Category: Heroes of art history

This book fills a gap in art history and throws new light on the appreciation of Dutch art. Since 2004, hundreds of paintings have been documented as either Weenix I or Weenix II. For centuries, attributions had been confused because of the two artists’ similar subject choices and (at least for a time) similar style. Following the death of his father (and teacher), Jan gradually changed his style to conform to the more courtly taste of the late 17th and early 18th century.

This first ever published monograph on Jan Baptist Weenix and his son Jan Weenix includes over 500 paintings.

The city’s old museum, in Basra’s historic centre, was looted during the first Gulf War in 1991 and damaged during the 2003 invasion. Fortunately, much of the collection had already been evacuated to Baghdad. The museum’s former director, Mudhar Abd Alhay, was shot dead amid communal violence in 2005.

Three years later, Alhay’s successor, Qahtan Alabeed, took up the dream of re-establishing a museum in Basra. The British Army and the British Museum agreed to help create a new museum with proper security, climate control, regular opening hours and modern displays. The plan was to take over the 1990 Lakeside Palace, which had been used by the British Army after the overthrow of Saddam.

Progress has been slow, largely because of fundraising problems in Iraq. At an early stage, the Basra Provincial Council promised a $3m contribution but, because of budgetary problems, the funds were never provided. Most of the funding has been supplied by the UK-based Friends of Basrah Museum. The charity, founded by John Curtis, a former keeper at the British Museum, has raised nearly £500,000, largely through contributions from the oil company BP.

The museum still lacks the funds to open fully. Alabeed has decided instead to launch the project piecemeal, beginning with a gallery dedicated to the history of the Basra region from around BC300 to the 19th century. The remaining three spaces—which cover Sumer, Babylon and Assyria—are expected to open in the next few years. The museum estimates the project will cost an additional £450,000 to complete. A grant under consideration by the UK’s Cultural Protection Fund would provide the necessary funds; a decision is expected in late November.

The catalogue identifies 1080 works by Towne and his circle, doubling previously-described totals. Based on the author’s PhD thesis, it makes extensive use of the papers of Paul Oppé (1878-1957) whose pioneering researches established the artist’s reputation in the 1920s, after a century of neglect. Oppé had discovered the contents of Towne's own studio in the possession of the Merivale family of Barton Place near Exeter. Using the archives of Thomas Agnew & Sons, the Fine Art Society, Colnaghi and elsewhere, Stephens gives detailed provenances for hundreds of the Merivales' Townes that have circulated on the London art market. Towne's biography is established in greater detail than before, using much original research. Resources published alongside the catalogue include an edition of Towne's correspondence and a transcription of Oppé's Barton Place catalogue.

More than 800 works are illustrated with high-quality images, much of it specially commissioned by the Paul Mellon Centre. Towne's sketching tours in Wales, Italy, Switzerland, Savoy, the Lake District and around England are reconstructed with new clarity and detail.

Come and experience 18th-century Rome through an astonishing series of watercolours not displayed together since 1805.

British artist Francis Towne (1739–1816) made a remarkable group of watercolours during a visit to Rome in 1780–1781. They include famous monuments such as the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, ancient baths and temples, and the Forum. These watercolours were Towne’s way of delivering a moral warning to 18th-century Britain not to make the same mistakes – and suffer the same fate – as ancient Rome. 2016 marks the 200th anniversary of their bequest to the British Museum.

Towne’s 52 views of Rome are among the great creative landmarks in the use of watercolour within British art. They played a central role both in Towne’s career, and in the revival of his reputation in the 20th century. They were his main claim for recognition in the London art world and he continued to revise and work on them throughout his life. The views of Rome were the centrepiece of Towne’s one-man retrospective exhibition in London in 1805, and have not been displayed together since. When Towne bequeathed them to the Museum in 1816, they became his permanent public legacy. In addition to the views of Rome, the exhibition will feature further views of Italy by Towne and other works on paper by his contemporaries in Rome, including the important recent acquisition A Panoramic view of Rome by Giovanni Battista Lusieri (1755–1821).

As a landscape painter based in Exeter, Towne’s work was not well known in London during his lifetime, and he failed to be elected to the Royal Academy on several occasions. The Victorians had written off 18th-century watercolours as unambitious and limited, but in the early 20th century, the flat planes and spare, angular designs of Towne’s long-ignored drawings seemed unexpectedly fresh and elegant to modern eyes.

The book aims to answer the questions that used to (or in some cases still do) baffle me, such as

•     why did some pastellists also work in oil – and which sitters opted for pastel?
•     why did pastel disappear from fashion with the French revolution, returning a century later, but vanishing just as abruptly?
•     why does the word have such negative connotations?
•     was the Académie de Saint-Luc just a virtual concept, or was there a building?
•     how many pastellists were there?
•     how can you physically safeguard your pastels for a few pence each?
•     how were and are pastels displayed?

I’m aware that not everyone enjoys browsing websites. There’s something about riffling the pages of a book that the internet, tablets etc. haven’t been able to replicate. And it’s in the nature of reference books that one doesn’t sit down to read them in a linear fashion. 

This resource identifies all those men and women who have been identified as painters of any sort working in England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland between the years 1500 and 1640. At this posting, it includes 2,578 such entries. It includes those who were native to the British Isles and also those aliens who came and worked there at any time during this era. It also includes those whom contemporary occupational descriptions refer to as pursuing any specialty within the general category of 'painter' including, e.g., 'limner', 'picture-painter', 'glass-painter', 'herald painter', 'manuscript illuminator', etc. Each entry indicates, wherever possible, the places of origin and of residence, contemporary occupational description, dates of life and of activity, details of training, known works, and general biographical information. Each name is also accompanied by a list of sources, and by the identity of those who researched that name.