Crowd sourcing the National Trust's collection
January 4 2012
Picture: National Trust
Following my post on the new National Trust online database, the NT's registrar and blogger-in-chief, Emile de Bruijn, has written a piece for the NT's own excellent blog, and points out the great potential of the web when it comes to identifying lost paintings:
Paintings expert Bendor Grosvenor has been perusing our new online National Trust Collections database (which I first posted about here), testing his eye on various ‘school of’ and ‘attributed to’ portraits. He has reported his hunches on his Art History News blog.
For instance, he thinks that this portrait of a lady at Petworth [above], attributed to Van Dyck, really is by the artist himself, done in the mid 1620s in Italy.
This kind of response is really encouraging. It means people are now starting to use the National Trust Collections site for research and comparison. The site itself (and the National Trust’s curatorial records) will also benefit from these responses, as more information comes to light and opinions are exchanged.
Once again we see the potential of crowd sourcing – which, in the slightly rarified area of old master paintings expertise, should perhaps be called in-crowd sourcing (but an in-crowd accessible to all).
Emile has also kindly sent me a higher-res image of the portrait above; it certainly does seem like an Italian-period Van Dyck to me, albeit one that appears to have suffered a degree of damage. Now I just need to wait till Petworth reopens to go and see it 'in the flesh'...
The wrong 'Bloody Mary'
January 4 2012
Picture: Chile Foundry
Jane Austen?
January 4 2012
Picture: Guardian/Dr Paula Byrne
A number of readers have asked what I thought of the 'Jane Austen' drawing which featured in a BBC2 programme on boxing day. It was an intriguing bit of telly. But I wasn't wholly convinced by the claims made for the drawing being Jane the novelist. Here's why;
- There is no evidence for the sitter being Jane outside the drawing itself. That is, there are no documentary references to it, and no enticing hints of provenance.
- We have no idea who made the drawing, and thus whether they can be connected to Jane.
- The main clue in the drawing, the very obviously placed background showing Westminster Abbey and St Margaret's, Westminster, bears no relation to anything in Jane's life. [update, new evidence means this is incorrect, see above post]
- The clothing argument, that a dress worn by Jane revealed similar dimensions to the sitter, is flawed. The early provenance of the dress used in the programme is far from certain - it may well not be Jane's. Here's the early history of the dress from Hampshire County Council's website:
The pelisse was given to Hampshire Museums Service in 1993. The donors' great, great, great grandfather was Jane Austen's elder brother James (1765-1819), who got it from their grandmother, who had received it from Eleanor Steele (nee Glubbe, b1857). She had visited the Knight family as a young lady of eighteen, and was given the dress by Miss Marianne Knight, sister of Captain John Knight, around 1875. At the age of seventy three she eventually felt that the pelisse should return to the Austen family, and sent it to James's great granddaughter Mrs Winifred Jenkyns. Her note accompanying the parcel reads: "I missed the little coat for a long time but lately it turned up. I cannot remember if it was 'Jane's' but it seems probable"
- The 'isn't her nose similar to her those of her brothers' argument doesn't hold water, sadly. One cannot rely on those kind of claims when identifying sitters in portraits, especially when comparing a rubbed drawing by an amateur. The sequence in the programme where a modern forensic expert was used to give his view on the sitter in the drawing was a touch misleading. If only it really was that easy to identify sitters. Furthermore, the programme didn't deal convincingly with the written description from Jane's nephew that her nose was 'small' - the nose in the drawing is enormous - and nor did the programme touch on the possible Jane Austen silhouette, also in the NPG, which, if genuine, would be our best guide to Jane's nose. The programme omitted to discuss the nose of Jane's sister, Cassandra, which apears beautifully rendered in a silhouette, and is not like the large thing seen in the drawing of 'Jane'.
- The 'the cat denotes spinsterhood' argument. Well, perhaps. But a pet in a portrait could mean just about anything, if you want it to. And would an amateur artist be familiar with the cat-as-indicator-of-spinsterhood tradition, if it existed? And would Jane herself want to be defined as a spinster, even in her thirties? Incidentally, the sitter was wearing a lot of jewellery; there are lines of pearls in the cap, apparently three necklaces, a brooch at her waist, and a number of rings - all of which may not accord well with our idea of a relatively poor spinster up from the country.
- The best evidence for the drawing remains the 'Miss Jane Austin' inscription on the back. I thought the programme dealt well with the Austen/Austin argument. But I would liked to have seen some more rigorous analysis of the inscription; what type of script was it, and when was it added? If, for example, the word 'Miss' had been spelt with an old-fashioned long first 's' (which looked like an 'f', so 'Mifs'), as Jane herself used, then that would have suggested the inscription was more likely to be nice and early. I know the long 's' was falling out of use in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but it still would have been good to have some discussion on the handwriting used in the inscription, which to my unexpert eye looked later than the drawing.
- Finally, no effort was made to preclude any other 'Jane Austins' out there. I know this is a tangential argument, but a quick look through Family Search highlights what a common name 'Jane Austin' was in early 18thC England (and I presume still is!). It seems there are even some 'Jane Austins' who got married in Westminster at about the time the drawing could have been made.
So, on balance, the evidence for the identification of this anonymous and not particularly good drawing seems to me to be a little thin. I note that the National Portrait Gallery curators were conspicuous by their absence. But we certainly can't rule it out - and hopefully more research and analysis will help us to solve the mystery. In the meantime, I'll stick with Cassandra Austen's undisputed drawing of Jane.
Second time lucky for another Bolton deaccession
January 4 2012
Picture: Bonhams
Last year, Bolton Council decided to fund the construction of a new art storage facility by selling 36 paintings from Bolton Museum's collection. The pictures included works by Millais, Romney, Burne-Jones and Sickert. They hoped to raise £500,000, but have fallen short with £395,816, according to This is Lancashire.
Regular readers will know that many of the works have sold below their lower estimate, and some have failed to sell at all. The latest casualty is Charles Napier Hemy's The Riverside, which failed at £30-£50,000 at Bonhams in September. It will now appear again in January at £20-£30,000. The whole charade (lack of transparency, consigning with only one auction house, ill-advised sales etc.) should serve as an example to other councils in how not to conduct future deaccessions.Â
A Saenredam discovery, and the power of the web
January 3 2012
Picture: BG
Here's a very satisfying discovery with which to begin the year - a rare exterior landscape by Pieter Saenredam. You may remember that I recently posted an article on the picture when it was at auction last year, catalogued as 'follower of Saenredam' at Christie's South Kensington. It was estimated at £3-5,000. It looked to me a little better than 'follower of' (I wrote that 'it shone out at the viewing') and I was hoping to bid on it myself.
Sadly, it was withdrawn (perhaps another dealer paid too much attention to it), and the picture was expunged from the online catalogue. But happily Saenredam scholar and noted art historian Gary Schwartz saw the picture here on AHN. And now he has written a fascinating entry on his own blog about the picture. His conclusion, along with that of his colleague Marten Jan Bok (co-author of Schwartz's 1989 book on Saenredam), is that there is little doubt the painting is indeed by Saenredam.
How then, if they have only seen the image on Art History News, can they be so sure about the attribution? Through excellent research. Read their analysis in full here, but the crucial facts are these:
- The scene shows the town of Assendelft, where Saenredam lived. The main building is the town hall. In front of it is the scourge post to which local villains were tied. The church is that of St Odulphus.
- The house in which Saenredam grew up can be seen in the painting, to the left of the church.
- The picture is dated 1634, when Saenredam is documented as returning to the town, and making a series of drawings that relate to the painting.
Obviously, this is not only a fantastically rare work by Saenredam, but a highly important document in relation to the artist's life. While it will always be a shame I couldn't buy it for £3,000 (tho' I suspect it would have made far more), it is wonderful that the full story behind the picture has now come to light.
The story is also an example of how the internet is driving art history forward at an unprecedented rate. Further proof of this can be found at the end of Gary Schwartz's blog post, for after reading Gary's post, a reader got in touch with news of some early provenance for the picture - dating to 1784. Sounds like the auction houses need to start their own blog...
PS - top AHN tip, if you think you've seen a sleeper at auction, don't stare at it for too long. It may get withdrawn.
PPS - curious coincidence: my post on the picture being withdrawn from CSK was made on 8th December, exactly one year after the last Saenredam sleeper sold for over a million pounds at Bonhams.
Taxing success
January 3 2012
Picture: TAN
Over in the US, the mayor of Boston, one Thomas Menino, has come up with a typically bonkers political response to a succesful arts institution: tax it. He wants to massively increase the 'fees' paid by the Museum of Fine Arts to the city in lieu of taxation. As a charity, the museum is exempt from city taxes. But the city gets round this by asking for a seperate 'pilot fee'. Now, Mayor Menino, wants to raise the fee from the current $55,000 to $1,025,000 in four years time.
In The Art Newspaper, the director of the MFA, Malcolm Rogers (above), points out that the museum brings untold benefits to the city, all for free:
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), is one of the world’s great cultural institutions, whose impact on the quality of life of its city is immeasurable. But the generosity of spirit that built this great museum is being buffeted by a surprising entity—the City of Boston itself—which has put in motion a plan to drastically increase the “voluntary” contributions cultural institutions make through its payment in lieu of taxes (Pilot) programme. When civic leaders look to cultural organisations as a source of revenue, rather than as an invaluable resource for the communities they serve, it has dire implications nationwide.
Since the MFA opened its doors on 4 July 1876, it has been almost entirely privately funded. Unlike our peer museums—the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, which receive millions of dollars in financing from their cities—we are not funded by our municipality.
Rogers speaks with some modesty, for it is largely under his 17 year directorship that the museum has become one of the world's great cultural institutions. Oddly enough, Mayor Menino is a trustee of the MFA. He must be the only museum trustee in the States proposing to make his museum a million dollars worse off.
Last year I had to fly to New York, a city I dislike, to look at a possible Van Dyck. Thanks the MFA, I chose instead to fly to the US via Boston where I stayed for a couple of days, and then took the early morning flight to NY for the day.
"All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally."
January 3 2012
In a riposte to those artists who rely on others to make their work for them (Koons, Hirst et al), David Hockney has ensured that his forthcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy is preceded by the above statement. He also said, in The Guardian;
"I used to point out, at art school you can teach the craft; it's the poetry you can't teach. But now they try to teach the poetry and not the craft."
Sounds like a pretty accurate summary of what's wrong with art schools these days.
Oops
January 3 2012
Happy new year everyone!
I must begin 2012 with an error. An 'avid reader from Belgium' writes:
May I point out to you that Dendermonde [see below post] is definitely not a town in Holland, but securely situated in Flanders on the confluence of Scheldt and Dender.
Our Lady's Church was heavily damaged in WW I but is still a magnificent city church, well worth a visit - not in the least because of its two fine Van Dyck altar pieces.
Merry Christmas everyone
December 24 2011
Picture: topical-stamps.com
Wherever you are, I hope you have a good Christmas. Thank you for all your interest in, and support for, AHN this year. We're now up to a thousand visitors a day. I am very grateful.
The image above is a little out of date, but as topical as I can get for a festive image by my favourite artist, Anthony Van Dyck. Clearly, whoever designs the stamps in Micronesia is highly cultured. The original Adoration of the Shepherds is in the Church of Our Lady in Dendermonde, Holland Belgium. Unusually, Van Dyck has decided to cast one of the shepherds as female. I like to think that not only was he a great artist, but enlightened.
National Trust paintings go online - can you find any sleepers?
December 23 2011
Picture: National Trust
At last! The UK's greatest single collection of paintings has gone online. The site apparently went live last week, but I've only just stumbled across it today. What a resource. I can barely contain my excitement; it's nirvana for anyone interested in British art history, and this particular British art history anorak will now be spending a lot of time on his iPad over Christmas. Well done to everybody involved. With this and the Public Catalogue Foundation putting museum pictures online, Britain now leads the way in digital access to its art.Â
Being slightly obsessed with Van Dyck, I searched immediately for works by him. As you might expect, there are many fine things. But also some more mysterious works. I'm taken with the above Portrait of an Unknown Lady at Petworth, called 'attributed to Van Dyck'. It is not in the 2004 catalogue raisonne, but looks to me as if it has a good chance of being 'right', probably done in the mid 1620s in Italy.Â
For all you budding connoisseurs, it's a great site for playing guess the attribution. Have a search for unattributed works, by entering 'English School' for example, and let me know if you find anything good. Below are a few pictures that have caught my eye in the last hour or so... [all images (C) National Trust]
This painting of a Madonna and Child, is attributed to the 'Studio of Willem Wissing'. The Trust catalogue correctly notes that it is a partial copy of Van Dyck's painting of Cesare Scaglia adoring the Virgin and Child [National Gallery, London], albeit without Scaglia, and an altered Madonna. However, the original of this composition is in fact by Sir Peter Lely, and is now in an American Private Collection. It's one of the nicest Lelys I've ever seen, fluidly painted and richly coloured, and evidently done for his own pleasure. Lely was fascinated by Van Dyck, and copied many of his works. Intriguingly, a ghostly pair of hands in Lely's copy reveals that he initially planned to paint Scaglia too, but then changed his mind and left him out. Â
Other things that briefly caught my eye include the above 'English School' portrait at Erddig in Wrexham, of whom the Trust is unsure of the identification, calling it 'Supposedly Joshua Edisbury, or ?James Hutton'. It is in fact a copy of Benjamin West's Portrait of Governor James Hamilton, which hangs in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. How a copy of Hamilton's portrait ended up in Wrexham masquerading as a welshman is a mystery...Â
This 'English School' Unknown Gentleman is by John Riley.Â
And Mary of Modena, wife of James II, would have been most displeased to find her portrait at Chirk Castle (above) identified as Charles II's mistress Moll Davis. The Chirk portrait is based on this original by Lely.
And going really off piste, the above Portrait of John Throckmorton is called 'Circle of William Larkin', but looks to have a chance of being by Marcus Gheeraerts.Â
So if you have a few idle moments this Christmas, have a look at the site and see what you can find. Between us we should be able to wrap up all those unattributed pictures... The only sad thing about the site is the tiny photos. You can zoom in a bit, but they really should be larger. Presumably it's the old 'we must protect our copyright' fallacy.Â
Zurburan deal back on
December 23 2011
Picture: BBC News
Splendid news from the North East. It seems the Church Commissioners have seen sense, and the deal to save the Zurburans (supported by the philanthropist Jonathan Ruffer) is back on.
Newly found Rubens for sale at Sotheby's New York
December 23 2011
Picture: Sotheby's
Hats off to Sotheby's New York for amassing one of the most impressive line ups of Old Masters I've seen at auction for a long time. Available for you to buy on January 26th are works by Guardi, Cranach, Van Dyck, Canaletto, Tintoretto, and Fra Bartolomeo. It seems consignors are taking up the opportunities of the growing momentum behind Old Masters sales. It'll be insteresting to see how well things sell - I expect strong prices.
A highlight of the sale will be the above newly discovered study by Rubens for The Adoration of the Magi, estimated at $2-3m. It surfaced last year at Koller auction in Switzerland, where it was catalogued as 'Workshop of Rubens', and sold for CHF 140,000. There, the attribution was presumably complicated by the existence of another study of the same subject by Rubens, and some rather awkward passages. Some of these, it transpires, were the result of later over-paint, and have been removed. You can zoom in on the Koller picture and play spot the difference. Full details here.
The Leonardo queue...
December 22 2011
Picture: BG
...gets longer and longer. This morning it started in Trafalgar Square, then snaked up behind the Sainsbury Wing, before coming back on itself and then continuing inside. If you're having to queue to for tickets, follow my earlier advice and buy the catalogue first; by the time you get to front you'll be fully prepared for the exhibition. It's either that or at least two chapters of War & Peace...
Wedgwood museum - a rescue emerges (via Twitter)?
December 22 2011
Picture: lgfl.org.uk
John Caudwell, the founder of Phones4U, has said on Twitter that he would be prepared to buy the Wedgwood museum's collection to prevent its being broken up.* Good for him. He said:
I passionately believe that the collection should remain intact and in place, and available for public viewing. If the Trustees don’t find any other way of solving the issue, then I will attempt to buy the entire collection and keep it n situ for the foreseeable future, and continue with public access. This would be subject, of course, to the outcome of any discussions with Administrators, and input of the Trustees.
No numbers have been mentioned yet as to how much it would cost him to buy the collection. The pension pot hole is £134m. Maybe (but I don't know) the collection is worth more than this (the paintings alone are worth a handy sum), so perhaps not all of it needs to be sold off.
* as I learnt via Twitter's antiques king, Steven Moore.
Hepworth theft
December 22 2011
Picture: AFP
A curious article in The Guardian today from Zoe Williams, who, it seems, struggled when her editor said 'give me 800 words on what the Hepworth theft means'. She thinks it points to a wider malaise in society, and blames, in part, the free market:
When you throw someone into the mix who doesn't care that a statue's true value is £500,000, and cares still less about its emotional value to the community, and will trash all that for £1,500, that person has a lot of power. It's caring that makes you weak.
The reason this is such a blow at this peculiar time is that the free market – the fundamental understanding of society where we exchange time for money and money for stuff and everybody wins – isn't working out. There is a full spectrum of explanations for the failure. On the right, it's because governments interfered, over-regulated, overdid the handouts and overspent. On the left, it's because government privatised, outsourced, didn't regulate, and created a corporate plutocracy by failing to protect wages, grouting the gaps with benefits and ultimately subsidising super-profits. There are centrist arguments that blame the legerdemain of financial instruments – just one giant, apolitical "oops".
Sadly, people have been stealing and vandalising art since the year dot, and will continue to do so. Probably the same section of society that does not care whether something is beautiful or historically important is the same as that which cannot empathise with their fellow man. Call it cultural pyschopathy. It has taken many forms throughout history; one is iconoclasm.
Meanwhile, a reader writes with a further suggestion on how to deal with the current problem of melting sculptures for scrap:
Re your point about scrap metal thieves, I agree entirely with everything you write. Here's one additional point, though, not least because you clearly have plenty of experience of the policy world, and the importance of framing these things properly from the start.
The theft of scrap metal or indeed 'architectural salvage' items from a listed property - something which, perforce, would include not only lead from church roofs, but also lots of things which do end up stolen and sold - e.g. pews, lecterns, statues, light fixtures, door handles, sinks, fire surrounds, you name it - ought to be considered an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing in criminal court. This is both (a) easily defined and (b) covers a lot of serious problems currently afflicting heritage properties, both ecclesiastical and secular, at least some of these involving what might reasonably be regarded as works of art.
Sounds eminently sensible to me.
The Vermeer effect
December 22 2011
Picture: Louvre
In case you haven't seen it yet, Vermeer's Women at the Fitzwilliam Museum closes on 15th January. The exhibition has drawn record crowds, with 130,000 people filing past the Louvre's Lacemaker since October. It has been so popular that the opening times have been extended for the last two weeks of the show.
Help stop the scrap metal thieves
December 21 2011
Picture: Rob Fitzpatrick
Following the Hepworth theft yesterday, a reader writes:
It was sad to read today on your excellent website of yet another theft of public sculpture -- probably, as you rightly imply in your commentary, for its scrap-metal value only. Perhaps you might alert readers of Art History News to a current, and laudable, e-petition which seeks an 'amendment to the Scrap Metal Merchants Act 1964' by prohibiting cash transactions on the part of scrap-metal dealers and making 'payment by cheque or directly into a bank account mandatory'. This would be a significant factor in reducing metal theft. The e-petition, which needs 100,000 signatories in order to be considered for debate in Parliament,has already passed the half-way mark:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/406
If only the tragedy of the Wedgwood Museum could be averted by an e-petition!
Please do sign it. Another possibility is to make it a particular crime to wilfully damage works of cultural importance. So x months in jail for nicking a bollard for scrap, but longer for works of art, or lead from a church roof. I believe they do this in Australia.
Hepworth sculpture nicked
December 20 2011
From Dulwich Park on Tuesday. There's a £1000 reward for its return. But it's probably been melted down for scrap already...
Dictator Art - Kim Jong Il special
December 20 2011
Picture: Kim Jong Il Looking at Things
Regular readers will know that I'm strangely fascinated by totalitarian art. And it doesn't come much more interesting and bizarre than that in North Korea. All dictatorships rely on artists for propoganda, but probably none more so than the Hermit Kingdom. The lack of computers and printing equipment means that the state has to employ thousands of artists to produce the endless posters, sculptures and paintings needed to glorify Kim Jong Il's regime.
Almost all the posters one sees in North Korea, for example, are painted by hand, usually by artists sitting in large rooms endlessly copying the same master image, like a human printing press. North Korea probably has the highest proportion of artists per head of population in the world. The largest artistic centre is the Mansudae Art Studio*, which employs about 4,000 people, and was until his recent funny turn under 'the special guidance' of Kim Jong Il himself.
Not surprisingly, 'socialist realism' is the order of the day. Consequently most oil paintings tend to be highly detailed, colourful and stylised depictions of happy workers, or North Korea's often beautiful landscape. Much of it is technically quite proficient, if a little surreal.
There's quite a market for North Korean art in the west. If you think it will one day boom llike Chinese art (and you have no qualms about your money potentially helping to prop up the regime), then get in early and stock up before prices rise. One of the places you can be sure of buying the real thing is the Galleria, in Pall Mall, London. Their website explains why North Korean art is so unlike anything else:
Art from this hermit country has not yet been influenced by outside politics or normal world contemporary art trends. It is still pure North Korean art, artist have very little contact with other countries and their artwork is kept within the Juche political philosophy that they follow.
All artists in North Korea are State employees, registered as members of the Korean artists Federation (Misulga Tongmaeng) and receive monthly salaries for which they are expected to produce a number of works; some artists work on location others in the Art Studio. Both would be expected to work regularly and to have 2hour daily periods of study or discussion with regular reports and evaluations of their work.
There is no question of a solo exhibition in North Korea, but small group exhibitions do take place on national holidays and special anniversaries, modern art is included in displays in the National Gallery and the University Museum as well as in public offices.
You can see more examples here, and here.
*site currently not working.
View from the Artist no. 7 - answer
December 20 2011
Picture: Rijksmuseum
Sorry that the first clue was a little tricky. An early answer:
Gut reaction... AVERCAMP??? Somewehre Dutch? Amsterdam/ Hague??? (Surey it's not London with a church like that?)
Indeed not. Right country though. Another guess had Avercamp again:
I'm going to have a stab and suggest the picture is by Hendrick Avercamp, subject is Haarlem. Although many of Avercamp's works feature windmills and lots of people playing kolf, but then the figures do have quite a strong outline to them...
The competition is a good distraction from PhD work, yet sufficiently art historical to not feel too guilty about procrastinating!
Alas, wrong answer, but delighted to have taken you away from your studies. The extra clue brought in some correct answers, the fastest coming within about half an hour of me putting it on the site:
Indeed, the first clue was too difficult for me, especially because I’m not familiar with Flemish landscape artists. But now that you provided the second detail, I am able to give you the answer: Sebastian Vrancx, The Kranenhoofd on the Schelde. The Rijksmuseum online database dates it to 1622.
Another sleuth wrote:
Sebastian Vrancx, The Kranenhoofd on the Schelde, Antwerp, 1622. Such a wonderful winter-painting, it makes you want to jump right into the scenery! I really enjoy your blog!
Thanks! You can indeed jump in thanks to the Rijksmuseum's marvellous new, free, high resolution digital photos. The best clue was the single spire of Antwerp Cathedral on the left. Well done everyone.
