Previous Posts: January 2022

Apollo: Gainsborough's 'Vandyke' Portraits

January 6 2022

Image of Apollo: Gainsborough's 'Vandyke' Portraits

Picture: Apollo

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

January's edition of Apollo features an article on Thomas Gainsborough's 'Vandyke' portraits. The piece, penned by Juliet Carey, Senior Curator of Waddesdon Manor, anticipates the upcoming return of Gainsborough's Blue Boy. Furthermore, it has been revealed that Waddesdon Manor's Pink Boy is currently being cleaned before it appears in the exhibition.

One can't imagine the transformation this conservation will have on this brilliant painting:

Donatello's Gattamelata moving Inside after Five and a Half Centuries Outside

January 5 2022

Image of Donatello's Gattamelata moving Inside after Five and a Half Centuries Outside

Picture: wikipedia

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

News from Padua that Donatello's equestrian sculpture of Gattamelata will be finally moved inside after spending five and a half centuries out in the open. The sculpture, dating from 1453, has been positioned in the city's Piazza del Santo for centuries where it has been subjected to both shocks from the weather and regular gifts from pigeons (pictured). Thankfully, the original will soon be preserved inside The Basilica of St. Anthony Museum and a copy put in its place.

New Release & Free Ebook: At Home in Renaissance Bruges

January 5 2022

Image of New Release & Free Ebook: At Home in Renaissance Bruges

Picture: Leuven University Press

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

Leuven University Press will be publishing Julie de Groot's new book At Home in Renaissance Bruges Connecting Objects, People and Domestic Spaces in a Sixteenth-Century City later this April. Amazingly, the scholarly publication will also be released as a free ebook.

According to the book's blurb:

How did citizens in Bruges create a home? What did an ordinary domestic interior look like in the sixteenth century? And more importantly: how does one study the domestic culture of bygone times by analysing documents such as probate inventories? These questions seem straightforward, yet few endeavours are more challenging than reconstructing a sixteenth-century domestic reality from written sources. This book takes full advantage of the inventory and convincingly frames household objects in their original context of use. Meticulously connecting objects, people and domestic spaces, the book introduces the reader to the rich material world of Bruges citizens in the Renaissance, their sensory engagement, their religious practice, the role of women, and other social factors. By weaving insights from material culture studies with urban history, At Home in Renaissance Bruges offers an appealing and holistic mixture of in-depth socio-economic, cultural and material analysis.

Art Gallery of New South Wales Acquires a Ribera

January 5 2022

Image of Art Gallery of New South Wales Acquires a Ribera

Picture: The Art Gallery of New South Wales

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

A reader has been in touch with news that The Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, has acquired Jusepe de Ribera's Aesop. It seems that this is the same Aesop that was sold at auction in Paris during 2000.*

According to the gallery's press release:

Painted in Naples, Aesop c1625–31 is a portrayal of Aesop, the legendary ancient Greek storyteller, and one of Ribera’s very first representations of so-called ‘beggar philosophers’. 

Spanish by birth, Ribera (1591–1652) moved to Rome at an early age and eventually made his home in Naples where he adopted Caravaggio’s practice of working directly from posed models, imparting them with a vibrant presence that showed all their imperfections with life-like realism. 

Purchased in 2021, the Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation funded the acquisition from its endowment and funds raised at a 2019 Foundation event. 

The work is on display in the Art Gallery’s revitalised Grand Courts, which are considered the finest Victorian-era galleries in Australia.

* - A reader has kindly been in touch to let me know that the picture is not the same as the one with Colnaghi's in 2018, as I had previously suggested.

Boilly Exhibition at the Musée Cognacq-Jay

January 4 2022

Image of Boilly Exhibition at the Musée Cognacq-Jay

Picture: Musée Cognacq-Jay

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

The Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris will be opening their latest exhibition next month. Boilly. Parisian chronicles will examine the artist's career in no less than 130 works chosen to show his singularity, brilliance, humour and his inventiveness. Furthermore, the show was intended as a sort of extension to the catalogue raisonné by Etienne Bréton and Pascal Zuber published by Arthena in 2019.

The show will run from 22nd February 2022 until 26th June 2022.

Preserving Rosa Bonheur's Château de By

January 4 2022

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

The French newspaper Le Mond have published what looks to be an interesting article on artist Rosa Bonheur's Château de By in Thomery. The château came into the possession of Katherine Brault in 2017, who has been continuing to transform the building and collection into a museum worthy of commemorating the famous nineteenth-century female artist. 2022 is a special year as it marks 200 years since Bonheur's birth in 1822. 

MNAA Lisbon to send 15 Masterpieces to the Louvre

January 4 2022

Image of MNAA Lisbon to send 15 Masterpieces to the Louvre

Picture: MNAA Lisbon

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

The Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon will be sending 15 masterpieces of the Portuguese Renaissance to the Louvre later this year. Works by the likes of Nuno Gonçalves (active 1450-before 1492), Jorge Afonso (active 1504-1540), Cristóvão de Figueiredo (active 1515-1554) and Gregorio Lopes (active 1513-1550) will be sent for a special exhibition entitled L’Age D’or de la Renaissance Portugaise.

The show will run from 10th June 2022 - 10th September 2022.

Rediscovered Caravaggio Offered to Spain

January 4 2022

Image of Rediscovered Caravaggio Offered to Spain

Picture: digismak.com

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

The Art Newspaper have shared news that last year's Caravaggio rediscovery has been offered to the Spanish state for purchase. No exact price has been published, however, it must surely be in the millions.

To quote the article:

In a recent statement, the Madrid regional government supported the theory that the work is by the Old Master, saying: “The information that has appeared over the past few months, together with the studies undertaken by experts, reinforces the theory that it is the work of Caravaggio.” It also described the work as “an example of the excellence and pictorial mastery of the Italian naturalism” that had a great influence on the Madrid school of painting in the 17th century.

Burlington Magazine - Current Issue

January 4 2022

Image of Burlington Magazine - Current Issue

Picture: Burlington Magazine

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

January's edition of The Burlington Magazine focuses on Italian Baroque Art. As ever, the publication is full of interesting pieces of research alongside a free-to-read editorial and review of the exhibition By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women.

Here is a list of this month's contents:

Carlo Dolci’s Inscriptions 1 – Dolci’s signatures and prices in context BY RICHARD E. SPEAR

Carlo Dolci’s Inscriptions II – Diligence and devotion in Dolci’s ‘The Adoration of the Kings’ in the National Gallery, London BY LETIZIA TREVES

New light on the colossal statues on the façade of St Peter’s, Rome BY FERNANDO LOFFREDO

Caravaggio’s ‘Entombment of Christ’ and the birth of Christian archaeology BY SILVIA DANESI SQUARZINA

Edith Coulson James, Francesco Francia and ‘The Burlington Magazine’, 1911–17 BY MARIA ALAMBRITIS

The Italian Caravaggio, among others BY SHEILA MCTIGHE

Louis Chéron Exhibition in Caen

January 3 2022

Image of Louis Chéron Exhibition in Caen

Picture: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen have recently opened a new exhibition dedicated to Louis Chéron (1660–1725). Although born in Paris, Chéron is known for having spent a considerable time in England worked alongside the likes of James Thornhill and others. The show contains around forty works sourced from French and English collections covering the years 1678 - c.1720.

The exhibition will run until 6th March 2022.

Rijksmuseum Upload 717-gigapixel Image of The Night Watch

January 3 2022

Image of Rijksmuseum Upload 717-gigapixel Image of The Night Watch

Picture: Rijksmuseum

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam have uploaded a 717-gigapixel image of Rembrandt's The Night Watch onto their website. The digital image, which allows you to zoom in with unbelievable depth, is four times sharper than the picture uploaded last year and is absolutely free to use.

Brooklyn Museum Announces Acquisitions and Gifts

January 3 2022

Image of Brooklyn Museum Announces Acquisitions and Gifts

Picture: Brooklyn Museum

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

The Brooklyn Museum in New York City have announced the nearly 500 acquisitions and gifts it has received between October 2020 and October 2021.

On the old masters front, the most significant acquisition is a Portrait of a Man of African Descent c.1600, by an 'unknown artist (probably Venetian)'. The work was acquired through the William K. Jacobs Jr. Fund and the Dorward Fund.

According to the museum's press release:

This painting is a rare and compelling portrait of an as-yet-unidentified Black man. With none of the typical signifiers of servitude, this individualized portrayal opens up inclusive narratives about the presence of Black people in early modern Europe—some having arrived as pilgrims or members of diplomatic retinues, with many more brought as a result of the intensifying European slave trade in Africa. It is a powerful and urgent visual intervention among the Museum’s other works from seventeenth-century Europe, which is often perceived and presented as an almost exclusively white milieu.

New Release: The Sun King at Sea

January 3 2022

Image of New Release: The Sun King at Sea

Picture: Yale Books

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

Yale Books have just this month released their latest title The Sun King at Sea - Maritime Art and Galley Slavery in Louis XIV's France by Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss.

According to the book's blurb:

Mediterranean maritime art and the forced labor on which it depended were fundamental to the politics and propaganda of France's King Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715). Yet most studies of French art in this period focus on Paris and Versailles, overlooking the presence or portrayal of galley slaves on the kingdom's coasts. By examining a wide range of artistic productions-ship design, artillery sculpture, medals, paintings, and prints-Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss uncover a vital aspect of royal representation and unsettle a standard picture of art and power in early modern France. With an abundant selection of startling images, many never before published, The Sun King at Sea emphasizes the role of esclaves turcs (enslaved Turks)-rowers who were captured or purchased from Islamic lands-in building and decorating ships and other art objects that circulated on land and by sea to glorify the Crown. Challenging the notion that human bondage vanished from continental France, this cross-disciplinary volume invites a reassessment of servitude as a visible condition, mode of representation, and symbol of sovereignty during Louis XIV's reign.

Happy New Year!

January 3 2022

Image of Happy New Year!

Picture: Sotheby's

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

Wishing all readers of AHN a very Happy New Year!

I am certain that 2022 will bring all sorts of interesting new stories, pieces of research, discoveries and big auction prices.

As always, do get in touch if you come across some interesting piece of news that is worth sharing on the blog. Equally, if there are any exhibitions that are worth knowing about, I'd be most grateful to hear about them!

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