04 mai 2008
Des tableaux de grands maîtres de la collection Rau en vente chez Sotheby's London
Taddeo di Bartolo (1362/3-1422). Madonna and Child with Musicmaking Angels, Saint John the Baptist and Saint Jerome. Signed triptych. Photo courtesy Sotheby's
LONDON.- Sotheby’s announced that its forthcoming sale of Old Master Paintings, to be held in London on Wednesday, July 9, 2008, will be highlighted by a select group of works from the collection of the late Dr Gustav Rau, the great 20th century philanthropist and collector. The group of some 10 lots – all of which are representative of the quality and range of the Rau Collection – includes important works by French, Italian, Dutch and Flemish masters such as Pierre Patel the Elder, Taddeo di Bartolo and Balthasar van der Ast. Estimated at £2.1-3.3 million, the sale of the distinguished group is the result of instructions from the Court-appointed Administrator for Dr Rau’s Estate to raise funds to cover ongoing Estate expenses and provide continuing financial support for Dr Rau’s hospital in Ciriri in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
German-born Dr Rau (1922-2002), the scion of a wealthy industrial dynasty, was a truly unique collector. His love affair with the arts started as a child when, on visits to museums with his parents, he developed a particular fondness for Dutch and Flemish paintings and North European sculpture. It was not until his father died in the late 1960s, however, that he was able to fuel his immense passion for art by building a remarkable private collection that is world-renowned today.
On leaving university, Rau followed in his father’s footsteps in the family business which involved the manufacturing of automotive parts and as the years passed he gradually took more and more control of the company. In 1962, however, he decided to retrain as a doctor with the intention of working in the Third World and he attended medical school while continuing to manage the family enterprises. Following his father’s death, he sold the family business and began using a proportion of the proceeds to help diminish poverty in the Third World. Rau’s first practical experience as a doctor was in Nigeria but he soon moved to the Belgian Congo (later Zaire and now the Democratic Republic of Congo) where he lived for two decades, building a hospital at Ciriri and serving as a doctor for the surrounding community.
Over a period of 40 years Rau indulged his passion for the arts, building a remarkable private collection which serves today as a review of nearly all of the achievements of Western painting from the dawn of the Renaissance to the early 20th century. What is even more remarkable about Rau is that he acquired the principal part of his collection during the two decades that he lived in an isolated Congolese village on the border of Rwanda, regularly making the arduous journey to the salerooms of Europe. An austere man who wasted no money on himself and made no concessions to social convention, Rau collected with energy and wisdom and without the help of specialist advisors or art historians.
Rau’s purchases ranged from Italian paintings of the early Quattrocento all the way through to the modern era, and covered the output of every single major European school of painting; it encompassed all styles from the Renaissance, through the Baroque to the Rococo and Impressionism and beyond to Expressionism. The works of the Old Masters were evidently of particular interest to him though.
Alex Bell, International Department Head of Old Master Paintings, Sotheby’s, comments: “Dr Rau was a collector of enormous passion and motivation and it was a privilege to have known him and witnessed his collecting at firsthand during the 1980s and 1990s. His taste was discerning and wide reaching; he always knew what he wanted and was determined to get it. In a rare interview he gave to the New York Times shortly before his death he intimated what drew him to particular works and motivated his collecting until the end of his life. He said: “I simply started buying pieces of art because I had fallen in love with them”. I think this love for art, allied with his rare perception, is what shines through in the selection of pictures that we are presenting for sale in July.”
The outstanding group of 10 works to be presented for sale at Sotheby’s in July will be led by Pierre Patel the Elder’s (circa 1605-1676) idyllic Landscape at Evening with Travellers and a Hunter Near Classical Ruins, which with an estimate of £400,000-600,000, is the most valuable painting in the group as well as one of the French artist’s greatest works ever to appear at auction. It captures a tranquil scene with a few travellers pausing for rest in the shadow of the columns of a decayed classical temple, just as the sun’s last rays bathe the marshy landscape. With a suggested date of circa 1640 it is without doubt Patel’s most important work from the first decade of his career and it shows a clear and refined classical style that parallels with that of his more famous contemporary Claude Lorraine.
A rare, signed triptych by Taddeo di Bartolo (1362/3-1422) depicting the Madonna and Child with musicmaking angels, Saint John the Baptist and Saint Jerome is a further notable highlight of the group and is an exquisite example of the artist’s late Gothic style. Rau purchased the triptych at auction in 1971 on its first ever appearance on the open market. The triptych has an intimate scale and portable format (the central panel measures just 42cm by 21cm), which suggests that it was intended for private devotion. Although the size is by no means unique in the artist’s oeuvre, many of his surviving paintings are on a much larger scale or are fragments from more complex polyptychs. Certain elements of the painting’s composition can be found elsewhere in Taddeo’ s oeuvre and although the triptych is undated, its association with these other works suggest it dates from circa 1400, a period regarded as the very pinnacle of the artist’s career. The triptych - estimated at £300,000-500,000 - confirms Taddeo’s position as one of the leading Siena artists to successfully bridge the late Gothic and early Renaissance styles.
A second work in the group estimated at £300,000- 500,000 is a magnificent still life of fruit, flowers and exotic shells by the Dutch master Balthasar van der Ast (1593/4-1657). Painted in 1625 while the artist was resident in Utrecht, the
painting is among Van der Ast’s most successful compositions. It has much in common with other works from 1625 and the years immediately surrounding, notably in the placement of singular elements purposefully arranged before a central basket. It is unusual, however, in its use of a light background, imbuing the composition with a sense of depth that is often lacking in comparable works from this period. Van der Ast’s still lifes were initially rooted in the tradition of Jan Brueghel the Elder and Roelandt Savery but by the 1620s, with ambitious, minutely observed realistic paintings such as Rau’s still life, he soon established for himself a reputation that put him right at the forefront of Dutch still life painting.
Pierre Patel the Elder, A Landscape at Evening with Travellers and a Hunter Near Classical Ruins, oil on canvas, estimate: £400,000-600,000. Photo courtesy Sotheby's
01 mai 2008
La National Portrait Gallery révèle le portrait du mécène de Shakespeare sous celui de son épouse
Paul van Somer (c.1576-1621). Portrait of Elizabeth Vernon. EFE / National Portrait Gallery
LONDON.- Students researching for a new display of Tudor portraits in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery have uncovered a ghost figure which may be Shakespeare's only known patron Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, which had been subsequently painted over with a portrait of Elizabeth Vernon, Southampton's wife.
The discovery was made when the portrait was X-rayed for the display of portraits to be opened on 29 April, at Montacute House, Somerset, a National Trust property and a regional partner of the National Portrait Gallery. The display On the Nature of Women: Tudor and Jacobean Portraiture 1535-1620 was curated by students from Bristol University.
The portrait shows Elizabeth Vernon, a maid of honour to Elizabeth I, who was involved in an intrigue with Henry Wriothesley in 1595. She married him in secret three years later. Here she is shown in her forties after several decades of marriage. She wears a black dress slashed to reveal scarlet fabric, a white lace coif adorned with pearls and a scarlet flower to match. Her jewels include ruby earrings and a ring on the little finger of her right hand. The 'S' on her chain presumably stands for 'Southampton' and suggests that the miniature locket which she wears on her chest may contain a portrait of her husband.
An X-ray photograph following radiography - a technique which reveals the appearance of wood beneath the surface of paint - shows that a portrait of a man was painted beneath this image of Elizabeth Vernon. The figure, which can be seen slightly lower and to the right of the existing portrait, closely resembles the composition of portraits of her husband made around the same time, some of which have been attributed to the Dutch artist Paul van Somer (c.1576-1621).
It is thought that the unknown artist of this portrait painted over the image, possibly because a commission for a double portrait of husband and wife was abandoned in favour of the single portrait seen today. Another very similar version of this portrait, attributed to van Somer, exists at Sherborne Castle, Dorset, very close to Montacute House, where this portrait can now be seen.
A favourite of Elizabeth I, Henry Wriothesley, (1573 -1624), was the only known patron of Shakespeare, who dedicated his poem Venus and Adonis to him (1593). Southampton's tempestuous relationship with the Queen culminated in his involvement in Essex's rebellion in 1601. Condemned to death when the rebellion failed, his punishment was commuted to life imprisonment and he was released by James I. Southampton was known at court for his flamboyant appearance, particularly his auburn hair which he wore long. Some hold the theory that Shakespeare's sonnets were addressed to him.
The portrait is one of 11 to be seen in the display On the Nature of Women: Tudor and Jacobean Portraits of Women 1535-1620 which includes some portraits seen publicly for the first time in living memory. Shedding new light on the role of women in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, it is the first display for the National Trust and the National Portrait Gallery to have been curated by university students.
Visitors to the display at Montacute House, an Elizabethan mansion, will be able to see portraits of women praised as virtuous mothers as well as those tainted by scandal, such as Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset.
Among other discoveries revealed in the display are a portrait thought to be of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, who was Mary Queen of Scots's mother-in-law and one thought to be of Lady Jane Grey, both of which have not been seen in public for over 70 years.
New research on the portrait attributed to be of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox shows that its wooden panel has been recycled from an early 15th century painted interior. Dendrochronology - analysis by tree ring dating of the painted panel - shows the wood comes from a tree that was felled shortly after 1432. The x-ray shows that the panel was originally painted with large scale roses in red and white. This design was probably used in the mid 1400s for decorative wall panelling, much in the same way wall paper is used today.
X Ray showing what appears to be the portrait of Henry Wriothesley. EFE/National Portrait Gallery
"Enlightenment - Discovering the world in the 18th century" au British Museum
The Enlightenment was an age of reason and learning that flourished across Europe and America from about 1680 to 1820. This rich and diverse permanent exhibition uses thousands of objects to demonstrate how people in Britain understood their world during this period. It is housed in the King’s Library, the former home of the library of King George III.
Objects on display reveal the way in which collectors, antiquaries and travellers during this great age of discovery viewed and classified objects from the world around them. The displays provide an introduction to the Museum and its collections, showing how our understanding of the world of nature and human achievement has changed over time.
The Enlightenment Gallery is divided into seven sections that explore the seven major new disciplines of the age: Religion, Ethnography, Archaeology, Art history, Classification, Decipherment and Natural history. It was opened in 2003 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the British Museum
Il y a deux semaines, Philippe et moi avions adoré cette galerie. Nous y sommes restés des heures à tout regarder. J'ai même acheté le catalogue, reste à trouver le temps de le lire!. J'y ai fait quelques photos...
30 avril 2008
"Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum" au MET, New York
The Symmachi Panel. Rome ; about 400. Ivory; h. 29.6 cm, w. 12.1 cm. Inv. no. 212-1865
NEW YORK.- The Victoria and Albert Museum in London holds one of the world’s finest collections of European decorative arts. Thirty-five of its masterpieces will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning May 20, 2008, in the exhibition Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum, while the V&A prepares a new suite of galleries for its collection. Dating from 300 to 1600, the exhibition will include superb examples of sculpture, metalwork, ceramics, and glass that are rarely lent. Most have never been on view in New York.
These mostly small-scale works of art are highly prized for their beauty, the value of their materials, and the exquisite workmanship that marks their creation. Among the highlights will be the Carolingian ivory cover of the Lorsch Gospels, an ivory statuette of the crucified Christ by Giovanni Pisano, Donatello’s bronze Putto with Fish, a pair of gilt-bronze statuettes of prophets by Hubert Gerhard, and the Codex Forster I, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s precious notebooks.
Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum will provide a rare opportunity to see these works together before they are installed in the new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries opening at the V&A in fall 2009.
28 avril 2008
"Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy" au Historisches Museum Bern
"Charles the Bold (1433–1477)" at Historisches Museum Bern. Image: Historisches Museum Bern
BERN.-Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy (1433–1477) was one of the richest and most powerful princes of the 15th century. His volatile life, his dramatic end and the lavish court culture of the Burgundian Dukes are the main focal points of a spectacular special exhibition being held in Bern’s Historisches Museum. Charles the Bold was one of the most fascinating figures of the Middle Ages. Ambitious, unremitting in his striving for power and prestige, he turned the Duchy of Burgundy in the fourth generation into an important force in late-medieval Europe.
Brilliant court life – high-prestige loans - Charles the Bold underlined his rise to prominence with a magnificent court life. Works of art were created to this end that count among the most beautiful that European art history has to offer. With high-prestige loans from over 40 national and international museums, the exhibition on “Charles the Bold (1433–1477)” is showing a brilliant selection of works of art covering all genres of art: the finest goldsmith’s work, magnificent tapestries, precious book illuminations, panel paintings, parade armour, jewellery, medals, and so on. For example, Hans Memling’s famous triptych, painted for the Bruges merchant Wille Moreel, a masterpiece of Early Netherlandish painting from the Groeninge Museum in Bruges, is being shown for the first time in Switzerland. With the gold votive statue from Liège and the famous Prayer Book of Charles the Bold from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, two innovative masterworks that had once influenced each other are being brought together for the first time in 500 years. An important lender is also the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna: from its collections the exhibition is showing not only magnificent parade armour, but also Leone Leoni’s famous bronze bust of the Habsburg Emperor Charles V. Six wonderful Burgundian illuminated manuscripts from the Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique in Brussels can also be admired.
His daughter in exchange for a royal crown - In his bid to achieve sovereignty and royal dignity, Charles the Bold tried to marry off his only daughter Maria to Maximilian, the son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. But the marriage did not take place and Charles’ dream of a great kingdom of his own between France and the Holy Roman Empire ended on a battlefield.
Battles and Burgundian booty - Charles the Bold was defeated by the Swiss Confederates and their allies in the battles of Grandson and Morat. One of the largest booties of war in world history fell as a result into the hands of the victorious Confederates. The tapestries and precious gold fabrics of the legendary Burgundian booty now form the core of the collection of the Historisches Museum in Bern. Charles the Bold met his death in the Battle of Nancy in 1477.
Habsburg and the Burgundian marriage - With Charles’ death on the battlefield of Nancy, the map of Europe fundamentally changed. The realm straddling the lands between France and the German Empire was dissolved. In the very year as his death, Charles’ daughter Maria of Burgundy, under pressure from all sides, married the emperor’s son Maximilian. The Burgundian inheritance thus fell into the hands of the Habsburg dynasty, which two generations later, under Charles V (1500–1558), grandson of Charles the Bold, rose to become a world power with vast overseas possessions spanning the globe. The exhibition in Bern unfolds Burgundy’s whole history from its rise under Charles the Bold’s father, Philip the Good, to the climax of the Habsburg Empire under Charles V. It turns historical connections into a vivid experience.
A piece of European history as an enduring experience - So the exhibition is addressed not just at art lovers, but also at a broader public. The exhibition management under Peter Jezler, Susan Marti, Raphael Barbier and Gabriele Keck has once again pursued an interdisciplinary approach. In partnership, an exhibition concept was developed in which outstanding works of art and a highly dramatic historical narrative are skilfully combined. With its lavish staging and targeted deployment of new media, the exhibition aims to provide a broad public with an enduring experience and make an important piece of European history more familiar.
Princely summit in Trier – Highpoint of medieval pageantry - The famous meeting between the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III and Charles the Bold in Trier in 1473, for example, will be recreated in the exhibition, so that visitors will feel they are able to participate in the festivities. A large-scale functional grandstand, built solidly of oak wood, has to this end been erected in the main hall of the Historisches Museum. From this vantage point the public will be able to look down on the encounter between the two princes. The magnificent horse armour of Frederick III stands opposite the ducal throne of Charles the Bold, reconstructed using original textiles. Charles the Bold negotiated for weeks with the emperor in Trier in his bid to be raised to the rank of king. To achieve his goal, he met the emperor with incomparable pomp and pageantry.
Precious secular and liturgical furnishings, magnificent embroidered textiles, silver tableware, reliquaries of gold and silver, sumptuous parade armour, court baubles and toys, and exquisite Burgundian fashions can be seen in their originals in the exhibition. Nor are the more transient genres of art, theatrical performances, dancing and music, forgotten. The exhibition also includes these aspects with vivid animation films in its own specially erected mini-cinema.
26 avril 2008
Antwerp School, late 16th Century - Saint Jerome in his study
Antwerp School, late 16th Century - Saint Jerome in his study
oil on panel - 27½ x 40 in. (69.8 x 101.6 cm.) - Estimate: £15,000 - £20,000 - Unsold.
Christie's London. OLD MASTER PICTURES. 25 April 2008
Studio of Pieter Clasez. (Berchem 1597/8-1660 Haarlem) - An overturned roemer on a pewter ewer, a pie, a bread roll and ...
Studio of Pieter Clasez. (Berchem 1597/8-1660 Haarlem) - An overturned roemer on a pewter ewer, a pie, a bread roll and a partly-peeled lemon on pewter plates, a roemer, knives, walnuts and vine leaves on a partly-draped table
with monogram 'PC' (lower centre on the knife) - oil on panel, unframed - 18¾ x 25 1/8 in. (47.6 x 63.8 cm.) - Price Realized: £24,500
Notes: Sam Segal has suggested an alternative attribution to Cornelis Kruys (Haarlem c. 1620-before 1660 Schiedam), having examined the original (24 April 1999) noting: 'The work may be compared with a monogrammed painting in a private Danish collection (panel, 43 x 60 cm.) with a similar jug and upside down glass, three pewters and a fruit pie, reproduced in Gammelbo [Dutch Still-Life Painting from the 16th to the 18th Centuries in Danish Collections] 1960, no. 55 and in Vroom [A Modest Message as intimated by the painters of the 'Monochrome Banketje'] 1980, no. 216 and with a painting in a Belgian private collection (panel, 51 1/2 x 84 cm.) with a vine twig, pewters, a half peeled lemon and a roll of bread. A similar berkemeier occurs in several works by Kruys. The painting shows relationships with works by the Haarlem painter Pieter Claesz, e.g. a work of 1632 (formerly with Gallery Koetser, Zurich) and a work of 1640 with an identical knife in the Martin-von-Wagner-Museum in Wurzburg.'
Dr. Martina Brunner-Bulst also suggested that this work could be by '(the young) Cornelis Cruys imitating still lifes by Pieter Claesz.' (letter dated 11 October 1990).
Christie's London. OLD MASTER PICTURES. 25 April 2008
Herman van der Mijn (Amsterdam c. 1684-1741 London) - Roses, tulips, lilies, an iris and other flowers in a porcelain vase
Herman van der Mijn (Amsterdam c. 1684-1741 London) - Roses, tulips, lilies, an iris and other flowers in a porcelain vase on a stone ledge, with partly-peeled lemon, a snail and other insects
oil on panel - 31¼ x 23¾ in. (79.4 x 60.4 cm.) - Price Realized: £17,300
Note: Christie's is grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, for confirming the attribution on inspection of the original. He has noted that the composition in part repeats a signed work by van der Mijn (formerly with Leger Galleries, London, in 1927), and another signed work in the Dutch National Collection, concluding that all three paintings must be fairly early works by the artist.
Christie's London. OLD MASTER PICTURES. 25 April 2008
Attributed to Guilliam Dandoy (active Antwerp 1640-1652) - Still life with a lobster, a peeled lemon, a basket of fruit, ...
Attributed to Guilliam Dandoy (active Antwerp 1640-1652) - Still life with a lobster, a peeled lemon, a basket of fruit, a nautilus shell with a pipe, an oyster, roses, a roemer, a locked strongbox, grapes and lemons on a draped table
with signature 'C. DE. HEEM.F' (centre right, on the box) - oil on canvas - 30¾ x 44 in. (78.2 x 111.8 cm.) - Price Realized: £12,500
Christie's London. OLD MASTER PICTURES. 25 April 2008
Joseph Wright of Derby, A.R.A. (Derby 1734-1797) - A view of Vesuvius from Posillipo, Naples
Joseph Wright of Derby, A.R.A. (Derby 1734-1797) - A view of Vesuvius from Posillipo, Naples
signed with initials 'I.W. P' (lower right) - oil on canvas - 21¼ x 30½ in. (54 x 77.5 cm.) - Price Realized: £78,500
Notes: Joseph Wright left England for Italy together with his pregnant wife Hannah, his pupil Richard Hurleston, John Downman, and the sculptor James Paine, in November 1773. Travelling by sea, he had arrived in Nice by December, from where he sailed on to Genoa and to Leghorn, then travelling overland to Rome, where he arrived on 3 February 1774. Wright remained in Italy until June the following year, staying principally in Rome, where he was deeply influenced by the grandeur and scale of the remains of ancient Rome and also by the works of the Italian masters. While in Italy he executed relatively few finished oil paintings concentrating instead on absorbing what he was able to see and making numerous sketches and studies that were to form the basis of many of his major pictures on his return to England.
Aside from Rome, it was not surprising that Wright, whose fascination with science and dramatic light effect has been so evident in the industrial scenes of his early career, felt drawn to Naples, where it was possible to witness one of nature's most spectacular events, the eruption of Vesuvius. Wright visited Naples in October and November 1774 noting in his diary of Vesuvius that it was one of the 'most wonderful sights in nature'. It was a sight that was to continue to inspire him for the rest of his career providing the subject for over thirty paintings, among them some of his most celebrated compositions.
In this picture Vesuvius is shown at some distance, from almost as far as the Capo di Posilippo, the light caused by the awe inspiring force of the eruption breaking the calm of an otherwise tranquil moonlit evening. The composition can be compared to those recorded in the collections of Mr George Anson and Major Miller Mundy, thought to have been painted circa 1789-90 (for which see B. Nicholson, Joseph Wright of Derby, Painter of Light, New York, 1968, I, nos. 267 and 269, fig. 99 [the former], II, pl. 294 [the latter]). A variant of this composition of similar size to the present picture was sold at Sotheby's from the collection of Stanley J. Seeger on 14 June 2001, as lot 93.
Christie's London. OLD MASTER PICTURES. 25 April 2008