Where is Holbein Buried?
July 20 2020
Picture: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Guardian's art critic Jonathan Jones published a piece over the weekend regarding his search for Holbein's bones. As readers will know, Holbein is said to have died of the plague in 1543. He was working for the court of Henry VIII at the time and lived in London. His body is said to have been laid to rest in common burial pits, the exact same fate of Mozart's earthly remains hundreds of years later.
Bulletin of Royal Museums Belgium Online
July 17 2020
Picture: Bulletin of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Good news that past editions of the Bulletin of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium have been published online and are free to access. Editions available run from 1928-1929, 1938-1943/44, 1952-1994/95, 2010. This publication represents a wealth of scholarship relating to Flemish Art as well as many other subjects.
Belarus Authorities Seize Bank's Art Collection
July 17 2020
Picture: BelarusFeed
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
My attention has been drawn to a story that unfolded in Belarus last month and went unnoticed by most of the art press here. In June the authorities of Belarus seized $20 million worth of art collected by the Belgazprom Bank. It is claimed that this action was due to alleged criminal activities undertaken by the organisation. Among the 150 works seized are paintings by Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine (pictured) and Ossip Zadkine. The majority had been on loan to Galereya Art Belarus in Minsk.
The seizure has also led to many amusing photoshop edits on social media featuring Soutine's Eva by artists and cultural directors in the country.
Museums Revenue Drop Bigger Than Reported
July 17 2020
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Martin Bailey for the Art Newspaper reported yesterday that the Creative Industries Federation have admitted to underestimating the drop in revenue faced by museums in the UK. They had initially reported that museums faced a 9% drop in revenue (down c.£743m) for 2020. However, their recently revised figures show a drop of around 45% (down c.£3,887m). This is compared with figures from 2019 where the total revenue of museums, galleries and libraries was £8,559m. The job losses in the sector was also revised from 4,000 to 7,000.
This all makes for very grim reading. One hopes that the large London museums will be able to weather the storm. The situation for the regional museums looks more precarious. The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery's public appeal has raised just shy of £20,000 thus far, which is encouraging.
Prussian Museums Shake-Up
July 16 2020
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Press reports are suggesting that the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is due to be broken up. This comes after criticisms from its own leaders that the organisation is too large and tied up in bureaucracy. The foundation includes 27 organisations includes Berlin's Altes Museum, Neues Musuem, Gemäldegalerie and State Libraries. It seems that proposals include keeping the major art museums together in a separate foundation.
As the above article explains:
A government-commissioned report by a panel of academic advisors published on 13 July found that the foundation, with 2,000 employees, is “structurally overwhelmed” with “a multi-layered hierarchy and unclear decision-making procedures that mask responsibilities and make processes drawn-out and opaque.”
The report in the Art Newspaper also explains that Berlin's State museums brought in a mere 4 million visitors in 2019, which is far less than the numbers visiting comparative institutions in London, Paris and New York.
Astronomers Time & Date Vermeer's Delft
July 16 2020
Picture: IFLScience
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Astronomers from Texas State University are claiming to have solved one of "the burning questions in the arts scene". Professor Donald Olson and his team have been studying the light and shadows in Vermeer's View of Delft in the Mauritshuis to try and work out exactly when it was painted. Art historians have failed to agree on these questions.
As the article explains:
"The students and I worked for about a year on this project,” Olson said in a statement. “We spent a lot of time studying the topography of the town, using maps from the 17th and 19th centuries and Google Earth.”
Central to the evidence was the light and shadow falling on the tower of Delft's Nieuwe Kerk. This narrowed down the time frame to two frames of time in either April or September.
But as they finally concluded:
As with all good detective stories, there was one last obscure piece to this puzzle – the leafy trees. In Delft’s northern climate, the trees lay bare until the end of April, ruling out the spring date. Ultimately this closed the case – Vermeer’s View of Delft was likely inspired by the scene observed on or near September 3, 1659 (or an earlier year) at 8am local mean time.
This is all interesting stuff. But, should and can paintings be interpreted as photographs are?
Spanish Tax Authority to Auction off Murillo
July 16 2020
Picture: Arsmagazine
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Spanish Tax authorities will be auctioning off an Ecce Homo by Murillo from 20 July 2020. It seems that this is the procedure taken by authorities there when art is accepted in lieu of tax.
The painting, which relates to another composition in the collection of the Dukes of Villahermosa, has a starting price of €900,000. ARS Magazine also claim that the work has been authenticated by Murillo scholar Enrique Valdivieso.
Poetry in Lockdown - Wright of Derby
July 15 2020
Picture: Derby Museum and Art Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Derby Museum and Art Gallery reopened to the public last week. To mark this occasion, they have recently posted a new poem by the poet John Birtwhistle (b.1946) inspired by Joseph Wright of Derby's portrait of his friend the clockmaker and scientist John Whitehurst (pictured).
I am by no means any knowledgeable critic of poetry, but Birtwhistle's lines make some genuinely lovely observations. It reminds me a little of what the likes of William Lisle Bowles (d.1850) wrote about the paintings he saw in the 1807 RA exhibition by the likes of Turner, West, Hoppner, Wilkie etc.
One stanza reads:
It is a painting about the moment
of thought, about art, about science,
and it paints about friendship.
It is a painting about the stubborn
intensity of loving attention
that may elicit concept from dark.
Follow this link to listen to Birtwhistle reading the poem himself.
Royal Collection Conserves Ostade
July 15 2020
When preparing works of art for an exhibition, conservators painstakingly clean and repair paintings, and sometimes they...
Posted by Royal Collection Trust on Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Video: The Royal Collection Trust
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Royal Collection have uploaded this video regarding the recent conservation of a painting by Isaac van Ostade (1621-1649). The cleaning revealed that a figure of a boy, loosening his bowels, was painted out of the scene at some point during the nineteenth century. As the video points out, the lost figure has now been reinstated into the scene.
Burlington Magazine - Current Issue
July 15 2020
Picture: The Burlington Magazine
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A small reminder that the current July 2020 issue of the Burlington Magazine is free to read via. their website. Included within the issue is an interesting article on the reidentification of the 3rd Earl of Bute's Finding of Moses by Tiepolo (pictured). The picture, now in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, had actually been acquired as a Veronese by the gallery in the 1950s. The composition relates to a late sixteenth century Benedetto Caliari of the same subject now in a private collection.
Amorous Couple back in Ukraine
July 15 2020
Picture: Wikipedia Commons
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A painting of An Amorous Couple by the French artist Pierre Louis Goudreaux (1694-1731) has been returned to the Ukraine. The picture, which had once been in the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of the Arts, was looted by the Nazis in 1943. The painting resurfaced in the USA during the 1990s, and had been put up for sale at Doyle's Auction House in 2013 where the picture was withdrawn on request from the Ukrainian authorities.
Here is a photograph of the painting hanging in the museum before the war.
The restitution was given the go-ahead at the beginning of this year, but has only now been completed.
Master Drawings Journal - Free Access
July 14 2020
Picture: Master Drawings
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Master Drawings Journal, published by the Master Drawings Association, have made their recent issues free to read online. You'll be able to access interesting articles on the likes of the 'Drawings of Interiors by Thomas Wijck'; 'The Zuccaro Brothers and the Colorito vs. Disegno Debate'; 'Paolo Veronese's Portrait Drawing of Fra' Damiano Grana' and 'Paul Sandby Copying Gainsborough: Sharing, Sociability, and Self-fashioning' (pictured).
Sotheby's Old Masters Sale
July 14 2020
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Sotheby's Old Master Paintings sale has been published. Bidding will take place online between 20th - 29th July 2020.
Top lots include a Pieta by Luis Morales estimated at £150k - £250k; a Saint Christopher by Cranach and workshop estimated at £60k - £80k; a Saint Philip by Van Dyck estimated at £120k - £180k; a curious French 1640s interior with artists estimated at £40k - £60k; a fine Reynolds of Lady Anne Dawson at £60k - £80k; a view of Vienna by Bellotto from the Emden collection estimated at £150k - £250k; and a Zuccarelli of the Thames from Richmond at £80k - £120k.
This Judgement of Paris by the Workshop of Rubens caused a stir last year when it made $45,000 over $2,000 - $5,000 last year in New York (where described as 'After Rubens'). Despite the work's extensive provenance having now come to light, the painting will be offered for £15k - £20k.
The high estimate lots will appear in the special 'Evening Sale' on 28th July.
Provenance Research Controversy at the Leopold Museum
July 13 2020
Picture: Der Standard
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Some controversy has been brewing in the Austrian Press concerning provenance research in Vienna's Leopold Museum. The museum, which contains significant works by the likes of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, has so far not been able to establish the provenance of just over 90% of its collection. The museum has been subject to protests in the past regarding artworks with murky WWII histories and controversies in restitution (the above picture dates to 2008).
The complicated legal position of the museum's collection, which was established as a semi-private foundation with 5,266 works and a fortune from Rudolf Leopold, means that it has straddled both the public and private spheres. The museum is due to tender a new contract for an inhouse provenance researcher who will now report directly to a Federal Commission and its advisory board.
Frans Hals at Sotheby's
July 13 2020
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's a short blog Sotheby's have posted regarding the recently re-emerged portrait by Frans Hals that they will be offering for sale this month. The piece, penned by Old Master Paintings board director and co-Chairman George Gordon, gives a very interesting account and history of previous scholarly opinions. The Frans Hals scholar Seymour Slive (d.2014), whose catalogue raisonné remains the definitive text on the artist, had thought the portrait to be a studio piece rather than by Hals himself. Slive only had access to low-quality black and white photographs showing painting before recent restoration had removed the obscuring dirt and discoloured varnish. The painting's authorship to Hals has now been accepted by scholars Claus Grimm, Norbert Middelkoop and Pieter Biesboer.
The portrait will be offered for sale on 28th July 2020 with an estimate of £2m - £3m.
The Rijksmuseum Loves Vermeer
July 10 2020
Video: Rijksmuseum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has produced this short video explaining why they love Vermeer. It features the museums Head of Paintings and Sculpture, Pieter Roelofs, and some questionable music.
National Gallery Acquires Pissarro
July 10 2020
Picture: The National Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London has acquired a painting by Camille Pissarro as part of the acceptance in lieu scheme.
Dated 1887, the bucolic Late afternoon in our meadow was owned by Bronwen Astor (d. 2017) who inherited it from her husband William Waldorf 3rd Viscount Astor. 'Bill' Astor was most famously known for being tangled up in the Profumo affair of the 1960s. The painting settles £1.1m of tax.
Restitution Cases in the Press
July 10 2020
Picture: The Art Newspaper
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
There have been a few stories in the press recently about paintings with murky WWII histories.
Firstly, the above La Palais Ducale by Monet valued at $30m was prevented from going into auction at Christie's last November due to legal wrangling in the courts.
The painting's current owners, heirs of sewing machine business owners Herbert and Adele Klapper, have been prevented from selling the work due to doubts cast over its Nazi-era sales history by the grandsons of the German-Jewish department store magnate and art collector Max Emden (1874-1940). The Klapper heirs are currently suing the Emden estate in an attempt to clear its title to the painting so that it can be sold. The case has been adjourned until September due to the coronavirus.
Secondly, Sotheby's is to offer a Bernardo Bellotto landscape of Dresden which was recently restituted to the estate of the same Max Emden above. The painting was sold by Emden in 1937 in an attempt stave off insolvency after his businesses were seized by the Nazis in the previous years. This painting entered the German federal collection in the 1960s and had been hanging in the residence of the German Presidency until 2005.
The painting will feature in the Sotheby's July Old Master Paintings sale and carries an estimate of £150,000 - £200,000.
'Lost' Emma Hamilton Portrait Uncovered by Antique Dealer
July 9 2020
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Times has reported on news that a lost portrait of Emma Hamilton as Ariadne by Richard Westall (1765-1836) has been discovered by a Lymington Antique Dealer. The picture was brought to dealer Charles Wallrock* by 'an elderly lady who had owned it for years' who had no idea of the painting's significance or value. Wallrock managed through research to piece together the painting's history and authorship. It is one of four studies Westall made of Emma Hamilton in various guises.
The painting is up for sale via. Masterpiece Online for £85,500.
* - The above photo shows Wallrock in the customary 'white glove' pose which is so often preferred by the media.
BMAG Needs Help
July 9 2020
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Trust (BMAG) is the latest cultural institution in the UK to make a public appeal for their survival.
This comes as the museum shared news that they were unsuccessful in their application to the Arts Council England (ACE) Emergency Response Fund. Here is an online report by the ACE explaining where £64.8m worth of recent grants were awarded to.
As the museum explains in their post above:
There is no doubt that this is a very challenging time for Birmingham Museums Trust, as it is for many cultural organisations. The impact of closing our doors and the decreased footfall expected over the coming months ahead leaves us in a very difficult position. Our priority must be to secure the long-term financial sustainability of the Trust so we can be there for our audiences for many years to come, but we will need support to do this.
AHN posted news a few months ago that the trust is also looking for a new CEO whose job it will be to secure the future of this institution. One hopes that the principle gallery in Britain's second largest city, with such a rich collection of art, will be able to turn their fortunes around.
In the meantime, here is a link to BMAG's Just Giving Page where donations are welcomed.
