Samedi 8 mars 2014
Last update on 4/03/2014
Last update on 4/03/2014
The latest news in the History of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the 1930's
Death Comes to the Table by Giovanni Martinelli Acquired by Raleigh 03/03/2014
We had already pointed out the acquisition of two paintings presented at the Sarti art gallery in a Caravaggesque exhibition last year : a Daniele Crespi purchased by LACMA and an Andrea Vaccaro by the Musée Fabre in Montpellier. A third canvas (...)
A Statuette of Ferdinand d’Orléans Acquired by the Musée de la Vie Romantique 27/02/2014
The descendants of Louis Philippe have been slowly selling off the furniture over the past few years... Last 2 December, the auctioneers Delorme & Collin du Bocage organized yet another sale at the Hôtel Drouot of "royal souvenirs from the (...)
A Louis XV Commode Donated to Versailles 25/02/2014
A royal commode recently joined the collections at the Château de Versailles, donated by the Fondation Edmond J. Safra. Intended for Louis XV’s bedroom at the Château de Choisy, it was completed in 1744 by Antoine Robert Gaudreaus, cabinet maker (...)
A Small Portrait by François Gérard Stolen at Versailles 25/02/2014
A painting by François Gérard representing the portrait of Comte Regnault de Saint-Jean d’Angély standing has disappeared from the château’s storage rooms as announced in Le Parisien and confirmed by the museum. The theft was noticed on 14 February (...)
"Orphée et Eurydice" by Nicolas de Bar Acquired by the Musée Barrois 24/02/2014
Last July, Bar-le-Duc launched a fundraiser for the acquisition of a painting by Nicolas de Bar, signed and dated 1654, representing Orpheus and Eurydice to be purchased from the F. Baulme Fine Art gallery in Paris. We refer our readers to the (...)
The Samaritaine and the Serres d’Auteuil : An Update from the Courtrooms 24/02/2014
Judges and demolishers do not share the time frame. Readers might remember the title of our article concerning the surprising (to use a euphemism) decision delivered by the "juge des référés" at the Tribunal administratif of Paris who concluded, (...)
A Landscape by Rockwell Kent for the Orlando Museum of Art 20/02/2014
He simply wanted to "paint the rhythm of eternity", seize the "infinite thing". Rockwell Kent studied painting in New York under William Merritt Chase, then Robert Henri before setting out for broader horizons, following the advice of Robert (...)
Passing of Pierre Gaubert 20/02/2014
Although he retired professionally many years ago, Pierre Gaubert, who passed away last Sunday 16 February, will be remembered by amateurs and collectors of French 19th century drawings and paintings as a dealer who rediscovered so-called (...)
A Painting by Nils Forsberg for the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm 18/02/2014
Seated calmly on the paragon of antique sculpture, the Venus de Milo (or at least a plaster replica) lying on the floor, a young man in a studio is pointing his brush towards a blank canvas resting on an easel. He seems to be looking at a skull (...)
Restoration and Rediscovery of a Bartolomeo Manfredi in Le Mans 18/02/2014
The Musée Tessé in Le Mans holds a painting representing The Crowning of Thorns after a composition by Bartolomeo Manfredi, sent by the State in 1799, that is two years before the Chaptal decree which created fifteen museums in the provinces. It (...)
A Rosso Work on View in Paris 18/02/2014
Currently in France for an exceptional visit, the Marriage of the Virgin by Rosso Fiorentino is on view at the Italian Embassy until next 28 February. A recent restoration has fully revealed once again this Mannerist masterpiece. Directed by (...)
An Early Drawing by Seurat Acquired by the Getty 17/02/2014
The auction of the Jan Krugier drawing collection at Sotheby’s London on 6 February set new records, bad news for French museums with their increasingly lower budgets. True, the provenance was undoubtedly a strong factor and there is no way of (...)
Passing of Patrice Bellanger 14/02/2014
Patrice Bellanger, who died on 13 February after a long illness at the age of 69, was one of the very few dealers specialized in sculpture (from the Renaissance to Neo-classicism) and certainly one of the most knowledgeable in his field. Born (...)
Launching of the Fondation Avenir du Patrimoine à Paris 11/02/2014
The widespread coverage in the media of the critical condition of Parisian churches, to which we contributed significantly, has finally resulted in shaking things up a bit. The reaction does not come from City Hall since the "plan église" (...)
An American Painting Joins the National Gallery in London 10/02/2014
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 16th century Ewer for the Met 06/02/2014
The spout on this unique object presents a fantastic creature with a man’s head and the bust of a winged woman resting on the mask of a mustachioed man with his mouth wide open. The handle is in the shape of a hybrid being with a serpent’s body (...)
Publication of an Issue of In Situ Devoted to Mural Painting 06/02/2014
We sometimes mention it here : many scholarly journals are available free of charge on the web, some of which appear only in fact on internet, created exclusively for this support. Unfortunately, since articles are published according to (...)
The Hôtel Aghion by the Perret Brothers in Alexandria Destroyed 05/02/2014
What we feared since this building by Gustave and Auguste Perret from 1926-1927 had been gutted by bulldozers, alas, did indeed come about : the Hôtel Aghion is today just a pile of ruins, as illustrated by the photographs sent by Cléa Daridan (...)
Two Troubadour Paintings Acquired by Bourg-en-Bresse 04/02/2014
From April to September of this year, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon is staging an important restrospective highlighting troubadour painters, in asociation with the Musée de Brou. Bourg-en-Bresse, which already holds an extensive number of (...)
A Balla Painting Acquired by the Kröller-Müller Museum 04/02/2014
What does a motorcycle backfiring look like ? Giacomo Balla attempted to set it down in oil and gouache on a large sheet. Entitled Forte rumore di motocicletta, the work was recently acquired by the Kröller-Müller Museum from a private collector (...)
Leonardo’s Belle Ferronnière To Leave for Abou-Dhabi 03/02/2014
The list remains confidential and is to be released by the Emirates but we can already reveal here that Leonardo’s La Belle Ferronnière will be sent by the Louvre to Abou-Dhabi for the grand opening of its satellite. Once again, we feel it is (...)
The Musée Victor Hugo Buys a Canvas by Dagnan-Bouveret 03/02/2014
"I prefer, rather than the things which flatter/ The pride of soldiers or kings/The shadow cast by you on my book/When your forehead bends over me". The Maison Victor Hugo recently acquired a canvas, from the Hubert Duchemin gallery in Paris, (...)
A Deshays and a Devéria for the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Quimper 31/01/2014
The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Quimper has just added a study by Jean Baptiste Deshays and a man’s portrait painted by Eugène Devéria to its collections. The first work is a grisaille in oil on paper glued to canvas, representing The Abduction of (...)
Another Poussin Risks Export from the UK 28/01/2014
Another painting by Nicolas Poussin belonging to the Duke of Bedford and exhibited at Woburn Abbey, will be exported from the United Kingdom if a museum - or a private individual since British law allows this option - does not find the 14 (...)
A Beautiful Painting by Beinaschi Joins the Louvre 23/01/2014
The Musée du Louvre has just acquired a very beautiful 17th century painting, an unusual addition as this had not happened for a very long time. This is of course not a purchase as the museum had abandoned any attempt at adding to this (...)
A Francesco Guardi for the Ashmolean Museum 23/01/2014
The Ashmolean recently received a donation through Acceptance in Lieu of an unpublished painting by Francesco Guardi entitled Venice : the Fondamenta Nuove with the Lagoon and the Island of San Michele, produced in 1758. A subsidy provided by (...)
A Magnificent Pastel by Simon Bernard Lenoir Acquired by the Louvre 21/01/2014
A masterpiece by a little-known painter is worth more than a mediocre work by a famous artist. The recent purchase made by the Département des Arts Graphiques at the Musée du Louvre from the Bayser Gallery in Paris illustrates the wisdom of this (...)
Twenty-two Impressionist Works Donated to the Denver Art Museum 19/01/2014
Some museums are lucky enough to have a good fairy watching over them ; the one at the Denver Art Museum is 85 years old, made his money in the oil business and his name is Frederic C. Hamilton. This collector, who was on the msueum’s Board of (...)
Waldmüller and Poyer : Three Acquisitions for the Département des Arts Graphiques 16/01/2014
Museums rarely announce their recent acquisitions. Nevertheless, the Louvre has just published a press release listing several donations and purchases which we had already mentioned (the two paintings by Michel-Ange Challe, the Lamentation by (...)
Another Bonnard for Orsay 14/01/2014
There is no question that Bonnard will be very well represented at the Musée d’Orsay : a small oil on cardboard from around 1896 was pre-empted on 11 December 2013 at an auction held at the Hôtel Drouot by Bailly-Pommery et Voutier auctioneers. (...)
The Custodia Foundation Expands after Closing the Institut Néerlandais 14/01/2014
We had mentioned here the upcoming - and much regretted - closing of the Institut Néerlandais, following the cuts in funding provided by the Dutch government. This is now the case since last 1st January of this year. Consequently, the Fondation (...)
Appointment of Sophie Barthélémy as Head of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux 13/01/2014
The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux has just reopened its doors and its director, José de Los LLanos, left recently but the city has not lost any time, announcing the name of his successor today, Sophie Barthélémy, currently in charge of 19th and (...)
Ribera and Hubert Robert : Two Successful Fundraisers 13/01/2014
Two French museums recently succeeded in reaching their fundraising goals to acquire important works for their collections. The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes which wanted to purchase an early work by Ribera thus raised the needed 300,000€ for (...)
Hôtel de la Marine : The CMN Replaces the Louvre 11/01/2014
The Centre des Monuments Nationaux, and not the Louvre, has been designated to manage the Hôtel de la Marine starting in 2015, as announced yesterday in Le Figaro. The defection of the Parisian museum does not come as a surprise since we already (...)
Donation of Five Works by Stanley Spencer to the Fitzwilliam Museum 10/01/2014
The English countryside takes on an air of Paradise, at least as seen through the eyes of Stanley Spencer in an early work showing the poet and preacher John Donne Arriving in Heaven. He walks past men praying, their hands joined together and (...)
Vincent Pomarède Leaving the Département des Peintures at the Louvre 07/01/2014
Vincent Pomarède, Director of the Département des peintures at the Musée du Louvre since 2003 when he replaced Jean Pierre Cuzin, created an unexpected surprise yesterday, even in his own department, announcing that he was applying for a new (...)
A Van Gogh for the National Gallery 02/01/2014
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 Lamentation of the Body of Christ by François Barrois Pre-Empted by the Louvre 31/12/2013
We cannot help but hope that certain works which come up for auction will be pre-empted by a museum. This was indeed the case for the study by Jules Elie Delaunay acquired finally by Compiègne and it was also our wish for the very beautiful (...)
Vincent Droguet Appointed Director of Heritage and the Collections at the Château de Fontainebleau 31/12/2013
Following the departure of Xavier Salmon for the Département des Arts Graphiques at the Musée du Louvre, his successor as director of heritage and collections at the château in Fontainebleau was recently appointed. Vincent Droguet, Conservateur (...)
A Drawing by Joseph Parrocel Donated by the Amis du Louvre to the Département des Arts Graphiques 23/12/2013
A look at the bulletin published by the Amis du Louvre, in an item written by Xavier Salmon, apprises us that a drawing by Joseph Parrocel, exhibited at the last Salon du Dessin by the Jean-François Baroni Gallery, which we had reproduced in a (...)
Two Paintings by Michel-Ange Challe Donated to the Louvre 23/12/2013
Thanks to the help of the Société des Amis du Louvre, the museum recently received a donation made by Christian and Nathalie Volle and by Marie-Catherine Sahut consisting of two canvases painted by Michel-Ange Challe (or Charles-Michel-Ange (...)
A Study by Delaunay Pre-Empted by the Château de Compiègne 21/12/2013
In 1986, at the time of the retrospective of Jules Elie Delaunay organized by the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes, there were only four known preparatory drawings for the ceiling of new theater in the Compiègne palace which the artist had never (...)
A Drawing by Louis Nicolas Lemasle Acquired by St. Quentin 21/12/2013
While acquisition budgets for French museums have undergone drastic cuts, due notably to the budget policy at the Ministry of Culture, an interesting purchase was made just one year ago for a ridiculous amount although this is really a fine (...)
The Trials and Tribulations of a Thuillier Landscape Recovered by Amiens 19/12/2013
Readers might remember that a landscape by Pierre Thuillier, which was supposed to go on the block in Reims, had been identified as a work missing from the Musée de Picardie, thought to have been stolen from the Fire Station where it resided (see (...)
Two Terracottas by Moitte Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum 16/12/2013
The Metropolitan Museum recently added two terracotta sculptures by Jean-Guillaume Moitte acquired on the art market in Paris from the Perrin Gallery. The works are preparatory for groups which apparently were never produced but were supposed (...)
United Kingdom : a Fundraiser Is Launched for Van Dyck, the One for Stubbs Meets its Goal 11/12/2013
After remaining in the family of the Count of Jersey since the 18th century, the painting drew much attention when it came up for auction at Sotheby’s in 2009, reaching a record price for the artist : 8.3 million pounds. Two English and (...)
Pre-emption of a Maella Study by the Spanish Government 11/12/2013
Sold at auction for 20,000 euros, a painting by Mariano Salvador Maella was pre-empted by the Spanish government for the Patrimonio Nacional on 17 September 2013 in Madrid at Subastas Segre. The work, representing The Adoration of the Mystic (...)
Two Paintings by Alexandre Roslin for Versailles and Stockholm 06/12/2013
A Swedish artist who arrived in France around 1752 where he lived the rest of his life, Alexander Roslin (whose name is often written in French as Alexandre) was one of the major portraitists active in Paris in the second half of the 18th (...)
The Battle for the Theater in Poitiers 29/11/2013
A little over a year ago, we started a series on the historical heritage of the city of Poitiers. We published only two articles though there were many issues to be discussed there, as in other cities as well. Today, the problem concerns the (...)
A Honthorst Masterpiece Acquired by the National Gallery in Washington 28/11/2013
The National Gallery in Washington recently acquired a masterpiece by Gerrit Honthorst representing a concert. This is a daytime scene, without the lighting effects found in the chiaroscuro paintings by the artist known in Italy as Gherardo (...)
