Previous Posts: March 2025
'La Vecchia popolana' acquired by Museo d'Arte Sorlini
March 31 2025
Picture: ansa.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that the Museo d'Arte Sorlini in Carzago Riviera has acquired Pietro Bellotti's La Vecchia popolana. The work, which had last been published in the 1940s, had apparently been acquired by the museum from a private collection in the recent past.
The Duke of Wellington's Dutch Masterpieces at Apsley House
March 31 2025
Picture: English Heritage
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Apsley House, the 1st Duke of Wellington's London home, will be putting on a special display of their Dutch masterpieces this spring.
According to English Heritage's website:
From 2 April 2025, discover this exhibition which brings together 18 of the finest Dutch paintings purchased by the 1st Duke of Wellington. During his lifetime, he chose to display them in the principal rooms of Apsley House, where they remain a highlight of the collection today. These works were primarily landscapes and genre scenes – depictions of ordinary people and everyday life. Highly prized by 19th-century collectors, Dutch paintings were admired for their technical brilliance and their compelling narratives. Insightful and amusing, they still engage us with their stories and invite us to reflect on the richness of everyday life.
Cambridge seeking Professor in the History of Late Imperial Chinese Art
March 31 2025
Picture: jobs.cam.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The University of Cambridge are hiring an Assistant Professor in the History of Late Imperial Chinese Art (ca. 1200-ca. 1800).
According to the job description:
The Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge seeks to appoint a permanent Assistant Professor in the History of Late Imperial Chinese Art (ca. 1200-ca. 1800). The Department welcomes applications from specialists in all mediums of art, including painting and the graphic arts, sculpture, metalwork, ceramics, and textiles, all of which are well represented in University collections. The successful candidate will be expected to take up appointment on or close to 1 September 2025.
The job comes with an annual salary of between £46,735 - £59,139 and applications must be in by 30th April 2025.
Sleeper Alert!
March 31 2025
Picture: Wimbledon Auctions
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News on social media (via. milesbartonpaintings) that this portrait of Robert Burns catalogued as 'Manner of Sir Henry Raeburn' achieved £68,000 (hammer) over its £300 - £500 estimate at Wimbledon Auctions today.
Queen Charlotte Pentimenti in Royal Collection Infrared Scan
March 31 2025
Picture: Royal Collection Trust via. Instagram
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Royal Collection Trust have revealed this rather fascinating infrared scan of Benjamin West's portrait of George III and Queen Charlotte. It shows that the artist had initially positioned the Queen's head rather differently than it appears now. There are also changes to the King's eyes, which are also visible in the scans.
The picture is back on display at Kew Palace, where it appears to hang above a doorway, which has recently opened for the season.
Sotheby's Mid-Season Sale
March 27 2025
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Sotheby's London have uploaded their upcoming Old Master & 19th Century Paintings sale online. Bidding for this auction will take place between 2nd - 9th April 2025.
As usual with mid-season sales, I won't point out what may or may not be interesting.
Not Caravaggio, says the Prado in Court Case
March 27 2025
Picture: elconfidencial.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Spanish Press (spotted via @Boro_RR) have reported on news from a court case regarding the following painting. It was sold by an art dealer to a businessman as by Caravaggio for 275,000 EUR in 2023, however, a court case which had consulted experts at the Prado has rightly concluded that it is not (nor by any other hand such as Valdés Leal or Ribalta). Click on the link above to read the full story.
Lavinia Fontana discovery at Musée de la Chartreuse
March 27 2025
Picture: Smithsonian Magazine
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm a little slow to news that the Musée de la Chartreuse in France has rediscovered a work by Lavinia Fontana in their collection. Here's the write up from the Smithsonian Magazine website, which explains the picture will soon be undergoing a full restoration project before being redisplayed to the public.
Vanitas Sleeper!
March 27 2025
Picture: Il Ponte
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News on social media (from @Michael27553834 and @auctionradar) of this picture catalogued as 'Castilian School of the First Half of the 17th Century' which realised 200,000 EUR over its 25k - 35k estimate at Il Ponte in Milan.
Conserve Pictures at the NPG
March 26 2025
Picture: NPG
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Portrait Gallery in London are hiring a Paintings Conservator (part time).
According to the job description:
Key Accountabilities:
-Expertly assess and treat paintings, provide advice and guidance on all aspects of care, treatment, and suitability for loan and display to key stakeholders.
-Undertake a wide range of paintings treatments, confidently using and interpreting a range of specialist analytical and imaging techniques.
-Digitally document condition assessments and treatments.
-Help develop and maintain clear and consistent conservation policies and procedures.
-Excellent understand of Health & Safety and COSHH guidelines applicable to painting conservation treatments and activities.
-Help develop research, technical examination, and treatment initiatives that improve academic understanding and presentation of the Gallery’s paintings collection.
-Actively participate in professional networks for benefit of paintings collection, and to contribute to wider sector knowledge and development.
-Act as an advocate for painting conservation, supporting talks and studio tours, and training of future conservators.
-Support development of low carbon conservation and collections care initiatives.
The part-time role comes with a salary of £14,529.84, based on the full time equivalent of £36,324.60, and applications must be in by 14th April 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Jean Honoré Fragonard & Marguerite Gérard at Galerie Hubert Duchemin
March 26 2025
Picture: Galerie Hubert Duchemin
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
For those in Paris this week for Salon du Dessin, the dealers Galerie Hubert Duchemin have an interesting small exhibition focusing on seven works by Jean Honoré Fragonard & Marguerite Gérard. Their display is also accompanied by this rather thorough-looking catalogue too (via the link above), in case you're not in Paris currently.
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Please do let me know if any other members of the Paris art trade are putting on things this week, happy to plug anything interesting!
Funded PhD Studying Portraiture and the East India Company, c.1757–1857
March 26 2025
Picture: courtauld.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Courtauld Institute & Tate are inviting applications for an AHRC doctoral studentship studying Imperial Intimacies: Portraiture and the East India Company, c.1757–1857.
According to their website:
This studentship will explore portraiture produced in connection with the East India Company between 1757 and 1857, to uncover new stories about the individuals impacted by, or involved in, British imperialism in South Asia, and to rethink the role of portraiture within ‘British’ art histories.
This project will be jointly supervised by Dr Tom Young, the Courtauld, and Dr Alice Insley, Tate, and the student will be expected to spend time at both the Courtauld and Tate, as well as becoming part of the wider cohort of CDP funded students across the UK.
The Studentship comes with a stipend of £20,780 plus London Weighting of £2000/year. Applications must be in by 6th April 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Upcoming Release: Josefa de Óbidos
March 25 2025
Picture: Lund Humphries
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The publishers Lund Humphries will be releasing a new volume on the Portuguese female artist Josefa de Óbidos (1630-1684) by Professor Carmen Ripollés (Portland State University) in September 2025.
According to their website:
The first monograph on the artist to be published in English, this book provides a long-overdue introduction to the life and work of Portuguese painter Josefa de Ayala, known as Josefa de Óbidos (1630-1684). One of the best known and most celebrated artists of the Portuguese baroque, she is the only early modern female artist to be credited with representing the art of a whole period and a geographical area. Her paintings encompass a diversity of religious and secular subjects in a variety of formats, from portraits to still lifes; small oils on copper to large church altarpieces; seemingly ‘feminine’ themes revolving around the Virgin Mary and female saints to gruesome portrayals of the Passion of Christ. Her oeuvre also includes engravings.
Salon du Dessin opens tomorrow
March 25 2025
Picture: salondudessin.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Parisian works on paper fair Salon du Dessin opens at the Palais Brongniart tomorrow. As usual, there are plenty of fascinating works to see from '39 exhibitors and a significant proportion of foreign galleries (19 from 8 different countries)' and a whole host of events and talks to attend.
Nicolas-Guy Brenet at the Musée de la Chartreuse
March 25 2025
Picture: douaisis-agglo-tourisme.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai have just opened a new exhibition exploring the life and career of Nicolas-Guy Brenet (1728-1792). As a painter of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris, Brenet undertook allegorical paintings for the city's courthouse and other works in the surrounding areas. The show will run until 23rd June 2025.
The British Art Journal is Back!
March 25 2025
Picture: britishartjournal.co.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Exciting news to report that The British Art Journal is returning in a new digital format with long-time editor Robin Simon continuing at the helm. Volume XXV, which includes the story about the Van Dyck thief I posted about here last week, is already free and available to read online! Many happy hours of reading ahead, it seems clear!
Funded PhD Studying WWI Prints & Lithographs
March 25 2025
Picture: warwick.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The University of Warwick and the Imperial War Museums are advertising an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship in Lithographs of the First World War: printmaking, propaganda and mobilisation.
According to the university's website:
IWM holds a fascinating but under-researched collection of European fine and popular prints gathered by John Crichton-Stewart, the 4th Marquess of Bute, when he was a diplomat in Paris during the First World War and donated to the museum in the early 1950s. It contains around 3,600 predominantly French prints, representing all aspects of French patriotic print production of the period, most of them lithographs, as well as relief and intaglio prints, and some drawings. It is envisaged that the PhD project will focus on this collection, as well as the museum’s collection of British lithographs of the period, mainly instigated by the government’s War Propaganda Bureau / Department of Information. These include the 1917 series Britain’s Efforts and Ideals by various artists and the work of soldier-artist Gerald Spencer Pryse.
The proposed investigation of these collections will fill in a curiously outstanding gap in the field. Both scholars of France and art historians have paid relatively little attention to lithography. Moreover, in both Britain and France, the cultural history of the conflict has often underplayed the specificities of artistic production in wartime.
The studentship comes with an annual Doctoral Stipend for 2025/2026 of about £20,780 plus London Weighting of £1000/year. Applications must be in by 3rd June 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Stolen Picture Returned to Italian Church
March 25 2025
Picture: Hampel
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Italian press have reported on news that a painting by Claudio Ridolfi of the Presentation of the Virgin has been returned to the chiesa di Passera in Stresa (on Lake Maggiore), where it was stolen from in 2009. The picture was discovered by police when it was put up for sale at the auction house Hampel in 2023, where it was swiftly seized by the German authorities and returned to Italy. The canvas has since been restored and will be redisplayed in the church shortly.
Joseph Wright of Derby at the National Gallery in Autumn 2025
March 25 2025
Picture: Derby Museums
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery and Derby Museums are collaborating on a new exhibition focusing on Joseph Wright of Derby's candlelight scenes for Autumn 2025.
According to the NG's press release:
In the autumn of 2025, the National Gallery will present Wright of Derby: From the Shadows, the first exhibition dedicated to Joseph Wright ‘of Derby’ (1734–1797) at the National Gallery, and the first exhibition to focus on his ‘candlelight’ series. The exhibition is organised in partnership with Derby Museums where it will travel in 2026.
Following on from recent exhibitions such as Turner on Tour (2022) and Discover Constable & The Hay Wain (2024), this exhibition will put the spotlight on a well-known British artist in the National Gallery Collection whose work has come to symbolise an era. Traditionally, Wright of Derby has been viewed as a figurehead of the Enlightenment, a period of scientific, philosophical and artistic development in the 17th and 18th century. Challenging this conventional view, the exhibition contributes to the ongoing re-evaluation of the artist, portraying him not merely as a ‘painter of light’ but as one who deliberately explores the night-time to engage with deeper and more sombre themes, including death, melancholy, morality, scepticism and the sublime.
The show will run at the National Gallery from 7th November 2025 until 10th May 2026.
Prado cleans Caterina Cherubini Saint
March 21 2025
Picture: Prado
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Spanish art account @Boro_RR on 'X' has shared news that the Prado in Madrid have conserved this rather nice oil on copper of St Agnes by Caterina Cherubini (1730-1811) presumably for display in the very near future.
