Jan Lievens Self Portrait to lead Lempertz Sale
May 13 2024
Picture: Lempertz
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
One of the top lots in the upcoming Old Master Paintings auction at Lempertz in Cologne is the following Self Portrait in a Mirror by Jan Lievens. The catalogue note makes for an interesting read and discusses the varying scholarly opinions over the years which has been put to bed in part by an early dendrochronology result.
The painting will be offered on 16th May 2024 carrying an estimate of €120,000 - €150,000.
Christie's Website Down
May 13 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Some very concerning news broke over the weekend. The auctioneers Christie's announced on Friday that their full website has been taken down due to a 'technology security issue'. The timing couldn't be worse, due to the upcoming 20th / 21st Century auctions due to take place in New York this week. Fortunately, a temporary replacement online catalogue has been uploaded online with the sales planned to go ahead as usual.
Stolen Double Portrait of Rubens and Van Dyck Returned to Chatsworth
May 10 2024
Picture: The Art Newspaper
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Art Newspaper have published a story of a painting which was stolen 45 years ago, whilst out on loan from Chatsworth, has been recovered from an auction house in France. Erasmus Quelliness II's Portrait of Rubens and Van Dyck in grisaille, which was engraved and famously contains their coats of arms, had been nabbed off the wall of the Towner Art Gallery in Eastborne back in 1979.
According to the article
The returned painting, which was originally painted as preparation for an engraving and not intended to be hung on a wall, was assumed lost until, in 2021, an art historian spotted it going on sale at a small regional auction house in Toulon, France and alerted Chatsworth.
Click on the link above to read more and see the painting.
Sotheby's New York are Hiring!
May 10 2024
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Old Master Paintings Department at Sotheby's New York are hiring a Cataloguer.
Some of the responsibilities included in the role:
- Assist with cataloguing and researching items for the Old Master sales, encompassing European paintings from the late 13th to 19th centuries:
- Independently researching and cataloguing objects to the highest standard while also meeting strict scheduled deadlines
- Corresponding with and establishing relationships with external experts, while also following up on all outstanding research inquiries
- Writing condition reports for the lots on offer
- Working with senior business getters to lead the mid-season and online sale program, including cataloguing, digital catalogue production, lot order finalization, proofreading, color-checking, producing marketing material and editorial content, assisting with exhibition layout and set-up, staffing exhibitions, and helping to target potential bidders
- General department support, including answering phones, and helping with day-to-day client enquiries at the front desk, through the online inquiry portal, by email and on the telephone
- Maintaining excellence in client service when responding to estimate enquiries, general correspondence and photo requests
- Developing and managing client relationships
- Assisting the senior experts with the research of paintings for auction, fair market and insurance valuations, proposals, and others
The comes with a salary between $55,000-$65,000 and no application deadline has been published online.
Good luck if you're applying!
Hidden Treasures on the BBC
May 10 2024
Video: BBC
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Following on from the last post, a new series of the BBC's Hidden Treasures will air today. The first episode includes the moving of a full-length portrait by Rubens at Kingston Lacy (see above!).
National Trust painting turns out to be a print
May 10 2024
Picture: nationaltrustcollections.org.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The BBC have reported on news that The National Trust have discovered that a painting, previous catalogued as a work on paper, is in fact a print. The work of art at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk was previously believed to be a straightforward copy of a Van Dyck executed in oil on paper. This was until it was sent away for conservation and its true identity and author was revealed.
According to the press release:
It was discovered the reproduction of the Three Eldest Children of Charles I was in fact a print by Jacob Christoff Le Blon, who first created the three-colour printing process.
"Only three Le Blon prints of it are known to survive, so to have discovered a fourth is really exciting," said National Trust curator Jane Eade. [...]
He was the first to create a three-colour printing process – the forerunner of the CMYK colour printing used today, external.
The revolutionary method used mezzotint, a monochrome printmaking process, with separate plates inked in blue, yellow and red, and superimposed on one another in order to create variable depth of hue.
New Release: Picturing the Artist’s Studio
May 10 2024
Picture: lundhumphries.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Publishers Lund Humphries released the following book last week. Picturing the Artist's Studio: From Delacroix to Picasso examines the role of the artist's studio during the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and has been written by Heather McPherson.
According to the book's blurb:
This richly diverse study examines the evolving image and contested status of the artist in late nineteenth-century France through the lens of the artist’s studio, which became a central theme in art and literature, stretching from Balzac to Proust and from Corot to Picasso. The studio was a hybrid space that blurred the distinctions between public and private, professional and domestic, artistic production and display. Besides a material space for art making, the studio was a social and commercial nexus and an extension of the artist’s persona. Drawing on paintings, prints, photographs, and primary sources ranging from memoirs to popular journals, this book sheds new light on the modern studio’s heightened significance as a laboratory of creative struggle and a platform for self-expression and the staging of artistic identity. It elucidates how the concept of the studio as a creative space emblematic of artistic identity, first theorized in the Renaissance, was reinvented and popularized after mid-century as debates about the role of art and the status of the artist intensified. Breaking new ground in focusing on the intersecting issues of artistic identity and the evolving role of the studio as creative arena, social and commercial locus, and informal exhibition space, McPherson allows us to participate in the popular ritual of visiting the artist’s studio.
Female Artists Documentary on ARTE
May 10 2024
Video: ARTE.FR
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The European Art broadcaster ARTE have produced the following free documentary on Female Artists. In particular, the program follows the lives of Sofonisba Anguissola, Judith Leyster, Angelica Kauffmann and Marie-Guillemine Benoist. It will be available to watch until 21st May 2024.
Recent Release: Kunsthandel Katz
May 10 2024
Picture: bol.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Dutch language readers have been treated to a new book which was released last month entitled Kunsthandel Katz: Een dynastie van joodse kunsthandelaren 1876-1995. Recognised as one of the most prominent art dealers of the twentieth century, this book by Peter Hellema & Joop Marsman charts the history of the family through WWII and beyond. Click on the link above to view a free preview from the publisher.
See Restoration of Masaccio on Scaffold
May 10 2024
Picture: smn.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Visitors to the Florentine Church of Santa Maria Novella will be able to glimpse at Masaccio's The Holy Trinity up-close during the next few weeks. This has been made possible due to a special scaffold having been erected for a conservation project on the wall painting. It will cost a mere €1.50 (on top of your entrance ticket) to see the work up close!
The Musée Fabre is Hiring!
May 10 2024
Picture: Musée Fabre
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée Fabre in Montpellier is looking for a new Director.
Responsibilities will include looking after its collection of over 10,000 objects which are visited by 250,000 people per year. The new Director will also be presiding over the museum's bicentenaries in 2025 and 2028 respectively.
Applications must be in by 4th August 2024 and no salary has been published online.
Good luck if you're applying!
Courbet's "l'Origine du monde" Tagged in Orange
May 9 2024
Video: France 3 Grand Est
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from France that Gustave Courbet "l'Origine du monde" was target by protestors at the Centre Pompidou-Metz over the weekend and 'tagged' in orange paint with the 'Me Too' slogan.
According to Artnews.com article linked above:
This is not the first feminist protest staged by De Robertis at a museum, or even the first targeting of Courbet. In 2014 the artist exposed her vulva in front of Origin of the World at the Musée d’Orsay, and two years later, she returned there to strip off her clothes—save for a portable video camera tied around her neck—and lie on the floor in front of Edouard Manet’s nude painting Olympia (1863). The latter protest led to a charge of public indecency and nearly two days detained in a jail cell.
Painting with Bacteria
May 9 2024
Video: The University of St. Thomas, Minnesota
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
It seems that the future of scientific painting has arrived. The Art History and Biology departments at The University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, have teamed up to allow students to create artworks using bacteria. The process involves pigmented bacteria being painted onto petri dishes.
According to the University's website:
“We want to make sure that people don’t just think about art as decoration,” [Dr. Heather] Shirey explained. “It can create conversations between our disciplines, microbiology and art history, and engage people to think about art and science from interdisciplinary perspectives.”
Furthermore, Shirey wanted to collaborate with [Dr. Joanna] Klein to encourage students with an art history background to better embrace science, in addition, to enlighten students in STEM who may lack an appreciation for art history. By bringing the two disciplines together, Shirey wanted to make it accessible for students of both backgrounds.
AI can Identify Fakes on Ebay, says Scientists!
May 9 2024
Picture: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
An intriguing article came out this week explaining that 'authentication specialists' using AI technology have been able to sniff out 40 counterfeit paintings on Ebay. This include a Forest With a Stream, purportedly by Monet, being offered on the website for $599,000.
According to the article in The Guardian:
Dr Carina Popovici, a specialist in authenticating artwork, said she applied cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technology to pictures advertised on the online platform and was shocked to discover that many had a “high probability” of being “not authentic”. [...]
“We looked today and we downloaded some images, and there were fakes all over the place. Everything that we have analysed turns out to be not real art, a negative probability with 95% or so. I’m sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
____________
I'm yet to hear of any serious collector of Monet buying pictures from Ebay, so I'm not quite sure what the point is of training a computer telling us things that any reasonable person can judge using their eyes. But, as the saying goes, caveat emptor.
Historic Royal Palaces are Hiring!
May 9 2024
Picture: HRP
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Historical Royal Palaces in the UK are hiring an Archivist and Curator of the Architectural Drawings Collection.
According to the job description:
We are seeking a full time Archivist and Curator of the Architectural Drawings Collection to join a team of curators and archivists to deliver and develop first class architectural drawings and archives care, research and services both externally and internally at Historic Royal Palaces. This role works collaboratively with colleagues across Historic Royal Palaces, to help research and share the story of our six palaces and the people whose lives helped shape them. The role's two focuses are the collection of 30,000 architectural drawing based at Tower of London, and the archives and records of the Curators team and other departments.
The job comes with an annual salary of £45,835 and applications must be in by 19th May 2024.
Good luck if you're applying!
Sotheby's New York May Sale
May 9 2024
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Sotheby's New York upcoming May Master Paintings Sale has been published online. The auction will take place on 22nd May 2024.
Among the top lots are a Pieter Brueghel the Younger Wedding Dance, a set of four Sebastien Vrancx paintings depicting the Parable of the Prodigal Son, a View of the Doge's Place by Michele Marieschi, a View of the Colosseum by Panini, and a fine portrait by George Romney (pictured).
Rediscovered Caravaggio Conserved and Hung in Prado
May 9 2024
Picture: apnews
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Exciting news broke earlier this week that the rediscovered Caravaggio that reappeared back in 2021 has been conserved and hung in the Prado Museum in Madrid. The loan of the painting has been handled by Colnaghi, whilst the restoration was undertaken by Andrea Cipriani 'and his team in collaboration with two London dealers, Filippo Benappi of Benappi Fine Art and Andrea Lullo of Lullo Pampoulides gallery.'
The painting, alongside a special new study by several academics on the artist and period, will be on display until October 2024.
Getty Acquire 17 Drawings
May 3 2024
Picture: Getty Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The J. Paul Getty Muesum in Los Angeles has announced its acquisition of 17 drawings, including works by Eva Gonzalès, Edgar Degas, Guercino (pictured), Joseph Wright of Derby, Luca Cambiaso, Giovanni Boldini, and Odilon Redon.
According to the museum's press release announcing the news:
"The addition of these 17 highly important sheets by major artists of the 16th to 20th centuries will greatly enrich the status and quality of our already renowned collection of drawings,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “To comment on just one of these outstanding works, the pastel by the French Impressionist Eva Gonzalès, The Maid of Honor (La Demoiselle d’honneur), is her most celebrated work and a major addition to our holdings by women artists. This drawing received rave reviews at the 1880 Paris Salon where her mentor, Edouard Manet, praised her for this success. Sadly, her career was short-lived, as she passed away just three years later."
Le tableau volé
May 2 2024
Video: PyramideDistrib
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A new French film was released yesterday entitled Le tableau volé. The film concerns the art specialist André Masson, an employee of the amusingly named auction house Scottie’s, who rediscovers a lost work by Egon Schiele.
Mary Beale on Pall Mall
May 2 2024
Picture: AB
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A brief post to express enthusiasm for Philip Mould & Co.'s recently opened exhibition Fruit of Friendship: Portraits by Mary Beale. I had the chance to visit yesterday and was mightily inspired by the pictures on display. This is an unrivalled experience to get up close to view some very beautiful works, alongside several very intriguing rediscoveries and surprises.
This free show will run until 19th July 2024, here are some free audio guides for those unable to make it!
