Can a museum sell its collections ? In the United States the answer is yes and, although it is supposed to reinvest the earnings in the acquisition of other works, the practice would still appear to contradict the primary mission of an (...)
A young peasant woman has joined the collections at the National Gallery, in the form of a portrait by Vincent Van Gogh. It was acquired thanks to a new tax measure introduced in Great Britain in March 2013, in order to encourage persons owning (...)
The "Urbinate" : although this adjective refers to Raphael in the minds of many, it applies almost equally to Federico Barocci. Of these two Renaissance geniuses born in Urbino, the latter spent most of his life there after two stays in Rome (...)
Like the Louvre, the National Gallery in London is taking an interest in American art, long overlooked in Europe. After showing George Bellows in 2011, it is now displaying oil sketches by Federic Edwin Church, in collaboration with the Terra (...)
An Italian Woman has just become an important addition to the National Gallery for two reasons : painted by this eminent artist, it was part of the collection of a famous painter, Lucian Freud who disappeared in 2011. However, the press release (...)
We often pass on to our readers announcements concerning recent acquisitions by British museums through the system of Acceptance in Lieu and will soon provide a thorough update on works secured thanks to this fiscal method since 2010. These (...)
Thanks to acceptance in lieu, the National Gallery in London has enriched its collections with a portrait of a young woman by Thomas Lawrence. This canvas, which represents Emily Lamb, was commissioned from the artist in 1803 by her father, (...)
The trend in double exhibitions, even sometimes triple is becoming a bit wearisome. It appears easier - but is this really true ? - to attract crowds using two famous names instead of one, regardless of the actual artistic value of the (...)
There was much scraping together to come up with the needed funds for the purchase of the second Titian belonging to the Duke of Sutherland, Diana and Callisto. The owner had already ceded its pair in 2009, Diana and Actaeon for the modest sum (...)
The catalogue raisonné of François Le Moyne by Jean-Luc Bordeaux, Arthéna Ed. 1985, lists a lost Annunciation under number 66. In his biography on Le Moyne, Count de Caylus explained that he thought the work had left for England. He was right (...)
Nicholas Penny had announced there would be no more blockbuster exhibitions. The one now highlighting Leonardo da Vinci at the National Gallery is thus a bit paradoxical as one would be hard put to imagine a restrospective drawing larger crowds (...)
Wednesday afternoons, from 2 to 5:30 only, room A at the National Gallery in London is open to the public. There are not many visitors and, yet this gallery in fact represents a major portion of the museum’s works in storage holding about 700 (...)
When he was first appointed as head of the National Gallery, Nicholas Penny had stated that he planned to limit the number of blockbuster exhibitions, notably for economic reasons. After Delaroche, the London museum continues to pursue this (...)
he National Gallery in London has just finished restoring the Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci which is now once again on display to the public since Wednesday, 14 July 2010.
Last September, we spoke of two important Old Master paintings which English museums would have liked to see remain on British soil. The first was a Saint Sebastian by Cornelis van Haarlem
The National Gallery is offering, alongside the exhibition highlighting Delaroche, a very interesting retrospective on the Danish painter, Christen Kobke. London has of course, like Paris and other major capitals, already staged events studying (...)
Paul Delaroche loved England and English history. In turn, the British have known how to express their appreciation. Most of the literature on the artist has been written by English authors and the National Gallery is now highlighting his work (...)
Englishmen passing through Rome on their Grand Tour, the trip through Europe that any true aristocrat had to take, wanted their portrait done by him. This is probably why Pompeo Batoni, one of the great Italian painters of the second half of the (...)
Two months ago we wrote that the Prince of Lichtenstein’s acquisition of the
Nicholas Penny, senior curator for sculptures at the National Gallery in Washington since 2002, will be appointed Director of the National Gallery in London as soon as the British Prime Minister,
In 2005, Simon Sainsbury, the grandson of John Sainsbury, founder of the famous chain of supermarkets, had donated the funds for an expansion at the National Gallery which is known today as the Sainsbury (...)
Whereas the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon is still not sure of successfully acquiring The Flight Into Egypt by Nicolas Poussin, England is today faced with a much more serious challenge after the recent announcement by the Duke of Rutland (...)