Samedi 5 décembre 2020
Last update on 2/11/2016
Last update on 2/11/2016
The latest news in the History of Western Art from the Middle Age to the 1930's
Subscribe to The Art Tribune 14/04/2006
Newsletter 14/04/2009
The Newsletter in english is not yet available. You can subscribe to the Newsletter of La Tribune de l’Art, in French. Send us an e-mail to be informed when the English Newsletter will be (...)
Michelangelo : The Real Artist behind the Mona Lisa 01/04/2012
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) Oil on panel - 76.8 x 53 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre Photo : C2RMF Gianfranco Salvatori is well aware that he is about to set loose a veritable bomb which will go far beyond the confines of the museum world. (...)
Links to art history websites 14/04/2005
SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS (see also in assorted sites by art historians containing articles) Apollo : The current issue of the journal is free online (must sign up) The National Gallery of Canada’s Bulletin and Annual Bulletin (1963-1985) : All the (...)
The Oath of Our Ancestors by Guillon-Lethière will be restored by France 20/02/2010
Adrien Goetz on his Facebook page had been the first to show concern, after the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti last 12 January, for the fate of the large painting by Guillaume Guillon-Lethière The Oath of Our Ancestors, veritable “symbol of (...)
The restoration of the Hôtel Lambert goes to court before the Tribunal Administratif 06/09/2009
Louis Le Vau Hôtel Lambert, courtyard Photo : SCI Hôtel Lambert / M. Lombard This summer the Hôtel Lambert case took a surprising legal turn. The authorization permit issued by the Ministry of Culture (see news item of 23/6/09) was appealed (...)
Links to museum websites 14/04/2005
Armenia Erevan, National Gallery of Armenia Australia Adelaide, Art Gallery of South Australia Canberra, National Gallery of Australia Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria Perth, Art Gallery of Western Australia Queensland, Art (...)
Janmot’s The Torture of Mezentius Acquired by the Musée d’Orsay 25/04/2014
The Etruscan king Mezentius : "went so far even as to mix dead bodies with humans, hand to hand, face to face, as a kind of torture, thus inflicting a slow death to these beings who liquefied themselves into pus and rot, in a miserable (...)
The Duke of Luynes’ {Surtout} by Froment-Meurice Acquired by the Louvre 14/06/2013
During the remarkable exhibition at the Musée de la Vie Romantique, in 2003, highlighting the Froment-Meurice family, the Surtout commissioned by the Duke of Luynes from François-Désiré Froment-Meurice was included in the catalogue but not (...)
Péristyles, the Journal of the Amis du Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nancy 13/05/2013
An art history journal, especially one which has been around for some time, is so rare that we would like to point out a very discreet bulletin founded in 1992 which has appeared since then at regular intervals, twice a year. The title of the (...)
The demolition permit for 12, rue de Tournon suspended by legal authorities 23/07/2008
At 12, rue de Tournon in Paris, the construction of two elevators meant eliminating historical staircases although they are part of a group of buildings listed
Real ? Fake ? The Italian Primitive Was almost Perfect 14/08/2012
"Raphael did not just suddenly fall down from the sky to honor the century of Julius II and Leo X.". With this assertion taken from his Considérations sur l’état de la peinture en Italie, dans les quatre siècles qui ont précédé celui de Raphaël (...)
In France, increased sentences for thefts and vandalism of cultural objects 10/08/2008
The French Minister of Culture Christine Albanel had stated several times that she wished to have sentences for art work thefts increased, an urgent step as these were until
Recent acquisitions at the Metropolitan Museum 02/05/2011
Besides the acquisition of a painting and a drawing by Perino del Vaga which we already pointed out, several other works have joined the Metropolitan Museum since the beginning of the year. At the same auction at Sotheby’s New York on 27 (...)
The Musée Fragonard opens in Grasse 11/04/2011
Particularly fascinated by the 18th century, Jean-François Costa, the grandson of the founder of Fragonard Perfumes in Grasse today managed by his daughters, has assembled a remarkable collection of paintings dominated by the figures of (...)
Venice. Canaletto and his Rivals 25/10/2010
I admit I went to the National Gallery dragging my feet a little. I have never been particularly enamoured of Canaletto, nor of Venetian view painting in general, their paintings seeming at times very repetitive and in many cases mediocre. This (...)
The illegal installation of Clara-Clara in the Tuileries Gardens 22/02/2009
Installed in April 2008 in the Tuileries at the time of the exhibition Monumenta at the Grand Palais, the gigantic steel sculpture
The Louvre Pre-empts a Ribera 28/03/2012
The Musée du Louvre, during the Oger Blanchet auction at the Hôtel Drouot on 26 March 2012, pre-empted a painting by Jusepe Ribera representing Saint John Evangelist, for 285,000€ (without charges), immediately after being acquired by the Parisian (...)
The Metropolitan Museum recently acquired a painting representing a Head of Christ by a Spanish artist from the early 16th century, Fernando Yáñez de la Almedina. The information was pointed out by Guillaume Kientz on the blog site, Afición, (...)
An important donation on exhibition at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille 21/12/2009
The recent donation of forty-eight works to the museum in Lille, currently highlighted in an exhibition, is absolutely remarkable. The collectors, Philippe Laporte and Yannick Pellegrin, are authentic art lovers with limited financial means but (...)
Dess|e|ins italiens (Italian Drawings) 31/08/2008
The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon’s graphic collection is not well-known and generally speaking underrated, except for 19th century French drawings which have been showcased in several exhibitions and publications. It would be surprising, however, (...)
Le Bon Pasteur and Saint Bernard, Two Endangered Churches in the Heart of Lyon 20/02/2012
The lack of protection of French heritage is a proven fact still ignored by too many people. While classifying or listing a historical monument is no guarantee that it will be preserved, not doing so makes it even more difficult to save (...)
Orestes’ Remorse by Hennequin hung at the Louvre 13/11/2010
Temporary exhibitions and the ensuing location changes for works often enable the Louvre’s curators to take paintings which have not been seen for many years out of storage.
The Opening of the Louvre-Lens 06/12/2012
In the December issue of The Art Newspaper, Vincent Pomarède, director of the Département des peintures at the Musée du Louvre, responded to our criticism of the Louvre Lens, notably the "Galerie du Temps" for which he is one of the curators, with (...)
Threat of demolition for the church of Saint Jacques in Abbeville 30/05/2010
The church of Saint Jacques in Abbeville is located in a neighborhood spared by the bombings which destroyed 80% of the city in 1940. It was built in a neo-Gothic style by the architect Victor Deleforterie, a follower of Viollet-le-Duc, on the (...)
The Dusseldorf School 22/11/2011
When German museums set up an exhibition, they usually do not do things halfway. After the sweeping retrospective on the Master of Naumburg which we discussed here, the current one on the Dusseldorf school, organized by the Kunstpalast which (...)
François-Xavier Fabre 18/01/2008
Some art historians of Neoclassicism use the expression “the three G’s” in designating David’s leading students : Girodet, Gros and Gérard to whom they at times add a fourth, Guérin, although he belonged to Regnault’s (...)
The Louis XIV sculpture returns to Versailles 30/04/2009
The return of the equestrian bronze statue of Louis XIV is excellent news.
The "Discovery" of Michelangelo’s Drawings : a Fake Scoop 13/06/2013
It had been a while since the public was flabbergasted by another earth-shattering scoop concerning an artistic genius. Now we learn here that drawings "never shown", even "unpublished", by Michelangelo were revealed to the press in Italy ; (...)
A Landscape by Jacob Ruysdael Sold to the Kimbell by an Oxford College 09/03/2014
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 (...)
Adam and Eve and Paradise Lost by Claude-Marie Dubufe acquired by Nantes 22/10/2008
Last fall during the Talabardon & Gautier Gallery’s latest exhibition in Paris two paintings had created quite a sensation among 19th century French art enthusiasts.
Théophile Gautier selections at the Musée Gustave Moreau 09/03/2011
The Gustave Moreau and Balzac museums in Paris inaugurated the first events this year highlighting Théophile Gautier during the bi-centennial celebrating his birth. The workshop on the rue de La Rochefoucauld of course focuses on the relationship (...)
Two New Internet Websites for Rembrandt and Goya 27/09/2012
Two monographic sites devoted to two of Europe’s greatest painters, Goya and Rembrandt, were recently posted almost simultaneously (on 17 and 19 September). They are slightly similar in design and scope. The Rembrandt Database : the "Rembrandt (...)
First acquisitions by the Louvre-Abu Dhabi 12/06/2009
The Louvre-Abu Dhabi acquisitions started at the Bergé auction as we had been the first to announce. Nineteen objects in all have been purchased since then and are now on exhibition in Abu (...)
Géricault. At the Heart of Romantic Creation 05/07/2012
Does a painting formerly attributed to a great artist stop being beautiful or even interesting when this acknowledgement is withdrawn ? The question might appear to be absurd but not really given the attitude of certain curators who rush to (...)
The Lugt, a dictionary of collection marks, posts its new edition online 25/03/2010
Frits Lugt, who created the Fondation Custodia, is undoubtedly most remembered for his dictionary of collection marks which is in fact usually known by its proper name. The Lugt has thus been used by generations of collectors, art historians (...)
Acquisition of a Valentin de Boulogne by the Met 03/12/2008
The New York museum has enriched its collection with an important painting by Valentin de Boulogne representing a lute player
Vouet and Research : the debates about the Roman paintings 19/12/2008
On the third day of the Simon Vouet colloquium which took place in Nantes from the 4th through the 6th of December 2008, the participants were invited to visit the exhibition following the example of the Poussin (...)
Henri Lehmann 03/09/2007
Prominent decorator, subtle portrait artist and first rate draughtsman, Henri Lehmann is one of the most unappreciated painters of the XIXth C. A student of Ingres, he suffered the same ostracism as the other artists of this atelier, the only (...)
The Louis Daguerre Diorama is reborn in Bry-sur-Marne 26/05/2010
Not content with having invented the photographic process bearing his name, the painter Louis Daguerre also created the Diorama, a theatrical method by which an immense canvas painted on both sides was animated by lights (...)
Two Appointments for Heads of Department at the Louvre Submitted to the French Minister of Culture 18/06/2013
The directors of the departments at the Louvre are appointed by the French Minister of Culture based on proposals made by the President of the Museum. He has now submitted two names to Aurélie Filippetti to head the Département des Arts (...)
Photographs in museums : it is forbidden to forbid 22/03/2011
We have already denounced the rule forbidding visitors to take photographs which museums have imposed or try to do so, on several occasions. We had written that in our opinion these measures were illegal since there is nothing in French law (...)
The Thaw landscape collection donated to the Metropolitan Museum and the Morgan Library 18/10/2010
18/10/10 – Acquisitions – New York, Metropolitan Museum and Morgan Library – The news did not make the headlines despite its importance : last year, Gene and Clare Thaw, already generous donors to the Metropolitan Museum and the Morgan Library (...)
The Holy Family with Palm Tree by Pierre Puget preempted by Marseille 23/06/2008
As implied in our news item of 17/6/08, the announcement of the auction of The Holy Family with Palm Tree by Pierre Puget provided an excellent opportunity
A newly attributed Van Dyck at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid 21/03/2011
In a press release issued on 19th March, the Real Academia de San Fernando confirmed the news published two days earlier by El Pais. A painting which until now had been considered a copy of Van Dyck painted by Mateo (...)
The Pont Colbert in Dieppe now threatened 28/02/2011
Three years ago, the Passerelle Eiffel in Bordeaux was saved at the last minute by a legal suit applying for listing (see news item of 29/6/08), which finally resulted in an official listing issued almost exactly one year ago on 22 February (...)
Marie Antoinette’s desk by Jean-Henri Riesener returns to Versailles 22/03/2011
Despite current economic hardships which tend to see a decrease in patronage, the château of Versailles has just enriched its collection with a major acquisition : the desk which Marie Antoinette had commissioned from Riesener in (...)
Saint Rufina by Diego Velázquez on sale at Sotheby’s London 12/06/2007
A Saint Rufina by Diego Velázquez will be auctioned in early July in London. The work is already known since it was sold at Christie’s New York on January 29, 1999, where the present owner acquired it for $8.1 (...)
Saint Anne, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Masterpiece 04/06/2012
We generally think that the world’s greatest masterpieces have all been thoroughly studied, leaving nothing more for us to discover. In fact, this is not true as is masterfully demonstrated by the current exhibition now showing at the Louvre on (...)
Three Louvre miniatures recently attributed to Isaac Oliver 20/09/2008
The current events room of the Departément des Arts Graphiques at the Louvre is offering an exhibition devoted to 16th century and early 17th century miniature portraits.
