The Cardsharps

I wasn't able to upload this image on Dec 17th when I wrote about the discovery of Caravaggio's previously mis-attributed painting, an earlier version of The Kimbell's "The Cardsharps". Here it is.

Previously Unknown Caravaggio Discovered

It was just over a year ago (Nov 14 , 2006) that two lost Fra Angelico panels were found hanging behind a bedroom door in a librarian's house. She'd bought them some years earlier for a few hundred dollars.

Now comes word of the discovery of an undocumented painting by Caravaggio. The work, previously attributed to an anonymous follower of that artist, was bought by a British art historian for $100,000. He happened upon it while sitting in a restaurant, leafing through an auction catalog. A strong hunch that there might be more to it than previously thought, led him through the necessary steps to verify his initial intuition.

An article in the Associated Press recounts that analysis of the paint showed traces of very fine sand, which was a Caravaggio trademark, and that x-rays exposed detailed underlying sketching. According to an Italian art historian involved in the verification, “That's the ultimate proof. A copycat doesn’t do that.”

It is now believed that this work is a slightly earlier version of Caravaggio’s well-known painting "The Cardsharps" (1594) which can be seen at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

What other art wonders are just waiting to be found?

But is it art?

This from London, according to ArtDaily: London’s White Cube gallery announced that British artist Damien Hirst's glittering skull sold for $100 million dollars, a record price for work sold by a living artist. The work is entitled "For the Love of God". According to the gallery a group of anonymous investors purchased the work.
The skull is made of platinum, encrusted with 8,601 diamonds. It cost $20 million to make the skull (diamonds and fabrication).

Speaking of Record Prices at Auction ...

Speaking of auction record prices ... Recently at Sotheby’s in London, a rare work by Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez 1599 - 1660 – Saint Rufina, sold for £8,420,000 ($17,003,348), setting a new world auction record for the artist, and also becoming the most expensive Old Master Painting by a Spanish artist ever sold at auction.

Saint Rufina was one of only a handful of works by the artist ever to have come to auction. A work of particular intimacy and simplicity, Saint Rufina may even have reflected the likeness of one of the artist’s own daughters, Francisca or Ignacia, who were aged around twelve and fourteen years old when the painting was executed in the early 1630s.

The good news is that the painting was bought by the Focus Abengoa Foundation from Seville, the painter’s birthplace.

Alex Bell, head of Sotheby’s Old Master Paintings department in London, said: “I am thrilled that this beautiful portrait of Seville’s patron saint has found a permanent home in the artist’s birthplace.”

Following the sale, Anabel Morillo León, the Managing Director of the foundation said “We are absolutely delighted to have had the opportunity to bring the painting back to Seville, and to its people, who have shown such interest in this image of the city’s patron saint. The success of this joint effort between the Town Hall and the Focus Abengoa Foundation is a model of cooperation that will benefit the city of Seville.” “The Town Hall and the Focus-Abengoa Foundation have reached an understanding to work together to promote Velázquez’s oeuvre for 75 years. This agreement will encompass the creation of a centre to house the work by the artist, including Santa Rufina and La imposición de la Casulla a San Ildefonso, as well as a library and documentation centre on the life of this painter who is so important to the people of Seville.”

While Saint Rufina was the highlight of Sotheby’s evening sale of Old Master Paintings, the auction began with the sale of Turner watercolours from the collection of Guy and Myriam Ullens. Spanning 44 years of Turner’s career, the 14 works offered represented the finest group of watercolours by the artist to have come to the market since the 1920s.

After the sale, Baron Guy Ullens said: “The decision to part with the Turner watercolours was a difficult one. My wife Myriam and I have enjoyed the privilege of living surrounded by Turner’s genius for many years, and their absence now will be acute. But parting with these wonderful works has been made easier because of the knowledge that they will now be enjoyed by other collectors. The success of this evening’s sale means that we now have the additional resources we need to pursue a dream that Myriam and I both treasure: the building of a museum for Contemporary Art in Beijing.”

Aside from the record price for the Velázquez, eight further auction records were achieved,. Among the most notable new records was that for a work by Jan Brueghel the Elder, whose harrowing depiction of hell (Aeneas and the Sybil in the Underworld) realised £1,924,000 (17,003,348 ). Unrecorded until its rediscovery in 2001, the work was the only known example of the artist’s famous hell scenes remaining in private hands.

Raphael Portrait Goes to Private Collection

On May 28th I expressed the hope that Raphael's portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino -- which was soon to go up for auction -- would go to a public museum rather than a private collection. ArtDailyNews calls it: "The most important Renaissance portrait to be offered at auction for a generation, and the most important work by the artist to be offered at auction in recent decades."

The remarkable painting sold at Christies in London yesterday after a ten minute bidding battle. It went to an anonymous private collector bidding over the telephone .

Oh, well.

It sold for £18,500,000 ($37,277,500). This is a world record price for the artist at auction and a world record price for an Italian Old Master picture. Yes, indeed, there are some rather wealthy people in the world!

The Raphael was the highlight of the auction, but plenty of other magnificent works were snapped up. Said a Christies spokesperson, "This evening’s sale attracted clients from around the world, including a significant number who were new to the category, and particularly competitive bidding was seen for the best works on offer.

We are pleased with the price achieved by [the Baroque master Domenico Zampieri] Il Domenichino’s Pietà which sold for £3.04 million, a record price for the artist at auction. Venus and Cupid by Sir Peter Lely sold to a private collector within the estimate of £1,500,000-2,000,000.”

Portrait of a Lady by Lucas Cranach II (1515-1586), far exceeded its pre-sale estimate of £500,000-700,000, eventually selling to an anonymous bidder in the room for £1,812,000 ($3,651,180), setting a world record price for the artist at auction.

The Revel of Baachus and Silenus by Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), which had been hidden from public view since 1953, realised £1,700,000 ($3,425,500).

The Woodland Maid by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) realised £1,196,000 ($2,409,940).

'Clueless' thieves sell £1million painting for £350

From the June 4th Daily Mail :

A £1 million painting stolen by a gang of 'clueless' thieves was discovered on sale at a flea market for 500 Euro. Giandomenico Tiepolo's Scenes from a Venetian Carnival was stolen last year from a private collector.
It was recovered from Pordenone, near Venice, along with more than a dozen other works of art worth more than £2.5million, following raids on a number of markets across Italy.

Tiepolo, whose works are characterised by vivid colour and movement, was born in Venice in 1727.

A spokesman said yesterday: "This gang was peddling works of art worth millions for just a few hundred euros. They were completely clueless and had no idea of the real value. "In fact to call them clueless would be a compliment." Who says the carabinieri are humorless?

I think from now on I'll spend more time at flea markets when I'm in Italy!

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."

3-Month Long, 40-Mile Long Art Exhibition

Although the Loire River no longer looks as it did in W.M.Turner’s day, it continues to inspire artistic endeavor.

For three months this summer, running for 40 miles along the river will be more than 40 installations created by an international cadre of artists. Visit http://www.estuaire.info/.

Artists including Anish Kapoor and Daniel Buren will install what we’re told will be a “lively, fun and unusual” variety of works in the cities and ports, on the riverbanks, on the water -- and even in the water -- to build a geographic and symbolic link between Nantes ando St Nazaire, two cities which share a common history of shipbuilding.

The works include “an 80 foot duck, astonishing feats of architecture, dramatic fountains and a floating house,” all of which can be viewed free of charge.

One way to see the river’s landscapes, its cultural and historic heritage, and the installations themselves will be to take a three-hour river cruise on a specially-built mirrored boat, while listening to the audio-guided tour designed by the artists (available in English and French).

Alternatively, the area is wonderful to explore on foot or by bicycle.

Not going to the Loire Valley this summer? Not to worry … you can start planning now to see the repeat of The Loire Estuary Project in 2009 and 2011!

"Rafael Moneo has done something very odd, even unorthodox, to the Prado, Madrid’s world-renowned city-centre art gallery,” The Guardian newspaper reported in an article dated May 1, 2007. Over the past five years, the architect has overseen construction of a major new extension to the 18th-century neoclassical building that is surprisingly serious and well-crafted. “Flying in the face of 21st-century orthodoxy, he has avoided the temptation to design an ‘iconic’ (in other words, showy) gallery that might have rivaled Frank Gehry’s phantasmagorical Bilbao Guggenheim,” said the London newspaper.

"Those 'cool-seekers', as Madrid guidebooks have it, who are hoping for an all-singing, all-dancing extension to the Prado may well be disappointed by Moneo's quietly heroic work. Here, an architect of the first order has chosen to let the art that will be on display steal the show. What he has created over long years is a building of immense skill, craft, solidity and intelligence, which redefines a part of Madrid's city centre and makes the Prado itself a far more immediate gallery than it has been for some while."

The expansion was sorely needed. A few years ago I had the unpleasant experience of waiting in a v-e-r-y slow-moving line for upwards of an hour, outside -- in the pouring rain -- while their seriously inadequate and decidedly officious post-9/11 security efforts were exerted -- one visitor at a time – in a tiny log-jam of a foyer. Once inside, the experience was absolutely worth that discomfort, but how lovely I imagine it will be now that the space -- and undoubtedly the security process – have been enhanced. I so enjoy the sense of luxury about Madrid and about the Prado -- that dreary cattle-call entry was disappointingly unwelcoming and incompatible with that sense of elegance.

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.