Displaying items by tag: renaissance

The communications revolution changed everything, including art: a statement that was just as true in 1514 as it is 500 years later. What transformed the world back then was printing, and some of the results are on view in “Renaissance Impressions: Chiaroscuro Woodcuts From the Collections of Georg Baselitz and the Albertina, Vienna” (Royal Academy, London until June 8). They are as beautiful as they are unfamiliar.

In 2013, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art sold 3,290 objects worth a total of $5.4 million -- the institution’s highest revenue from such sales in eight years. So far, $3 million worth of paintings have been sold in 2014.

The works, which were offered at auction, previously resided in the museum’s storage facility. In 2013, the Met reported a $4.4 million operating deficit, which was said to be caused by Hurricane Sandy and other factors. The institution stated that the proceeds from the sales did not go toward its debt. Rather, the museum sold the works to refine its collection and to make room for future acquisitions. Museums are forbidden by the state Board of Regents from selling artworks in order to fund operating costs.

The Met sold Old Master paintings, Renaissance works, and clothing and accessories from its Costume Institute. The museum currently owns upward of 1.5 million objects.

The first four paintings from private collections to undergo conservation treatment in the Dallas Museum of Art’s new Paintings Conservation Studio are currently on view in the institution’s European galleries. The studio, which opened in November, is part of the museum’s initiative to create a more comprehensive in-house conservation program.

One of the works, ‘The Blacksmith Cupids’ by the French painter Charles-Antoine Coypel, has entered the Dallas Museum of Art’s permanent collection. It is the first work by the artist to enter the museum’s collection. The other newly restored works -- Jean-Baptiste Oudry’s ‘Dogs Playing with Birds in a Park,’ a Renaissance painting titled ‘Saint Ursula Protecting the Eleven Thousand Virgins with her Cloak’ and an Italian 14th-century painted wood panel--will remain on loan to the museum.

The institution’s new conservation program involves collaborating with private collectors on the study and care of their illustration collections. The works will then be presented in the Dallas Museum of Art’s galleries for public viewing. The museum’s conservation studio, which features cutting-edge technology including a digital X-ray system, is enclosed by a glass wall so that guests of the museum can observe daily conservation activity.

Christie’s Old Masters Week, which took place in New York from January 28 through January 30, garnered $68 million. The top lot was ‘The Rothschild Prayerbook,’ a masterpiece from the Flemish Renaissance that sold for $13.6 million, a record for an illuminated manuscript at auction.

‘The Rothschild Prayerbook’ is comprised of lavish and intricate illustrations by the most celebrated court artists of the Renaissance, including Gerard Horenbout and Alexander Bening. The book was most likely made around 1505 for someone connected to the imperial court in the Netherlands. Kay Sutton, the Director of Books and Manuscripts at Christie’s, said, “The Rothschild Prayerbook is a fabulous work of art and it has been an enormous pleasure and honour for us to be able to show it so widely and to such universal admiration -- an admiration recognized by the price it achieved at auction.”

Other highlights from Christie’s Old Masters Week included Francisco de Goya’s ‘Los Caprichos’, a set of 80 etchings that sold for $1.4 million; Tiepolo’s ‘I Cani Sapienti,’ which garnered $3.6 million, a record for a single work by the artist at auction; and a drawing by Peter Paul Rubens titled ‘Saint Ildefonso receiving the Chasuble from the Virgin,’ which netted $233,000.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is hosting the exhibition ‘Piero della Francesca: Personal Encounters,’ a focused presentation of the Early Renaissance painter’s devotional works. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with New York’s Foundation for Italian Art & Culture to celebrate the opening of the Met’s New European Paintings Galleries, 1250-1800.

‘Personal Encounters’ presents four devotional paintings by Francesca that have never before been exhibited together. ‘Saint Jerome and a Supplicant’ is on loan from the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice; ‘Saint Jerome in the Wilderness’ is on loan from the Gemaldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche in Urbino loaned ‘Madonna and Child with Two Angels’; and the private Alana Collection in Delaware loaned ‘Madonna and Child.’  

‘Piero della Francesca: Personal Encounters’  will be on view at the Met through March 30, 2014.

On November 22, 2013, the Dallas Museum of Art will unveil its new Paintings Conservation Studio as part of the institution’s initiative to create a more comprehensive in-house conservation program. The studio features a digital X-ray system and a center for the study and treatment of artworks as well as research into cutting-edge conservation techniques. The studio, which is enclosed by a glass wall, will be open to visitors so that guests of the museum can observe daily conservation activity.

The opening is accompanied by an exhibition of paintings from the Dallas Museum of Art’s collection including works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Childe Hassam and Julian Onderdonk; the paintings will be on view in the Conservation Gallery, which adjoins the studio. A number of works including a painting Gustave Courbet and a Renaissance portrait by Alessandro Allori will be permanently displayed in the studio.

 Maxwell L. Anderson, the Museum’s Eugene McDermott Director, said, “The launch of these new conservation initiatives supports the Dallas Museum of Art’s commitment to responsible stewardship of our collection, and the advancement of conservation research and practices in the region and across the museum field. We look forward to strengthening the Dallas Museum of Art’s culture of conservation with the opening of this new facility and integrating conservation into the fabric of the Museum experience for the benefit and enjoyment of our community.”

The Frick Collection in New York has named Xavier F. Salomon chief curator of the museum, filling a vacant spot left by Colin B. Bailey who departed the institution in June to become director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Prior to joining the Frick, Salomon spent three years at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the curator of Southern Baroque paintings and before that, he was chief curator of London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery. Salomon is an expert in the work of the Italian Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese and the collecting and patronage of the cardinals in Rome during the 17^th century.

Salomon will assume his new role at the Frick in January 2014.

The Courtauld Gallery in London presents the exhibition The Young Dürer: Drawing the Figure, which highlights the early figure drawings of the German Renaissance master, Albrecht Dürer. The show specifically focuses on the artist’s “journeyman” years from 1490-1496, when he traveled widely and was exposed to a plethora of new influences. The exhibition also explores how Dürer created a new artistic approach to the figure, rooted in the study of his own body.

Widely considered the greatest German artist ever to live, Dürer was not only a master draftsman but also a skilled watercolorist and engraver. The craftsmanship of Dürer’s woodcuts was so exceptional that he singlehandedly changed the public’s perception of the medium from commonplace to fine art.

The Young Dürer: Drawing the Figure will be on view at the Courtauld Gallery through January 12, 2014.

A painting potentially by the Italian Renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci, was discovered is a Swiss bank vault holding a private collection of 400 paintings. The work closely resembles a 15^th century sketch by da Vinci of the Italian noblewoman Isabella d’Este, which is in the Louvre’s collection. If proven to be authentic, the painting could bring a long-running scholarly debate to a close. For centuries art historians debated whether or not da Vinci went on to paint a version of the sketch of d’Este, one of the most influential figures in art and fashion during her time.    

Carlos Pedretti, a professor emeritus of art history at the University of California Los Angeles and a da Vinci expert, told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, “There are no doubts that the portrait is the work of Leonardo. I can immediately recognize da Vinci’s handiwork, particularly in the woman’s face.” Carbon dating conducted at the University of Arizona confirmed with 95% accuracy that the artwork was painted between 1460 and 1650, the time period when da Vinci is believed to have met and sketched d’Este. Further testing indicated that the pigments and primer used in the work match the ones the artist used throughout his career. Some scholars are more hesitant to say that the newly discovered work is an authentic da Vinci as it was painted on canvas rather than wood panels, which were favored by the master.

There are only 15 to 20 artworks in the world that have been properly attributed to da Vinci.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hardford, CT announced the appointment of Oliver Tostmann as the institution’s new Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art. Tostmann, who previously served as a curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, will officially assume his position at the Wadsworth on October 28,2013.

An expert on Renaissance and Baroque artists, Tostmann has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Europe and his writings have been widely published. He will oversee the Wadsworth’s comprehensive European art collection, which includes 900 paintings, 500 sculptures, and 3,500 works on paper. Tostmann said, “I am delighted and honored to work in such a renowned institution. To explore the Wadsworth’s collection of European art is simply irresistible, and I embrace its commitment to scholarship.”

The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest free public art museum in the United States and boasts an impressive collection of baroque paintings, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces, and extensive holdings in early American furniture and decorative arts.