Sleeper Alert!
April 18 2025
Picture: Wannenes
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News on social media (via @auctionradar and others) that the following picture catalogued as 'PITTORE CARAVAGGESCO DEL XVII SECOLO' realised 190,000 EUR over its 2,000 - 3,000 EUR estimate at Wannenes in Genoa the other day.
Research on Rediscovered Medieval Panel from Hexham Abbey
April 18 2025
Picture: newsroom.northumbria.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Northumbria University that a medieval panel, discovered in the triforium in Hexham Abbey back in 2017, has been the subject of a research project. Work undertaken by Dr Charis Theodorakopoulos, a heritage scientist at Northumbria University who was commissioned by the Abbey to look into the matter, will be unveiled in an online presentation on 30th April 2025 (more details via the link above).
$30m - $50m Monet coming up at Christie's New York
April 18 2025
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Christie's New York will be offering a $30m -$50m painting by Claude Monet in their upcoming sales next month. Interestingly, Peupliers au bord de l’Epte, crépuscule (1891) will be unveiled to the public by the auction house in Taipei, Taiwan, tomorrow.
According to the artnews.com article linked above:
“Taipei, in particular, has really had strong interest in classic Impressionism,” Fusco said. “We have seen strong bidding coming from clients in that region for Monet and Impressionist pictures. And we expect that we’ll see a lot of the Western clients having the opportunity to view the work in person.”
Our Three Paintings are not by Rembrandt, says the Mauritshuis
April 18 2025
Picture: Mauritshuis
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
We are very accustomed to exhibitions drawing attention to exciting new research regarding upgrades in attribution. However, The Mauritshuis in The Hague has just opened a display which examines three paintings that curators have concluded are not by Rembrandt. Here's a webpage which explains their reasoning behind the rejections. Of course, explaining why a painting is not by an artist takes a great deal of reasoning too. This is why, I have noted from experience, that valuers of works of art are often also highly skilled at being able to deliver bad news.
According to their website:
The Mauritshuis also has seven paintings that have once been purchased as Rembrandts, but which have now been written off or are strongly called into question. Three of the paintings in this last category were recently re-examined in our conservation studio with the most modern techniques available to us today. Two of those works have also been restored. What has this taught us? Rembrandt research is never done, and that includes the work we do at the Mauritshuis.
The display will be on view until mid-July 2025.
Update - Bendor here with a question. The Mauritshuis says of one of the paintings, the c.1650 Study of an Old Man, that their analysis has demonstrated the 'Rembrandt' signature is genuine. However, they also say:
You might think “Rembrandt signed it, so it must be ‘a real Rembrandt’.” But it’s not that simple. It was not unusual for a master to sign the work of a student. If it was painted at Rembrandt’s studio, it was his ‘product’. With Rembrandt’s signature, a painting by a student could be sold as if it were a piece by the master.
So my question is - how usual was this really? I think it was unusual, in the 17th century at least, for a master to sign a painting which was wholly the work of a student. We also have to ask, what is the evidence Rembrandt himself was in the habit of signing works by his pupils? As far as I know, this is a theory which developed as later generations of Rembrandt scholars, especially during the Rembrandt Research Project, tried to explain away paintings which were signed, but which they did not believe on the basis of connoisseurship were by Rembrandt. The theory was developed to fit the conclusions (even as the connoisseurship has now evolved, and many previously rejected paintings have now been accepted again). But I don't think we have any direct, contemporary evidence that Rembrandt did this, even though the assertion that he did has passed into general fact nowadays. I would be glad to hear other views!
PS - my other question is; if this exercise is all about studying Rembrandt's technique and inviting views on connoisseurship, could The Mauritshuis please allow us to see some proper high resolution photos? Thanks!
Update II - there is a good essay on the Leiden Collection website by Michiel Franken and Jaap van der Veen, “The Signing of Paintings by Rembrandt and His Contemporaries” (2022), which goes into the signing question in some detail. The essay demonstrates that we have very little contemporary evidence that artists signed works entirely by pupils, still less that it was common, and none at all that it was Rembrandt's practice.
Data on the sale of Rembrandt’s works is extremely scarce, but a note by Rembrandt himself provides some insight. He recorded the sale of certain studio works on the back of a drawing, which can be dated around 1636. Rembrandt documented the names “Fardynandus” and “Leendert,” as well as the subjects of three of the paintings that were sold, namely a “Flora,” a “Vaandeldrager” (standard-bearer), and an “Abraham.” [...]
The fact that Rembrandt included on the back of this drawing the names of his pupils who made these paintings could indicate that he sold them not under his own name but as works made by advanced pupils under his supervision. [...] The relatively low price paid for such studio work must mean the buyers knew that these pieces—signed or not—were absolutely not by the master himself.
None of this is to doubt that Rembrandt had, at times in his career (though NB, not always), a busy studio. Nor that many of his works, even signed ones, contain studio participation. This would indeed be normal artistic practice for a successful painter. The question is whether Rembrandt signed works entirely by pupils, or allowed works by pupils signed 'Rembrandt' to be sold as 'Rembrandts' from his workshop, which is a theory that has come to be commonly accepted in Rembrandt scholarship.
I have been interested in where this theory developed. As I mentioned above, it appears to have grown out of needing to explain how works which the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP) did not think were by Rembrandt nonetheless bore 'genuine' and contemporary Rembrandt signatures. An early example was this 1633 Portrait of a Lady in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig. It had a long tradition of being by Rembrandt, and was signed as such with a provably contemporaneous signature. But in 1986 it was doubted by the RRP, mainly on stylistic grounds. How to solve this puzzle? As Josua Bruyn wrote [Vol.2, p.105]:
Since the woman's portrait in Braunschweig is to be seen as the work of one of the assistants in who helped in Rembrandt's workshop with carrying out the portrait commissions that were flooding in the 1630s, one would have to assume that such an assistant appended the master's name to his own work in this and other instances, and did so in the form Rembrandt was using at that particular moment.
The reason I think the case of this portrait is so interesting in the Rembrandt signature story is that it is now once again accepted as a genuine Rembrandt, and was included by Ernst van der Wetering in his revised Vol.6 of the RRP. So the portrait's attribution to Rembrandt has been reaccepted, but the signature thesis behind its former rejection still stands.
It is also worth noting that in Volume 3 of the RRP, Josua Bruyn wrote that while:
[...] it is conceivable that Rembrandt signatures were appended in the workshop by his studio assistants - as a kind of trademark [...] It is remarkable that to date we have met nothing that argues for the theoretically perfectly plausible opposite situation - that of Rembrandt putting his own signature on the work of pupils.
So even the RRP themselves were uncertain about the signature thesis, which (as the Mauritshuis project demonstrates) has now nonetheless passed into commonly accepted wisdom.
Upcoming: Passion, Wisdom and Violence: Titian and Venice in the Cobbe Collection
April 18 2025
Picture: Cobbe Collection
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Cobbe Collection and the National Trust are putting on an exhibition at Hatchlands Park next month entitled Passion, Wisdom and Violence: Titian and Venice in the Cobbe Collection.
According to the press release:
The exhibition, curated by Paul Joannides, Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of Cambridge, showcases works from the prestigious Cobbe Collection, some of them unrecorded in the literature on Titian before the Collector discovered them, while others had been for many years lost to sight in obscure private collections. [...]
An illustrated catalogue has been generously sponsored and produced by the Colnaghi Foundation. Edited by Paul Joannides, it contains contributions from Mark Broch with Mattia Biffis, Sir Timothy Clifford, Paul Grinke, Peter Humfrey, Giorgio Tagliaferro, and Matthias Wivel.
The exhibition will run from 13th May until 30th September 2025.
Bonhams April Sale
April 18 2025
Picture: Bonhams
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Bonhams London have uploaded their upcoming Old Master Paintings sale online. Bidding will take place between 23rd - 30th April 2025.
As usual, I won't point out what may or may not be interesting.
Apologies...
April 16 2025
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Apologies for the slow service this week. I'll be back to the usual posting in the next few days I hope.
Kaplan to Sell Rembrandt Drawing for Big Cat Conservation
April 11 2025
Picture: artnews.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Artnews.com have published news that Thomas Kaplan (the philanthropist and figure behind the Leiden Collection) will be auctioning off the following Rembrandt Drawing of a Lion to help raise funds for big cat conservation. The sale is purported to happen next year with the drawing carrying an estimate in the'“multiples of tens” of millions.'
Eugène Boudin at the Musée Marmottan Monet
April 11 2025
Video: Musée Marmottan Monet
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée Marmottan Monet have just this week opened a new exhibition dedicated to Eugène Boudin (1824-1898) drawn in-part from a single private collection.
According to their website:
Collector Yann Guyonwarc’h has assembled a collection of works by Eugène Boudin (1824 – 1898) that is unrivalled in any museum in the world. Every facet of the artist’s career is represented, from his first paintings in Le Havre to his final trip to Venice; from private sketches to paintings for the Salon (including one of the two largest beach scenes ever painted by Boudin). The works in this prestigious collection are matched with the holdings of the Musée Marmottan Monet, to highlight the dialogue between Boudin and his main pupil, Claude Monet. Thanks to the participation of the Durand-Ruel archives, the relationship between the two artists and their main dealer is also explored.
Bavarian State Painting Collections Shake Up
April 11 2025
Picture: monopol-magazin.de
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Germany that the director of the Bavarian State Paintings Collection Bernhard Maaz has recently quit. Maaz, who was in the post for a decade, faces allegations of failures including those regarding priorities given to aspects such as transparency in WWII provenance research. Click on the link above to read more.
Lecture on Art History in San Diego
April 11 2025
Picture: timeshighereducation.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
San Diego State University are hiring an Art History Lecturer.
According to the advert online:
The School welcomes applications from prospective temporary faculty with expertise or experience in the following areas of Art History:
Ancient Greece and Rome, Architecture, Graphic Design, and Medieval Art.
The job comes with a starting monthly salary of somewhere between $5,507 - $13,224 and applications must be in by 10th May 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Recent Release: Genesis and becoming of the Baroque between Rome and Naples
April 11 2025
Picture: delucaeditori.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A new volume on the relationship between Rome and Naples, in regards to the emergence of the Baroque in painting, has been published in Italy. The publication, edited by Francesco Petrucci, draws on paintings specifically from the collections of the Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia and from the Koelliker collection.
Imminent Release: Le Comte d'Angiviller
April 10 2025
Picture: editions-monelle-hayot.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from France (spotted via. @MWeilc) that a publication on Charles Claude Flahaut, Count of Angiviller (1730–1809), a significant figure relating to the arts during the reign of Louis XVI, is due to be published on 15th April 2025. This 384 page volume was penned by Monelle Hayot and Antoine Maës.
According to the publisher's website:
Angiviller took part in the education of the future Louis XVI and his brothers. The King is fond of him and in full confidence shares with him a privacy which allows truthful advices. At his accession on the throne, in 1774, he appoints Angiviller Directeur des Bâtiments du Roi, a minister of arts and architecture with extended powers. He will remain in charge until the Revolution. His role is major. He is responsible for all the royal and state residences (Palais du Louvre, Tuileries, Versailles, Fontainebleau, Saint-Cloud…). He buys the hunting domain of Rambouillet on behalf of the king and develops there the Etruscan style, in fashion since the discovery of Herculanum. Thanks to the king of Spain, he develops there the breeding of Merino sheep in a model farm, which still exists nowadays. He reorganizes the manufactures of Sèvres and of the Gobelins, presides over the Académie de peinture et de sculpture, the Académie de France in Rome with the Premier Peintre Pierre’s assistance. He is the founder of the Museum, today Musée du Louvre, which because of the Revolution will only open under Napoleon. He orders its construction within the Louvre palace, following Hubert Robert’s ideas, constitutes its collections, by major acquisitions in sales or private collections. [...]
Order before the 15th April 2025 to receive 20 EUR off the asking price (follow the link for more details).
Royal Collection Conserves Leighton
April 10 2025
Picture: © Royal Collection Enterprises Limited 2025 | Royal Collection Trust.
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Royal Collection Trust have shared news of the conservation of Lord Frederic Leighton's Nanna (Pavonia) in preparation for their upcoming exhibition The Edwardians: Age of Elegance which opens at The King's Gallery tomorrow (Friday 11th April 2025).
According to the RCT's press release:
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The conservation resulted in:
-Details were made clearer, including Leighton’s ‘L’ monogram with the date ‘59 – cleaning brought out its calligraphic quality and brick red colour.
-The variety of textures in the paint – cleaning revealed that Leighton had carefully used his brush to create fine, wispy trails to the feathers in the fan, to give just one example.
-The 'sensuous' green, violet, and russet tones of the peacock feathers of the fan came out, helping the conservator Nicola Christie realise that these colours echo the colours of the fruit.
-The intricacy of the sitter’s braided hairstyle and the subtleties in the tones of her dark hair were revealed – the conservator could now pick out shades of aubergine and deep blue in her dark hair.
-It brought out the clarity of the pearls in her hair, and how they are reflecting light – Nicola’s convinced they reflect the windows of Leighton’s studio – and their very smooth texture.
{/box}
Art and Power during the Age of the Doges of Genoa
April 10 2025
Picture: Reggia di Venaria
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A new exhibition has opened in Reggia di Venaria in Turin today which celebrates the artistic produce during the golden age of the Republic of Genoa. Featuring one hundred works, including paintings, sculptures, silverware, furnishings and bronzes, artists featured include Rubens, Van Dyck, Guido Reni, Orazio Gentileschi, Carlo Maratti, Luca Giordano, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Angelica Kauffman, and Anton von Maron.
The show will run until 7th September 2025.
Dorotheum Sale
April 10 2025
Picture: Dorotheum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Dorotheum in Vienna have uploaded their upcoming Old Masters sale online. The auction will take place on 29th April 2025. Do click on the link above to scroll through the lots.
Matisse and his daughter Marguerite
April 9 2025
Video: Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris have just opened a new show dedicated to Matisse's relationship with his eldest daughter Marguerite.
According to the museum's website:
Bringing together more than 110 works – paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures and ceramics – the exhibition shows Matisse's view of his eldest daughter, Marguerite Duthuit-Matisse (1894–1982), an essential but discreet figure in his family circle.
The exhibition features numerous drawings rarely, if ever, shown to the public, as well as major works from American, Swiss and Japanese collections, now on view in France for the first time. Photographs, archival material and paintings by Marguerite herself fill out the portrait of this little-known personality.
The show will run until 24th August 2025.
New Digital Catalogue of the Kremer Collection
April 9 2025
Picture: kremercollection.org
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
CODART (the international network of curators of Dutch and Flemish art) have drawn attention to a new digital catalogue of The Kremer Collection (now in part on loan to the Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar). Viewers can either surf through the websites themselves or access a PDF of the physical catalogue through the link above.
Many happy hours of browsing ahead, I think.
Barberini Holbein of Henry VIII on loan to Wadsworth Atheneum
April 9 2025
Video: Wadsworth Atheneum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Tudor fans in Connecticut will have a wonderful opportunity to come face to face with Hans Holbein's Portrait of Henry VIII this spring. The celebrated Barberini portrait (usually on display in Rome) is on temporary loan to the Wadsworth Atheneum, whilst the American institution's Caravaggio is currently off on exhibition in Italy.
Cleaning Ramsay's Wills Hill
April 9 2025
Picture: Historical Royal Palaces via. Instagram
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm a little late to this video published by the Historic Royal Palaces on Instagram last month showing the cleaning of Alan Ramsay's Portrait of Wills Hill, 1st Earl Hillsborough. The painting was acquired by Hillsborough Castle last year as part of the Acceptance in Lieu Scheme for £158,100.
