Sell the Hockney, say the Royal Opera House
October 4 2020
Picture: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Royal Opera House in London has announced that it is selling a portrait by David Hockney to raise £18m for essential funds. Hockney's 1971 portrait of former director Sir David Webster is set to be sold at Christie's later this year carrying an estimate of £11m - £18m.
The Royal Opera House's chief executive Alex Beard is quoted saying:
This was a really tough call, but we have to face the situation we are in and if we can remain viable and get through this, then we can get back to employing people in the future.
We are the biggest arts employer in the country and we knew we had to look at any assets we had, and there is only really one of any note that stands out and that is this portrait.
The organisation is set to make redundancies as well as begin a drive for donations.
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Such drastic measures from such prestigious cultural institutions are very worrying indeed. One can't help but have sympathy for theatres and their employees who are being so brutally punished for following government guidelines. Yet, it's also sad to see that the plundering of historic collections, or 'assets' as they refer to them, are the only way out of this mess.
It seems that this portrait carries a great deal of spiritual significance to the Royal Opera House in both historic and aesthetic terms. Although I'm hardly the right person to make any judgements on twentieth century art, personally I'm left wondering whether this picture really has as much market appeal as some of Hockney's more celebrated works. It has a rather institutional aesthetic about it, resembling the charm of a dentist waiting room.
We'll wait and see if this is a growing trend.
Artemisia Exhibition Tour
October 4 2020
Video: The National Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London have uploaded this rather good video tour of their current exhibition on Artemisia Gentileschi onto their YouTube Channel. The tour is conducted by curator Letizia Treves and includes a welcome from the gallery's chairman of trustees and director.
Raphael in Woking
October 2 2020
Picture: Royal Collection Trust
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
On 3rd October 2020 a new exhibition is opening in The Lightbox Museum and Art Gallery in Woking. Entitled Raphael: Prince Albert's Passion, this exhibition will focus on the Prince's fondness for this Italian Renaissance Old Master. Several of Raphael's drawings have been loaned from the Royal Collection for the show which will run until 31st January 2021.
Furthermore, Martin Clayton (Head of Prints and Drawings for the Royal Collection Trust) is presenting a lecture on Raphael as a draughtsman in the gallery on 4th November 2020.
London Art Week: Art History in Focus
October 2 2020
Video: Philip Mould & Company
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
This October the London Art Week are hosting several events and exhibitions entitled Art History in Focus. They've not yet announced the full list of participants and events, but it seems much will focus on the subject of Women Artists.
In co-operation with the events dealers Philip Mould & Company will be staging a new exhibition entitled Pioneers: 500 Years of Women in British Art. It will run in their galleries on Pall Mall from 12th October - 27th November and also be accessible in an online format.
Christie's NY Online Sale
October 1 2020
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A quick note that the Christie's NY online auction, the equivalent to the usual 'day sale', has been uploaded online. Bidding runs from 1st - 20th October 2020.
There are too many interesting pictures to point out, so I'll leave this pleasure to readers to find their favourites. This painting of a Young woman resting on her hand, 'Attributed to Rubens', certainly has an intriguing catalogue note.
There is even a chance to own a painting which had once belonged to Emperor Napoleon III. The above painting of Isabel de Requesens, after Giulio Romano and housed in an extravagant Dutch frame, is estimated at $30k - $50k.
Sleeper Alert!
October 1 2020
Picture: Coutau-Bégarie
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News on Twitter (via. @neiljeffares) that the above unidentified pastel made €115,000 at the auction house Coutau-Bégarie yesterday. Neil Jeffares pointed out that it is another version of the professor, mathematician and Catholic priest Le père François de Paule Jacquier by Guillame Voiriot (1712/9-1799). More information can be found via this link to Pastellists.com (page 2).
Online Journal: Elizabethan and Jacobean Miniatures
October 1 2020
Picture: British Art Studies
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Exciting news for lovers of miniatures. The journal British Art Studies, published by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Yale Centre for British Art, have published their recent journal online. This free edition is entitled Elizabethan and Jacobean Miniature Paintings in Context and is edited by Catharine MacLeod and Alexander Marr. The essays within look fascinating and are beautifully illustrated too. As per usual, old fashioned art history is mixed perfectly with technical analysis and makes for very interesting reading indeed.
Job Losses at V&A
October 1 2020
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
More grim news from the UK Museums Sector. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has announced that at least 103 jobs are at risk. Most will come from the retail and visitor experience, with a few others being lost from various departments. Tristram Hunt, the museum's director, has called the proposals necessary to "secure the V&A’s survival and prepare for the challenging years ahead”. The museum is looking to make £10m worth of savings.
Podcast: Gainsborough's Ignatius Sancho
September 29 2020
Picture: BP2
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Black Presence in British Portraiture Network have published a podcast focusing on Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of Ignatius Sancho (National Gallery of Canada).
The podcast is chaired by Gretchen Gerzina Paul Murray Kendall Professor of Biography at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and includes an interview with the actor and writer Paterson Joseph. Joseph has written a play on the sitter's life, which includes Sancho's career as a composer, actor, anti-slavery campaigner who became the first person of African descent to vote in a British General Election.
The podcast is free to listen to via. Spotify.
Update - Today (1st October 2020) Google have payed tribute to Ignatius Sancho in their header icon. The sad irony is that they have picked a portrait of him which many doubt shows Sancho. This painting, catalogued as a Portrait of an African, is by Allan Ramsay and held in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. Why didn't Google use the Gainsborough portrait?
$20m - $30m Rembrandt at Sotheby's
September 29 2020
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Sotheby's have just announced that they will be offering Rembrandt's Abraham and the Angels in their January sale in New York. The work, which is signed and dated 1646, will carry an estimate of $20m - $30m. It seems the work will be sold in the same sale as the recently announced $80m Botticelli.
The auction house's press release claims:
This is almost certainly the last opportunity to acquire a painting of a biblical narrative from the Old Testament by Rembrandt, as the only other painting by the artist that depicts a biblical narrative remains in a private collection in the United Kingdom and is subject to British patrimony protection.
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With all of these top paintings coming out of the woodwork for auction, I wonder what will be next?
Update - Artmarketmonitor.com have published the following information regarding the work's provenance:
The work was last sold at auction in 1848 for just £64 at Christie’s, according to the work’s ownership record. Its first recorded owner in 1647 was Dutch entrepreneur Martin van den Broeck. It changed hands several times, and passed through the collections of Benjamin West and Sir Thomas Baring. For decades the work remained in the Heemstede-base von Pannwitz family collection through descent. It then went to the prominent Old Masters collector Alfred Bader in 2004, and from there it came into the hands of veteran dealer Otto Naumann, who is now Sotheby’s Senior vice President and Client Development Director. The present owner acquired it in 2006.
Memling Donated to Bruges
September 29 2020
Picture: CODART
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
CODART (the international network of curators of Dutch and Flemish art) has announced that a painting by Hans Memling has been donated to the city of Bruges. The above portrait of Francisco de Rojas was generously gifted by John William Middendorf, a former US ambassador to the Netherlands and avid art collector. It will be displayed at the medieval hospital of Saint John in Bruges.
Sleeper Alert!
September 29 2020
Picture: Cabral Moncada Leilões
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News on Twitter (via. @auctionradar) that this painting of 'The Martyrdom of Saint Peter of Verona' catalogued as 'Spanish School, 17th cent' made €275,000 over its €1,500 estimate at the auction house Cabral Moncada Leilões yesterday. The frame bears an old attribution to Murillo.
Reynolds 3D Printed
September 29 2020
Picture: Factum Foundation
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
This story is a few years old now, but one that might be of interest to readers of AHN. In 2018 Strawberry Hill House, former home of Sir Horace Walpole, commissioned Factum Foundation to create a replica of Joshua Reynolds's The Ladies Waldegrave. The original painting was sold, like much of Walpole's collection, in the nineteenth century thus leaving his neo-gothic house rather empty.
The National Gallery of Scotland's original was scanned and photographed, including the frame, ready to produce a 3D copy that has been put on display in the house. The process can be followed here in a blog produced by the Factum Foundation. This ambitious project was funded in part by the World Monuments Fund.
The scanners have even been able to capture the complex craquelure found in the picture, a hallmark of Reynolds's experimental practise with paints. The overall impression from photographs of the copy is very impressive, although I must reserve judgement as I haven't seen the copy in person.
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It seems likely that 3D copies of artworks is a subject that will become increasingly popular over the next few decades. There are always voices to be found in corners of society calling for paintings to be sold from museums to fund XYZ and replaced with 3D copies. 'No one will be able to tell the difference', they often say.
Of course, it is wonderful that ancient artworks and buildings can be scanned with minute details recorded to allow us to understand them better. But in the act of creation, it feels like something of a deception to go to extraordinary lengths to mislead the eye. Copies of old masters in previous centuries, and casts of sculpture for that matter, didn't make the same claims that these print outs seem to be demonstrating.
In the case of Strawberry Hill House, there is a strong argument to recreate Walpole's aesthetic vision. He never intended anyone to see his rooms empty, so why not recreate the 'look' with reproductions? In such a case, the objects matter less individually one might argue.
To my mind, at least, part of the magic of looking at a painting by an old master is that you are there with the artist. You are there conversing with an object created by a human hand. It may be an amusing novelty to watch and listen to a robot play a Beethoven Sonata on a piano, but is it really the spiritual equivalent to watching a human hand do the same?
Here's Bendor's take on the subject made on this blog in 2017.
Constable Sketch Acquired by Fondation Custodia
September 28 2020
Picture: Fondation Custodia
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here is some acquisition news that I missed earlier this year. The Fondation Custodia in Paris acquired the above plein air sketch in April by John Constable catalogued as View from the back of a terrace of houses in Hampstead, c.1821-22. The work was acquired through dealers Richard Green.
It will feature in a fabulous travelling exhibition which is due to open at the Fondation Custodia next February. Entitled True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe 1780-1870, the exhibition will then travel to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge opening in Summer 2021.
Sleeper Alert!
September 28 2020
Picture: Wannenes
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
This portrait catalogued as 'Circle of Rembrandt' made €60,000 (hammer price) over its €500 - €800 estimate last week at Wannenes Auctions in Italy. The vigorous brushwork and dark tones suggest to me that it more Italian than Dutch, but click on the link above to see for yourselves.
Huntington Acquires Copley Painting
September 28 2020
Picture: The Huntington Library
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Huntginton Library and Art Museum have acquired a newly discovered painting by John Singleton Copley. The picture of c.1780 depicts the Georgian actress Mrs Mary Robinson. Most famously, her likeness was captured by the likes of Gainsborough (Wallace Collection) and Reynolds (Waddesdon Manor). This painting, however, shows her in a very different guise.
In this portrait we see (as the article linked above explains):
Mrs. Mary Robinson in the Character of a Nun (ca. 1780) is a cabinet portrait, perhaps commissioned by an admirer, of one of Britain's most famous actresses of the late 18th century. Lost for generations until it was sold in 1999 at auction as a French painting of an unknown sitter, the newly identified work portrays Robinson in her role as Oriana in George Farquhar's comedy The Inconstant; or The Way to Win Him, which she performed on the London stage in the spring of 1780.
$80m Botticelli at Sotheby's
September 24 2020
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Mon Dieu! Sotheby's have announced that they will be offering an $80m work by Sandro Botticelli in their January auction in New York. The portrait of a young man holding a roundel is one of the last great works by the master in private hands, and will carry the largest estimate ever set for an old master at Sotheby's.
The painting's provenance sounds rather intriguing too:
The portrait, Young Man Holding a Roundel, is recorded as being in the collection of Lord Newborough at Caernarfon in Wales in the 1930s. It is believed to have been purchased by his ancestor Sir Thomas Wynn, the first Lord Newborough, while living in Tuscany.
It apparently hung in an anteroom unknown to the outside world, its importance unrecognised. It was bought by a dealer who sold it to a private collector whose heirs sold it at auction to the present owner in 1982 for £810,000.
Over the past 50 years it has had periods of extended loan to the National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Städel Museum in Frankfurt.
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Once again it is proven that stormy seas can bring unexpected treasures to the shores. It will be interesting to see what state the art market, and the world for that matter, will be in after the November Presidential election.
Update - More details have emerged at the end of last week regarding the painting's owner. It has been consigned for sale by the real estate magnate Sheldon Selow. Selow is reported to have purchased the work for $1.3m at auction in 1982.
Video: Brueghel the Younger's Lampooning
September 23 2020
Video: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The auction house Sotheby's have released this video examining Pieter Brueghel the Younger's The Payment of Tithes, a picture they are currently offering for sale on their Private Sales section. It's rather nice the way it draws together infra-red images together to show the intricate under-drawing.
TEFAF NY goes Online
September 23 2020
Picture: CrownFineArt
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The New York leg of The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF), one of the world's largest art fairs, will be transferring its operations online.
The fair will now run entirely online between 1st - 4th November 2020, with previews starting on 30th October. 283 exhibitors will be taking part, each uploading one single work of art which they are describing as a singular "masterpiece" format. This, we might imagine, will help concentrate buyers minds, as the fair itself is usually the most overwhelming sensory experience (!). The vetting process, one of the foundational elements of the fair, will also all happen online.
Is this a Rubens?
September 23 2020
Picture: Hammersite
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
This drawing made $24,000 yesterday over its $2k - $4k estimate at Hammersite auctions in Tel Aviv yesterday. The auctioneer had catalogued the Woodland Scene as by 'Peter Paul Rubens'.
I'm not sure what the rules are Israel regarding the legalities of catalogue notes, but, in the UK at least if you are auctioning off a work and giving it to an artist in full (no added 'attributed to' or 'Follower of' etc.) then the buyer has the opportunity of legal recourse if it shown to be otherwise. This is why the big auction houses have so many bits of legal text at the back of their printed catalogues.
The auction house had drawn a comparison to this sheet in the Ashomolean Museum in Oxford, which is a recognised work by Rubens. The work also bore provenance linking it to the Estate of Isidor Kaiser, Copenhagen-Hamburg.
As the old saying goes, Caveat emptor.
