Dimanche 22 juillet 2018
Last update on 2/11/2016
Last update on 2/11/2016
The latest news in the History of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the 1930's
The evening of the inauguration for TEFAF (the Maastricht Fair), the Metropolitan, which had recently acquired a ewer from the Kugel gallery, again made a purchase from the same dealers, a second ewer with its (...)
The theft was discovered last 11 March : Christ at Emmaüs by Emil Nolde - a native of both Germany and Denmark - disappeared from the church of Olstrup where it hung and for which it had been produced in (...)
The number of auctioneers opening in Paris, which continues to grow, and the corresponding drop in sales held at the Hôtel Drouot as well as their quality lead us to fear the worst for this institution which is over one hundred years old. (...)
French museums, unfortunately, were not very pro-active at the Félix Marcilhac auction which in fact broke all records. However, three establishments saved the day by coming away with acquisitions.
For the last ten years the Chapel of Saint Martial painted by Matteo Giovanetti at the Palais des Papes in Avignon has remained closed to the public due to restoration plans which took longer than expected to get underway, for obscure (...)
Recently, the Metropolitan Museum offered its out of print publications free of charge for downloading. Now, the Getty is doing the same with its publications, also at no cost, whether out of print or still available on paper. For the moment, (...)
The Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth which makes few purchases but always masterpieces, recently announced the acquisition of a landscape by Jacob Ruisdael, Edge of a Forest with a Grainfield, to join a large seascape by the same artist already in (...)
Antoine Benoist (1632-1717) Bust of Suzanne Phélypeaux, 1690 Bronze - 61.8 x 26.5 x 24.8 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre Photo : Galerie Kugel 6/3/14 - Acquisition - Paris, Musée du Louvre - The Musée du Louvre acquired a bust of Suzanne Phélypeaux by (...)
"The horror of the fatal enigma, the seal closing the mouth at the moment we learn the word, all of this was captured once in a sublime work which I discovered in an enclosed part of the Père Lachaise, at the Jewish cemetery." This is the way (...)
The portrait of Mrs. Barzun painted by Albert Gleizes in 1911 recently joined the collections at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, bequeathed by the model's son, Jacques Barzun (1907-2012). Stylistically, it is very close to another Cubist (...)
Le Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, known as the Corpus Rubenianum or even simply the Rubenianum was launched in 1963 after the acquisition of the archives and library belonging to the art historian Jacob Burchard. This monumental editorial (...)
"He grasps the character of the subjects ; the figures are well drawn, the draperies well laid, beautiful folds show finesse and sentiment." But Diderot's pen then starts to drip acid, writing the following lines, stating that Vincent's painting (...)
The trend of placing padlocks on Parisian bridges, notably on the Pont des Arts, which we have repeatedly criticized for the way in which it mars one of the French capital's most beautiful spots, listed as a Unesco world heritage site, is not (...)
In 2008, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Pau acquired a beautiful painting by Nicolas Pickenoy representing The Last Judgement. At the time we wrote that there were only three known history paintings by this Dutch artist born in Antwerp, a portrait (...)
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 (...)
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 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 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 (...)
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 (...)
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, (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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" (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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 issues, (...)
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 who (...)
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 works (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
"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, by (...)
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 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 (...)
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 collection (...)
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 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 (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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. (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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 (...)
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, 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 (...)
