Sainsbury Wing

Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance, 19 February – 11 May 2014

Colour, 18 June – 7 September 2014

Rembrandt: The Final Years, 15 October 2014 - 18 January 2015

Sunley Room

Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting, 30 April – 21 September 2014

Rooms 4-8 and 11-12

Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice 19 March – 15 June 2014

'Rembrandt: The Final Years' is organised by the National Gallery in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. It is the first ever in-depth, focused exploration of Rembrandt’s late works across all media.

The exhibition will bring together approximately 40 paintings, 20 drawings and 30 prints by the master, to offer visitors a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the passion and innovation of Rembrandt’s late works.

Far from diminishing as he aged, his creativity gathered new energy in the final years of his life: from the 1650s until his death in 1669 he consciously searched for a new style that was more expressive and more meaningful. He freely manipulated printing and painting techniques in order to give traditional subjects new and original interpretations – endowing his work with rare profundity that has influenced countless printmakers, painters and draftsmen in the generations that followed. The exhibition will highlight the formal and iconographic concerns that occupied Rembrandt during these years, and inspired unprecedented creativity. Soulful, honest and deeply moving, in many ways it is the art of these late years that indelibly defines our image of Rembrandt the man and the artist.

The exhibition will include key works lent by European and American museums (including the National Gallery of Art, Washington and the Mauritshuis, The Hague).

The exhibition will run in London from 15 October 2014 to 18 January 2015 and in Amsterdam from 12 February to 17 May 2015.

Paolo Veronese (Verona, 1528 – Venice, 1588), is one of the most important painters of the Venetian Renaissance. His paintings are magnificent visions of the opulence and spectacle of 16th-century Venetian life. He created works ranging from complex fresco decorations of villas and palaces to large-scale altarpieces, smaller devotional paintings, mythological, allegorical and historical pictures, and portraits.

The National Gallery owns 10 paintings by Veronese, from a wide range of periods in the artist’s career, and including masterpieces such as the 'Family of Darius before Alexander' and the four 'Allegories of Love'.

This exhibition, the first monographic show on the artist ever held in the United Kingdom, will put these important works in context by displaying them next to other major paintings by the artist, lent by European and American museums (Musée du Louvre, Museo Nacional del Prado, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Chrysler Museum of Art, The State Art Museum of Florida). Visitors will be able to enjoy the monumental nature of these works as they are being displayed in the heart of the National Gallery.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Veronese’s paintings were avidly bought by collectors and eagerly studied by artists. Carracci, Rubens, Tiepolo and Watteau are among the many artists who are heavily indebted to Veronese’s art.

New research on Veronese’s works is being carried out especially for the exhibition, and the catalogue is intended to become the key and most up-to-date publication in English on the artist.

This exhibition will provide a unique opportunity to admire about 45 key works by one of the most significant, influential and beautiful painters of the Italian Renaissance.

[...] it was at Sotheby’s that the full strength of Russian bidding came into play, accounting for 30 per cent of lots in the main evening sale. Among these was the top lot, a vividly Expressionist St Dominic in Prayer by El Greco, which sold for a record £9.2 million. The same Russian bidder also claimed a crucifixion scene by El Greco for £3.4 million. Although Sotheby’s did not identify exactly which lots were bought by Russians, it would seem that the list was fairly eclectic and would include a 15th-century Madonna and Child by Francesco Botticini, two paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder, and an 18th-century Venetian canal scene by Marieschi. The number of Russian-speaking telephone bidders was also overwhelming – so much so that the auctioneer, Henry Wyndham, christened one Olga, which was not her real name.

Sotheby’s co-chairman of Old Masters, Alex Bell, said afterwards that he thought the market had entered a new phase with this sale. Doing their homework over the weekend, Sotheby’s now estimates that in the past month, during which time they have taken nearly 290 million pounds in London, bidders from 75 different countries have registered with them. One in 6 were from Asia, Russia or the Middle East, and a similar percentage were bidding at Sotheby’s for the first time.

Formerly in the collection of Isabella Farnese, this work has been on deposit since 1940 at the Casa-Museo Colón in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. That loan agreement was cancelled last year in order for the work to be studied and restored.

Saint Jerome writing was in the Casa-Museo Colón in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with an attribution to the Valencian painter Esteban March. The expert on Caravaggism, Gianni Papi, has, however, recently identified and published it as an early work by José de Ribera, basing his attribution on the work’s close stylistic and compositional similarities with various works painted by Ribera around 1615, including some of the paintings in his series on “The Senses”. The present painting shares their descriptive preciseness and markedly tenebrist use of light, the origins of which lie in Ribera’s highly personal interpretation of Caravaggio’s models. In the light of the painting’s importance, it has been brought to the Prado for restoration and display in the galleries devoted to naturalism and Ribera. To replace the painting, the Casa-Museo Colón has received the long-term deposit of Saint Andrew, also by Ribera. From the viewpoint of the Prado’s collections, this is an important addition, given that together with his painting of The Raising of Lazarus, it will allow the public to gain an idea of the originality and high quality of Ribera’s work during his early years, which is a unique period in his career and one not represented in the Prado’s collection until around twelve years ago.

The painting arrived at the Museum with problems around its edges due to damp and an old attack of woodworm. The pictorial surface was generally well preserved but had an abnormal appearance due to the oxidization of the varnishes, surface irregularities caused by an old lining and an earlier selective cleaning that had concentrated on some zones to the detriment of others. During the restoration process the edges have been consolidated and straightened, dirt and oxidized varnishes have been removed, some small losses have been replaced and the painting has been cleaned. The result is the recovery of numerous spatial planes and as a consequence, a sense of volume in the saint’s figure.

he worked at the museum from 2007 to 2011, mostly supervising cashiers. They were instructed to never volunteer that visitors may pay less than the “recommended” fee, he said.

“Cashiers are not only trained to avoid disclosing the truth about the museum’s admission prices; their compensation and their continued employment may largely depend on them not revealing it,” Jones said in court papers.

Harold Holzer, the Met senior vice president for public affairs, described Jones as “one of many floor managers” and said Jones’ description of his job is “glib spin on his experience here.”

The museum tracks what cashiers collect because auditors require it, Holzer said in an interview.

“It has nothing to do with performance evaluation or salary,” Holzer said. “We at the museum contest in the strongest terms the allegations in the Gerald Jones affidavit. The Met will offer its responses in due course.”

[...] the whole exhibition is a pretence, even a cheat, and certainly a snare, for it is essentially about the representation of music in 17th-century Holland rather than about Vermeer, whose contribution is only one sixth of the paintings, and of the other 20, 19 are from the gallery’s permanent collection. For the 10 weeks of the exhibition’s duration the visitor must pay £7 for admission to 21 paintings that before and after it he could see for nothing. These few are supported by three borrowed pictures that could have reached Trafalgar Square by bus, the irksome little dud from New York, only seven instruments and a handful of song books.

This is an exhibition that has had far weightier publicity than it can stand, seducing the innocent and gullible, and those who come hot foot in expectation of a Vermeer show will be crushingly disappointed — it must, indeed, be more rewarding for the historian of keyboard and stringed instruments, and perhaps for the historian of costume. Only by chance does it raise a point of Vermeer scholarship: according to the inventory of Vermeer’s household possessions made, room by room, 10 weeks after his death, he owned not one single musical instrument of any kind; in whose lofty rooms, then, were the expensive virginals on which his egg-faced women played with their pig’s trotter hands (those of the standing player I saw repainted by Helmuth Ruhemann, the gallery’s conservator, 60 years ago)? Is it possible that these rooms are invented? Alternatively, is it possible that they are more or less real and that these excessively plain women are portraits of the wives or daughters of the house? Were such instruments ever in Vermeer’s possession? Had he sold them to pay the butcher’s bill? Was he so passionate an amateur musician that, deprived of them, he fell into the mortal frenzy of his wife’s account?

The National Gallery has, as it were, done nothing but rearrange its deckchairs so that we can see the band. Two Caravaggiesque paintings by Ter Brugghen set the scene before Vermeer’s birth — raw-faced Dutchmen in the togs of the Italian bravo. From the warped View of Delft by Carel Fabritius (proposed by some to have been Vermeer’s instructor) we may conclude that instruments were, like fish and vegetables, sold from stalls in the street. A handful of Vermeerish subjects by his contemporaries Dou, De Hooch, Metsu and Jan Steen (whose Music Makers on a Terrace — possibly based on a performance by travelling players — seems in its sweet melancholy to anticipate Watteau’s Fêtes Galantes), and another handful of musical merrymakers in paintings so trifling that they should be banished to the basement, make up the number.

Brian Sewell points out there were not many Vermeers on view  in the 'Vermeer in Music' exhibition, but this did make me look at those few in more detail than usual.

I was fascinated to notice for the first time that the strings of the guitar under the player's right hand  in 'The Guitar Player' 1670-72 (The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood) which you illustrate, are shown in motion- actually blurred. Whereas the further up on the neck, they are clearly defined as lines. Of course Velasquez had already done something similar with the blurred wheel in 'The spinners' 1644-48 (Prado). 

Part of the 'timeless' feel of the best Vermeers must come from his habit  of depicting  actions taking place over time; the playing of musical instruments, the stream of milk that pours for ever without the bowl overflowing,  in 'The milkmaid' (Rijksmuseum), the painter with his model.

A close study of  'The guitar player' also reveals the extreme economy of Vermeer's technique of representing light falling on a variety of surfaces, leaving the spectator unconsciously to supply the missing details. For example, the string pegs on the guitar are shown just as two rows of black and white dots, and the pearl necklace is painted as pale circular tube with highlights at intervals. All the details of the hands, face and cloth are shown as flat areas of colour, blending into adjacent planes, creating an illusion of reality and microsopic detail which isn't actually there; all held together by superb drawing and a flawless composition.

One can argue that this all comes from observing the scene depicted  via the use of a lens, a prism or a camera obscura, but that is to miss the point. Vermeer used whatever means were necessary to seduce us into his quiet, contemplative world, and he succeeds every time.

The programme, which involves commemorative signs being attached to the former homes of celebrated personalities from the past, has been drastically scaled back by the English Heritage, which has seen a reduction in Government funding. The numbers of plaques being awarded has been reduced and nominations for new ones suspended entirely.

The three resignations - including by the chairman and vice chairman - mean the panel has lost more than a quarter of its membership. Some of the remaining eight members are also said to be considering their position over the changes, and the body itself is now facing an uncertain future.

An unprecedented level of participation from new markets propelled Sotheby’s London Evening Sale of Old Master & British Paintings to £35,048,000. Collectors from 33 countries took part in the sale with record numbers from Asia and the Middle East. More than 400 years since El Greco executed Saint Dominic in Prayer in early 17th-century Toledo, bidders from new markets battled tenaciously for this powerfully expressive work which was appearing at auction for the first time. They drove the price to £9,154,500 (est. £3-5million), a new record for a Spanish Old Master and the highest price across London’s Old Masters sales this week.

In total, 8 auction records tumbled tonight, including that for Claude-Joseph Vernet, whose outstanding View of Avignon from the right bank of the Rhône outstripped pre-sale expectations to realise £5,346,500 (est. £3-5million). A new auction record for a female Old Master artist was also established when Rachel Ruysch’s Still Life of Roses from 1710 achieved £1,650,000 (est. £1-1.5million).

Last night’s sale of Old Master & British Paintings was led by Canaletto’s The Molo, Venice, from the Bacino di San Marco, doubling its presale estimate to realise £8,461,875 / $12,870,512 / €9,841,161.

The sale saw strong prices for paintings from all schools, particularly Italian, Flemish and British, while six new artist world records were achieved.

With participation from Asia, the Middle East, South America and Russia as well as Europe and North America, the sale total of £23,852,300 / $36,279,348 / €27,740,225 reflects the continued global interest in Old Master Paintings.

I am happy to see that the buyers kept their paddles down so you wont have to eat your trousers...

Obviously that is the way we are heading at the moment after the two protests on paintings.

It is possible to prosecute someone for a ‘heritage crime’, which can be interpreted as any offence which harms the value of heritage assets and their settings.

The idea was pioneered by English Heritage who set up “The Alliance to Reduce Crime against Heritage” (ARCH) in response to the metal theft crisis.

Essentially it allows the crime to be properly recorded, and for sentencing to be more severe. More info here.

I think you must recognise a great difference between suffragettes slashing the Rokeby Venus [Fathers4Justice claim, strangely, that their protests are akin to the suffragettes attacks on art in the early 20thC], and a disposessed father sticking  a photograph to a Constable, an act which apparently resulted in no lasting damage, criminal or otherwise. The great worry is that the warders at the National Gallery are not sufficiently numerous or alert to prevent an attack on a painting in their care. If they were, it would be impossible to touch the pictures, even to write in the dust.