The King's Favorite Mistress

The first time I saw this panel -- the right-hand wing of the "Melun diptych” -- in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, I was stunned to see that it was painted in the mid-1400s … it looks so much more modern that that!

Jean Fouquet (1420–1481) was the first French artist to travel to Italy to personally experience the early Italian Renaissance. Returning to Northern Europe sometime after 1437, he linked elements of the Tuscan style with the style of the Van Eycks, and thus became the founder of an important new school of painting. He was a master of both manuscript illumination and panel painting, and his excellence as an illuminator is evident in the precise rendering of fine detail and lucid characterization that we see in this Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels.

The picture is actually a portrait of Agnès Sorel (1421–1450), a favorite mistress of King Charles VII of France, to whom she bore three daughters. She was apparently an extraordinarily beautiful young woman, of high intelligence, and it is said that her presence at his court brought the king out of a protracted depression. She was known as la Dame de Beauté.

For her private residence King Charles gave her the Château de Loches -- where he had been persuaded by Joan of Arc to accept the French crown -- and she came to have considerable influence over the King. This, combined with her extravagant tastes, gained her powerful enemies at court.

Agnès died at the age of 28, possibly the victim of murder. Recent forensic analysis of her remains has confirmed that she died from mercury poisoning, but in those days mercury was used to treat worms and was sometimes used in cosmetic preparations, so her poisoning might not have been politically motivated.

After her death, the King chose her cousin, Antoinette de Maignelais, to take her place as his mistress.

The "Melun diptych" (c. 1450) originally stood on an altar in the cathedral at Melun, 25 miles southeast of Paris. One of Fouquet’s most important paintings, the Virgin and Child panel faced the left-hand wing -- now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin -- which depicts Etienne Chevalier with his patron saint, St. Stephen.

Quest and Quandary in Art Restoration

The mere suggestion that we might one day go to Prague started me poking around the web. (I'm always on the lookout for new Jane's Smart Art audio guide must-see sites!) I came across this ...

To help guide the restoration of the original Dürer altarpiece, The Feast of the Rose Garlands, the National Gallery in Prague is trying to track down an important lost copy.

The altarpiece was painted by Albrecht Dürer in 1506, during his stay in Venice, commissioned by German merchants for their chapel in the parish Church of San Bartolomeo. According to CultureKiosk, the patrons selected the theme: the painting depicts an ideal congregation of the Brotherhood of the Rosary. The Virgin with the Infant Christ, and Saint Dominic and angels dispense a symbolic blessing in the form of rose garlands. On the left are representatives of the clergy with the Pope at their head, while on the right representatives of secular power receive the blessing. Among these is a portrait the Holy Roman Emperor-in-waiting, Maximilian I. Undoubtedly the other figures portray prominent personages of the German colony in Venice. The man standing under a tree to the right is Dürer himself.

Dürer was proud of his achievement, writing to a friend in Nuremberg that "there is no better Madonna picture in the land than mine".

Considered a landmark work in the transition between the late Gothic and the Renaissance, contemporary writings tell us that the painting drew crowds of visitors from all over Europe. The Emperor Rudolf II was determined to acquire it at any cost.

The painting remained in the church in Venice for a century, until in 1606 when it was removed by Emperor Rudolph II for his art collection, and taken to Prague. The Durer was replaced by an Assumption of the Virgin painted by Johann Rottenhammer. But, before the Dürer altarpiece was removed, Rottenhammer painted a copy of it.

The original of The Feast of the Rose Garlands suffered a series of damages -- first while in Venice, then as it was carried over the Alps by four bearers, and yet again after its arrival in Prague. By the end of the 17th century, a considerable amount of the paint had been lost.

The Art Newspaper tells us that it was completely restored in 1841 by artist Johann Gruss. By modern standards his restoration was very crude -- for instance, he omitted a life-size trompe l'oeil fly which Dürer had painted on the Virgin's white drapery. A proper restoration must grapple with the difficult question as to whether there should be relatively minor conservation to remove the most glaring defects of the 1841 repainting, or a full restoration which would radically change the picture's appearance and return it closer to Dürer's original.

A very old black-and-white photograph of The Feast of the Rose Garlands exists, and there are several 17th-century copies, but the earliest and most accurate version is that by Rottenhammer. That copy originally went to the Palazzo Grimani in Venice, where it stayed until 1839. It then was sent to England where it was later purchased, in 1905, for £50, by the distinguished collector Herbert Cook. The picture was still in the Cook collection in 1945, which means that it was not looted on the continent during World War II, as some art historians had feared. It was later sold to a London-based gallery which has since closed. That's when the trail went cold.

Since it is known to have survived World War II, the chances of it being out there somewhere are very high. Check your attic!

Andrea della Robbia Injured in Fall

Can you imagine how it would feel to arrive at work one sunny summer morning to find a prized 15thC work of art – an Andrea della Robbia glazed terracotta relief sculpture – lying in pieces on the floor?

"Heartsick" I think would be the word for it.

Sadly, that happened this morning at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Apparently, the metal mounts that held 62-x-32-inch relief on the wall over a doorway gave out sometime during the night. The wood-framed lunette, Saint Michael the Archangel, fell to the stone floor below, crashing into pieces.

Della Robbia’s blue-and-white lunette of Saint Michael, dressed in armor and holding a sword and the scales of justice, was commissioned c. 1475 for the church of San Michele Arcangelo in Faenza, a small town between Bologna and Ravenna. The church was dismantled around 1798, and the Saint Michael ended up in private hands. It was acquired at auction by the Metropolitan Museum in 1960.

Curators and conservators were at work this morning assessing the situation. Their preliminary inspection indicates that the relief was not irreparably damaged, that it can be repaired and again put on display. The European Paintings and Decorative Arts Galleries will be temporarily closed, until the sculpture is transferred to the conservation area of the Museum for a full assessment of the damage.

The Return of Samson & Delilah

Not long after his return from Italy in 1608, Rubens was commissioned to paint a Samson and Delilah for Nicolaas Rockox. Rockox was a wealthy and influential Antwerp burgher who was a great friend to Rubens and who become one of his greatest patrons.

If you've listened to my Jane's Smart Art audio guide to Antwerp Cathedral, you know that Rockox had a hand in commissioning Rubens to paint the magnificent Arquebusiers' Guild altarpiece, The Descent From the Cross -- for which Rubens expressed his appreciation by including a portrait of his friend on one of the side panels.

And if you've seen the Descent, you'll recognize the old woman who here peers over Delilah's shoulder. Rubens often repeated certain figural types that he'd used successfully in previous works ... which was one way he was able to be so prolific.

Although we're not told how it came to pass, The Art Newspaper tells us that, from 1700 until 1880, the Samson and Delilah was in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, and then was sold to the National Gallery, London. The "return" of the title refers to the loan of the painting to the now-closed exhibition in Rockoxhuis, Antwerp, as well as to its appearance at the Palais Liechtenstein where it is now being shown (through 25 May, 2008) along with other works collected by Rockox.

I'd say this is a "don't miss" opportunity if you find yourself anywhere near Vienna in the next three months.

"The Most Beautiful Drawing inthe World"

People generally don't think of Birmingham, Alabama as a destination city for art, but there's now a good reason for art afficionados to plan a visit this Fall:

The Birmingham Museum of Art has just announced that between September 28 and November 9, 2008 it will be host to one of the most significant collections of Leonardo da Vinci drawings. This will be the first time the Biblioteca Reale (Royal Library) in Turin, Italy has made the collection available, in its entirety, outside of Italy.

Among the most celebrated of the Turin sheets is the preparatory sketch of the angel for the first version of the Madonna of the Rocks (ca. 1483), originally intended for a chapel altarpiece in the church of San Francesco Grande in Milan. Its powerful and expressive silverpoint parallel hatching led art critic and connoisseur Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) to describe it as the “most beautiful drawing in the world.

The works date from about 1480 to 1510 -- the most fertile period of da Vinci's career --and demonstrate his acutely observant, imaginative, and intellectual faculties. The collection includes one of his most celebrated notebooks, the Codex on the Flight of Birds, and 11 important drawings, including anatomical studies and utilitarian working drawings; one sheet includes a fragment of a poem. They are executed in a variety of media, including chalks, metal point, and pen and ink—some on color-prepared paper.

Quite a coup for the Birmingham Museum, and worth a trip.

Might David Really Leave Florence?

If you’ve ever battled the tourist crowds in Florence, and stood in line waiting to get into the Accademia to see Michelangelo’s magnificent David, you’ll understand at least part of the proposal being made by Tuscany's cultural chief, Paolo Cocchi, to move the statue to a new location some distance outside of the city center. He argues that moving David would ease tourist congestion in the historic center of Florence, and says, ''Keeping him in a museum where hundreds of tourists have to line a 45-cm wide pavement doesn't seem the best place for him''.

Opposition to the idea came fast and furious.

The idea of taking David out of his newly improved setting at the Galleria dell'Accademia elicited a quick response from the head of the city's museums, Cristina Acidini, who cited the millions of euros the city recently spent cleaning the statue and installing sophisticated anti-pollution systems to protect it.

According to LifeinItaly.com, “Officials at the Accademia stressed it would be 'extremely risky' to move the masterpiece out of the building that has been its home since 1873, when it was removed from its original position in front of Palazzo Vecchio.

“‘The home of David must be in the centre of Florence, for historical reasons,’ said Accademia director Franca Falletti. Branding Cocchi's suggestion ‘absolutely out of the question,’ she recalled the statue's fragility. An eight-month restoration to get it ready for its 500th birthday in 2004 revealed structural frailty, especially in the ankles, and the continuing impact on its surface of the bad air and street dirt brought in by millions of tourists.

“In the light of these risks, some art experts even suggested the statue should be moved to the Accademia's cellar.”

Fortunately, a less radical solution was implemented. Instead of being removed from public view, the David was placed behind an insulating barrier of circulating air, whereby streams of air protect it against the dust and particles which could further corrode its delicate surface. Special carpeting traps dirt as visitors approach the sculpture.

Given the cultural, historical, and conservation issues that are being raised in opposition to Cocchi’s proposal, my guess is that people wanting to see David century from now will still inch along, single-file, on the same narrow sidewalk as they do today.

Speaking of Raphael

Speaking of Raphael – which I have been doing a lot in preparation for the release of our newest title, Raphael’s Stanza della Segnatura -- one of the few of his works that remain privately owned is is going up for auction at Christies in London on July 5th.

I do hope it will be acquired for a museum collection, rather than being snatched up by one of the world’s super-rich. But I fear that the cachet of owning one of the last privately-held Raphaels will send the bidding beyond the reach of museum budgets.

"The portrait shows a swagger Lorenzo de’ Medici standing proud and resplendent against a rich green background. In the Duke’s right hand he holds what is probably a portrait miniature showing his future wife."

The resplendent color, and the delicate treatment of the fur on his cape highlight Raphael’s exceptional ability and technique. This explains is reputation of ‘the Prince of Painters'.

The Medici gained great power through a series of appointments, conquests and strategic marriages. The second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici (1475-1521), was elected Pope Leo X in 1513. "Seeking to consolidate the position of the Medici family on an international stage, the Pope arranged for his nephew, Lorenzo, to be married to Madeleine de la Tour d’Auvergne, a cousin of Francois I, King of France. At the time, France was an important ally of the Vatican against the Holy Roman Empire."

"As neither the Duke nor the bride-to-be had met, an exchange of portraits was arranged in order that they could see what to expect. On 2 May 1518 the Duke was married in the château of Amboise in France. Returning to Florence with his bride, their entry to the city was celebrated with a banquet at which Raphael’s portrait of the Pope, now in the Uffizi, Florence, was exhibited. The couple had a child, Catherine de Medici, who went on to marry King Henry II of France, but less than a year after the marriage, the Duchess died. Lorenzo died soon afterwards in 1519."

More On Conservation Controversies

In light of my posting last week about the controversy among art historians and conservators about restoration techniques and their results, I was intrigued by a 4-year-old item I found on the ArtWatch International website, which I have copied in below.

I am in the process of creating a webpage presenting the newest Jane’s Smart Art Guides audio tour of Raphael’s Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, and I came across the ArtWatch article while searching Google Images for a complete view of Raphael’s panoramic Dispute Over the Sacrament (La Disputa).

It was no surprise, actually, that this article was illustrated with an image from the Stanza della Segnatura, given that the President of ArtWatch International is none other than James Beck, Professor of Art History at Columbia University. Professor Beck authored the book in The Great Fresco Cycles of the Renaissance series, on which the Jane’s Smart Art Guides audio tour, Raphael’s Stanza della Segnatura, is based.

Vatican Wins an Award for Restoration! 12/11/2003

Biennale in Florence Gives the Nod

It seems truly unbelievable. The fourth Biennale Internazionale dell'Arte Contemporanea, which convenes in Florence this December, has awarded one of its Premio Lorenzo il Magnifico awards to the restoration laboratory of the Vatican Museums (the other went to Ferrari) in honor of the laboratory's "unequalled and continuing efforts" in its projects, "above all the complex restoration of the cycle of frescoes (15th-century works and those by Michelangelo) the Sixtine Chapel".

All of this despite the fact that the restoration of Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistina was -- and remains -- among the most controversial cleanings of the past decades, garnishing richly deserved criticism from both artists and art historians. Not deterred by public outcry or calls for open debate and discussion, the Vatican has continued its drastic cleaning methods, applying them not only to the lower register of 15th century frescoes in the Sistine Chapel by Perugino, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli and Cosimo Rosselli, but also to the Raphael's frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura and Fra Angelico's frescoes in the Chapel of Nicholas V, all with equally drastic and irreversible results.

Perhaps this award is appropriate in light of the fact that the Biennale is celebrating contemporary art, which these radically cleaned 15th and 16th century works may now rightly be considered. Nonetheless, any celebration of the efforts of the Vatican's cleaning machine can only be considered an attempt to attract publicity and to flatter a powerful institution.

Dog Drool on a DaVinci

Having just posted thoughts about restoration of paintings, I came across this tale of restoration woe in Artemisia, by Alexandra LaPierre, translated from the French by Liz Heron.

Background: By the 1620s, the Gonzaga dynasty in Mantua had declined from five consecutive generations of extremely refined art connoisseurship, combined with great wealth, to a series of disinterested Dukes who had no real interest in art and a desperate need for cash. The Spanish and French monarchs also coveted the Gonzaga collection, but it was the English King, Charles I, whose emissary carried away the hugely valuable art collection -- hundreds of antiquities, decorative artifacts and Renaissance paintings.

It was the celebrated collection of which Rubens had been curator for eight years, and it included, besides Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin which is now in the Louvre, a Raphael Holy Family, Titian’s Entombment, and several dozen other paintings by the likes of Mantegna, Correggio, Giulio Romano and Leonardo da Vinci.

Having concluded the arduous, clandestine negotiations on behalf of his King, Nicholas Lanier packed the art works for transport to London. Knowing that the watercolors would not fare well on a sea voyage, he carried those with him on his overland journey. The rest was crated up and stowed aboard the Margaret –carefully segregated on one side of the hold, away from the sacks of grapes and barrels of mercury.

But Lanier hadn’t considered “the effects of heat and condensation on the sugar and the mercury in the hold.” Uncrating the artworks in England, Lanier discovered that the evaporating mercury had left a sticky layer of ink-colored quicksilver on the canvases, and had saturated the drawings.

A frenzied restoration effort ensued. Although Lanier was by now being castigated by the French and the Spanish (and by the Mantuan people who knew what they had lost) for having “stolen” the collection – having paid far below its market value – nonetheless a large hole had been made in the English Treasury to acquire these works. The King would not be pleased.

“But sponges soaked in milk or dog’s slaver – the customary methods – had not completely erased the ghastly overlay.” The most famous chemists in the realm suggested countless ineffective solutions. He swabbed the canvases with brandy. He dripped droplets of alcohol distilled from wine. Still a film remained. “Finally, he washed the finest canvases with plenty of water. Determination, luck and a mastery of the techniques of painting enabled him to restore some of the masterpieces. He enjoyed His Majesty’s favor more than ever.”

Imagine calling Fido over to drool on a DaVinci!

Color Controversy in Art History

The controversy around the restoration of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the 1990s has always struck me as odd. A surprisingly large cadre of critics objected to the brilliance of the colors when the restoration was unveiled, believing them to be too “modern”. I find this odd because it’s widely known that Mediaeval and Renaissance fortunes were made, intrigue and political manipulations abounded and, I suspect, murder was even done in pursuit of control of the components of brilliant colors.

For example, after the Ottomans gained control of and limited access to traditional sources of alum, the Papacy took aggressive steps to control new-found alum sources in Italy. One of the important uses for alum was as a color fixative in dyes and paints, the light-colored alumen being useful in brilliant colors, the dark-colored black or very dark colors.

Certain paint colors were extremely expensive. This added value – both monetary and symbolic – to any work in which they were used. For example, in the more than 50 frescoes he painted at the San Marco priory in Florence, with Cosimo dei Medici financing the work, Fra Angelico -- true to his monastic principles -- used just a single passage of pure ultramarine blue. He used it only in the most prominent fresco, to highlight the importance of the subject: coloring the Virgin Mary’s cloak the unique clear blue that only ultramarine could produce.



Ultramarine is the oldest and most technically specific device whereby a painter and his patron could honor a distinguished personage. That is because ultramarine was by far the most precious of all the painter’s materials. It's beautiful, it’s extremely resistant to the damaging effects of light, and it’s very rare. Consequently, painters’ contracts of the period frequently specified the exact quantity of ultramarine that the patron authorized the master to use. At San Marco, whose frescoes are distinctive for technical as well as aesthetic reasons, the message is clear: in the spirit of humility, the opulent blue pigment appears at San Marco only on the Virgin Mary and only in the Chapter Room.



Referring to the importance of identifying historically-true colors in art restoration, Stephanie Reitz, in an article in the ArtInfo newsletter says, “The implications go beyond aesthetics to cold cash. For example, the use of pure Prussian blue—the first synthetic color of the Industrial Revolution—can cause a painting's value to skyrocket.” So what’s changed?


Theoretical and practical approaches to art restoration change over time, influenced largely by available technologies, and also by cultural trends.
Until a quite recently, restoration and preservation was a “best guess” proposition, with the restorer -- typically an artist by training -- making assumptions about what paints, varnishes and other materials were originally used. Results varied from good to disastrous. Restorers today often find themselves having to undo ill-advised past restoration efforts.


In much the same way as a good historian pursues the truth about what happened at a distant past point in time, a good art restorer seeks to know the facts related to the creation of a particular artwork.


Today chemists are involved in restoration, using invisible-to-the-naked-eye samples of paint taken from the piece. Henry DePhillips. a Trinity College chemistry professor says, ''The whole goal of art conservation is to preserve the original vision of the artist, not my vision of what it could or should be,'' alluding to the guesswork in outdated theories of restoration.


Using cutting-edge science chemists can identify the mix of ingredients – like iron oxide, mercury, titanium dioxide, lapis lazuli -- that constitute various colors. For example, titanium dioxide is what made white, white.


“If you're going to restore a piece of art to the way it was on the day it was finished, you need to know exactly what materials they used. Our job has been done correctly if you, a viewer of the piece, cannot tell that anything has been done,'' DePhillips said. ''That is meeting our responsibility to history.''