03 juillet 2009
'The Budapest Horse: A Leonardo da Vinci Puzzle' @ the National Gallery of Art
After Leonardo da Vinci (?), Italian (Italian, 1452 - 1519), Rearing Horse, possibly 19th century, copper-zinc alloy (brass), overall: H 21.6 x W 13.9 x L 26.7 cm (H 8 1/2 x W 5 1/2 x L 10 1/2 in.) Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1925 (25.74)
WASHINGTON, DC.- The Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior, a bronze statuette from the Museum of Fine Arts (Szépművészeti Múzeum), Budapest, is the focus of recent technical examinations by National Gallery of Art conservators and is also the centerpiece of a small exhibition, The Budapest Horse: A Leonardo da Vinci Puzzle. On view from July 3 through September 7, 2009, in the Gallery's West Building Sculpture Galleries, the intriguing work is joined by two additional bronze horses and two warriors associated with Leonardo da Vinci from international collections, along with two Renaissance bronze horses by known masters for comparison. Illustrative panels present evidence related to the works' origins, including reproductions of drawings by Leonardo, x-radiographs, and computer models.
The similarities of the Budapest horse to Leonardo's drawings led to the first attribution to him in 1916. New technical evidence gathered from both the Rearing Horse and its accompanying Mounted Rider suggests that the cast could date from as early as the 16th century, although possibly some years after Leonardo's death in 1519. No scientific data were discovered that rule out an early casting date, but the origins of the clay or wax models from which the horse and its rider were cast remain a mystery.
"At the request of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, the National Gallery of Art is pleased to include the study of the Budapest horse's origins in its ongoing Renaissance Bronze Research Project," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "We are grateful to Robert H. Smith and to the government of Hungary for making possible this rare opportunity to study and exhibit these bronzes together."
"The exhibition reflects an extraordinary moment of cross-cultural collaboration and new scholarship and a fabled Italian sculpture from a renowned Hungarian collection is now on view in one of America's finest museums," said László Jakab Orsós, the director of the Hungarian Cultural Center, New York. "We are so pleased to include the Budapest Horse as part of the Extremely Hungary festival."
Background
Around 1820, Hungarian sculptor István Ferenczy assembled a collection of sculpture in Rome, including a small bronze horse and rider that was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, in 1914. Two years later, museum curator Simon Meller published arguments that this statuette, once prized as an ancient Greek work, was in fact a Renaissance bronze, cast from figures modeled in clay or wax by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).
The case for Leonardo, though widely debated, has been taken more seriously than most attributions of sculpture to him. As part of the ongoing Renaissance Bronze Research Project at the National Gallery of Art, and at the request of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, conservators undertook a technical study to investigate the materials and methods of fabricating the Budapest bronze sculpture. Procedures employed included x-radiography, alloy analysis by x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and three-dimensional laser scanning. The initial results, involving comparison with similar studies of other bronzes, contribute new material for the discussion of the question considered in this exhibition: do the Budapest horse and rider simply record inspiration from Leonardo's designs, or could they preserve the forms of a work from his hands?
Leonardo, Sculpture, and Horses
While there is no extant undisputed sculpture by Leonardo, evidence that he made sculpture is extensive. Giorgio Vasari, the Florentine painter and biographer of artists, reported in 1568 that Leonardo had modeled clay heads of laughing women and children; he also referred to a small wax horse by Leonardo, lost by Vasari's time but "held to be perfect." In at least one case Leonardo wrote himself a reminder to make a small wax version of one of his drawings.
Leonardo made ambitious and well-known attempts to produce two bronze equestrian statues for the city of Milan, each initially designed with the horse rearing: the monuments to Duke Francesco Sforza (in progress, 1483–1493) and to the general Gian Giacomo Trivulzio (in progress, 1508–1512); however, neither of these challenging works was ever cast in bronze.
Other Renaissance writers, including the MiIanese artist Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo and Florentine sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, mention small sculptural models made by Leonardo or used to work out compositions for painting. Lomazzo referred to a horse modeled of plastica (clay or wax) by Leonardo that belonged to the sculptor Leone Leoni. Rearing and twisting horses occur often in Leonardo's work as incarnations of spiraling energy, which the artist loved to make visible in depictions of curling hair and swirling water. Leonardo's drawings, full of movements echoed in the distinctive pose of the Budapest horse, are the main evidence cited to attribute the bronze to him.
Cast from models attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior, 16th century or later, copper-tin alloy with lead (bronze) overall: H 24 x W 15 x L 28 cm (H 9 7/16 x W 5 7/8 x L 11 in.) Szépművészeti Múzeum (Museum of Fine Arts), Budapest
The Questions and Findings
X-radiography indicates that all of the sculptures examined for this study were cast using the lost-wax technique, a typical method for producing small bronze sculptures, practiced since antiquity and refined during the Renaissance.
The Budapest horse is to all evidence a unique cast; its alloy and casting technique, although unusual in certain respects, show no inconsistencies with Renaissance practice, though they do also occur later. The greenish patina, exceptional for a Renaissance bronze, could result from a later treatment to make the bronze look ancient, as the 19th-century owner considered it.
The bronze reveals minimal attention to finish either in the model or the cast. Core-pin holes, casting flaws, and even the opening cut out around the tail for core removal were not repaired with metal fills. Only minimal tooling of details was done after casting. These features suggest more interest in preserving the form of a valued model made of fragile material, either clay or wax, than in creating a refined collector's bronze.
Although their consistent bronze alloys indicate the Budapest horse and rider were cast at the same time, the horse's design makes little provision for a rider. There is no saddle or attachment mechanism (the present pin and the hole drilled in the horse's back to accommodate it are modern), and the smaller scale of the rider makes a questionable fit for the horse. These factors raise the possibility that the model for the rider was provided later by a different artist to lend narrative interest to a preexisting horse. To invite consideration of this possibility, the National Gallery of Art will display the horse and rider separately for the first time.
Rearing Horse, lent from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and first recorded in 1925, seems to be based on the Budapest horse. A three-dimensional comparison of the two horses indicated that the wax model for the New York horse was probably cast in molds taken from the Budapest bronze, with some alterations to the pose and details. While copper alloys comparable to the high-zinc composition of the New York horse can be found in some Renaissance sculptures, its thin metal walls and the high-melting solder used in its fabrication point to technologies available only since the 19th century.
A smaller bronze Rearing Horse from The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland, first documented in 1966, conforms more closely to the Budapest horse in some aspects of the form, but differs in alloy and facture from the other horses and appears to come from a different workshop than either the Budapest or New York versions. Alloy analysis revealed an absence of typical Renaissance trace elements, such as silver, suggesting that the Limerick horse may have been cast following the late 19th-century introduction of electrolytic refining of metals.
The Cowering Warrior from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan, inventoried in 1816 in an old Milanese collection, corresponds closely to a small figure in an engraving made in c. 1500 that records four of Leonardo's designs of 1483/1493 for an equestrian monument planned for Milan. Its alloy composition is not typical for Italian Renaissance sculpture, but has been more commonly observed in northern European casts from the same period. With its assured but simplified anatomy and expressive face, the diminutive, solid-cast warrior could exemplify direct casting of small wax models produced in Leonardo's workshop based on his designs.
For broader comparison, the exhibition includes examples of leaping and rearing bronze stallions from the Robert H. Smith Collection, promised gifts to the National Gallery of Art. One is by a northern Italian sculptor from Leonardo's lifetime, Severo da Ravenna (documented 1496–1525). Another, by the Florentine master Antonio Susini (1558–1624), dates from a century later. These elegantly realized works, made for collectors, testify to the Renaissance fascination with the problem that captivated Leonardo: the rearing horse as an embodiment of power, energy, and its challenging stance. At the same time, their more refined execution contrasts with the apparently experimental character of the forms, movement, and minimal finish of the Budapest horse.
Curator and Conservators
Research for this project and exhibition was carried out by Shelley Sturman, head of object conservation; Katherine May, associate object conservator; and Alison Luchs, curator of early European sculpture.
Cast from model by or after Leonardo da Vinci, Italian (Italian, 1452 - 1519) Rearing Horse, 16th century or later, copper-tin alloy with lead (bronze) overall: H 24 x W 15 x L 28 cm (H 9 7/16 x W 5 7/8 x L 11 in.) Szépmüvészeti Múzeum (Museum of Fine Arts), Budapest.
08 juin 2009
Metropolitan Museum of Art to Show Michelangelo's First Painting, The Torment of Saint Anthony
Michelangelo, The Torment of Saint Anthony, c. 1487–88. Oil and tempera on panel, 18 1/2 x 13 1/4 in. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
NEW YORK, NY.- Michelangelo's First Painting, a special exhibition beginning June 16 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, will present The Torment of Saint Anthony, the first known painting by Michelangelo Buonarroti (Florence 1475- Rome 1564), believed to have been created when he was 12 or 13 years old. Recently acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum, the painting has undergone conservation and technical examination at the Metropolitan Museum. Michelangelo's First Painting will run through September 7, after which the panel will return to the Kimbell Art Museum for display as part of its permanent collection.
Today, many people think of Michelangelo as a sculptor, but he received his early training as a painter, in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), a leading master in Florence. It was only in about 1490, following this apprenticeship, that he learned to carve marble. Michelangelo's biographers – Giorgio Vasari (1511- 1574) and Ascanio Condivi (1525-1574) – tell us that, aside from some drawings, his first work was a painted copy after a well-known engraving by Martin Schongauer (1448-1491) showing Saint Anthony tormented by demons. To give his monsters greater veracity, Michelangelo went to the fish market to study the colors and scales of the fish. Made about 1487-88 under the guidance of his friend and fellow pupil Francesco Granacci, Michelangelo's painting was much admired – it was even said to have incited Ghirlandaio's envy.
Keith Christiansen, the Jayne Wrightsman Curator of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum, who analyzed The Torment of Saint Anthony and organized this exhibition, concludes: "The case for this panel being the one described by Condivi is exceptionally strong . . . and given what we know, the burden of proof that it is NOT the picture described by Condivi is with those who would deny it."
Michelangelo's First Painting will showcase recent technical examinations and scholarly analyses that identify it as the painting described by Michelangelo's biographers. Though it has been known to scholars since the 1830s, when it was purchased in Pisa by a French sculptor, it has not always received proper attention. Accumulations of discolored varnish and disfiguring overpaints had obscured the qualities of the picture's masterful execution and remarkable color palette. A careful cleaning, carried out by Michael Gallagher, the Metropolitan Museum's Conservator in Charge of Paintings Conservation, transformed the painting, while infrared reflectography revealed how the artist modified and elaborated on Schongauer's composition.
In addition to The Torment of Saint Anthony, this small, focused exhibition will include works from the Metropolitan Museum's collection such as Madonna and Child and Triptych with the Crucifixion by Francesco Granacci (1469-1543); and Portrait of Michelangelo by Daniele da Volterra (1509-1566), a faithful follower of the master. Also on view will be a facsimile of the aforementioned Schongauer engraving, Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons.
The Torment of Saint Anthony is the first painting by Michelangelo Buonarroti to enter an American collection, and one of only four known easel paintings generally believed to be by him. The others are the Doni Tondo in Florence's Uffizi Gallery and two unfinished paintings in London's National Gallery, The Manchester Madonna and The Entombment.
Left: Infrared reflectogram mosaic of Michelangelo, The Torment of Saint Anthony, c. 1487–88. Oil and tempera on panel, 18 1/2 x 13 1/4 in. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Photograph courtesy of the Paintings Conservation Department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Right: X-radiograph of Michelangelo, The Torment of Saint Anthony, c. 1487–88. Oil and tempera on panel, 18 1/2 x 13 1/4 in. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Photograph courtesy of the Paintings Conservation Department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
03 juin 2009
'American Impressionism and Realism: A Landmark Exhibition from the Met' @ the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). The Cup of Tea c.1880–81. Oil on canvas 92.4 x 65.4 cm From the Collection of James Stillman, Gift of Dr. Ernest G. Stillman 1922 Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
BRISBANE.- American Impressionism and Realism: A Landmark Exhibition from the Met makes available to Australian audiences, for the first time and on an unprecedented scale, a selection of 71 paintings from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition opened May 30 at the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, the exhibition includes many of the Metropolitan’s best examples in the American Impressionist and Realist traditions. These paintings have never before been displayed together and are not likely to be lent again as an ensemble. This groundbreaking presentation features works by 34 painters, renowned and less well-known. Some of the leading figures—such as Impressionists John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, and William Merritt Chase, and Realists John Sloan and William Glackens—are each represented by several of their works. American Impressionism and Realism considers how proponents of two styles that flourished about 1900 responded to modern life and to the era’s perplexing novelties, and will invite consideration of what they embraced, what they did not, and why. Often saturated with light and color, these paintings are always saturated with meaning.
Background
In the period between the end of the Civil War (1861-65) and World War I, the United States was transformed from an agrarian and conservative nation to an urban, industrialized, and dynamic one. Newly wealthy Americans traveled abroad, eagerly embracing foreign culture. When they returned home, they built houses to rival European mansions, and filled them with imported decorative arts, sculpture, and paintings by Old Masters and leading contemporary European painters.
To compete with their European rivals, many aspiring American artists went to study in Europe—especially Paris, the art capital of the time. Some flourished in an international context and remained abroad. Others returned home and attempted to apply the lessons they learned in Europe to American resources.
Beginning in the late 1870s, American painters Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent began to experiment with the style of the French Impressionists, who had made their debut as a group in Paris in 1874. By the mid-1880s, as French dealers introduced French Impressionist works to viewers in New York, Boston, and other cities, American collectors’ and critics’ enthusiasm for the style grew. By the late 1880s, many American painters who had been studying academic subjects and refined technique in France began to value the Impressionists’ candid images of modern life as an appealing alternative to their more traditional approach to making art.
During their student years in Europe, most of the future American Impressionists spent summers working in the countryside alone, in small groups, or in art colonies. A number of these artists were drawn to the village of Giverny, where Claude Monet had settled in 1883. Their conversion to Impressionism was stimulated by their experience here, and Giverny became a model for art colonies they would later establish elsewhere in Europe or in the United States.
About 1900, American Realists—many of whom had worked as newspaper illustrators and were based in New York—set themselves apart from and challenged the American Impressionists. The Realists rejected the Impressionists’ genteel, insistently positive accounts of modern life and concentrated instead on portraying New York’s vitality and recording its seamier side. Stylistically, they rejected the inspiration American Impressionists had found in the high-keyed canvases of Monet and his associates in favor of the darker palette and gestural brushwork of Velázquez and Hals, among others. While they identified with the vitality of the lower classes, and sought to register the dismal aspects of urban existence, they themselves led middle-class lives, enjoying New York’s restaurants and bars, its theater and vaudeville, and popular nearby resorts. Because they avoided civil unease, class tensions, and the grit of the streets, their works are never as direct or disturbing as those of their European counterparts or of the reformist images of American photographers such as Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine.
Charles Conder, (1868-1909), Fruit Trees in Blossom, Algiers 1892. Oil on canvas 64.8 x 80.7cm Purchased 1963 Collection: Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane.
Exhibition Overview
The exhibition is organized thematically into eight sections: Cities, The Countryside Abroad, The Countryside at Home, At Leisure, Studio Setups and Portraits, Women’s Lives, Children, and Other Leading Masters.
Cities
Although most American Impressionists preferred the countryside, some were captivated by urban energy, encoding their era’s bustling spirit and fragmented experience in rapidly rendered vignettes. They depicted genteel precincts and celebrated the fashionable avenues and squares, ignoring the mean streets and teeming slums. Childe Hassam’s 1889-90 canvas Winter in Union Square presents a hushed view of a New York park softened by the effect of a heavy snowfall.
The American Realists repudiated the American Impressionists’ respectable airs, committing themselves to candid portrayals of modern life. Their experience as artist-journalists attracted them to public entertainments and they painted theater, vaudeville, hotels, and other features of commercialized leisure. In John Sloan’s The Lafayette, a painting from 1927, a boisterous group of men and women emerges from under a hotel canopy into the night, as a taxi pulls up on the rain slicked street.
The Countryside Abroad
During the summers, many American Impressionists followed the pattern of their international counterparts, residing—and painting—in picturesque European villages. John H. Twachtman’s Arques-la-Bataille, from around 1884, captures the river near a Normandy village in a tonal palette of cool greens, grays, and blues. Theodore Robinson’s A Bird’s-Eye View of 1889 shows Giverny nestled amid the surrounding hills. Like his mentor Monet, Robinson attempts to seize the essence of the place, including the haze that filled the valley of the Seine. The painting remained in the artist’s possession until his death, when it was purchased by the noted art patron George A. Hearn, who gave it to the Metropolitan.
The Countryside at Home
Most of the repatriated American Impressionists painted the countryside to which they and their patrons often retreated to escape urban hurly-burly. They founded and frequented picturesque art colonies or worked alone in other rural locales— especially in New England—where they enjoyed inexpensive accommodations, nostalgic subjects that evoked a more tranquil era, and a strong sense of place. The American Impressionists’ selective approach to modern life could conjure up an agreeable world for their patrons, who were also daunted by the perplexing realities of an unsettling, transitional time. Theodore Robinson’s 1894 canvas Low Tide, Riverside Yacht Club describes the extensive mudflats at low tide on the Mianus River outside Cos Cob, Connecticut. Across the harbor is the newly renovated yacht club. Sleek recreational boats, moored offshore, await excursionists.
Landscape painting is primarily identified with the American Impressionists. The Realists embraced urban subjects and confined their depictions of landscape to views of New York City’s outskirts.
Childe Hassam 1859–1935 | The Water Garden (detail) 1909 | Oil on canvas | 61 x 91.4cm (24 x 36in.) | Partial and Promised Gift of Mr and Mrs Douglas Dillon, 1994 | 1994.450 | Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York | Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
At Leisure
Like their French counterparts, the American Impressionists were drawn to country retreats and suburban resorts whose very creation marked the era’s shift from rural to urban existence. William Merritt Chase’s At the Seaside, from around 1892, shows well-to-do vacationers enjoying the resort at Shinnecock, Long Island. Chase was the principal critic at a summer art school at Shinnecock, where he conducted open-air art classes for up to one hundred students each season.
Although the American Realists were oriented toward urban subjects and social issues, they did visit and document places for recreation. Committed to recording the lives of the working classes, they preferred the rowdy resorts accessible to less affluent city dwellers, and strayed only occasionally to the more refined retreats. George Bellows painted Tennis at Newport in 1919 in his New York studio from sketches he had made the previous summer. The annual tennis tournament at the Newport Casino in Rhode Island was an important sporting event and social occasion, but Bellows's painting emphasizes the setting rather than the game. The players are seen in the foreground, racquets raised, but it is the spectators strolling about the grounds and lingering on the lawn who capture our attention.
Studio Setups and Portraits
Neither the American Impressionists nor the Realists were immune to the appeal of artfully concocted studio contrivances. The carefully controlled lighting effects in Edmund C. Tarbell’s Across the Room, a canvas of about 1899, showcase his skillful rendering of patterns, texture, and design. John Singer Sargent’s striking double portrait Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes, from 1897, began as a single portrait of the young Mrs. Stokes in an evening dress. Seeing her arrive for her sitting after a brisk walk, Sargent instead chose to paint her in her street clothes. He intended to show her accompanied by a greyhound, in the tradition of Van Dyck, but when the dog was unavailable, he agreed to include instead Mr. Stokes, who was delighted to get two Sargent portraits for the price of one. The portrait was bequeathed to the Metropolitan by Edith Minturn (Mrs. I. N.) Stokes in 1938.
Women’s Lives
About 1900, the American domestic sphere was altered as women began to move more freely in society, postponing marriage and motherhood, seeking higher education, employment, suffrage, and entertainment. Progressives urged women to venture from home, while conservatives applauded their traditional roles as wives and mothers.
Insulating themselves and their potential patrons from disquieting change, the American Impressionists portrayed beautifully dressed women—often family members and friends—in sheltered settings. Included in the exhibition are numerous images of women taking tea, reading, strolling, or primping, and of mothers involved with their children. Frederick Carl Frieseke’s intimate canvas of 1911, Woman with a Mirror (Femme qui se mire), captures a young woman at her dressing table as she pauses to consider the effect of a blue necklace. In Mary Cassatt’s Mother and Child (The Oval Mirror) of about 1899, the mirror frame in the background suggests a halo behind this modern madonna and her young son.
While the Realists recorded more diverse and more liberated women, even they declined to document the period’s upheaval.
Children
When they described the world of children, the American Impressionists favored well-cared-for, middle-class boys and girls, often their own sons and daughters. The theme of innocent childhood served as another avenue for retreat from contemporary realities, and the garden was a favorite setting. Typically, Frank W. Benson’s Children in Woods, 1905, shows his three daughters in a sun-drenched clearing at their summer home on the island of North Haven, Maine. The girls are listening to a story, but Benson underplays even the minimal exertion of that pastime by obscuring the book that captivates them.
The Realists portrayed the offspring of poor and working-class Americans, but, like the Impressionists, infused their pictures with an appreciation of childhood’s sweet pleasures. George Luks’s Boy with Baseball, from around 1925, captures a young boy’s solitude as he waits for his playmates. Wearing a cap, hands in his pockets, he stares into space with his baseball nearby.
Other Leading Masters
The American Impressionists and Realists were aware of and responded to the work of several important American masters—particularly James McNeill Whistler, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Eakins—who spoke with distinctive stylistic voices.
Whistler rejected the academic principles he had studied in Paris in the 1850s, experimented with the realism espoused by Gustave Courbet in the early 1860s, and—without going through Impressionism—arrived at an exceptional version of Post-Impressionism by the mid-1860s. He was a model of artistic independence, an exemplar of painting softly and subtly, and an advocate of the manner of Velázquez and of Japanese prints. His Arrangement in Black, No. 3: Sir Henry Irving as Phillip II of Spain (1876) shows Britain’s leading Shakespearean actor of the time in costume. The influence of Velázquez is evident not only in the format, but in the palette of somber black, white, and silver-gray, accented with ochre.
Homer had little formal training, and worked only briefly in France and England without undertaking instruction, unlike his much more cosmopolitan American contemporaries. After settling in Prout’s Neck, Maine, in 1883, he lived near the ocean and studied it continuously under different conditions of light and weather. By 1890, he abandoned narrative painting to concentrate on depictions of the beauty, force, and drama of the sea itself. Northeaster, a magisterial canvas of 1895, captures the look and feel of masses of onrushing water.
Eakins dedicated his career to the study and depiction of the human figure. His fascination with the nude and willingness to flout decorum challenged all but the most progressive critics and patrons of his day. As an innovative teacher, however, he influenced generations of art students, including Thomas Anshutz, who in turn taught Robert Henri and other leading American Realists. Eakins’s portraits, usually painted at his request rather than on commission, often offended viewers accustomed to flattery and dash rather than intense scrutiny. The Thinker: Portrait of Louis N. Kenton (1900) captures the introspection of its subject while also reflecting the artist’s own melancholy. This probing image of an individual is also an archetypal portrayal of modern man in the first year of the new century.
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) Mr and Mrs IN Phelps Stokes 1897. Oil on canvas, 214 x 101cm (84 1/4 x 39 3/4in.) Bequest of Edith Minturn Phelps Stokes (Mrs IN), 1938. Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
20 mai 2009
"Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective" @ Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Triptych Inspired by T. S. Eliot’s Poem “Sweeney Agonistes” Oil on canvas, 198 x 147.5 cm. 1967. New York, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation 1972.
NEW YORK, NY.- The first major New York exhibition in 20 years devoted to Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992)—one of the most important painters of the 20th century—will be presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 20 through August 16, 2009. Marking the 100th anniversary of the artist's birth, Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective will bring together the most significant works from each period of the artist's remarkable career. Drawn from public and private collections around the world, this landmark exhibition will consist of some 65 paintings, complemented by never-before-seen works and archival material from the Francis Bacon Estate, which will shed new light on the artist's career and working practices. The Metropolitan Museum is the sole U.S. venue of the exhibition tour.
"Bacon is more compelling than ever: despite the passage of time, his paintings remain fresh, urgent, and mysterious. Never before has this work been more relevant to young artists," noted Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Chairman of the Metropolitan Museum's Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art. "For these reasons, we are very pleased to be able to present a retrospective spanning his entire career to our viewing public."
Entirely self-taught, Francis Bacon emerged in 1945 as a major force in British painting. He rose to prominence over the subsequent 45 years, securing his reputation as one of the seminal artists of his generation. With a predilection for shocking imagery, Bacon's oeuvre was dominated by emotionally charged depictions of the human body that are among the most powerful images in the history of art.
The exhibition's loosely chronological structure will trace critical themes in Bacon's work and explore his philosophy about mankind and the modern condition with visually arresting examples. The earliest group of works, from the 1940s and '50s, focuses on the animalistic qualities of man, including: paintings of heads with snarling mouths (Head I, 1947–1948, The Metropolitan Museum of Art); images of men as pathetic and alone (Study for a Portrait, 1953, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany); and the human figure portrayed as base and bestial (Figures in a Landscape, 1956, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, England). The exhibition also features numerous versions of Bacon's iconic studies (1949–1953) after Diego Velázquez's Portrait of Innocent X (1650). Mortality is addressed directly in his last works (Triptych, 1991, The Museum of Modern Art, New York).
In the 1960s, working in his classic style of much looser, colorful, and expressive painting, Bacon showed the human body exposed and violated as in, for example, Lying Figure, 1969 (Foundation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland). In the following decade he increasingly used narrative, autobiography, and myth to mediate ideas about violence and emotion, as in the 1971 painting In Memory of George Dyer (Foundation Beyeler) and Triptych Inspired by the Orestia of Aeschylus, 1981 (Astrup Fearnley Collection, Oslo, Norway).
A number of important works by Bacon will only be presented at the Metropolitan Museum, including Study for Portrait I, 1953 (Denise and Andrew Saul); Painting, 1946 (The Museum of Modern Art, New York); and Self Portrait, 1973 (private collection, courtesy Richard Nagy, London).
Central to an understanding of the artist's working methods are the large caches of archival materials that have only become available since Bacon's death, especially the contents of the artist's famously cluttered London studio. A rich selection of 65 items from the studio, his estate, and other archives will be included in the exhibition. The objects include pages the artist tore from books and magazines, photographs, and sketches—all of which are source materials for the finished paintings on view in the exhibition.
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992) Painting, 1946. Oil and pastel on linen; 77 7/8 x 52 in. (197.8 x 132.1 cm) The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase, 1948. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992) Head I, 1947–1948. Oil and tempera on board; 39 1/2 x 29 1/2 in. (100.3 x 74.9 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Richard S. Zeisler, 2007 (2007.247.1) © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992) Head III, 1949. Oil on canvas. 32 x 26 in. (81.3 x 66 cm) Private collection, courtesy Acquavella Galleries, New York © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992) Head VI, 1949. Oil on canvas. 36 11/16 x 30 1/8 in. (93.2 x 76.5 cm) Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992) Study after Velazquez, 1950. Oil on canvas; 77 15/16 x 54 in. (198 x 137.2 cm) The Steven and Alexandra Cohen Collection © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992) Study for a Portrait, 1953. Oil on canvas; 59 15/16 x 46 7/16 in. (152.2 x 118 cm) Hamburger Kunsthalle © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Study for Portrait I, 1953. Oil on canvas; 59 7/8 x 46 1/2 in. (152.1 x 118.1 cm) Denise and Andrew Saul © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Study of a Baboon, 1953. Oil on canvas; 78 1/8 x 54 1/8 in. (198.4 x 137.5 cm) The Museum of Modern Art, New York. James Thrall Soby Bequest, 1979. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), “Untitled (Study for Two Figures in the Grass),” 1952. Photo: Estate of Francis Bacon/ARS, New York; DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Three Studies for a Crucifixion, March 1962. Oil with sand on canvas; three panels, 78 x 57 in. (198.1 x 144.8 cm) each. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (64.1700) © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), “Triptych -- In Memory of George Dyer,” 1971, .Photo: Estate of Francis Bacon/ARS, New York; DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Three Figures in a Room, 1964. Oil on canvas; 77 15/16 x 57 7/8 in. (198 x 147 cm) each. Centre Pompidou, Paris. Musée national d'art moderne / Centre de creation industrielle. Achat de l'Etat 1968, attribution 1976
Photo: Philippe Migeat © CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne Standing in a Street in Soho, 1967. Oil on canvas; 77 15/16 x 58 1/16 in. (198 x 147.5 cm) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Two Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer, 1968. Oil on canvas; 77 15/16 x 58 1/16 in. (198 x 147.5 cm) Sara Hildén Foundation / Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Portrait of Michel Leiris, 1976. Oil on canvas; 13 3/8 x 11 7/16 in. (34 x 29 cm). Centre Pompidou, Paris. Musée national d'art moderne / Centre de creation industrielle. Donation Louise and Michel Leiris, 1984. Photo: Philippe Migeat © CNAC/MNAM/Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Three Studies for a Self-Portrait, 1979–1980. Oil on canvas; 14 3/4 x 12 1/2 in. (37.5 x 31.8 cm) each. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, 1998 (1999.363.1a–c) © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), A Piece of Wasteland, 1982. Oil on canvas; 77 15/16 x 58 1/16 in. (198 x 147.5 cm). Private collection, courtesy of Ivor Braka, Ltd. © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), “Study for a Portrait of Van Gogh VI,” 1957. Photo: Estate of Francis Bacon/ARS, New York; DACS, London;, via Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London.
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Portrait of John Edwards, 1988. Oil on canvas; 77 15/16 x 58 1/16 in. (198 x 147.5 cm). The Estate of Francis Bacon, courtesy Faggionato Fine Arts, London, and Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Jet of Water, 1988. Oil on canvas; 77 15/16 x 58 1/16 in. (198 x 147.5 cm) Collection of Mr. and Mrs. J. Tomilson Hill © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Blood on Pavement, 1988. Oil on canvas; 77 15/16 x 58 1/16 in. (198 x 147.5 cm) Private collection © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), “Triptych,” August 1972. Photo: Estate of Francis Bacon/ARS, New York; DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Triptych, 1991. Oil on canvas; 78 x 58 1/8 in. (198.1 x 147.6 cm) each. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. William A. M. Burden Fund and Nelson A. Rockefeller. Bequest Fund (both by exchange), 2003. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
"Men Wrestling," lower half of plate 69 from Eadweard Muybridge’s The Human Figure in Motion (originally published Philadelphia, 1887; New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1955) . Book leaf with paint additions. Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
John Deakin (British, 1912–1972), George Dyer in the Reece Mews Studio, ca. 1964. Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992), Photobooth portraits of Francis Bacon, George Dyer, and David Plante, taken in Aix-en-Provence, mounted to the inside cover of a book , ca. 1966–1967. Gelatin silver prints collaged to a book cover; 10 3/16 x 8 11/16 in. (25.9 x 22 cm). The Estate of Francis Bacon, courtesy Faggionato Fine Arts, London, and Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York © 2009 The Estate of Francis Bacon / ARS, New York / DACS, London
Copyright © 2000–2009 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. All rights reserved.
11 février 2009
"Calder Jewelry" @ the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), The Jealous Husband, ca. 1940. Brass wire; 14 x 16 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2006 (2006.32.6) © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
American-born artist Alexander Calder (1898–1976) is celebrated for his mobiles, stabiles, paintings, and objets d’art. This landmark exhibition will be the first museum presentation dedicated solely to his extensive output of inventive jewelry. During his lifetime Calder produced approximately 1,800 pieces of brass, silver, and gold body ornaments, often embellished with found objects such as beach glass, ceramic shards, and wood. Calder Jewelry will feature approximately 90 works—bracelets, necklaces, earrings, brooches, and tiaras—many of which were made as personal gifts for the artist's family and friends. While Calder's more diminutive avant-garde creations converged closely with the aesthetics of the modern age, they always remained personal and unmistakably Calder.
Accompanied by a catalogue. 
The exhibition was organized by the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida and the Calder Foundation, New York.
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Brooch, 1958. Gold and steel wire; 2 1/2 x 5 1/4 in. Courtesy Calder Foundation, New York © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (Inscription: "XIX - II - LVIII" For Louisa on her fifty-third birthday, February 19, 1958) 
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Necklace, ca. 1943. Silver wire, cord, and ribbon; Loop: 15 3/4 in.; element length: 5 1/4 in. Courtesy Calder Foundation, New York © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York (Inscription: "Calder" )
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Bracelet, ca. 1948. Silver wire; 2 3/4 x 6 x 4 in. Courtesy Calder Foundation, New York © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Necklace, ca. 1940 . Brass wire; 8 1/8 x 6 3/4 x 4 1/2 in. Courtesy Calder Foundation, New York © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Two Bracelets, ca. 1945 (silver) and ca. 1940 (brass). Silver wire; 4 9/16 x 2 3/4 x 2 5/16 in. Inscription: "Calder"; and brass wire; 4 3/4 x 5 x 2 1/8 in. Courtesy Calder Foundation, New York © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Necklace, ca. 1938. Brass wire, glass, and mirror; Loop: 35 1/2 in.; flower: 8 x 8 in. Courtesy Calder Foundation, New York © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Caged Crockery, ca. 1945. Silver wire and ceramic; Loop: 18 3/4 in.; element: 5 x 2 3/4 in.. Collection Harold and Emily Starr© 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Necklace, ca. 1940. Brass wire; 23 1/4 x 29 3/4 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2006 (2006.32.5) © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Bracelet, 1940. Brass wire; 2 x 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2006 (2006.32.7) © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), Display Head for Jewelry, 1940, and Earrings, ca. 1942. Display Head: sheet metal, wood, paint; Earrings: Silver and steel wire; 3 x 4 5/8 in. each. Display Head: Miani Johnson, New York; Earrings: Private Collection © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Alexander Calder (American, 1898–1976), "V for Victory" Brooch, 1944. Silver, Private Collection © 2008 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
11 août 2008
Balthus à la Fondation Gianadda
"J’y ai vécu si longtemps que j’en arrive à me croire suisse. C'est durant la première guerre mondiale que j’ai découvert ce pays. J'aurais tant de choses à raconter dessus... La Suisse a joué un rôle important dans ma jeunesse et, depuis, j’y retourne toujours, presque comme par hasard..". (Balthus)
Le Roi des chats, Huile sur toile 1935, 78 x 49.5, Musée Jenisch, Vevey ( dépôt de la Fondation Balthus)
Etude pour "Japonaise à la table rouge", Crayon sur papier, 1964, 49 x 69, Collection Fondation Pierre Gianadda
Cour de ferme à Chassy ou Grand paysage à l'arbre, Huile sur toile, 1960, 130.5 x 162, Donation d'André et Henriette Gomès (Paris) en 1985, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d'art moderne / Centre de création industrielle, Photo RMN - Bertrand Prévost
Les Beaux Jours, Huile sur toile, 1944-1946, 148 x 200, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, Gift of the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Foundation, 1966
Jeune fille assise, Crayon, 1949, 30.5 x 42, Collection particulière
Paysage de Muzot, Huile sur carton, 1923, 49.5 x 37.5, Collection particulière
La Toilette de Cathy, Huile sur toile, 1933, 165 x 150, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d'art moderne / Centre de création industrielle, Photo : Jean-Claude Planchet
Paysage de Montecalvello, Fusain et lavis d'aquarelle sur papier et peau d'éléphant contrecollé sur papier, 1978, 70 x 100, Vevey, Musée Jenisch, acquis grâce à la générosité de la Fondation Holenia Trust, Zurich
Autoportrait, Fusain, 1943, 63 x 45.7, Collection particulière
La Joueuse de diabolo, Huile sur toile, 1930, 80 x 65, Musée Jenisch, Vevey, Dépôt d'une collection particulière
Jeune fille endormie, Huile sur bois, 1943, 79.7 x 98.4 cm, Tate : presented 84 the friends of The Tate Gallery, 1959
Jeune fille à sa toilette, Huile sur toile, 1948, 55.9 x 46.4 , Collection privée
Le Salon (II), Huile sur toile, 1942, 114.8 x 146.9, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Estate of John Hay Whitney, © 2008. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence
La Rue, Huile sur toile, 1933, 195 x 240, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, James Thrall Soby Bequest, 1979, © 2008. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence
La Rue, Huile sur toile, 1933, 195 x 240, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, James Thrall Soby Bequest, 1979, © 2008. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence
Le Lever, Huile sur toile, 1975-1978, 169 x 159.5, Collection particulière
Thérèse rêvant, Huile sur toile, 1938, 150 x 130, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, 1998, Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Portrait d'Antoinette, Fusain, 1943-1944, 82.5 x 75, (avec cadre : 97.2 x 89.2 x 4.5 cm), Genève, Collection Jean Bonna, Photographie : Patrick Goetelen, Genève
Mitsou. Quarante images par Balthus, Préface de Rainer Maria Rilke, Rotapfel-Verlag, Zurich et Leipzig, 13 pages + 40 feuilles de planches, 1921, 19 x 24.7, Collection Fondation Pierre Gianadda
Mitsou. Quarante images par Balthus, Préface de Rainer Maria Rilke, Rotapfel-Verlag, Zurich et Leipzig, 13 pages + 40 feuilles de planches, 1921, 19 x 24.7, Collection Fondation Pierre Gianadda
Mitsou. Quarante images par Balthus, Préface de Rainer Maria Rilke, Rotapfel-Verlag, Zurich et Leipzig, 13 pages + 40 feuilles de planches, 1921, 19 x 24.7, Collection Fondation Pierre Gianadda
Mitsou. Quarante images par Balthus, Préface de Rainer Maria Rilke, Rotapfel-Verlag, Zurich et Leipzig, 13 pages + 40 feuilles de planches, 1921, 19 x 24.7, Collection Fondation Pierre Gianadda
Mitsou. Quarante images par Balthus, Préface de Rainer Maria Rilke, Rotapfel-Verlag, Zurich et Leipzig, 13 pages + 40 feuilles de planches, 1921, 19 x 24.7, Collection Fondation Pierre Gianadda
Mitsou. Quarante images par Balthus, Préface de Rainer Maria Rilke, Rotapfel-Verlag, Zurich et Leipzig, 13 pages + 40 feuilles de planches, 1921, 19 x 24.7, Collection Fondation Pierre Gianadda
16 juin – 23 novembre 2008. Tous les jours de 9h à 19h. Fondation -Pierre Gianadda, Rue du Forum 59 - 1920 Martigny (Suisse) - Tél. n°: (+41) 27 722 39 78 - Fax n°: (+41) 27 722 52 85 - info@gianadda.ch
03 août 2008
"Early Buddhist Manuscript Painting: The Palm-leaf Tradition" @ The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Folio from an Ashtasahashirika Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) manuscript showing a seated Bodhisattva Maitreya. India (West Bengal) or Bangladesh. Pala period, early 12th century. Opaque watercolor on palm leaf. Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 2001
NEW YORK.- An installation of 30 palm-leaf folios from Indian illuminated manuscripts will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on July 29, 2008. Featuring some of the earliest surviving Indian manuscripts, dating from the 10th to the 13th century, Early Buddhist Manuscript Painting: The Palm-leaf Tradition will center on one remarkable Mahayanist Buddhist text, the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra ('Perfection of Wisdom'), illustrated through the Museum's rare holdings of eastern Indian and Nepalese illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts, book-covers, initiation cards, thankas, and sculptures.
"Indian illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts of the 10th to 13th centuries are extremely rare, and the few that survived did so outside India, principally in the monasteries of Tibet. The painting style we witness in these earliest surviving manuscripts reflects stylistic conventions developed in Indian temple and monastic mural painting, now almost completely lost to us. Thus these manuscript paintings provide a unique insight into Indian painting styles at the close of the first millennium A.D.," said John Guy, Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art in the Museum's Department of Asian Art. Drawn from the Museum's own holdings of illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts, the installation will feature many rarely seen works, including some that have never been exhibited.
Traditional Indian manuscripts consist of a series of unbound folios, prepared from treated and trimmed leaves of the palm tree, and secured between wooden covers. The folios and covers were beautifully illuminated with miniature illustrations, typically with images of the deities to whom the text was dedicated and who were evoked through the recitation of the text. Narrative themes, such as scenes from the life of the historical Buddha, occur more rarely. These manuscripts have helped transmit Indian religious thought for over 2,000 years, and from at least the 10th century served as the vehicle for preserving some of the earliest surviving paintings known from India.
On view will be a series of remarkable folios from editions of the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita manuscript, depicting both the wisdom goddess Prajnaparamita herself, and Buddhist Bodhisattvas who serve as the embodiment of compassion to all living creatures, extending blessings and boons to devotees. A 10th- to 11th-century illustrated book cover, probably painted in Nepal, depicts the goddess flanked by scenes from the life of the historical Buddha. Other highlights of the installation are two folios from a unique edition of the Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita manuscript (ca. 1090), one of which depicts the Buddha giving safety to mariners.
Folio from an Ashtasahashirika Prajnaparamita (Perfection of Wisdom) manuscript showing a seated Bodhisattva Maitreya. India (West Bengal) or Bangladesh. Pala period, early 12th century. Opaque watercolor on palm leaf. Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 2001
28 juillet 2008
Acqusition d'un dessin de Lucas van Leyden par le Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Lucas van Leyden (Netherlandish, Leyden ca. 1494 - 1533 Leyden), The Archangel Gabriel announcing the birth of Christ, Pen and brown ink; traces of squaring in black chalk, 8 5/16 × 6 1/2 in. (21.1 × 16.5 cm).
NEW YORK.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired a drawing of the Archangel Gabriel announcing the birth of Christ by the Netherlandish master Lucas van Leyden (Leyden ca. 1494 – 1533 Leyden), it was announced today. The drawing, dating to the 1520s, enters the Museum's collection through the combination of a promised gift by Leon D. and Debra R. Black and purchase by the Museum. It is now the only drawing by the artist in America. The work, in pen and brown ink with traces of squaring in black chalk, is the pendant to a drawing depicting the Virgin looking up from her book that is in the Kupferstich kabinett, Berlin. Both works were monogrammed by the artist and were most likely conceived as models for stained-glass windows. The monumentality of the figures, and especially that of the Archangel, as well as the affecting, controlled, yet sensitive drawing style, situate them among the masterful drawings of the artist's maturity.
"Given its quality, importance, and rarity in the field, this drawing is a spectacular addition to the Metropolitan Museum's drawings collection and we are most grateful to the Blacks for making it possible," stated Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Museum. “It also crowns our efforts over the past 15 years to make the Met the most comprehensive repository of Netherlandish drawings in America."
Lucas van Leyden was the greatest artist of the Northern Netherlands to have emerged before the end of the 16th century. He gained his international fame mainly through his prints; as a painter he is known only by around 15paintings. His drawings, which belong to the highlights of 16th-centuryNetherlandish art, are almost equally rare – only 28, including the one just acquired by the Metropolitan, are generally accepted by scholars as by the artist, many of which are in the collections of the British Museum (eight sheets) and the Louvre (four).
The drawing is a typical example of Lucas's late pen drawings, characterized by the concentration on one, or few, figures, which are given full importance in the composition, and by a subtle net of varying hatchings and cross-hatchings. The composition follows a long-established iconographic tradition that also includes the Metropolitan’s own Merode triptych and a contemporary Annunciation by Joos van Cleve. However, in this drawing and its pendant, Lucas concentrates almost exclusively on the figures, omitting all details of the interior in which the scene takes place except for the lectern at which the Virgin is reading and Gabriel's usual attribute of a scepter. The drawing will be included in the fall 2008 exhibition organized by the Metropolitan Museum's curators in honor of Director Philippe de Montebello's31-year tenure at the Metropolitan Museum, on the occasion of his upcoming retirement. The exhibition, The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions, will be on view in the Museum's Tisch Galleriesfrom October 24, 2008, through February 1, 2009.