15th Century And Earlier
Piero del Pollaiolo St. Michael Archangel to be Restored
May 10 2025
Picture: Stefano Bardini Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that the Stefano Bardini Museum in Florence will be conserving Piero del Pollaiolo's St. Michael Archangel. The work has been supported by a generous 20,000 EUR donation from the Friends of Florence.
Temporary Export Ban on Loyd Collection Botticelli
May 10 2025
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The UK Government has announced a temporary export ban on Sandro Botticelli's The Virgin and Child enthroned, which was sold from the Loyd Collection at Sotheby's London last year for £9.96m (inc. commission). Any interested UK institution has until 8th August 2025 to find £10.2m (which includes VAT) to keep the painting in the country.
According to their press release:
Christopher Baker, Committee member:
Dating from the early 1470s, this affecting devotional work, demonstrates the sophistication of Botticelli’s painting early in his career in Florence. Probably intended to inspire private prayer in a domestic setting, it is an image that has a wider resonance as it delicately explores the power of maternal love.
The cult of, or enthusiasm for Botticelli, of which it formed a part, had grown during the Victorian era and the painting arrived in Britain in 1904; it was acquired by Lady Wantage and entered the renowned Lloyd collection.
Further research on the placement of Botticelli’s work in his career and the organisation of his workshop, as well as links with the wider context of Florentine Renaissance art would all be of enormous benefit. In view of these intriguing possibilities every effort should be made to try and secure this beguiling painting for a British collection.
Northern Treasures at Artcurial
April 29 2025
Picture: Artcurial
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm very late to the news that Artcurial in Paris will be auctioning off a significant private collection of early works from Northern Europe tomorrow. The sale contains some rather high value lots and includes works by the key figures associated with the artistic produce of this part of the continent.
The Luzzetti Collection in Grosseto
April 23 2025
Video: Polo culturale Le Clarisse
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Polo Culturale Le Clarisse in Grosseto, central Italy, has just opened a new exhibition with loans from the Luzzetti collection in Florence. Artists included are Pinturicchio, Amico Aspertini, Giorgio Vasari, Sandro Botticelli and Giovanni Bellini and the show will run until September.
Siena and the Renaissance at Christie's
April 18 2025
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm a little slow to the news that Christie's have organised and put on a Selling Exhibition entitled Siena and the Renaissance. Their display will be in London until 28th April and will move through New York, Paris and back to London throughout the spring and early summer.
Burgundian Portrait coming up at Sotheby's London
April 8 2025
Picture: Sotheby's via. Arts Council
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Following on from last weeks announcements on the Arts Council Website, the following painting catalogued as 'Burgundian School, circa 1500 Portrait of a Gentleman bust length in dark costume and hat' has been announced as part of Sotheby's London's Evening Auction in July. The artwork carries a guide price of £500,000.
Recent Release: Taddeo di Bartolo - Siena's Painter in the Early Quattrocento
March 18 2025
Picture: brepols.net
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The publishers Brepols have recently released the following two volume publication on Taddeo di Bartolo by the scholar Gail Solberg.
According to the blurb:
Taddeo di Bartolo, Siena’s premier painter in the years around 1400, is the focus of a cultural history of a great Italian school in an understudied period. His patrons commissioned important fresco cycles and the most impressive polyptychs of the age. In part a travelogue, the text follows Taddeo (ca 1362-1422) from training in straitened times at Siena across central and northern Italy. Ten years of itinerancy drew him to various Tuscan centers, along the Ligurian coast from Genoa to Provence, probably to Padua, and into Umbria. About 1399 he resettled at Siena to rapidly become the preferred painter of his commune. His mural cycles made a greater imprint on Siena’s civic iconography than has been acknowledged while his efficient Sienese shop produced outstanding panel paintings for, among others, the most dynamic religious orders. Until his last years he received grand commissions in and from beyond Siena. He drew a pope’s portrait and was employed by a cardinal at Rome. Attention to his production methods shows how his busy shop ensured variety in numerous paintings for mid-level clients by a flexible design system. Taddeo’s works, including rediscovered and reconstructed paintings, come alive in beautiful illustrations. This chronicle of an indefatigable and successful late medieval career positions the painter, his colleagues, and his patrons in their political, economic, and social circumstances. It provides new insights on Siena’s artistic culture at the start of the Renaissance.
Reattributed Mantegna Displayed in Vatican Museums
March 18 2025
Picture: finestresullarte.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Finestre sull'arte has published news that a painting, reattributed to Andrea Mantegna, has gone on display in the Vatican Museums for a special display. The work was discovered in Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary in Pompeii and has been subject to a conservation and research project looking into its attribution and physical properties. Click on the link above to read the full story.
Seville Cathedral loaned Botticelli
March 10 2025
Picture: musee-jacquemart-andre.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Spain that Seville Cathedral has been loaned a Botticelli from the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris, due to their Artemisia Gentileschi being sent for an exhibition in the French capital. Famously, the attribution of the Paris Flight into Egypt had been doubted for a long time until the painting's condition (as it was transferred from panel to canvas) was fully understood.
The painting will be on loan there until 3rd August 2025.
Giovanni da Rimini's Last Judgement to be Restored
March 6 2025
Picture: palazziarterimini.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that Giovanni da Rimini's Last Judgement will be restored in the upcoming years, once fundraising will be completed. The 14th century fresco, which originally painted onto the walls of the church of St. Augustine, was removed from its original setting in 1916-26 and was transferred onto canvas. It is now part of the collection of the city museum in Rimini.
Mantegna Reframed at Castello Sforzesco
February 27 2025
Picture: finestresullarte.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Andrea Mantegna's Trivulzio Altarpiece, one of the prized possessions of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, has been reframed and redisplayed. The carved and gilded historic setting, which dates to the late 19th century, had been removed from the painting after the war in favour of a more sober configuration. The project to regroup and restore the frame had begun back in 2023 and was undertaken by Luca Quartana Restauri.
Fra Angelico's Deposition of Christ Restored
February 26 2025
Picture: ansa.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that Fra Angelico's Deposition of Christ, one of the masterpieces of the Museo di San Marco in Florence, has been conserved. The project, which lasted approximately 2 years, was undertaken by Lucia Biondi (paintings conservator) and Roberto Buda (panel conservator).
Restored 'Botticelli' Teased before Redisplay in Naples
February 18 2025
Picture: ilcorrierino.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Regular readers might remember a story from November 2023 regarding the rediscovery of a lost 'Botticelli' by the Italian police. The painting (left) was found in a private home in Naples and had at the time been connected to a work which went missing from Santa Maria delle Grazie over half a century ago. The Italian press (spotted via. @Mweilc) have just shared very blurry images of the now-restored work (right) before it goes on display in an unspecified museum in Naples. The work was undertaken by Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence. More news and photos when they appear...
Sleeper Alert!
January 13 2025
Picture: clarkeny.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News on social media (spotted via @mbrehe) that the following picture catalogued as 'FLORENTINE SCHOOL (POSSIBLY 14TH/15TH CENTURY)' sold for $230,000 over its $3k - $5k estimate at Clarke Auctioneers in NY yesterday.
Funded PhDs for Medieval Art in Italy
January 10 2025
Picture: University of Salerno
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The University of Salerno in Italy is receiving applications for 2 funded PhDs in Medieval Art.
According to the page linked above:
The StoryPharm project, which is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action – Doctoral Networks – Grant Agreement 101169114 (https://www.ucy.ac.cy/storypharm/). The focus of the project will be on premodern narratives and images involving medicine, health, and healing. These will be studied from a transdisciplinary and comparative perspective, across linguistic and cultural borders.
A place on the project will come with a rather generous €3,311 per month plus mobility allowance of €600. Applications must be in by 17th February 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Curate Illuminated Manuscripts at The British Library
January 6 2025
Picture: jobs.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The British Library are hiring a Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts.
According to the job description:
The British Library has an internationally renowned collection of illuminated manuscripts made in Britain and Europe before 1600. We have an exciting opportunity for a permanent Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts, based in the Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts team.
You will help to develop, manage and interpret the Library’s collection of illuminated manuscripts. You will be responsible for cataloguing these manuscripts and presenting them to a variety of audiences, through online resources, writing blog posts, answering specialist enquiries, and contributing to exhibitions and the public programme. You will oversee digitisation projects, including the selection of manuscripts to be digitised. You will also contribute to fund-raising initiatives, and strategic communications with our stakeholders.
The job comes with an annual salary of £34,608 per annum* and applications must be in by 9th February 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
______________
* - I don't usually comment on salaries for jobs I posted here, but I'm rather baffled exactly how one of the world's greatest collections of manuscripts can value a position like this so lowly. In comparison a 'Product Manager' role (something vaguely tech related that doesn't require a degree let alone the 'doctoral degree' required for the curator position) at the BL received a salary of up to £40,950.
Upcoming: A New Look at Cimabue - At the Origins of Italian Painting
January 3 2025
Picture: Louvre
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Louvre in Paris will be opening their latest Old Master Paintings exhibition on 22nd January 2025. A New Look at Cimabue - At the Origins of Italian Painting has been organised to celebrate both an acquisition and restoration of works by the artist.
According to the museum's website:
For the first time, the Musée du Louvre is dedicating an exhibition to Cimabue, one of the most important artists of the 13th century. The exhibition is the product of two ‘Cimabue-centric’ events of great importance for the museum: the restoration of the Maestà and the acquisition of a heretofore-unseen Cimabue panel, rediscovered in France in 2019 and listed as a French National Treasure: Christ Mocked.
These two paintings, whose restoration was completed in 2024, provide the starting point for this exhibition, which, by bringing together some forty works, aims to illuminate the extraordinary richness and undeniable innovation of Cimabue’s art. Cimabue was one of the first to open Western painting to naturalism, seeking to represent the world, objects and bodies as they truly existed. With him, the conventions of representation inherited from Eastern art, so highly valued until this period, gave way to an inventive art of painting seeking to evoke a three-dimensional space, bodies in volume shaped by subtle shading, articulated limbs, natural postures and human emotions.
The show will run until 12th May 2025.
Capodimonte Museum acquires two works by Colantonio
December 12 2024
Picture: finestresullarte.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that the Capodimonte Museum in Naples has acquired two works by the fifteenth century master Colantonio, who is most famously known for being the master of Antonello da Messina. The paintings of the Franciscan figures Morico and Leone join two others already within the museum's collection which were once part of the same polyptych that was dismantled in 1639.
Vatican Restores Apollo Belvedere
December 12 2024
Video: AZ News
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm a little late to the news that the Vatican have recently unveiled their famous Apollo Belvedere statue after a 5-year restoration project.
According to Reuters:
Restoration experts spent years working on the "Apollo Belvedere", repairing fractures in its knees and legs, cleaning the entire cream-coloured statue with lasers, and installing a carbon fibre pole anchored to its base to increase stability.
"This type of restoration... is the expression of what we want the Vatican Museums to be," said Barbara Jatta, the Museums' director. "A balance of tradition, linguistics and study, with a gaze that looks to the future."
Ashmolean raise £4.48m to keep Fra Angelico Crucifixion in UK
November 8 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford have successfully raised £4.48m to keep Fra Angelico's Crucifixion in the UK. Readers will remember this painting from July 2023, when it was sold from the collections of the Marquess of Northampton at Christie's London.
According to the museum's press release:
The magnificent work, which has been in the UK for about two centuries, was sold to an overseas buyer and was at risk of leaving the country. Due to the work’s value and importance to the nation, the Reviewing Committee on the Exports of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, which is supported by the Arts Council, recommended that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport put a temporary export license stop - known as a deferral - on the work. In January 2024, the export deferral was announced, allowing the Ashmolean nine months to express interest in acquiring the work and raise the necessary funds to keep the painting in the UK. [...]
There are very few paintings by Fra Angelico in British public collections – a fact noted by the Reviewing Committee when considering their recommendation. Outside of London, it is only the Ashmolean that is fortunate enough to preserve a work by the master and his studio in its collection. This work, a hinged triptych that depicts the Virgin and Child with angels and a Dominican saint flanked by Saints Peter and Paul, is currently on display in the Museum’s gallery of Early Italian Art. The Crucifixion will soon hang alongside the later work, allowing visitors to appreciate both how the artist’s style developed over the course of his career and the extent to which his delicate, emotive approach was already established by the 1420s.
