I'm not surprised that the authenticity of this painting has been doubted in the past.

Clearly someone has  over painted the eyes (the whites are too white and stick out), the line along the edge of the nose (Whistler never does anything so unsubtle) and the fussy curls on the forehead (ditto). Whistler's own hand is clearly visible however in the heavy impasto (lead white) of the dress. It will be very interesting to see what it looks like after cleaning.

Revivalism in art, design and architecture is a foundational aspect of modernism, though it has often been overlooked. This volume seeks to investigate the diverse dimensions of revivalism, exploring its meanings and impacts across cultures and media between c.1850 and 1950. Bringing together case studies that highlight revivalism in fields as diverse as Armenian architecture, German glassware and contemporary tattooing, Revival: Memories, Identities, Utopias counteracts perceptions of revivalism as a practice opposed to canonical modernism, instead highlighting its international and interdisciplinary presence. This book challenges established viewpoints on intersections between past and present, offering new perspectives on what makes revivalism a force for innovation and not a mode of conservatism. Revivalism, this collection argues, looks forward into a present and indeed a future that is built upon persistent echoes of history. 

The same is said in NYC and Chicago. In nearby Philadelphia records show that people continue to vote for up to five years after they're dead. Talk about the dead ruling the living.

Have been trying to but won't work .

Am persevering.

“We will drive the institutionalisation of this huge market. By introducing more liquidity to the market, we think the cost of capital for these assets will go down and the value will go up [...] Leverage generally means asset prices inflate.”

Next Sarkozy could package and syndicate the loans, taking a fee, and stick European pension funds with the risk. And there will be great business for auction houses selling the reclaimed collateral. It should stimulate employment in the art business for a while. And living artists can benefit by manufacturing more product with larger “workshops”.

It’s nothing personal, says Ben Ewen-Campen, he just doesn’t think French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir is much of a painter. Monday, the Harvard postdoc joined some like-minded aesthetes for a playful protest outside the Museum of Fine Arts. The rally, which mostly bewildered passersby, was organized by Max Geller, creator of the Instagram account Renoir Sucks at Painting, who wants the MFA to take its Renoirs off the walls and replace them with something better. Holding homemade signs reading “God Hates Renoir” and “Treacle Harms Society,” the protesters ate cheese pizza purchased by Geller, and chanted: “Put some fingers on those hands! Give us work by Paul Gauguin !” and “Other art is worth your while! Renoir paints a steaming pile!” Craig Ronan, an artist from Somerville, learned about the protest on Instagram and decided to join. “I don’t have any relationship with these people aside from wanting artistic justice,” he said. The museum hasn’t commented on the fledgling movement, but a few folks walking by Monday seemed amused. “I love their sense of irony,” said Liz Byrd, a grandmother from Phoenix who spent the morning in the museum with her daughter and grandchild. “I love Renoir, but I think this is great.”

The Cultural Value and Inequality report by Kate Oakley and Dave O’Brien, discussing inequality within both the creation and consumption of cultural value, indicates that women make up nearly 70% of the workforce in museums and galleries. But according to my research, within those top galleries getting £1m+ of Arts Council England funding, just 37% of director or CEO roles are held by women. The situation is only a little better in the other UK nations, with women leading in 40% of Scotland’s best-funded galleries and 50% of those in Wales.

Our members at the National Gallery voted unanimously today to return to work after we reached an agreement to end the dispute.

The news comes shortly after we marked 100 days on strike since February.

We opposed the privatisation of the gallery's visitor services staff and regret we have been unable to prevent it going ahead.

We are however pleased to have reached an agreement with the gallery and contractor Securitas that would mean protection of terms and conditions and a return to work for our senior rep Candy Udwin. We thank the new director Gabriele Finaldi and the company for their commitment to genuine negotiations.

Strike action is being suspended pending ministerial approval and a ballot of our members over the deal, which also includes union recognition with the company and the London living wage.

Staff will meet outside the gallery at 9am on Monday 5 October to go back in to work together.

More information will be published as soon as it is available.

Our general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "We are pleased to have reached this agreement and on behalf of the union I would like to pay particular tribute to Candy, who is looking forward to returning to the job she loves, and to all our members at the gallery.

"We still do not believe privatisation was necessary but we will work with the new company and the gallery to ensure a smooth transition and, importantly, to ensure standards are maintained at this world-renowned institution."

Gallery bosses have conceded to almost all of the strikers’ demands. 

[...] the strike has forced Securitas to agree to recognise PCS in the gallery.

And [Securitas] have guaranteed that terms and conditions will not be changed without the agreement of the union. They have also won guarantees on rosters and staffing levels.

Securitas have also agreed that new staff will be recruited on terms and conditions “broadly comparable” to those of existing staff. 

Securitas will continue to pay workers the London Living Wage plus enhancements, which they won during the course of their dispute in April.

Meanwhile gallery bosses have agreed to a review of the privatisation after 12 months.

And there will be an investigation run by the gallery into relations between bosses and workers broke down in the run up to the first strike in January.

But the reinstatement of Candy is one of the biggest victories of the strike. The fact that it was one of the strikers’ key demands is the reason she is getting her job back.

“We feel like we’ve come a long way,” one striker told Socialist Worker. “But there’s also a feeling we have to take it further—and we are going to take it further. We’re still opposed to the fact that a private company is going to be running the National Gallery.”

The importer must provide documented evidence of species identification and age to demonstrate that the article qualifies as an ESA antique. This can include a qualified appraisal, documents that provide detailed provenance, and/or scientific testing. The Service considers this to be a high bar, particularly as it relates to the import of African elephant ivory (because the AECA moratorium prohibits the import of most African elephant ivory, including most antiques). Notarized statements or affidavits by the importer or a CITES pre-Convention certificate alone are not necessarily adequate proof that the article meets the ESA exception.

There is apparently a non-destructive scientific method for determining whether ivory is African or Asian. A summary is presented in Paul Craddock's book "Scientific Investigation of Copies, Fakes and Forgeries" p.422 et seq, along with references to assorted learned publications which detail the methodology. The equipment (a Fourier Transform Laser Raman Spectroscope) is something most university chemistry departments will have.

I used one of these many years ago and the same instrument was being used by the conservation department at the National Gallery of Australia to examine paint pigments on assorted items in the collection (including Pollock's Blue Poles).

Providing the methodology holds up to closer scrutiny, then it shouldn't be too costly to distinguish between the two different elephant ivories.

I was interested to read your piece about the tightening of the trade in antique ivory. I also remember the ATG piece on ivory in April, about how supportive the art trade is of efforts to save the elephants, which contained an especially feeble quote from Marjorie Trusted of the V&A about how effective CITES has been in preventing the importation and sale of illicit African ivory. What bullsh*t.

I am a bit of a militant on this. The fact is, the mass slaughter of elephants is going on right now in sub-saharan Africa to the extent that perhaps no elephants will be around in a generation. For example, the elephant population of Ruaha in Tanzania has declined to *one third* of its size in 2013, so rapid and extreme has the slaughter been. In the 1970s, there were over 100,000 elephants in the Selous, now it is 13,000, and the rate of killing is escalating.

You make the point that banning 18th century ivory won’t help a single elephant alive today, and in a sense you are right. But how would you feel about banning artefacts made with antique human skin? After all, banning their sale won’t help the poor souls whose bodies were used. The reason we understand that the trade in such items is to be discouraged is because we can see that the circumstances of their production were highly reprehensible. It is that link - between the antique ivory artefact and the bloody elephant carcasses scattered in the grass - which has been severed & which a blanket ban aims to rejoin. The inherent ugliness of these objects has been laundered through time & through their generations of respectable owners.

Most historical African ivory was brought to the coast by slave labour (I can’t speak of Indian ivory). It’s a trade with a very unhappy history indeed. Banning all ivory sales isn’t about directly saving the lives of elephants alive now, it’s about getting people to recognise that ivory, then and now, has always been a deeply unpleasant trade tainted with cruelty. We humans face an uphill struggle to save elephants, and we have a better chance of success if we simply say that no ivory may be sold. In the great scheme of things, so what if a few dealers and auctioneers lose a few pennies on miniatures?

In the ATG piece, a dealer said “there is no correlation between a 17th century baroque ivory cup, and the illicit trade in poached tusks - none.” I see a close link, which goes like this: in the 17th century, people went to Africa and plundered it, killing elephants and taking their tusks. They took their ivory, used Africans as slaves to carry it to ships, and took it to Europe where it was turned into highly marketable artefacts. And now - guess what? - other people are going to Africa and are plundering it, killing elephants for their tusks. The very same thing is happening. You may feel it’s ridiculous to care about the murder of a seventeenth century elephant - and I partly agree. If elephants today weren’t being so threatened, it wouldn’t seem to matter - it would seem like a historical issue only, rather than a problem that began long in the past and which is still very much with us today.

Finaldi confirmed that the jobs will be outsourced to Securitas from November, but said he hoped for a smooth transition with no jobs lost, and all staff paid the London living wage. “I hope to see all our staff back to work as soon as possible, and to offer an open gallery to all our visitors.”

A PCS union spokesman said talks with the National Gallery had made "good progress".

"We are very hopeful of a resolution shortly," he added.

The deal is not official. Our minister of finance reserved €80 mil when we would acquire both portraits. Now it's one, there is no reason to take the reservation back and give just half. In the NRC newspaper Dijsselbloem (financial minister) stated that he sees no reason to ask the Rijksmuseum to gather at least half of half price of these pictures. This means that the Rijksmuseum is possibly still looking for €40 mil! In my book this doesn't sound like a done deal at all!!

Purchase of Rembrandts is not responsible 

In 1873 Victor de Stuers wrote a passionate indictment of the way the Dutch government treated it's cultural heritage. In his article Holland op z’n smalst (A narrow (minded) country, DN) Stuer described the depressing frequency with which important art works left the country only to boost the collections of foreign museums, and how wealthy overseas collectors were dominating the art market. Not that it did any good. Some four years later Annewies Van Loon-Van Winter sold her entire collection to Gustave de Rothschild, a clear sign that De Stuer’s protestations were not taken too seriously at the time.

The transaction, which included the much-wrangled over portraits by Rembrandt, did, however, signal the start of a private initiative to protect the Dutch national heritage. The Vereniging Rembrandt is with us today. This was a time when art dealers ruled the roost. They emptied the great British stately homes of their treasures and sold them to American robber baron clients like Pierpont Morgan, Frick, Rockefeller, Huntingdon and Kress, making monstrous profits from every deal.

1 Who says they’d fetch 160 million on the open market?

In 2015 the old masters no longer dominate the art market, partly because most of them are in European museums and they never sell. But the main reason for the decline is the thriving market for impressionist and modern art. It would be great if the 19^th century American art buyers of old masters were replaced by Arabic, Chinese or Russian art buyers but that is not going to happen. 31 year-old Sheika Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bint Khalifa Al-Thani is considered today’s most powerful art buyer. One of her more famous acquisitions is Cézanne’s Card Players (bought for 250 million dollars) As far as is known, she has purchased not a single old master.

There really was no reason to suppose that scores of non-European buyers were queuing up to make off with ‘our’ two Rembrandt portraits. It’s not unusual for Rembrandts to remain unsold for quite long periods of time. The respected art dealer Otto Naumann took his particular Rembrandt, a portrait of a man dating from 1658, to the TEFAF art fair, the London Frieze Masters and a private showing at Sotheby’s in London. Not a single Chinese could be bothered. It wasn’t the asking price of 48 million dollars that kept buyers away. Modern art works were being sold for similar amounts at the same time.

The only serious private collector interested in Rembrandts is the American billionaire Thomas S. Kaplan (1962). His famous Leiden Gallery is home to hundreds of old masters, seven of which are authentic works by Rembrandt. It is thought the collection cost Kaplan around 500 million dollars. None of the works came close to De Rothchild’s  asking price but then none of his Rembrandts are life-size portraits. I think Tom would have liked to have bought them for his collection but not for 160 million euros.  

We can only guess how De Rothschild arrived at his price: I would never venture to name a price if I hadn’t seen the works for myself. Incidentally, in none of the known documents De Rothchild ever felt compelled to allude to possible interest from non-European buyers. This is significant in itself as the family has an extensive network in Arab and Chinese business circles.

But suppose Chinese and Arab buyers were interested. I find it hard to believe that a person willing to spend 160 million euro on the paintings wouldn’t take great care of them. I consider China and the Arab Gulf states as relevant guardians of culture. Many privately owned masterpieces are not locked away in safes but are lent to big museums all over the world, there for all to see. 

 
 2 A little political distance would have been in order

The way ministers and museum directors have been wrangling over the matter these last few weeks demands an explanation. I don’t understand why the culture minister didn’t confer with the finance minister. Surely the size of the amount would warrant a closer cooperation between the two. If the director of an independent museum is confident enough to take on what may be an impossible task, it would seem sensible to give him a ‘proper’ shot at it first. A little political distance would have been in order, especially after the political decision was made to set aside half the money.

How is it possible that the asking price was accepted without question? At this price level comparable cases are few and far between. Do I think the price is absurd? I’m an art dealer and I can tell you that I would have a big smile on my face if I could sell two Rembrandts for such an amount. Trade is trade, after all. But if a politician uses public money to push through a purchase saying speed is of the essence because ‘the works may disappear to a far-away country’, then I know I’m being had. Would France really have coughed up 160 million euros if we hadn’t made the decision then and there, or would it have changed its mind about the national importance of the works? There’s a good chance the deal would have fallen through, creating an opportunity for De Rothschild to approach the Rijksmuseum without making France look silly. Mind you, the French sat on their hands for 18 months, apparently unafraid of non-European buyers muscling in.

3 Restoration: the French and the Dutch are diametrically opposed about why and how

The restoration policy of the Louvre is diametrically opposed to that of the Rijkmuseum. The Louvre restores its paintings very sparingly (as the extremely mucky state of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa attests) which means there’s a very good chance we’ll be looking at a dirty and yellowing Oopjen and Maerten a few years from now. How will the two museums agree on restoration when the time comes? You can’t restore half of half a painting.

Whenever I’m in Paris I visit the Louvre. Museums are the best places for an art dealer to check whether his instincts about a possible discovery are correct. But every time I look at a Dutch master I am dismayed at the terrible state of the paintings. Unrestored paintings in damaged frames are hung willy-nilly, covered in dirty layers of varnish. If there were such a thing as a hall of fame at the Louvre it certainly wouldn’t include a Dutch master. Everything points to the fact that France’s action wasn’t inspired by art historical gain but by political gain.

4 How can this be: a contract to subject fragile paintings to a constant to-ing and fro-ing.

The deal – to exhibit the portraits as a pair ensuring a frequent exchange between Amsterdam and Paris – is sure to precipitate the deterioration of the paintings. Of all the Rembrandts only those that have always, or nearly always, remained in private hands are still in very good condition. There’s only one reason for this: they have hardly ever been moved. The comparison with the frequent travels of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Ear Ring doesn’t really hold water. Vermeer’s painting is 44.5cm by 39cm whereas Rembrandt’s portraits measure 207cm by 132cm! They will certainly be transported in a professional Turtle box but the greatest danger lies with manually taking the painting down from the wall and mounting them again.

I am an art historian first and foremost. The object comes first. That is why I’m worried. If something were to happen to damage the paintings, and it is statistically certain that something will one day, who will take the initiative to restore them? If the Louvre were to decide the paintings are too fragile to move how are the Netherlands going to recover their  ‘rightful share’? I have a feeling the Dutch – ever ready to compromise when the French are clearly not - will have to make the French a present of 80 million euros when that time comes.

It’s an irony that 132 years after the Vereniging Rembrandt came into being, it – understandably - distances itself from contributing to a possible acquisition of the paintings which formed the catalyst for its inception. Thorbecke wrote that buying art was not a matter for governments. What he meant was that governments should facilitate but not intervene. Now the Rijksmuseum’s director’s original plan of securing both paintings for the country has been torpedoed I can understand he’s not too keen to discuss finance with Dijsselbloem. It’s an attitude the outside world might find somewhat impolite considering the minister came bearing an 80 million euro ‘present’. 

I hope Eric de Rothschild hasn’t signed the contract yet. An art loving man like him should know better than to agree to irresponsible decisions. But most of all I hope that on future occasions society and politicians will be informed properly before we all succumb to a collective panic attack and forget to question what is actually happening.

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The hitherto unknown pair of sculptures by Michelangelo Buonarroti from 1494 was presented to the public at a media conference on September 8, along with an explanation of the detailed study of the sculptures by the «Art Research Foundation».

The study analyzes the plausibility of the object's time of origin using technical and scientific methods.

An analysis report on the pigments and bonding agents has been written by Professor Dr. Hermann Kühn of Munich. The examination of the surface and the sequence of layers in the cross sections and their appearance under the microscope clearly verify that the paints represent the first or original polychromy. In addition, the analyses of the pigments and bonding agents confirm the time of origin as circa 1494 and the country of origin as Italy. Prof. Dr. Kühn has also written a report on the state of preservation of the Atlantese consoles, in which the pair of sculptures is described as being in a very good state, bearing in mind that the wood sculptures are more than 500 years old and still in their unspoiled, original condition, including the painting.

The14C-dating was carried out by Dr. G. Bonani of the Institute for Particle Physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The dating of the wood, which was performed using AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry), showed that the assumed age (1494) was in the calibrated time frame (dendrocorrected), with a 100% probability.

Only when the period of creation had been proven beyond any doubt could the analysis in the context of art history be embarked upon and stylistic comparisons drawn with confirmed works. In the study, the subject of Atlantes putti consoles is identified in 52 cases in the authenticated works of Michelangelo. For comparisons with the authenticated work in the context of art history, the overall design of the figures was identified in 71 cases, with 79 stylistic parallels from head to foot drawn in detail and documented in more than 100 photographic plates.

In addition, it was impossible to find a single stylistic element on the sculptures which could not have been matched with the authenticated work. This fact should dispel any remaining doubts that this pair of sculptures are in fact the work of Michelangelo.

The putti are attractive but if they are fifteenth century & very early Michelangelo and in excellent condition then 1) what is the provenance which enabled them to remain intact and together, 2) who cleaned them and when.  Anything half a millennium old accumulates a coating of smoke and pollution which has apparently been cleaned.  That coating contains information regarding where they were and when. If they were cleaned regularly during the centuries it is unlikely that the paint would be intact so the cleaning was probably recent.

“Possibly by Michelangelo” is much better than some candidates that appear which are only “allegedly by Michelangelo”.