Orazio Gentileschi conserved at The National Gallery
December 6 2024
Video: The National Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London have just today published the following video presenting new insights into Orazio Gentileschi's The Finding of Moses resulting from recent conservation and cleaning.
Day Sale Surprises
December 6 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
There were some rather strong results in both the Christie's and Sotheby's Old Masters Day sales in London during the second half of this week.
Amongst the pictures that soared was this 'Follower of Holbein - Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger' (pictured above), a painting which had formerly been in the collection of Charles I, which realised £327,600 (all prices inc. premiums) over its £40k - £60k estimate. The catalogue note, which goes into the question of dating and provenance, is worth reading. Another strong price was achieved by Pietro Antonio Rotari's The Meeting of Alexander the Great and Roxana, behind a trompe l'oeil curtain which made £189,000 over its £50k - £80k estimate and Alessandro Turchi's The Abduction of Helen which realised £126,000 over its £60k - £80k estimate.
At the Sotheby's sale, where there were also quite a few strong prices which soared past their top estimates, it was a nineteenth century painting by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer which claimed the top spot of £1,020,000 over its £200k - £300k estimate. Other surprises were a pair of scenes ascribed to the Circle of Carlo Maratta which made £144,000 over their £15k - £20k estimates and a A fowl piece with Alexander Pope’s villa at Twickenham by Pieter Casteels III which achieved £180,000 over its £26k - £36k estimate.
Sotheby's London Evening Sale
December 4 2024
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Sotheby's London Evening Sale realised a total of £24,164,000 (with commission) with a sell-through rate of 76.93% / 73.08% including withdrawn lots.*
The Italian pictures, heavily featured within the auction, did rather well at the high end of things. The top lot was Botticelli's Madonna and Child Enthroned which had at least 4 or 5 frantic bidders to eventually reach an impressive £8.6m (hammer) over its £2m - £3m estimate. This is £9,960,000 including commission. Catherine the Great's Rosso Fiorentino made £2.8m (inc. commission) over its £2m - £3m estimate, although Artemisia's Magdalene came in at well below its low estimate. There were also strong results for paintings by Rubens, Antonio Joli and Pieter Claiessens the Elder.
The crescendo of the sale was Gustav and Ernst Klimt's Hanswurst Delivering an Impromptu Performance in Rothenburg which reached £2,220,000 over its £300k - £500k estimate, a phenomenal work which as one of my old friends remarked felt more like a collage of photographs rather than a painting, due to the almost photorealistic quality of the various faces encountered in the scene.
* - 1 lot was withdrawn.
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Zoffanys soar at Bonhams
December 4 2024
Picture: Bonhams
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The aforementioned pair of Johann Zoffanys soared past their £300k - £500k estimate at Bonhams today to realise £991,000 (including premium). They did look absolutely fantastic in the preview of the sale earlier this week and will undoubtedly clean beautifully once careful conservation reveals their original colours underneath that yellowed varnish. We shall wait and see if they turn up anywhere interesting!
Gérôme celebrated in Doha, Qatar
December 4 2024
Picture: mathaf.org.qa
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Interesting news from Doha, Qatar, that the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art have just opened a new exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Jean-Léon Gérôme.
According to the museum's website:
Organised by the future Lusail Museum in collaboration with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Seeing Is Believing: The Art and Influence of Gérôme features nearly 400 works, drawing extensively from the future Lusail Museum’s unparalleled collection of Orientalist art, including European depictions of the MENASA region spanning the 16th through 19th centuries. It also includes significant loans from Qatar Museums’ General Collections and prestigious institutions worldwide such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Islamic Arts Museum, Malaysia. New works commissioned from artists including Babi Badalov (b. 1959, Azerbaijan) and Nadia Kaabi-Linke (b. 1978, Tunisia) will reinterpret Gérôme for the 21st century.
One of the most famous and commercially successful European artists of the 19th century, Gérôme was heralded in his own time as a history painter and a visual storyteller, bringing the worlds of ancient Greece and Rome to life. Yet it was as a chronicler of the modern cultures and peoples of North Africa and the Middle East that he made his greatest impact. Travelling repeatedly to Egypt and Turkey and making many other stops in the region between 1855 and 1880, Gérôme created some of Orientalism’s most enduring images and themes. His depictions, at once fancifully imaginative and faithfully naturalistic, played a major role in defining the MENA world for Europe, America and Britain. Since 1978, his work has been the subject of critical scrutiny by art historians including Linda Nochlin, who famously read his paintings as part of a larger and more disturbing colonial plan. Seeing Is Believing: The Art and Influence of Gérôme presents new and more wide-ranging interpretations of the artist, without ignoring the contributions of these scholars, or of Edward Said’s groundbreaking book, Orientalism.
The show will run until 22nd February 2025.
Louvre buys Tiepolo from Christie's London Sale
December 4 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Louvre in Paris has announced its acquisition of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's Guilty Punchinello from last night's sale at Christie's London. The picture, which had been in France since c. 1934, made £2,460,000 over its £1m - £1.5m estimate.
Radio 4, Start the Week
December 4 2024
Picture: BBC
Posted by Bendor Grosvenor
It was a great thrill to be on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week, talking about the Invention of British Art; in case you missed it, you can listen to the programme here. Fellow guests were Susan Owens, author of The Story of Drawing: an Alternative History, and the artist Lucinda Rogers, who makes the most amazing landscape and urban drawings.
New Release: Ange Laurent from La Live de Jully
December 4 2024
Picture: lienarteditions.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A new publication on the amateur artist, patron and collector Ange-Laurent de La Live de Jully (1725 –1779) has just been published in France (under the general direction of Marie-Laure de Rochebrune, curator at the Palace of Versailles). The volume, with vast amounts of contributions from scholars working in the sphere of 18th century France, examines many aspects relating to his aesthetic and intellectual pursuits.
Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo Catalogue Raisonné
December 4 2024
Picture: Soncino
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I seemed to have missed news last year of a new catalogue raisonné dedicated to the sixteenth century painter Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo (c. 1480-1548). The volume, written by Alberto Maria Casciello, contains a full list of the artist's work alongside a thorough biography.
As usual with such projects, this will earn Casciello a place in the much-coveted Heroes of Art History section of this blog.
2024 Berger Prize Winner
December 4 2024
Picture: walpolesociety.org.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The 2024 Berger Prize has been award to Tom Young's book entitled Unmaking the East India Company: British Art and Political Reform in Colonial India, c.1813–1858 and published by Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
According to the Walpole Society's website:
This revelatory book explores how the visual culture of members of the East India Company prompted significant structural change, nimbly traversing the complex world of post-colonial scholarship. for a modern audience. It explores fresh material from a compelling new angle, charting the ways in which new artistic forms and practices presaged shifts in the governance of the Company and its relationship with the people it governed.
Update - (Bendor adds) there's an excellent podcast with Tom Young (to whom, many congratulations) and also with the rest of the shortlisted authors, called British Art Matters. Available here on Apple Podcasts.
Burlington - December Issue
December 4 2024
Picture: burlington.org.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Burlington Magazine's December 2024 issue is running with the theme of 'Collecting in Britain' this month.
Here's a list of the main articles featured within:
Veiled in precious cloth: a seal bag from Westminster Abbey and its connections with Charlemagne’s shrine in Aachen - By Corinne Mühlemann, Matthew Payne, Helen Wyld
A crazy cook: Menander’s ‘Fake Herakles’ on a Roman gem - By Ittai Gradel
Unclogging the eye: Matisse, the ‘Joy of life’ and ‘Japonisme’ - By Nicole M. Holland
New evidence concerning the original version of Robert Delaunay’s ‘The runners’ - By Anne Greeley
Georg Himmelheber (1929–2024) - By Simon Jervis
Christie's London Part I Sale
December 3 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Christie's London Old Masters Part I sale realised a total of £13,990,220 (inc. premiums) this evening with a respectable 88.47% of lots sold / 76.93% if one includes withdrawn lots.*
Several pictures managed to soar past their top estimates, including a Clara Peeters Still Life with Cheese which realised £655,200 (all figures inc. premiums) over its £100k - £150k estimate, alongside two nineteenth century pictures. Gustav Courbet's Le poète ou Le sculpteur realised £945,000 over its £250k - £350k estimate and Francesco Hayez's Bathsheba made £1,492,000 over its £600k - £800k estimate. With premiums added, many pictures managed to break past their upper guide prices, including the top ticket works Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Gabriel Metsu.
The top lot went to Van Dyck's much anticipated Andalusian Horse, which fetched a hammer price of its high estimate to realise £3,428,000 including premiums added.
All eyes on the Sotheby's sale tomorrow evening!
* - 3 lots were withdrawn, I'm sure someone will get in touch if I was incorrect with this figure!
New York pictures in London
December 2 2024
Picture: Sotheby's via AB
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
One of the joys of the December Old Master Paintings auctions are the 'highlights' of the upcoming January / February 2025 season in New York. This year does not disappoint.
Sotheby's New York have some rather choice pictures on display, including a Rubens sketch of the Annunciation at $4m - $6m, this surprisingly modern looking Portrait of a Lady by Bernardino de' Conti at $2.5m - $3.5m (pictured) and a rather hairy small-scale Saint Mary Magdalene by Raphael at $1m - $1.5m.
Christie's have their fair share of masterpieces, including works that are being deaccessioned from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Amongst the works from private collections are a fine interior by Pieter de Hooch at $3m - $5m and a Frans Hals portrait at $2m - $3m. The picture that has captured most of the attention on social media is this very handsome El Greco Saint Sebastian at 'estimate on request' (pictured below). The wall label does not provide a designation for the picture, so, we'll have to keep guessing where it has come from for now.
Luisa Roldán at the Museo Nacional de Escultura
December 2 2024
Picture: Museo Nacional de Escultura
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid, Spain, has recently opened an exhibition on the female sculptor Luisa Roldán (1652–1706). Known for having received the patronage of Philip V and Charles II for her works, she was the first Spanish artist to gain entry to the Academy of St Luke in Rome. Click on the link above for more information, including downloadable gallery guides.
The show will run until 9th March 2025.
In the studio of Guido Reni
December 1 2024
Picture: Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans opened their latest exhibition yesterday entitled In the studio of Guido Reni.
According to the museum's website:
In recent years, renewed interest in the artist has led to a fresh look at the multiple in the painter's studio. While the contemporary view of artistic creation most often leads to a pyramidal vision centered on an original and copies, the reality is very different. Reni's main biographer, Malvasia, reports that the painter's studio could gather up to 60 or even 200 people from all over Europe. The exhibition in Orléans presents the workings of the studio in all its richness and multiplicity, with several paintings studied in a new light thanks to reflections on the painter's production and restorations. An important section of the presentation will be devoted to David Contemplating the Head of Goliath by Reni and his collaborators, exploring the birth, development and legacy of a composition that was one of the most influential in 17th-century Western European art .
The show will run until 20th March 2025.
London Art Week & London Dealers
November 29 2024
Picture: Abbott and Holder - MARY HEADLAM (1874-1959) - An Artist Rediscovered
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
It is also worth pointing out that many members of the London art trade are also putting on in-person and digital exhibitions over the upcoming sale season.
Here is a list of exhibitors connected with the London Art Week Winter 2024. Mentions should also be made of Dickinson's aforementioned Cromwell Rediscovered, and Rafael Valls' A Cabinet of Curiosities.
Do get in touch if there are any other London art trade exhibitions that are worth mentioning here!
London Auction Previews open Today - plus Goyen, Goyen, Gone
November 29 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Both the Sotheby's and Christie's Old Master Paintings previews open today in New Bond Street and King Street respectively. The Bonhams preview opens on Sunday. As usual, many hundreds of pictures to admire and peruse including the highlights from the upcoming New York sale season. Keeping an eye on social media, and which pictures people are sharing on their accounts, is usually a good indication of what will do well I find.
In addition to this, Christie's are also previewing a Selling Exhibition amusingly entitled Goyen, Goyen, Gone, featuring nine works by the Dutch landscape painter Jan van Goyen.
Studentship to Study Artists’ Networks in late 19th-Britain and Belgium
November 28 2024
Picture: Coventry University
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Coventry University are inviting applications for a fully-funded studentship to pursue a PhD on the subject of Art, Memory and Circles of Connection – Artists’ Networks in late 19th-British and Belgian Spaces of Exchange. The studentship is is offered in partnership with KU Leuven and will also require the candidate to undertake research in Belgium.
According to the University's website:
Focusing on artist interactions between London, Brussels and other key loci of exchange, including in the art press and art criticism, this study’s key aim is to shed light on why and how interconnecting, transnational artistic visions and practices stimulated cultural arenas for new projections of modernity. A first area of consideration for this PhD is to explore expanded contexts of art reception between key British and Belgian cultural sites; this may include international responses to Pre-Raphaelite circles, and to John Ruskin’s writings. Second, will be to consider interactions between these networks and gender in creating opportunities for women as artists, designers and craftswomen, operating within and beyond perceived constructs of ‘separate spheres’ of male and female artistic activity. A third, related key area of enquiry will be to examine the significance and porous identities of cultural spaces in expanding circles of artistic exchange, and in their uses by artists across geo-cultural borders as sites of cultural memory, gender and identity-construction. As well as through exhibitions and other public spaces of display – notably museums and art galleries, this study will develop understanding of an expanded range of sites of art via private collections, intimate spaces of ateliers, workshops, artists’ homes or indeed, in letters, diaries and journals. Taken together, this PhD will open insights into pivotal artistic and geo-cultural ecologies between Britain and Belgium as arenas of artistic innovation and exchange to shape cross-cultural sites of modernity, gender and artistic agency.
Applications must be in by 15th January 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Gentileschi and Van Dyck in Turin
November 28 2024
Picture: Gallerie d'Italia
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Gallerie d'Italia in Turin have just yesterday opened a new temporary exhibition focusing on two paintings loaned from the Corsini Gallery in Rome. The works on display are Orazio Gentileschi's Madonna and Child of c. 1610, and Anthony Van Dyck's Madonna of the Straw dated 1625-27.
According to the museum's website:
Approximately ten years separate the two paintings, which are two different interpretations of the so-called "Madonna of the Milk", a highly successful iconography that was created to tangibly visualise Mary's role as the mother of Christ.
Gentileschi's painting bears witness to the novelty of Caravaggio's revolution and of painting "from nature", which transforms the sacred theme into an intimate, everyday moment. [...]
Van Dyck, on the other hand, following in the footsteps of the great masters of the Italian Renaissance, reinterprets the theme with a strong symbolic density, placing it in the context of the Nativity. [...]
The pair will be on view in Turin until 12th January 2025.
Ribera's St John the Baptist Conserved
November 28 2024
Video: Patrimonio Nacional
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Spain that the Real Monasterio de la Encarnación in Madrid have recently conserved Jusepe Ribera's St John the Baptist. As the video explains, the removal of much yellowed varnish has revealed many hidden details particularly in the background of the painting.
