Fitzwilliam Museum's 200th birthday gift
August 8 2016
Picture: Camrbidge News
The Fitzwilliam Museum is 200 years old this year. They've just announced the acquisition of the above early 17th Century Italian cabinets for £1.2m. The cabinets had been sold last year at Sotheby's in London by Castle Howard, and had been destined to go overseas. But the museum, led by its director Tim Knox, stepped in to save them for the nation. Cambridge News reports:
Described by the museum's director as a “perfect combination of Italian pomp and English splendour", the ebony and rosewood cabinets, inlaid with semi-precious stones and mounted with gilt-bronze, will form the centrepiece of its birthday celebration.
Made in Rome in about 1625 for the powerful Borghese family, they have been part of the private collection at Castle Howard in Yorkshire, since their purchase by Henry Howard, the 4th Earl of Carlisle.
Last year they were put up for auction at Sotherby's, selling to a foreign buyer for a cool £1.2 million.
However as the only surviving pair of Roman hardstone cabinets in a British public collection, they were deemed so important the Government placed a temporary export bar on them, to provide an opportunity to save them for the nation.
The National Heritage Memorial Fund gave £700,000 and the ArtFund gave £200,000. Congratulations to all involved.
Sotheby's expands video platform
August 8 2016
Video: Sotheby's
Interesting news from Sotheby's (in The Art Newspaper) that they'll be making more short films about museums and important collections, from the Met in New York (as above) to Chatsworth in the UK.
Sotheby's videos are now of very high quality, and demonstrate to many museums how these things should be done. And here's the commercial imperative for doing so:
There is also a clear financial incentive for Sotheby’s to host films on its website. The auction house has seen an increase of 187% in its video views, and clients who engage with videos or other editorial content are 33% more likely to bid, according to a spokesman.
I suspect good videos can be used to have a similar effect on museum fundraising.
By the way, just a quick note to Sotheby's - please put your videos on sites like You Tube and Vimeo, not just your own website. It's much easier for people like me to promote them. If you just put them on your own site, then I'm limited to showing tiny windows like the one above...
Bowes Museum acquires rare Bouts
August 8 2016
Picture: Guardian
The Bowes Museum has acquired a rare 15th Century picture by Dieric Bouts the Elder and his workshop for £2.3m. The picture, St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child (detail above), was secured with a generous grant of £1.99m from the Heritage Lottery Fund. It had been threatened with a sale overseas, and happily the government's export licence scheme worked well. More here, and here.
Amidst all the talk of gloom for Britain's regional museums, it's really inspiring to see an institution like the Bowes Museum achieving so much. This latest acquisition comes on top of their recent £2m endowment fund appeal, and the acquisition through the AIL scheme of Van Dyck's 'Portrait of Olivia Porter'. Great credit is due, I think, to the Bowes' energetic and creative director, Adrian Jenkins.
Elizabeth I 'Armada Portrait' bought for the nation
August 8 2016
Video: You Tube / The Art Fund
Excellent news that the National Maritime Museum has bought the Tyrwhitt-Drake 'Armada' portrait of Elizabeth I for £16m. The picture was being sold by the descendants of Sir Francis Drake, and it was the first time the picture had ever been put on the market. Christie's handled the sale, and the Heritage Lottery Fund made by far the largest contribution to the campaign (run the Art Fund) with a grant of £7.4m.
The intervention of the HLF is more evidence of the dramatic impact brought about by the last government's change in policy for Lottery 'good cause' money. When the HLF was first established, the purchase of objects was effectively forbidden. Now, however, more money is available to buy pictures for UK institutions than ever before. Donations from members of the public were £1.5m, which is another healthy sign of the public's acquisitional appetite in these uncertain times.
You can read more about the picture here in AHN's first reporting of the appeal.
In the above video, made for the Art Fund's fundraising campaign, the Tudor historian Dr. David Starkey (of whom AHN is exceedingly fond) tells us why the picture is so important.
Please, don't touch...
August 8 2016
Video: You Tube
The New York Times looks at recent cases of visitors getting too close to museum exhibits, including the above disaster at the National Watch and Clock Museum in the US. The article cites this view as to why such things happen:
Steve Keller, who has worked in museum security since 1979, said the phenomenon of visitors’ defacing exhibits has been going on for years. He linked their actions to mental instability, a lack of appreciation of art or sheer ignorance.
Which sounds harsh, but is probably true.
The last time I was in the Louvre I saw a visitor vigorously rub the impasto on a painting by John Constable, and then compare it with the surface of a Turner hanging nearby. I gave them what for.
Personally, I don't mind pictures being glazed, as long as it's done well. I recently visited the Queen's Gallery here in Edinburgh at Holyrood, to see the excellent exhibition Masters of the Everyday: Dutch Artists in the Age of Vermeer,* where every picture was glazed. But it was done so expertly, with perfect lighting, that it was impossible to tell at a normal viewing angle. If this is the price we have to pay to protect our finest pictures from the mad and the ignorant, then so be it.
*Now at the Mauritshuis in The Hague.
The flea market Durer
August 8 2016
Picture: Guardian
A 1520 engraving by Albrecht Durer, Maria Crowned by an Angel, has been donated to the Staatsgallerie in Stuttgart after it was bought in a French flea market for just a few euros. The engraving had originally been in the museum's collection, but had been missing since the war. A museum stamp on the back identified the museum's ownership. The donor has remained anonymous, but whoever they are, AHN salutes them.
Test your Connoisseurship
August 8 2016
Picture: BG
On Saturday Jacky Klein and I finished filming for our new BBC4 series, 'Britain's Lost Masterpieces', which is scheduled to air in September. I can't tell you anything about the pictures we're focusing on yet. But above is a photomicrograph detail of one of them. I'm sure you'll all be able to guess the artist...
Blog on
August 8 2016
Picture: BG
I hope you've all had, or are having, a pleasant summer. Thanks for your patience while I've been away - the blog will now wind back into action. Above you can see the Deputy Editor making sandcastles on a beach in the Hebrides (which I can report has some of the best beaches in the world).
Blog off
July 25 2016
Picture: Ishbel Grosvenor
It's holiday time folks, and the Deputy Editor and I are off to see some pictures. We'll be back in a week or so. In the meantime, I hope you all have a wonderful summer. And don't forget, 'Fake or Fortune?' continues for two more weeks, with August Rodin up next Sunday, BBC1 8pm.
The Mystery of Van Gogh's Ear (ctd.)
July 22 2016
Picture: BBC
Last week I reported on new research by Bernadette Murphy on how, when and why Van Gogh cut off his ear. Now, Martin Bailey (himself a Van Gogh scholar) has published in The Art Newspaper the name of the lucky recipient of the ear:
The young woman in the brothel who was given Van Gogh’s ear can be revealed for the first time by The Art Newspaper as Gabrielle Berlatier, a farmer’s daughter. This solves a mystery that has remained unsolved for nearly 130 years.
Although not named, the woman was referred to in Bernadette Murphy’s book, Van Gogh’s Ear: The True Story, published by Chatto & Windus last week. Murphy wrote that she made a promise to Gabrielle’s descendants: “Until I am given permission by the family to reveal her surname, I will respect their wishes and keep it private.” Murphy kept to her word.
The Art Newspaper has followed up details given in her meticulously researched book by using an open archive. We tracked down the woman’s name in the records of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, where Gabrielle had been treated for rabies. Identifying her throws fresh light on the bizarre incident in which Van Gogh cut off nearly all his ear.
New Scottish National Gallery site
July 22 2016
Picture: NGS
The National Galleries of Scotland have created an impressive new collections database, with (so far) approximately 30,000 works digitised. The zoom fuction is most impressive: below is a detail of Rembrandt's 1647 A Woman in Bed. Have a rummage for your self here.
Christie's Classic Week - the Movie
July 22 2016
Video: Christie's
Check out the stirring movie music.
'Coming Soon at the National Gallery'
July 22 2016
Video: National Gallery
As I've said recently, the National Gallery's videos are getting better. Here's a little taster of exhibitions coming up in 2017. A full list is here.
'Leighton's Paintings'
July 22 2016
Video: National Gallery
Here's a nice video from the National Gallery, looking at Lord Leighton's paintings in relation to the NG's new exhibition 'Painter's Paintings'. The video takes us inside the newly renovated Leighton House.
I think they should have let the presenter, scholar Christopher Newall, look down the lens - to make the video more personal. It's always good let these expert's passion come across more directly in films like this.
'Fake or Fortune?' does Delaroche
July 22 2016
Picture: BBC
Paul Delaroche is the artist under investigation this Sunday (BBC1, 8pm). More here.
Update - 4.54m viewers for this episode. Thanks for watching!
Update II - this was one of those films where sadly there was a lot of information we couldn't find time to include.
A number of viewers in particular have wondered why we didn't focus on the provenance very much. We were able to establish that the picture was sold twice in London in the 1980s, but each time no provenance was listed, and the artist was certainly not given as Delaroche. In 1980 on January 18th at Christie's in London it was sold as a work by the French artist Fleury Francois Richard, and described as 'A Queen and her Retinue at Worship' (with matching dimensions, lot 110). In 1989, again at Christie's (December 14th, lot 59) it was called simply 'German School 19th Century', 'The Offering at the Shrine' (again with matching dimensions).
In other words, the picture had comprehensively lost both its attribution and subject identity at some point between 1866, when it is last recorded in Marie Amelie's estate) and the 20th Century - and this can make it all but impossible to look for a painting in the sale records. Furthermore, client confidentiality meant we weren't able to establish who consigned the picture in 1980, though my hunch is it was someone in the trade.
Establishing the Christie's provenance was straightforward in one case, as we had the remains of a Christie's stencil on the back (though interestingly someone had tried to remove it). But for the other there was no stencil, which is unusual for Christie's, and we had only a chalk lot number to go on.
The other clue from the back of the picture which ended up on the cutting room floor was a carved inventory number in the frame. This we established led to John Davies framing in Mayfair, who had a record of making that very frame in the 1980s. But alas, there was no further ownership details to follow up.
We spent a great deal of time looking through all the relevant sales of Queen Marie Amelie's descendants - but alas could not find the painting anywhere! My best guess (or rather, hope) is that it was sold in a sale in 1950 of one of the French royal family's chateaus, Tourrande outside Geneva, in which not all the lots were specifically listed; there was a section in the catalogue marked 'Plusiers Tableaux'.
Finally, the evidence for not linking the painting to the untraced copy recorded as being made by a pupil of Delaroche, Jean-Leon Gerome, was dealt with very briefly in the film. But I do think we can be confident that Gerome's copy was, like the other copies, on a larger scale than Delaroche's original. In the letter of 1846 in which Gerome discusses the commission to make the copy (for the Queen) he mentions another copy being made for the Royal Family at the same time, of a portrait of Henry II based on a small portrait by Clouet. It was designed to go on display in the Louvre (and still is). It is a large, full-length portrait. Furthermore, Gerome was given a studio in the Louvre to make these copies. So it seems prety certain that he was making large replicas for public display in French palaces - and this, tied in with all the other evidence in favour of Becky's painting (not least its overall quality) means we can be entirely confident that it was indeed Delaroche's lost original.
Raphael database
July 22 2016
Picture: National Gallery
If you haven't already seen it, check out the National Gallery's amazing, extraordinary, class-leading Raphael Research Resource. It has all sorts of documentary and technical information not just on the NG's own Raphaels, but also those of other museums. Feast your eyes on high-resolution photographs of Infra-red, paint samples, panels - the lot.
Art history bling
July 22 2016
Picture: Paul Mitchell Ltd
Here's the National Gallery's head of framing Peter Schade with a fantastically blingy bit of gilding. I wonder if he's doing a job for Trump.
Tate acquires Topolski
July 20 2016
Picture: Tate/Sim Fine Art
I've always thought the Polish artist Feliks Topolski was underrated. Even today his work doesn't fetch a great deal at auction. But he could really paint, and many years ago when I used to work at Buckingham Palace I would spend hours looking at his massive depiction of the coronation of Elizabeth II, which I thought was a masterpiece.
So I'm glad to see that the Tate has just bought the above Germany Defeated, which depicts Berlin in 1945 during the last days of the Nazi regime. It has been sold to Tate by the noted dealer in war art, Andrew Sim. More here.
Royal Collection acquires Van Dyck grisaille
July 20 2016
Pictures: Royal Collection
The Royal Collection has acquired a recently discovered grisaille by Anthony Van Dyck. Van Dyck often used to do these small oil sketches in monochrome when sketching out group portraits, and in fact seems (later in his career) to have preferred them to drawings. Very few survive today. This sketch shows Van Dyck's first thoughts for his famous 'Great Peece', his first major portrait of Charles I and Henrietta Maria. Note, for example, how the young Charles II has been moved from the centre of the composition over to the left.
The grisaille surfaced at a minor European auction back in (I think) 2011, and was spotted by Agnews. It was first covered here on AHN in 2012. The picture has now been sold by Agnews to the Royal Collection. You can zoom in on a high-res photo and read the new catalogue note here.
New German art export laws (ctd.)
July 18 2016
Picture: artnet
The German government has finally passed legislation to compel vendors of 'cultural goods' to provide documentary proof of provenance for over 20 years, and an export licence for anything worth over €2,500. The law was intended to address public concerns over looted antiquities from the Middle East. But unsurprisingly, this dramatic extension of costly bureacracy has already led to two major German auction houses (including Lempertz in Cologne) taking the dramatic decision to move a number of sales to locations outside Germany. More here in The Antiques Trade Gazette.
