Forger: 'You have to know where the greediness is greatest'
September 28 2011
Picture: morgenweb.de
'Woflgang B.', the forger behind the $22m art forgery scam of the decade, says he enjoyed fooling the art world. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
"I imagined in my mind an original, a picture that each of the painters had never got 'round to painting," said Wolfgang B.
"I did paintings that really ought to have been in the oeuvre of each painter."
Wolfgang B., who dropped out of art school, learned to copy art from his father, an art restorer who did replicas of the Old Masters such as Rembrandt. He said he began copying professionally in the 1970s.
"I didn't much like the art market or the dealers," he said. "I really enjoyed doing it. You have to know how the art market functions and where the greediness is greatest."
In the biggest fraudulent sale, "Red Picture with Horses," supposedly painted by Heinrich Campendonk (1889-1957) of the Netherlands, sold at auction in Cologne for $3.4 million.
The motive is an echo of Han van Meegeren, probably the greatest forger of them all. He too said he liked to fool the 'experts' who sneered at his own paintings. But it's funny how these forgers never admit to doing it for the money...
New Fitzwilliam acquisition
September 27 2011
Picture: Tribune De L'Art
The Fitzwilliam has bought the above Lamentation of Christ supported by the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene by Marcantonio Bassetti (1586-1630). The picture is painted in oil on slate, and measures 15 x 11 3/8 inches. Apparently it was acquired from the sculpture dealer Danny Katz, who bought it at Christie's in New York in 2003 for $273,500.
It says something of the Fitzwilliam's determined introspection (check out their non existent labels next time you go) that the news comes in French via the site Tribune de L'Art, with, at the time of writing, not a whisper on the museum's own website.
Caravaggio as diplomatic tool
September 27 2011
Caravaggio's Narcissus has gone on display in Cuba for the first time, at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. The picture belongs to the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome. So far so normal, but there's an interesting political dimension to the loan. From the Independent:
Italy's deputy minister of culture, Ricardo Villardi, said the show was Rome's way of relating to Cuba during a time of change.
"I asked myself how as a government we could accompany the changes, these transformations, that are under way, with respect for (Cuba's) autonomy... and the answer is this exhibition," he said.
His Cuban counterpart, Fernando Rojas, said it was "very appropriate" to show in Cuba the work of "a rebel, an innovator" who reflected the common people in his work "as we Cubans can appreciate that."
Should the British Government raid the National Gallery for a similar exhibition? Send The Haywain to Pyongyang?
Lost Sassoferrato found in US?
September 27 2011
Picture: Fairfield Auction
A painting thought to be by Sassoferrato has been discovered in a small auction house in New England. Catalogued as 'Italian Old Master', and with an estimate of just $5-7,000, the picture sold for $184,000 including premium. More images here (scroll down to Lot 108).
Bob Dylan - Artist; Copyist?
September 27 2011
Picture: left Gagosian Gallery, right, Magnum Photos
The new exhibition of Bob Dylan's paintings at the Gagosian Gallery in New York, The Asia Series, was meant to be a 'visual journal' of Bob's travels in 'Japan, China, Vietnam and Korea', with 'firsthand depictions of people, street scenes, architecture and landscape'.
But some keen-eyed observers have noticed that some of Bob's 'depictions' are eerily similar to famous published photographs, including that (above right) taken in 1949 by Henri Cartier-Bresson of a eunuch. Full details in the New York Times.
Exclusive - The Mona Lisa's mystery solved?
September 26 2011
Leonardo's Mona Lisa, begun in c.1503, has attracted more than its fair share of wild theories. Some say it is a portrait of Leonardo in drag, or more recently that it is the 'the depiction of a soul shared between an expectant mother and her unborn male child'. But now an intriguing new theory has been put forward by Donato Pezzutto, a Canadian doctor who is a keen amateur art historian. His theory is published in an article in Cartographica, a journal which publishes 'articles on all aspects of cartographic and geovisualization research'.
Here's the abstract from Pezzutto's article (quoted with kind permission): [More below]
Leonardo arranged the landscape in the Mona Lisa to hold two disjoined halves of one image. That image can be reassembled by juxtaposing two copies of the painting side by side [as shown roughly above]. The newly reconstituted landscape corresponds to an actual place, as depicted in Leonardo’s Val di Chiana map. In this article, the identity of the sitter and opinions relevant to the background landscape are considered, Leonardo’s developments in the depiction of depth outlined, and his technique of topographic perspective introduced. Analysis of these observations, along with Leonardo’s investigations in perception, perspective, monocular and binocular vision, and cartography, lead to understanding of his technique. Speculation as to Leonardo’s motivation include a pun on La Gioconda and his attempt at stereoscopy.
Pezzutto believes that the clue to Leonardo's mystery lies in the artist's interest in cartography and topography. The key to the theory is Leonardo's map of the Val di Chiana in Tuscany of 1502-3 (below), now in the Royal Collection. He has built on the theory, first published by Carlo Starnazzi and Carlo Pedretti in 2003, that the background of the Mona Lisa was 'not a fantasy but a precise depiction of the confluence of the Arno and Chiana rivers'. That theory grew out of Leonardo's 'precise topographical knowledge' gained when the artist worked as a military engineer for Cesare Borgia, of which the map is evidence.
Picture: Royal Collection
However, Pezzutto claims that only by inverting the background image can one arrive at an accurate view of the terrain in the Val di Chiana:
This new landscape does, in fact, resemble an actual place: it is an aerial view of the Tuscan Val di Chiana region, seen from above Castiglion Fibocchi in the Pratomagno hills, looking in a south easterly direction toward Castiglione del Lago on Lake Trasimeno. A review of the reconstituted landscape allows us to match the painting to that area, and that area is depicted in Leonardo's Val di Chiana map.
As seen in the main image, if you flip the background of the Mona Lisa as Pezzutto suggests, the two separate lakes at the top of the background, one on the far right and the other on the far left in the original painting, then become one single lake, Lake Tresimeno. The corresponding mountain ranges also seem to join up. In that respect, the theory certainly seems to work.
Here, again quoted with Dr Pezzutto's kind permission, are the key points of the recreated view:
- From a point above Castiglion Fibocchi we see a
- slope of the Pratomagno (lower left), followed by
- the confluence of the Arno with Ponte Buriano (left) and the Chiana River (right), separated by the high ground between them, then
- a road meandering past Arezzo (behind the subject) to a gap in a ridge of hills (left), then
- a ridge of hills (right) with the wide Chiana beyond them. Siena would be to the right (behind the subject), then
- the hills around Cortona leading up to Lake Trasimeno, with the spit of land holding Castiglione del
- Lago (just to the left), and, ï¬nally,
- the distant mountains to the horizon
But - there is of course a catch, with the theory requiring an element of cartographical jiggery-pokery. As Pezzutto says:
If we try to re-create this using a programme such as Google Earth 3D, we see slight discrepancies.
Instead, you have to imagine the landscape in a technique called:
...'topographic perspective', [which] uses the cartographic techniques of map-making to depict depth in landscapes'
Pezzutto likens Leonardo's topographic approach to:
..reading the tabs of a file cabinet. Thus Leonardo could recall a series of observations to create aerial maps or to create landscapes.
Pezzutto speculates that Leonardo built this visual trick into the background of the Mona Lisa as a form of visual pun. He notes that while the portrait was a commissioned work, Leonardo kept the painting himself, displaying it often. The topographic trick, therefore, was a:
... a visual pun on La Gioconda, the playful or jocular lady, and as an incomplete stereogram resulting from his investigations of binocular perception.
Now, Pezzutto's argument is a complex one, and requires a degree of cartographic knowledge, as well as familiarity with the Tuscan landscape. I can't do full justice to it here, and have only reproduced part of the argument. The full article is well worth downloading (you can do so here, but it requires a fee). So I'm in no position to comment on the theory, other than to say that it is intriguing, and certainly on a purely visual level appears to make some sense.
And yet... As with all Mona Lisa theories, I personally subscribe to the dull and long accepted view (at least, accepted before the conspiracy obsessed late 20th Century) that the painting is simply a portrait, albeit a brilliant one. Indeed, the sitter has long been known, thanks to Georgio Vasari, who wrote in 1550 that the sitter was Madonna Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo, hence Mona Lisa or La Gioconda. Furthermore, we now know the identity of the sitter beyond any doubt, thanks to the recent discovery by Dr. Armin Schlechter of a document dated 1503, the year Leonardo began the work, in which the Florentine official Agostino Vespucci wrote that Leonardo was working on a portrait of... Lisa del Giocondo.
Still, if Dr Pezzutto's theory becomes accepted, remember, you read it here first...
Waldemar does Dobson
September 23 2011
Picture: Ferens Art Gallery
If you missed Waldemar's programme on William Dobson last night, then you can still watch it on iPlayer here. I thought it was enjoyable and enlightening, as Waldemar's shows usually are. There were a few slightly dubious sweeping generalisations, but the theme of the piece, that Dobson was a brilliant artist, certainly held up well. There was even a discovery of sorts, that the above 'Portrait of a Musician' showed William Lawes, a favourite of Charles I (hence the bust of the King lower left).
What the programme did not answer was why, if Dobson was so good, is he seemingly so neglected? Waldemar said Dobson 'changed British art forever' - so what then is his legacy?
The sad truth is that Dobson did not change British art. Here's three reasons why: [More below]
- Because despite Dobson's brilliance with the brush, he essentially painted in the same vein as the man who really did change British art forever, Anthony Van Dyck. Dobson was patronised by the Court (just as Robert Walker was patronised by the Parliamentarians) specifically because he continued the Van Dyckian, baroque presentation of his sitters (albeit with more individuality) which had by then come to define power, prestige and wealth.
- The English, until later in the 18th Century, were not really interested in art. They were more interested in themselves - hence the almost total dominance of portraiture in English art in the 17th Century. They couldn't care less that they had to rely on foreigners to paint them (Lely, Kneller, Dahl, Closterman etc. etc.), and so there was no encouragement for a native English school of art to follow in Dobson's footsteps.
- Dobson's surviving pictures (and he didn't paint that many) are relatively well hidden, mostly in private collections. There have been only half a dozen Dobsons sold at auction in the last 20 years (the most expensive of which was discovered and sold by us), so there have been few opportunities to boost his profile. The last exhibition on Dobson was in 1983.
So if you like Dobson, then why not follow Waldemar's rallying cry, and go and see some of his works. If you're really keen, you can even follow him on Twitter.
The search for Leonardo's lost masterpiece
September 23 2011
Leonardo's greatest lost work is his Battle of Anghiari, painted in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Many scholars believe the painting survives, hidden beneath Giorgio Vasari's murals in the Hall of Five Hundred. Recently, it was discovered that behind Vasari's paintings is a gap, with a space 1 - 3cm deep before the main wall. Did Vasari deliberately create this gap to avoid painting over Leonardo's work? I've always thought it possible, given Vasari's interest in preservation.
Now, a group of experts is trying to use specialist scanning equipment to peer through Vasari's murals, in an attempt to solve the mystery. Fellow blogger Hasan Niyazi has posted an interview with one of the team behind the search, over at Three Pipe Problem.
Friday amusement
September 23 2011
Picture: Cartoonstock.com
Inny Polski restytucji
September 23 2011
That's 'another Polish restitution' (according to Google Translate). Two hunting pictures by Julian Falat stolen during the war have been returned to Poland. They were seized in New york when put up for sale at auction in 2006. More here.
'Art Boom 2.0'?
September 22 2011
Picture: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jean-Baptiste Chardin, 'The Soap Bubble'.
That's what they're saying in New York:
The New York art world may be entering uncharted territory.
Why do we think so? Let’s look at the big picture: In June, dealers at the Art Basel fair reported that business was booming. Art, we were told in report after report, was selling as it had in the heady days of 2006 and 2007, when the housing crash and the worldwide economic crisis were merely theories in the heads of a few sharp-eyed economists and canny hedge fund managers.
Last month, the world’s two leading auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, announced record revenues for the first half of the year, having moved $3.4 billion and $3.2 billion worth of art and other goods, respectively.
Do say: Old Masters are still cheap.
Don't say: Is contemporary art the next bubble?
How not to protect your art collection
September 22 2011
Picture: Art Market Monitor
A little update on the Renoir stolen in Texas, from the Houston Chronicle:
Police said the robbery victim told investigators a man wearing a ski mask, gloves and carrying a black semi-automatic weapon came to the home demanding money and jewelry.
However, the victim pointed out a painting in the home and mentioned its value. The suspect grabbed the framed artwork and fled, police said.
'The Mona Lisa Code'
September 21 2011
You've got to watch this. Here, some fellow named Scott Lund unveils 'the 500 year mystery of the Mona Lisa' as 'the depiction of a soul shared between an expectant mother and her unborn male child'. If you can stand it, watch till the end for a demonstration in how not to unveil your great art historical discovery...
The dangers of over-interpretation
September 21 2011
Picture: The National Gallery
Professor Michael Baum, a leading cancer expert, has given a lecture entitled Picture of Health: the Art of Medicine. He says that many paintings contain over-looked medical stories and clues. But is Baum in danger of over-interpreting art?
For example, take Piero di Cosimo's Satyr Mourning over a Nymph, above. The Observer takes up the story: [More below]
According to the gallery's guidebook, the work – A Satyr Mourning over a Nymph – depicts the death of Procris, daughter of the king of Athens, who was accidentally killed by her husband Cephalus during a deer hunt. [...]
But Professor Michael Baum, one of Britain's leading cancer experts, and a keen art critic, will have none of this. "This is not a depiction of the accidental death that Ovid wrote about," he says. "It is a painting about a murder, and a very nasty one at that." [...]
"Look at her hands, for example. Both are covered with deep lacerations. There is only one way she could have got those. She has been trying to fend off an attacker who has come at her, slashing in a frenzied manner with a knife or possibly a sword. Certainly there is no way that a spear could have done that."
There are other clues, adds Baum. The woman's left hand is bent backwards, in a position known by surgeons as "the waiter's tip", typical someone who has received a serious injury at points C3 and C4 on the cervical cord. The severing at these points causes nerve damage that makes the wrist flex and the fingers curl up in the manner of a waiter taking a backhanded tip. [...]
Intriguingly, Cosimo may still have been trying to depict the death of Procris, adds Baum. The painter may simply have been the victim of his own acute observational powers. "I think he may well have gone to a mortuary and asked to be allowed to paint the body of a young woman and got the body of one who had been murdered by knife – and so he faithfully put on to his canvas what he saw..."
The trouble is, a quick look at Piero di Cosimo's ouevre reveals he was quite fond of the old bent wrist thing (or 'waiter's tip' as Baum calls it). Here's an example here, and another here. So we have three possible solutions: 1) Cosimo knew a lot of waiters; 2) he spent a lot of time in morgues; or 3) Professor Baum is reading too much into the picture.
You can zoom in on the wounds here - so see for yourself whether they are sword or spear inflicted...
No breasts please, we're Methodists
September 21 2011
From The Guardian:
A statue of a bare-breasted woman whose torso was discreetly covered for centuries has been found in a Bristol church house where John Wesley worshipped. There is speculation that the half-clad figure was considered too much of a distraction for Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and his followers. The figure, holding a cornucopia of fruit, is suspected to be Abundantia – a Roman personification of abundance and prosperity.
A reader writes:
Of course the article doesn't tell us what we really want to know - who is sable between three scallop shells argent a chevron of the second.
Quite. Any heralds out there?
The Final Freud
September 21 2011
Picture: David Dawson/Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert Gallery
Lucien Freud's final, unfinished work, will be included in the new exhibition of the artist's work at the National Portrait Gallery (9th Feb-27th May 2012). The subject is Freud's assistant, David Dawson, with Dawson's whippet, Eli.
Goya X-ray revelation
September 20 2011
Picture: Rijksmuseum
The Rijksmuseum has discovered a partially completed portrait beneath its portrait of Don Ramon Satue. Full details here.
Through a lens, darkly...
September 20 2011
Picture: Daily Mirror, Jan Mikulka, 'Jakub', (detail).
Further to my harumph about paintings of photographs, such as the above from the NPG's BP Portrait Award, a reader writes:
Re photographic portraits - I have not seen the portrait in question, but on the principle I heartily concur. It does, however, give rise to an interesting question which does not go away when we look at distortions in paintings from other eras. It can be difficult to determine where masterly virtuosity, taking advantage of available technology, gives way to a technical dependence on technological competence. There’s a fascinatingly fine line somewhere down the road to The Arnolfini Wedding.
Museum swap-shop
September 20 2011
Picture: MFA Boston
Would you swap Monet's The Fort of Antibes (above), plus seven other works, for Gustave Caillebotte's Man at His Bath (below)? The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston plans to sell eight pictures worth up to $24 million to fund their new naked acquisition.
Alan Wirzbicki in the Boston Globe disagrees with the scheme:
Call me a philistine, but somehow this just doesn’t strike me as an astute trade. Why not? Well, let me count the ways.
This painting, “Man at His Bath,” is not an eye-catching celebration of the human form, a la Michelangelo’s "David." Rather, it’s an everyday view of… well, mostly of an everyday butt. Which is basically what George Shackelford, chairman of the museum’s Art of Europe Department, said in Monday’s Globe.
“This guy is no Arcadian bather,” he noted. “It’s perfectly mundane — and expressly so.” One would think that self-evidently accurate appraisal would lead to this equally obvious notion: It’s probably not worth selling scenes by Monet, Gauguin, Sisley, Pissarro, and Renoir to acquire that perfectly mundane scene. Look, I’m not saying I wouldn’t trade one of those Jean Baptiste Camille Corot’s more-milky-March-sky-over-the-river scenes, but that’s about as far this guy would go. And I expect most museum-goers would agree with me.
Before and after
September 20 2011
Picture: Tate
The Tate has unveiled their newly restored painting by John Martin, The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. For more on the story, see here.
