Just wanted to plug the blog of one of last year’s students here at Cambridge, Tom de Freston and his friend Andrew Foulds. They are both painters and have now started a blog showcasing their work all the while providing a forum for their thoughts on art and such. There’s some good work there –…
Despite my initial scepticism, I am now quite convinced that the possible Titian sold for a song at Gilding’s, Leics. last week (pictured, above left), is the genuine article (as convinced as is possible without having actually seen the painting firsthand, that is). I’ve now had the opportunity to examine the enlargable lot image at…
Selections from the graff at Roskilde this year, executed by the cream of the international scene:
The Raphael portrait of Lorenzo de’Medici that I recently examined at Christie’s and wrote about here, has now been sold for £18 million to an anonymous ‘private European collector.’ Pity it did not end up in a public collection, but the combination of disputed authorship, bad state and high price probably dissuaded any institutions that…
The portrait of Lorenzo de’Medici, Duke of Urbino (1492-1519), coming up for sale at Christie’s on the 5th of July is an interesting case study in the perpetual problem in art history of reconciling visual and textual evidence. I have just visited Christie’s in London and examined the painting. It is obviously a severely damaged,…
Not wanting to feel left out, I’m adding my 2 cents on Damien Hirst’s new skull. It is a platinum cast of a human skull, with real teeth, studded with 8.601 diamonds, the forehead set with a 50-karat stone. At a reported production cost of £8-10 million and a sales price around £50 million, the…
This is the collected edition of my four-part review from last month of the Madrid Tintoretto show. Everything is now here, in one place, for you reading leisure, and – hopefully – pleasure.
If you’re in Copenhagen, there are two exhibitions of interest opening today: one is Gaze.Space.Desire (yes, the title is as stereotypical as it gets, but indulge us…) at Den Frie udstillingsbygning, the other is Parfyme Deluxe: The Tent Show at Nikolaj. There’s even a special Rackham/BLÆK-connection, since the terrible trio Ingen Frygt is participating in…
In more sad news, Darma Beck passed away yesterday. She had been married to art historian James, who died on Saturday, for 51 years. Makes you ponder the vital interdependence between us people. Deepest condolences to the Beck family.
Over the last couple of days, a few things related to a couple of my last posts have come up: First of all, ArtWatch director Michael Daley has written a fine obituary of James Beck who passed away on Saturday. Secondly, back in February, Neil Cohn posted content about the 5.000-year old Persian comic that…
This tongue-in-cheek blog post links to some amazing 19th-Century Japanese cartooning – woodcuts showing allegorical battles between octopi, insects, fish and fruit, multi-user fart duels and the like. There’s some amazing character design involved here, and some truly funny mise-en-scène. Thanks to Dirk for the heads-up.
A goat rising on its hind legs to eat from a tree, depicted moment-to-moment around the circumference of a 5.000-year old drinking goblet from Persia, discovered at the site of the Burnt City in the Sistan va Baluchestan province in southeastern Iran. The picture is small, but there’s no denying the efficient and charming cartooning…
In the wake of the closure and demolition of the Youth Community House ‘Ungeren’ at the address Jagtvej 69 in Copenhagen a little of two months ago, there has been an explosion of political and politically motivated graffiti and street art around Copenhagen. Klaus Køhl, of Rapspot has been around town with his camera and…
Dr. James Beck, Professor of Art History at Columbia University and one of our preeminent scholars of the Italian Renaissance, died on Saturday at the age of 77. This is a great loss, both of an extraordinary scholar and a controversial curmudgeon to the field. Always outspoken, he courted controversy throughout his career – most…
This is the fourth and last part of my look at some of the Tintoretto works included in the Prado retrospective which just closed. Read part I, which includes an introduction and general remarks about the exhibition, here, part II here, and part III here.