Cornelis de Wael at the Palazzo Bianco
March 19 2025
Picture: museidigenova.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Palazzo Bianco in Genoa will be opening a new show on the Flemish emigree artist Cornelis de Wael (1592-1667) today. Under the themes of Naturalness and Truth, the artist's unique contribution alongside the busy artistic scene in Genoa (which included the more celebrated Jan Roos, Giacomo Liege and Van Dyck during this period) will be examined.
The show runs until 22nd June 2025.
Andrea Appiani at the Musée national des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau
March 19 2025
Picture: musees-nationaux-malmaison.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée national des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Préau opened a new exhibition last Sunday on the neoclassical painter Andrea Appiani (1754-1817). With about a hundred paintings, drawings and engravings, the show is the first retrospective on the artist in France.
The exhibition will run until 28th July 2025.
16th Century Panels Restored at Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille
March 19 2025
Picture: Palais des Beaux Arts
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille has shared news of the recent restoration of four 16th century panels depicting the annunciation. The works, which are amongst the largest early German panels in any public collection in France, were treated by Centre de recherche et de restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF). Click on the link above for better images.
AI Fails Again
March 19 2025
Picture: The Art Newspaper
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Art Newspaper has run another curious AI art authentication story, this time in relation to a version of Rubens' Diana discovered by Actaeon (pictured) which was unveiled by the Zurich-based Art Recognition at the Art Business Conference at Tefaf Maastricht (do get in touch if any readers were in attendance). The story is particularly complicated to the survival of a badly damaged and reduced 'fragment' in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, which may or may not have been the original from which many copies were produced. The presentation was delivered by Dr Carina Popovici, who you might remember was behind the reoccuring claims about the NG's Rubens back in 2021.
Most intriguingly:
After their latest investigation, Popovici and Art Recognition concluded that the painting, while not the original The Bath of Diana, could be by Rubens and his studio. “It was an authenticity evaluation not a confirmation,” Popovici says. “We concluded that it is partially by Rubens. Our AI cannot know who did the rest but one possible interpretation would be the [artist’s] workshop contribution.”
Click into the story to read the further claims, which include the ways AI is now hoping to show which parts are and are not by the hand of an artist such as Rubens.
____________
I find it rather mysterious that AI is not happy with the National Gallery's Samson and Delilah, yet is perfectly happy (it seems) with duds like this.
Update - Bendor adds: Yes. Oh dear.
Recent Release: Taddeo di Bartolo - Siena's Painter in the Early Quattrocento
March 18 2025
Picture: brepols.net
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The publishers Brepols have recently released the following two volume publication on Taddeo di Bartolo by the scholar Gail Solberg.
According to the blurb:
Taddeo di Bartolo, Siena’s premier painter in the years around 1400, is the focus of a cultural history of a great Italian school in an understudied period. His patrons commissioned important fresco cycles and the most impressive polyptychs of the age. In part a travelogue, the text follows Taddeo (ca 1362-1422) from training in straitened times at Siena across central and northern Italy. Ten years of itinerancy drew him to various Tuscan centers, along the Ligurian coast from Genoa to Provence, probably to Padua, and into Umbria. About 1399 he resettled at Siena to rapidly become the preferred painter of his commune. His mural cycles made a greater imprint on Siena’s civic iconography than has been acknowledged while his efficient Sienese shop produced outstanding panel paintings for, among others, the most dynamic religious orders. Until his last years he received grand commissions in and from beyond Siena. He drew a pope’s portrait and was employed by a cardinal at Rome. Attention to his production methods shows how his busy shop ensured variety in numerous paintings for mid-level clients by a flexible design system. Taddeo’s works, including rediscovered and reconstructed paintings, come alive in beautiful illustrations. This chronicle of an indefatigable and successful late medieval career positions the painter, his colleagues, and his patrons in their political, economic, and social circumstances. It provides new insights on Siena’s artistic culture at the start of the Renaissance.
Andrea Solario at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli
March 18 2025
Picture: Museo Poldi Pezzoli
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan will be opening their latest exhibition devoted to Andrea Solario later this month (spotted via @Mweilc).
According to the museum's website:
An unprecedented exhibition project dedicated to the painter Andrea Solario (1465-1524), one of the most original interpreters of the Lombard Renaissance, comes to life at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum.
The exhibition, the result of a scientific collaboration with the Musée du Louvre, brings together for the first time a selection of about 36 works from prestigious collections in Italy, France and England. An unmissable opportunity to admire masterpieces that reveal the technical mastery and stylistic evolution of an artist influenced by great masters such as Giovanni Bellini, Antonello da Messina and Leonardo da Vinci.
The show will run from 26th March until 30th June 2025.
Assist with Exhibitions at The National Gallery
March 18 2025
Picture: The National Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London are hiring an Exhibitions Assistant.
According to the job description:
The National Gallery is seeking an Exhibitions Assistant to support the organisation and delivery of a range of exhibitions for our Trafalgar Square and Touring Exhibitions programme. Working concurrently on multiple projects, supporting different Exhibition Managers, you will need to be a highly organised, positive individual with a keen eye for detail. You will bring experience of working in a busy administrative role and can show yourself to be a calm, considerate and collaborative team member with the ability to work well with departments across the Gallery as well as with a number of external stakeholders.
The job comes with an annual salary of £30,088 gross per annum and applications must be in by 6th April 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Reattributed Mantegna Displayed in Vatican Museums
March 18 2025
Picture: finestresullarte.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Finestre sull'arte has published news that a painting, reattributed to Andrea Mantegna, has gone on display in the Vatican Museums for a special display. The work was discovered in Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary in Pompeii and has been subject to a conservation and research project looking into its attribution and physical properties. Click on the link above to read the full story.
Flowers at Chatsworth
March 17 2025
Picture: with permission from @country_house_curator via Instagram
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Chatsworth, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Devonshire, will be celebrating Flowers in this year's temporary exhibition which opened over the weekend. As usual, this is a wonderful chance to see some paintings up close which are usually hung elsewhere (as per these pictures on display in the Sculpture Gallery).
According to their website:
Flowers in all their forms take centre stage in The Gorgeous Nothings: Flowers at Chatsworth, our 2025 exhibition in the house and garden.
The exhibition features both historical and contemporary works of art from the Devonshire Collections, and is supported by key loans from national and international museums, and new artist commissions.
Inspired by the estate itself, The Gorgeous Nothings builds on the work of an important lineage of landscape designers, gardeners, scientists and botanists who, over the last six centuries have planted, gathered, foraged, researched, collected and preserved an array of botanical treasures at Chatsworth, from rare botanical volumes and illustrated manuscripts in our library to coveted specimens in our garden and grounds.
The display will run until 5th October 2025.
Police take 'no further action' on Portrait Vandalism
March 17 2025
Video: Evening Standard
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from the BBC that the Cambridgeshire Police force will take 'no further action' against activists who slashed with box cutters and spraypainted Philip de László's portrait of Lord Balfour at Trinity College Cambridge last year.
According to the article:
A Cambridgeshire Police spokesperson said: "A thorough investigation was carried out but the investigation has now been filed pending any new information coming to light."
In a statement, Trinity College said it "continues to condemn this act of vandalism in the strongest terms".
It continued: "Trinity College will continue to cooperate with the police in the event further evidence becomes available so that the perpetrators can be brought to justice.
"The portrait of Lord Balfour by Philip Alexius de László is undergoing restoration"
Time will tell what precedent this sets for the safety of art in the UK.
Update - Bendor adds: FFS.
Fake FBI confiscate Fake Rembrandt
March 17 2025
Picture: Dalton Wisdom
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
It seems that a contemporary art gallery in New York wanted to pull a fun prank on their drinks reception guests over the weekend. In the middle of proceedings, a group of dressed up 'FBI officers' raided the gallery to remove what seemed to be Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, a picture stolen from the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in 1990 (and still missing). Alas, any eagle eye watcher of this video will notice that the 'Rembrandt' is in fact an oleograph, one of those cheap printed out photographs which is touched up with varnish to give the effect of being 'painted'. A nice try, I suppose!
Zurbarán in Barcelona
March 17 2025
Picture: Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona are about to open their leg of the travelling exhibition Zurbarán (super) Natural.
According to the museum's website:
The MNAC, the Musée des Beaux Arts de Lyon and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston are collaborating in this exhibition that will bring together for the first time the three versions of Saint Francis of Assisi according to Pope Nicholas V's Vision, a major work by Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664). The absolutely exceptional possibility of comparing the three paintings sheds light on each of them. The work preserved by the MNAC has undergone a thorough restoration process that has allowed it to recover its original appearance and bring to light details hidden by the passage of time.
The show will run in Barcelona from 21st March until 29th June 2025.
Culprit of Boughton Van Dyck Theft Exposed
March 17 2025
Picture: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Guardian have run a very interesting story regarding the theft of this Van Dyck grisaille from Boughton House in 1951. The piece focuses on research by Dr Meredith Hale which is going to feature with the newly revamped online edition of The British Art Journal (a cause for celebration in itself). It transpires the small panel was pinched by LGG Ramsey, the then editor of The Connoisseur, who managed to offload the picture onto the art market before it was eventually acquired by a museum in the US. Click on the link to read the full story!
A Guido Reni uncovered at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Libourne?
March 14 2025
Video: lalibre.be
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Interesting news from France that a conservation project undertaken on a painting in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Libourne may have uncovered an autograph work by Guido Reni. Donated to the museum in 1949, and long thought to be a copy, conservation work undertaken by the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF) has concluded that it may in fact be earlier than the two other autograph versions known in Madrid and Naples.
The work has gone on display today at the Chapelle du Carmel in Libourne so that the public may go and have a look for themselves.
Bellotto not Canaletto
March 14 2025
Picture: The Wallace Collection
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Artnet have published news that a painting in The Wallace Collection, London, which had been thought of as a Canaletto for many years, has been reattributed to his nephew Bernardo Bellotto. The discovery is part of the revelations encountered in new research for the aforementioned book on the collection's Venetian vedute. In fact, the work is now thought to be one of Bellotto's earliest works produced around the time the artist was 16 years old.
Francesco Guarino Annunciation Conserved
March 14 2025
Picture: positanonews.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that Francesco Guarino's Annunciation, which usually hangs in Chiesa di Santa Maria di Costantinopoli in Naples, has been conserved. Painted in 1654, and recently conserved by Gianfranco Zarrillo, the work will be on display in the church for the public from tomorrow onwards.
Upcoming: Renaissance Jewellery at the Fondation Bemberg
March 14 2025
Picture: fondation-bemberg.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Fondation Bemberg in Toulouse will be opening a new exhibition dedicated to Renaissance Jewellery next month (spotted via @gazettedrouot). The show is the first on the subject in 40 years since the last held at the V&A in London back in the 1980s.
It will run from 4th April until 27th July 2025.
Have you spotted these 8 works by female artists?
March 14 2025
Picture: codart.nl
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
CODART (the international network of curators of Dutch and Flemish art) has shared news that The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington D.C. and the Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) in Ghent are searching for 8 works by female artists which they'd rather like to have in an upcoming exhibition. This includes pictures by Anna Maria Janssens, Anna Francisca de Bruyns, Louise Hollandine von der Pfalz, Maria Theresia van Thielen (pictured) and Catharina Ykens. Click on the link above to find out more.
Lecture on Art and Material Cultures of Britain at UCL
March 14 2025
Picture: ucl.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
University College London (UCL) are hiring a Lecturer / Associate Professor in Art and Material Cultures of Britain, c.1650-1900.
According to the job description:
UCL History of Art is seeking to appoint a full-time Lecturer (Grade 8) or Associate Professor (Grade 9) specialising in British art and material culture in its global and colonial contexts, c. 1650-1900. UCL History of Art has a long, distinguished engagement with the politics and aesthetics of British art and empire, as well as histories and theories of material culture, broadly understood. The successful appointee will have a relevant PhD and a track record of publications and research excellence in their field. The position will begin on 1 September 2025.
The job comes with an annual salary between £66,711 – £72,370 and applications must be in by 22nd April 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Château de Versailles's Recently Acquired Louis XV Pastel Redisplayed
March 14 2025
Picture: Château de Versailles
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Château de Versailles have announced their redisplay of their recently acquired pastel portrait of Louix XV by Rosalba Carriera. The work was acquired in 2024, thanks to the patronage of Hubert and Mireille Goldschmidt, and is now featured in a special display in the former apartments of Madame de Maintenon.
