Previous Posts: September 2013

Quite a few hacks were probably thinking “there but for the Grace of God…” when on Saturday evening in Lugano’s swanky Meno Uno gallery, one of their number, tanked up on free cocktails, made a lunge for a passing nibble but instead knocked over and destroyed a priceless work of art.

With the famous Swiss sense of decorum notably absent, “one guest at the preview," intoned Radio Switzerland (RSI),  "caught between a canapé and a chat with someone, unfortunately knocked over a work by Luciano Fabro and smashed it to pieces. It is, or rather, it was, the famous Impronta (Imprint) dated 1962-1964". [...]

The sculpture, an opaque glass disk with a central impression of Planet Earth at its centre, was left in a thousand pieces, while the other 30 guests picked their jaws up of the floor. Ironically, the work was said by its creator to represent the longevity of the world.

The painting has been in the private collection of a family for several years, but the museum would not release any more information about the owners because of privacy concerns, Mr. Rüger said. Two years ago, they brought it to the Van Gogh Museum to seek authentication, and researchers from the museum have been examining it ever since, said Mr. Rüger. The museum recently concluded that the work was a van Gogh because the painting’s pigments correspond with those of van Gogh’s palette from Arles.

It was also painted on the same type of canvas, with the same type of underpainting he used for at least one other painting, “The Rocks” (owned by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston) of the same area at the same time. The work was also listed as part of Theo van Gogh’s collection in 1890, and was sold in 1901.

“Sunset at Montmajour” is comparable in size to van Gogh’s “Sunflower” painting of the same year. The owners brought it to the museum once before in 1991, said Mr. Rüger, but at the time no one recognized it as a van Gogh. “This time, we have topographical information plus a number of other factors that have helped us to establish authenticity. Research is so much more advanced now, so we could come to a very different conclusion.”

Interesting footnote about the villa. It was long speculated that John Soane had a hand in the design of the house

- some elements are unmistakeably Soanean. A sketch recently came to light at Sir John Soanes museum (where I work) which more or less confirms his involvement. Makes for a very interesting collaboration. It's a very odd building indeed.

Turner and Soane were close friends, they spent weekends at that house fishing and entertaining.

A rare early colour image of Vincent van Gogh’s Six Sunflowers has been tracked down in Japan. It reveals that Van Gogh designed a bold orange frame for his still life. The framed painting, once in a private Japanese collection, was destroyed in an American bombing raid during the Second World War.

This newly discovered image is from a very scarce portfolio produced in Tokyo in 1921, which has escaped the attention of art historians. It is reproduced in The Sunflowers are Mine: The Story of Van Gogh’s Masterpiece, by Martin Bailey, to be published by Frances Lincoln on 5 September.

Van Gogh’s narrow wooden frame was painted in orange, producing a dramatic effect when set against the blue background of the still life. This reflects Van Gogh’s love of complementary colours (such as orange and blue), which have a vibrant effect when placed next to each other. Van Gogh has also varied the orange, so that it is a deep orange where it is next to the blue background and a lighter orange next to the lilac table.

We can now see how Van Gogh wanted to present his Six Sunflowers: the yellow-ochre sunflowers were set against a rich royal blue background and then framed in orange. This framing would have been revolutionary in 1888, when pictures were traditionally hung in gilt frames or, for very modern works, in white frames.

While researching my book on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers I was astonished to find that the artist’s self-mutilation had been reported soon after it happened in a Parisian newspaper. It appeared in Le Petit Journal on 26 December 1888, three days after Van Gogh slashed off the lower part of his left ear, following a row with Gauguin. Until recently, only one short newspaper report of the mutilation was known, which was published a few days later in an Arles weekly, Le Forum Républicain.

The newly discovered article in a Parisian daily records important details. Le Petit Journal reported that Van Gogh used a razor. He then went to a “house of ill repute”, where he “gave his ear in a folded piece of paper” to the doorkeeper. Van Gogh told the recipient: “Take it, it will be useful”. These baffling words suggest that Van Gogh must have been suffering from an acute mental problem throughout the night, and did not just slice off part of his ear in a passing moment of madness.

The Parisian report is also important in another sense. Van Gogh’s self-mutilation was the first item of provincial news in Le Petit Journal, so the article must have attracted considerable attention in the capital. It would have been seen by many of his friends and much discussed in the Paris bars that Van Gogh frequented. This must have only added to the distress of his brother Theo, who was a respectable figure running an art gallery.

It seems astonishing that a virtually unknown individual living over 600km away who mutilated himself would have warranted this attention in a four-page Parisian newspaper (taking a quarter of the space devoted to provincial news that day). But even then, there was something sensationalist about the ear incident which grabbed public attention.

• Van Gogh completed his original four paintings of Sunflowers in less than a week, twice as fast as has been assumed. He chose to depict sunflowers because the weather was bad and his models failed to show up. 
• There is also a second “unknown” Sunflowers painting which has always been hidden away in private collections. This is Van Gogh’s Three Sunflowers, with a bright turquoise background. It has never been exhibited in living memory and its whereabouts have been a mystery. Bailey reveals that Three Sunflowers was acquired by the Swiss-based Greek shipping tycoon George Embiricos, who sold it in the late 1990s. It was then bought by the present owner, a very discreet collector with a taste for Van Gogh.

I am delighted and extremely excited to have received an award from the Art Fund's Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grant programme. For the next seven months I will be able to put aside two days a week to spend time in London’s libraries and museum collections hunting down any possible link there may be between Britain and Spain’s leading 18th-century portrait painters: Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) and Francisco de Goya (1746-1828).

This project was inspired by the visual similarities between Dulwich Picture Gallery’s portrait of the musician Samuel Linley (1778), which Gainsborough reputedly painted in 48 minutes, and Goya’s portrait of the Spanish composer, Manuel Quijano (1815), which is in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona (see above). Both portraits are half-length portraits and set in oval frames, and both are evocative portrayals of each sitter’s artistic sensibility.

Although the visual similarities between the two artists have often been remarked upon they have never been properly explored. Goya, who was 19 years younger than Gainsborough, would have known the elder artist by reputation. My hunch is that he is very likely to have known the numerous prints that were made after Gainsborough’s portraits and widely circulated throughout Europe, some which surely made it to Madrid where Goya worked.

In order to ascertain this, my first port of call will be to the British Museum’s Prints and Drawings department to look through the many boxes of prints after Gainsborough’s portraits. I hope to determine which prints Goya might have been able to see in Madrid and demonstrate the role they might have played in his development as a portrait painter, particularly in terms of pose, gesture, facial expression and the setting of a figure in space.

I agree with you on this one (being an auctioneer), the auction industry is heavily favouring the sellers. Naturally this comes from the notion that it is easier to get someone to buy than to sell, especially in the high-end segment of art and antiques. The fierce competition between the auction houses also promotes the idea that it's better to have it bought in at your own house than sold somewhere else. That makes it the seller's market and since consignors believe a high estimate will bring a high result, they usually go for the highest estimate offered (or lowest commission, everything else alike).

The practice of aftersales has only emerged during the recent years in my country (not being Britain), so previously all BI's were reoffered at the next sale with a revised estimate/reserve. I believe that practice had the best of two worlds. If the piece was offered the market too high, this would be adjusted a few months later until it hit market value or the consignor got bored and withdrew the whole thing. 

The aftersales are a nuisance because, as you say, possible clients will gamble that the lot will be BI, and make an offer out of the public market (often on a first come, first served basis). I believe this is bad for the consignor as well as the potential buyers, since it is off-auction and not under any market scrutiny. 

And speaking of buyer's premiums, they are as irritating to a buyer as the American sales tax additions are to Europeans used to VAT being included in the price.

Firstly Christie's aren't the first to implement this new rate of 25% up to £50,000 they are just following in Sotheby's footsteps. I am not defending Christie's actions in doing so but it problem this highlights is that becasue both are such dominant players there is a fear factor - if one does something the other has to follow. And, so far copying each other seems to have paid off for them both.

Secondly in regard to after-sales: 

The market never lies - if someone truly believed in something's worth i believe they would never 'gamble' that it would BI and so I dont agree that this sort of gambling happens. Anyone in trade who 'gambles' on after-sales I presume had no idea they were going to buy the work until after they knew it had BI'd (there will however be some exceptions to this rule)... in which case I find it bizarre that they can suddenly have a customer of theirs believe that are passionate about such a work and believe in it's quality when they previously had no intention of buying it. Further, because the work is never re-offered a fair market value for that artist is never established (and a customer is often duped).

On 'Interesting on the first point, but very odd logic on the second. The market may indeed never lie - but the question is whether an auctioneer bidding someone up to the reserve (by pretending there is a rival bidder in the room) is in fact a genuine market at all': 

You have a point here, but to be fair, it is not only the potential buyers that constitute a market. The reserve is the seller's part in the deal. However, one could argue that the most fair practice would be publicly known reserves, as in many of the online action sites these days. That would of course lead to the loss of estimates, but really, would anyone miss them? My guess is that's the direction we're heading.

Discover the early figure drawings of the great German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer.

The Young Dürer concentrates on the artist’s journeyman years (c. 1490-96), during which he travelled widely and was exposed to a range of new influences.

The exhibition explores how Dürer reinvented artistic traditions through an ambitious new approach to the figure rooted in the study of his own body.

Don’t miss your chance to see outstanding early works by Dürer as well as rare drawings and prints by his contemporaries, many of which have never been seen in the United Kingdom.

Artwork details

Artist Martin Creed (born 1968)

Title Work No. 227: The lights going on and off

Date 2000

Medium Gallery lights

Dimensions display dimensions variable

Collection Tate

Acquisition Purchased with funds provided by Tate Members, the Art Fund and Konstantin Grigorishin 2013

Reference T13868

As a member of the Art fund (the NACF when I joined) I'm not happy at the way museum purchases, in many cases, are now directly from studio to museum, with no intermediate life for the work in between. In the past many Art fund acquisitions would gather about them a body of criticism, good & bad, that members could come to some conclusion about.

Eighty-five years ago, Charles A. Loeser, an American living abroad, gave the White House eight Cézanne paintings, a bequest that would have been the envy of any museum in the world.

Loeser donated the six landscapes and two still lifes "to the President of the United States of America and his successors in office for the adornment of the White House" and required that the paintings be displayed together, as an ensemble.

Yet only two of the eight — the two that Kennedy ignored — have spent a significant amount of time inside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. At least one has never hung there.

The White House's art collection is mostly American-themed art, including fine works by Gilbert Stuart, Jean-Antoine Houdon and John Singer Sargent. The presence of the French masterpieces is little known, even among experts.

Asked recently about them, Paul Schimmel, former museum curator and member of the presidentially appointed Committee for the Preservation of the White House, responded: "What Cézannes?"

There may be another reason for the White House to be a bit quiet about the Cezannes.

 The Skull or Crane - Rewald 565 was bought by Loeser from Ambroise Vollard.  The short comment in the catalogue says:  

 "The colours of this picture, especially the blue-purple curtain behind the skull, as well as the dry execution are very unlike those of any other work by Cezanne.  There exists a watercolour of the same subject, RWC No 231, of about 1885, and one may wonder whether it was not used by another artist for this oil."

Among the female portraits in his collection, one can spot: "Portrait of a Young Woman (La Fornarina)" (ca. 1519) and "Portrait of a Young Woman (La Muta)" (1507) by Raphael, "Violante" (ca. 1515) and "La Bella" (1536) by Titian, "Portrait of Eleaonor of Toledo" (1560) and "Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi" (1541) by Bronzino, "Portrait of Caterina Sforza" (ca. 1490) by Lorenzo di Credi, "Zingarella" (1505) by Boccaccio Boccaccino, "Lady with a Book of Petrarch's Rhyme" (ca. 1528) by Andrea del Sarto, "Portrait of Bianca Cappello" (ca. 1572) by Alessandro Allori, "Portrait of Elspeth Tucher" (1499) by Albrecht Dürer, and "Jeanne Samary in a Low-Necked Dress (La Rêverie)" (1877) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

There are also works of Lucas Cranach the Elder, Pieter Paul Rubens, Francisco Goya, Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Amedeo Modigliani, Morgan Weistling, and many others.