Displaying items by tag: old master paintings

Christie’s is re-vamping its spring New York sales calendar and introducing a new centrepiece auction. Six sales of mostly pre-Modern art, including the new “Revolution” sale, which includes work made from the 18th to 20th centuries, have been consolidated into the new “Classic Art Week,” which will take place from April 12-14, 2016. Five other sales (antiquities; the two-part Old Master paintings auction; sculpture and the “Exceptional” sale of decorative arts) have been moved into the week from December and January as part of an overall push to cross-pollinate across departments.

X-ray radiography is a standard technique widely used by art conservators, art historians, and curators to discover information about the manufacturing process and the condition of a painting. However, cradling—wooden slats attached to the back of many old paintings executed on wooden panels—creates lattice patterns that appear as grids or a series of stripes on an X-ray image. These patterns can obscure the image and distract art conservators from reading the image and analyzing paint layers.

“Cradle patterns in X-ray images has been an ages-old problem for conservators studying collections of Old Master paintings, and until Platypus, required many hours of tedious manipulation of the X-ray image in Photoshop or various other techniques, some of which could be damaging to the painting,” says William Brown, chief conservator at the NCMA.

The unique atmosphere of The Frick Collection has as much to do with the decorative arts as with the old master paintings that line the museum's walls. Indeed the enamels, clocks and watches, furniture, gilt bronzes, porcelain, ceramics, silver, and textiles far exceed in number, and are the equal in quality, of the works on canvas and panel.

The institution announces the publication of the first handbook devoted to the decorative arts in the collection.

Pairing luxurious textiles from Turkey, Iran, and Syria with richly detailed 17th-century paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters, the exhibition "A Thirst for Riches: Carpets from the East in Paintings from the West" opened June 6 at the Aga Khan Museum. Running until October 18, the exhibition features signature carpets and paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, supplemented by loans from the Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto; the Leiden Collection, New York; the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf Collection, Toronto.

The SCAD Museum of Art has opened a new exhibition that displays the highlights of Vivienne Westwood's fashion designs against a backdrop of old master paintings from the museum's collection, including works by William Hogarth, Anthony Van Dyck, and Thomas Gainsborough.

The exhibition “Vivienne Westwood, Dress Up Story – 1990 Until Now" offers a glimpse into the creative process of Westwood, famous for her provocative and irreverent designs which take inspiration from a range of historical periods, citing everything from the French Revolution to anti-Thatcherism punk.

In an effort to maintain the financial future of Russborough, a historic Georgian house in Ireland, a selection of Old Master paintings from The Alfred Beit Foundation will be on offer at the Christie’s London Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale on July 9.

Nearly 300 years old, the heritage home requires constant restoration and upkeep entrusted to the Beit family, notable patrons of the arts. The proceeds of the sale will go to an endowment fund managed by the Beit’s that will ensure the future of Russborough.

When Henry Clay Frick set out to furnish his new residence at 1 East 70th Street, his intention was to replicate the grand houses of the greatest European collectors, who surrounded their Old Master paintings with exquisite furniture and decorative objects. With the assistance of the art dealer Sir Joseph Duveen, Frick quickly assembled an impressive collection of decorative arts, including vases, potpourris, jugs, and basins made at Sèvres, the preeminent eighteenth-century French porcelain manufactory. Many of these objects are featured in the upcoming exhibition "From Sèvres to Fifth Avenue," which presents a new perspective on the collection by exploring the role Sèvres porcelain played in eighteenth-century France, as well as during the American Gilded Age. While some of these striking objects are regularly displayed in the grand context of the Fragonard and Boucher Rooms, others have come out of a long period of storage for this presentation. These finely painted examples will be seen together in a new light in the Portico Gallery.

Thirteen leading interior designers and design firms have been selected to curate rooms in the second annual Sotheby’s Designer Showhouse. Located in the auction house’s Manhattan headquarters, the Designer Showhouse will be brimming with an array of treasures, including mid century modern furniture, American studio furniture, Abstract Expressionist paintings, 18th and 19th century American antiques, European antiques, Old Master paintings, contemporary art, and much more. The Showhouse will be open to the public April 11-19, 2015, culminating in a dedicated sale on April 20, 2015.

Each space in the Designer Showhouse brings together fine and decorative arts from a variety of categories offered by Sotheby’s. In addition to reflecting each designer’s singular style, the Showhouse exemplifies the vital role that antiques and fine art play in creating dynamic contemporary interiors. According to Cullman & Kravis, the New York-based firm behind the Showhouse’s living room, “Antiques and fine art play a critical role in adding context...

Continue reading this article about the leading interior designers involved in the 2015 Sotheby's Designer Showhouse on InCollect.com.

On Friday, March 13, 2015, the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) -- the most distinguished art and antiques show in the world -- will open to the public. Held in Maastricht, a picturesque medieval city in the southernmost part of the Netherlands, this year’s fair will feature 275 leading galleries from twenty countries.

In addition to the traditional areas of Old Master paintings and antique furniture, TEFAF presents a wide variety of modern and contemporary art, jewelry, and twentieth-century design, which is featured in a small yet mighty section titled TEFAF Design.

It's a rare opportunity to see Old Master paintings in person: Rembrandt, Rubens, Gainsborough, van Dyck and more. Huntsville is the final stop on a 10-museum exhibition tour for "Rembrandt, Rubens, Gainsborough and the Golden Age of Painting in Europe," a collection of 60 paintings from the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Highlights of the exhibition include works by Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, David Teniers the Elder, Jacob Jordaens the Elder, Nicolas Tournier, Jacob van Ruisdael and Thomas Gainsborough.