Christie's New York Summer Internships 2026
October 24 2025
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Christie's New York are inviting applications for their 2026 Summer Internship programme.
According to the job description:
Next summer, you have the opportunity to join our team in New York as we continue to serve as stewards of fine art and luxury. This paid internship will provide a dynamic environment for you to share your ideas and creativity, foster lasting mentor-mentee relationships, and explore various career paths at a leading auction house.
As a summer intern, you will gain valuable work experience and also enjoy gallery tours, team-building activities, organized events, networking opportunities and much more. Whether you work within our Specialist Departments or operational functions, you will be inspired by a culture that promotes collaboration and excellence at the intersection of art, culture, and commerce.
The internship pays $22 per hour and applications must be in by 31st December 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Upcoming Release: Corpus Rubenianum - Drawings Unrelated to Known Compositions
October 24 2025
Picture: brepols
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The next volume of the Corpus Rubenianum will focus on Drawings Unrelated to Known Compositions. It is due to be released in January 2026.
As the publisher's curious blurb explains:
This volume is an oddity in the Corpus Rubenianum. Rather than being devoted to one particular project, or category of subject, it presents what at first sight might appear a miscellany of drawings. The works discussed here are indeed united only in the circumstance that they have proved difficult to associate directly with any particular painting or project undertaken by Rubens – and, for the most part, they remain so. Many of these ‘unrelated’ sheets have been relegated to the margins of Rubens scholarship as a result of their ambiguous status, whether because of uncertainties regarding their attribution, their subject-matter or their function (or all three).
€50m Courbet shared between Qatar and Paris
October 24 2025
Picture: Musée d’Orsay
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée d’Orsay has displayed Gustave Courbet's Le Désespéré as part of a special sharing agrement between the institution and the Qatar Museums (spotted via @rohangreyfa). The work was last on public display in Paris 17 years ago, and had since been sold by one of the artist's descendants around 10 years ago for a reported €50m as part of a special sharing deal between the museums. The following article suggests the deal was brokered due to the fact the work does not have a French export permit, so the picture will be on a 5-year rotating loan and will head out to Doha in 2030.
Van Dyck Exhibition in Genoa for March 2026
October 24 2025
Picture: Rubenshuis
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Genoa that the Palazzo Ducale Genoa will be hosting a big Van Dyck exhibition in 2026. The show will feature 50 works by the artist, drawing on loans from 32 museums across 22 cities. In particular, the exhibition route will focus on three fundamental stages of his career, those spent in Antwerp, Genoa and London. It will be curated by Anna Orlando and Katlijne Van der Stighelen and will run from 20th March until 19th July 2026.
Courtauld receives £30m from Reuben brothers’ family foundation
October 24 2025
Picture: FT
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News broke last week that the Courtauld Institute in London has received £30m from the Reuben brothers’ family foundation. The article linked above suggests the money will go towards a major redevelopment of the institute's buildings at Somerset House, including a new library and 'display rooms for contemporary art'.
According to Lord Browne of Madingley, chairman of the Courtauld’s board:
“It is enormously significant and the biggest in our history, since Samuel Courtauld’s gift of a building and paintings.” These founded the institute, with its enduring “art for all” mission, in 1932.
Upcoming Release: The Great Exhibition in Art
October 23 2025
Picture: Lund Humphries
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Lund Humphries will be publishing Julius Bryant's new book The Great Exhibition in Art - Picturing the First World's Fair, 1851 on 27th October 2025.
Here's the publisher's blurb:
The Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World's Fair, is generally thought of as a giant trade fair, a showcase for empires and industry. However, it was also conceived to address a deep-rooted problem with British taste, which favoured European art and design over British. Julius Bryant's richly illustrated new book, which draws on the vast visual resources of the V&A's collections, establishes the centrality of works of fine art amongst the objects on show at the Great Exhibition. It also highlights the ways in which contemporary artists were commissioned to depict and record the Exhibition’s building and displays for reproduction in commemorative publications.
Through reproductions of period images from definitive official publications, commercial guides, souvenirs, music scores, poems and satirical periodicals, the book brings to life the 19th-century visitor’s experience of the first World’s Fair.
PAN Amsterdam 2025
October 23 2025
Picture: Pan Amsterdam
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
2025's edition of Pan Amsterdam will be opening in a couple of weeks. As is usual, Old Master Paintings are well represented amongst the various strands of the arts on offer throughout the fair. 125 dealers will be in attendance, covering paintings, antiques, modern and contemporary art, jewellery, photography, design furniture and cultural objects.
Painting on Stone at the Accademia Carrara
October 23 2025
Video: Accademia Carrara
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Accademia Carrara have just opened a new exhibition entitled ARTE E NATURA, a show dedicated to paintings on stone produced during the 16th and 17th centuries.
According to their website:
This innovative and technically demanding practice, unlike traditional canvas painting, gave the illusion of greater resistance to the ravages of time and elements. It positioned itself as a legitimate and compelling language in the age-old rivalry between painting and sculpture.
The exhibition in Bergamo invites visitors to discover this lesser-known chapter in art history, revealing the expressive potential of a medium that, since ancient times, has symbolized moral strength and faith, evoked alchemical allure, embodied metaphors and symbolism, and aspired to eternity.
From Rome to Florence, from Genoa to the Veneto, this technique—once beloved and then gradually abandoned within little more than a century—engaged prominent artists featured in the exhibition, including Paolo Veronese, Jacopo Bassano, Palma il Giovane, Antonio Tempesta, and Salvator Rosa.
The exhibition will run until 6th January 2026.
Miniature Worlds at the Laing Art Gallery
October 23 2025
Video: North East Museum Stories
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Laing Art Gallery have just opened their latest temporary exhibition entitled Miniature Worlds: Little Landscapes from Thomas Bewick to Beatrix Potter.
According to the gallery's website:
Miniature Worlds: Little Landscapes from Thomas Bewick to Beatrix Potter explores the intricate beauty of small-scale landscapes across three centuries of British art. The exhibition has a particular focus on vignette format illustrations and the changing relationship between text, illustration, and publishing.
Highlights of the exhibition include seven highly detailed watercolours by JMW Turner, whose 250th birthday is being celebrated this year, a dramatic and diminutive drawing by John Martin, and nine intricate watercolours by Beatrix Potter. The exhibition includes over 130 objects, 90 of which are loans from other UK collections.
The show will run until 28th February 2026.
Caravaggio's 'Boy with a Basket of Fruit' in NY for January 2026
October 22 2025
Picture: themorgan.org
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from New York that The Morgan Library & Museum will be borrowing Caravaggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit from the Galleria Borghese for a special exhibition opening in January 2026.
According to their website:
This exhibition celebrates the extraordinary loan from the Galleria Borghese in Rome of the painting Boy with a Basket of Fruit, an important early work by Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio (1571–1610). Trained in his native Lombardy, Caravaggio brought to Rome a tradition of naturalism that stretched back to Leonardo da Vinci’s work in Milan. He combined this tradition, however, with a revolutionary approach to painting that shattered the illusion of art and instead celebrated the artifice of the studio. [...]
The installation will also include a selection of works that document the powerful impact Caravaggio had on Roman art. It concludes with Gianlorenzo Bernini’s portrait drawing of Scipione Borghese, the early owner of the Boy with a Basket of Fruit painting and the collector largely responsible for the Galleria Borghese.
The display will run from 16th January until 19th April 2026.
Waterloo Veteran Portrait Reidentified by National Army Museum
October 22 2025
Picture: National Army Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Army Museum in London has shared new research which has revealed the sitter of a previously unidentified portrait relating to the Napoleonic period. The painting, which was acquired by the museum last year for £30,000 (sans attribution and identity), decpits Pte Thomas James a percussionist in the 18th Light Dragoons who was awarded the Waterloo medal.
According to The Guardian article linked above:
He fought in the Napoleonic wars and is one of only nine Black soldiers known to have received the Waterloo Medal, the first British medal awarded to soldiers regardless of their rank.
Yet the story of Pte Thomas James has been overlooked for centuries.
Now the National Army Museum in London has identified James as the likely subject of an “extraordinarily rare” painting from 1821, which it has attributed to the artist Thomas Phillips, whose more typical sitters were Georgian luminaries such as the Duke of Wellington and Lord Byron.
The portrait will be unveiled to the public on Tuesday at the museum’s “Army at Home” gallery in Chelsea, where it will be placed on permanent display to highlight the service of James and other Black soldiers during the Napoleonic wars.
Rosso and Primaticcio at Fontainebleau
October 22 2025
Picture: Beaux-Arts de Paris
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Cabinet d'arts graphiques at the Beaux-Arts de Paris opened a new exhibition of drawings and prints yesterday dedicated to the work of Rosso Fiorentino and Primaticcio at Fontainebleau.
According to the exhibition's blurb:
Through a selection of some 50 works, this exhibition highlights the exceptional collection of drawings and prints by École de Fontainebleau held by Beaux-Arts de Paris. It provides an opportunity to (re)discover the art of maniera that developed at the Château de Fontainebleau and then spread to France under the impetus of Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primatice, two Italian artists in the service of Francis I and then Henry II.
The works on display evoke the genesis of the château's painted and sculpted decorations, from the Galerie François I to the Galerie d'Ulysse, and are complemented by etchings produced at Fontainebleau in the 1540's. This innovative corpus, the result of an unprecedented project in France, raises numerous questions, notably concerning the distribution of models, material organization, formal research and the technical trials and tribulations of the artists.
The show will run until 1st February 2026.
Call for Special Issue Proposals for British Art Studies
October 22 2025
Picture: Paul Mellon Centre
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Paul Mellon Centre have issued a call for Special Issue Proposals for their British Art Studies online journal.
According to their Facebook post:
Do you have an idea for a special issue of British Art Studies?
British Art Studies invites proposals for themed special issues to be published in 2027 and 2028. We’re looking for projects that address major topics in the study of British art – ones that rethink familiar narratives, explore under-researched subjects, or test the boundaries of what ‘British’ art might mean.
Each special issue is developed collaboratively with the British Art Studies editorial team, and contributing editors receive a fee of £1,000 on publication.
The deadline for proposals is 1st December 2025.
Burgundians in Limburg
October 21 2025
Picture: Limburgs Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Limburgs Museum in the Netherlands opened a new exhibition earlier this month dedicated to the Burgundians.
According to their website:
The people of Limburg are known as ‘true Burgundians’. We think of ourselves as loving fine dining, socialising, and large, lengthy celebrations. But how Burgundian is that really? Who were the Burgundians, who ruled over what we now call Limburg in the 15th century?
The unique exhibition Burgundians in Limburg allows you to take a step into the past. Let the distinctive music, beautiful objects and intriguing stories immerse you in the late Middle Ages. The exhibition focuses on three generations of Burgundians: the illustrious leaders Philip the Good, Charles the Bold and Mary the Rich.
The show will run until 1st February 2026.
Art History Teaching
October 21 2025
Picture: The Spectator
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm slow to the following opinion piece by the art historian Richard Morris published in The Spectator last week. It concerns the teaching of Art History in British universities and the balance of looking (ie connoisseurship) vs. theory. Richard has published the full text on his account on 'X', in case you're not a subscriber.
__________
I hope readers don't mind me providing a small plug for the Master's Degree in Fine, Decorative Art and Design course I lecture on for the Sotheby's Institute in London. It remains one of only courses which teaches the practical skills required of a picture specialist. The skills you'll learn there are the same you'll need to catalogue pictures in the art trade, which all begin with looking and understanding these complex artworks. I had the great pleasure of organising the course's Old Master and British Paintings for the 'auction house project' there last year, which I dedicated lots of time to gathering pictures from old auction catalogues which aren't discoverable via Google images (much harder than it sounds - as it happens). I was gladdened to see how many students relished the task of, let's say, looking through hundreds & thousands of Flemish / Dutch landscapes on the RKD to pin point the attribution of their pictures. Surfing through such resources is never a waste of time (if you're looking properly), and really is one of the best ways to get to grips with an artist or specific genre.
NGV return Ter Borch to Bromberg Heirs
October 21 2025
Picture: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Australia that the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) have returned a portrait by Ter Borch to the heirs of the Bromberg family. The story linked above surrounds the painting's history and earlier claims from both the Bromberg and Emden heirs, who historically orchestrated sales of their collections of paintings during WWII to help flee Nazi persecution. Comment is also made on the nature of the museum's 'brief' announcement of the return.
Recent Release: Painter to the Queen - Michel Sittow, Courtier to Isabella of Castile and the Habsburg Dynasty
October 21 2025
Picture: brepols
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The publishers Brepols have recently released the following title Painter to the Queen - Michel Sittow, Courtier to Isabella of Castile and the Habsburg Dynasty. The volume was penned by Oskar Jacek Rojewski.
According to the blurb:
Michel Sittow was born in Reval c. 1469, today the Estonian capital city of Tallinn. Possibly trained in the workshop of Hans Memling in Bruges, he subsequently moved to work in the Iberian Peninsula, where he first held the position of court painter. This monograph undertakes research on this phase of his career. In the Kingdom of Castille, Michel Sittow was appointed painter to Queen Isabella and became a member of her household with an impressive annual salary. Thanks to the analysis of archival documents and formal and iconographical studies on Sittow’s paintings, it is possible to explain the court painter’s life circumstances and describe the benefits he enjoyed and the difficulties he faced. The Castilian period was crucial for Michel Sittow’s career since over the course of his professional life, he also resided at the courts of Philip the Fair, Margaret of Austria, Christian II of Denmark and Charles V, all relatives of his first royal patron. While serving European monarchs, he transferred Memling’s techniques and visual language beyond the Low Countries and developed his artistic practice and style. The analysis of the various contexts Michel Sittow worked in sheds light on his oeuvre and his possible privileged status as a courtier, which provided opportunities to establish a flourishing and ambitious career in northern and southern Europe.
Parmigianino Self Portrait (?) Debate in Parma
October 21 2025
Picture: Galleria nazionale di Parma
Posted by Adam Busiakeiwicz:
The Galleria nazionale di Parma have just opened a display dedicated to investigating the attribution of the following painting, which during the 19th and early 20th centuries was considered by some to be a Self Portrait by Parmigianino. The work, which has been kept in storage for many years, has been placed alongside a fragment of St John the Baptist by Michelangelo Anselmi (1491-1556), to whom some scholars have also attributed the work. The display will be on view until 11th January 2026, if you'd like to make your own decision on the attribution!
Adam de Coster Reattributed
October 20 2025
Picture: Prado
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Spain that the ARS Magazine have published an article concerning the reattribution of the following Card Players in the Prado to the Flemish artist Adam de Coster. Written by Anne Delvingt, the museum had historically attributed the work to Gerrit Honthorst in the past.
Louvre Jewels Stolen
October 20 2025
Video: BBC
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Very concerning news broke yesterday morning regarding some jewels that were stolen from the Louvre in Paris. It seems the thieves managed to access galleries via a mechanical lift and balcony. No one was hurt and the thieves have been described as 'very professional'. Fingers crossed they'll be tracked down.
