’s Acceptance in Lieu Scheme.
In this exhibition we use 14 of the 23 works that were acquired in 2007 to explore the relationship between Reynolds and the Eliot family - a relationship that began at the dawn of Reynolds’ artistic career, and ended with Edward, 1st Lord Eliot carrying his coffin into St Paul’s Cathedral almost 50 years later. After Reynolds’ death, the family continued to seek out his work for their home.
Here's a longer piece on the exhibition that has appeared in the Cornish & Devon Post.
The show will run until 5th September 2021.
UK Government Places Export Ban on Peruzzi Nativity
July 23 2021
Picture: gov.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The UK Government has announced that it is seeking a buyer for Baldassare Thomasso Peruzzi's (1481-1536) The Nativity dating to c.1515. An export ban has been placed on the painting and interested parties will have to find £463,317 to keep it in the country.
Export committee member Christopher Rowell has been quoted as saying:
Committee Member Christopher Rowell said: Peruzzi’s rare evocation of the Nativity by night was painted in Rome in the second decade of the sixteenth century, when great artists like Raphael were experimenting with dramatic compositions and light effects. Long attributed to Raphael’s pupil, Giovanni Francesco Penni, it was identified as a Peruzzi in the 1940s by the British Museum’s considerable scholar of Italian drawings, Philip Pouncey, who owned the painting and reattributed no less than 110 drawings to Peruzzi, who was one of his favourite draughtsmen. Painted on panel, the picture is in remarkably good condition. The price seems very reasonable for a painting of this date and exceptional quality and RCEWA hopes that it will remain in Britain, where it offers scope for further research into the innovations of Roman painting around 1515 and into twentieth-century British connoisseurship of Italian art by Philip Pouncey and his distinguished contemporaries.
Lloyd Webber Art Collection on Display in Renovated Theatre Royal
July 23 2021
Picture: whatsonstage.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
An eagle-eyed reader has kindly been in touch with news that Andrew Lloyd Webber has allowed some of his private art collection to be hung inside the newly renovated Theatre Royal on Drury Lane. The theatre, owned by the musicals impresario, has recently undergone a two-year £60m refurbishment and will be opening to the public in due course. Photographs show some of Lloyd Webber's Pre Raphaelite collection hanging in several rooms.
Fortunately, it seems that art and architecture lovers will be able to visit the theatre during the day in due course, which will be an interesting experience I'm sure.
Exhibition on the Inferno in Rome
July 23 2021
Picture: finestresullarte.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Scuderie del Quirinale will be opening their latest exhibition in September on the persistence of the iconography from Dante's Inferno. The highlight of the show will be the loan of Sandro Botticelli's The Abyss of Hell, alongside other works by the likes of Beato Angelico, Heronimus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Francisco Goya, Édouard Manet, Eugène Delacroix, Auguste Rodin, Paul Cézanne, Franz von Stuck, Giacomo Balla, Otto Dix, Boris Taslitzky, Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer.
The show will run from 15th October 2021 till 9th January 2022.
Vermeer in Dresden
July 23 2021
Video: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
It seems like the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden is the latest institution to use 3D image manipulation to bring an old master to life. This short video is promoting their latest Vermeer exhibition which has been postponed until September 2021.
Conserving Wall Paintings by G F Watts
July 23 2021
Video: Leighton House Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Leighton House Museum in West London have published this short video providing some details in regards to the conservation of two wall paintings by George Frederic Watts.
Hogarth to Hitchens at Cannon Hall Museum
July 23 2021
Picture: Cannon Hall Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Cannon Hall Museum near Barnsley has an interesting exhibition running over the summer. Hogarth to Hitchens is a free exhibition dedicated to highlighting the British paintings in their collections.
According to the museum's blurb:
Following on from our successful exhibition of paintings by Dutch artists, this exhibition brings together works by British artists from the collections at Cannon Hall Museum. Themes of portraiture and landscape pictures by local and national artists ranging from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries are on display.
The art of capturing a likeness is an ancient skill. William Hogarth is best remembered for his satirical paintings and prints but was also a well-respected portrait painter. His elegant Portrait of a Lady is a highlight of the exhibition. John Constable was also a skilled portrait painter and his painting of Mrs Tuder shows the sitters’ character as well as her wealth and status.
Landscape painting as a distinct form of art developed in the eighteenth century and led many British artists to capture and celebrate the countryside. Artists such as David Roberts travelled extensively and painted the landscapes of North Africa and Europe with Rome being a popular destination. Modern representations of landscape have often included a bolder use of colour and form such as the innovative work of Ivon Hitchens.
In the exhibition there are a number of works by local artists who established national reputations, such as Abel Hold, Joe Scarborough and new additions to the collection by Gertrude Crompton.
The exhibition will run until 7th November 2021.
New Jordaens Van Dyck Journal Out Next Week!
July 23 2021
Picture: JVDPPP
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Exciting news that the Jordaens Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project's new Journal will be out next week. This open-access journal will be made available online and print on demand.
I'll post a link as soon as it is published!
