The New York Times reports on a Caravaggio painting, stolen in 1969, which is back on view as a multi-layer digital copy. Nativity With St. Francis and St. Lawrence was unveiled this weekend in the Palermo oratory it was originally stolen from. The duplication was made primarily using past slide photographs and some plate-glass negatives, making the task all the more impressive. (more…)
Following the news that a painting sold as a Caravaggio copy may have in fact created by the artist, Sotheby’s is facing a lawsuit from the past owner. William Glossop Thwaytes is suing the auction house, maintaining that he believed the work authentic, while auction experts sold it as a copy, reportedly lowering the price considerably. The work was ultimately purchased by the late scholar and collector Denis Mahon, who immediately declared the piece an original valued at £10 million, after a sale price of £42,000. “Caravaggio is a particularly difficult artist,” Charles Beddington, a former head of Christie’s International Old Masters division. “The quality of his execution is variable, and so he’s easy to copy.” (more…)
The Cardsharps, a hotly debated work purchased by art historian and collector Denis Mahon, is set to go on view in April at the Museum of the Order of St John in London. The piece, whose attribution to a follower of Caravaggio allowed Mahon to purchase what may or may not be an original work by the 17th century master for £50,000, is currently the subject of fierce debate over its origin, as well as a lawsuit over its attribution between Sotheby’s and its previous owner. (more…)
Sotheby’s is being sued by a past seller for damages over a work they allegedly misattributed. The Cardsharps, attributed by the auction house to a “follower of Caravaggio,” was sold for £42,000, and later identified as an authentic Caravaggio by its purchaser, scholar Denis Mahon, increasing its value to an estimated £10 million. The claimant, Lancelot William Thwaytes, seeks unspecified damages, interests and costs for the value of the painting above its original selling price, but Sotheby’s is standing by their attribution. “Our view is also supported by the market, which gave its verdict on this painting when it set the price at £50,400. ” The company said in a statement. (more…)
Vik Muniz, Pictures of Magazine 2 (Installation View), via Galeria Elba BenÃtez
Currently on view at Galeria Elba BenÃtez in Madrid, Pictures of Magazine 2 is a solo show for Brazilian artist Vik Muniz. The works in this exhibition are created using Muniz’s unique collage process, combining magazine images to recreate the works of famous artists, all while incorporating his own artistic bent. He then takes photographs of his finished collages, enlarges them, and prints them to create the finished piece. (more…)
Disbelief over the authenticity of the recovered ‘Caravaggio‘ drawings is further expressed by Italian scholars with a negation from Maria Teresa Fiorio, the former director of Milan’s Castello Sforzesco, stating “how can you attribute [so many of] Peterzano’s drawings to his young apprentice and how can you trash all previous research? That archive has been studied by many academics before me, and none of them ever detected Caravaggio’s hand.”
Plans to replace 3,000 old masters with modern art in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie have left many local fans of classical art, and art historians, incensed. The galleries will be filled with an extensive collection of surrealist and expressionist art donated by a billionaire industrialist named Heiner Pietzsch, who gave his collection under the condition that it be displayed in its entirety. The old masters collection–including works by Brueghel, Raphael, and Caravaggio–will be temporarily housed in the Bode Museum, with no plans announced for a permanent home.
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Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ (or, The Kiss of Judas) 1573-1602, which was stolen two years ago and was recovered recently by German and Ukranian authorities.
German police announced Monday that a painting by Italian Renaissance master Caravaggio, rumored to be worth $100 million, was recovered after being nabbed from a Ukranian museum two years ago. According to the Associated Press, four suspects (three Ukranian nationals and one Russian) were arrested in Berlin as they attempted to sell the painting. Twenty additional suspects were arrested in the Ukraine in connection with the theft.
More text and images after the jump…
I Musici, 1595. All images via Scuderie del Quirinale
The Scuderie del Quirinale’s Caravaggio exhibition is one of several special events marking the 400th anniversary of this famous Italian artist’s death. Showcasing many of Caravaggio’s most representative paintings, the exhibition features works from prominent collections worldwide including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Staatliche Museum in Berlin, and Italian institutions such as the Uffizi and Borghese Galleries.
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Tacita Dean’s Christmas tree, ‘Weihnachtsbaum‘ at Tate Britain via Zimbio
The Tate has been embracing the Christmas spirit this week with a series of headlining seasonal happenings. The Tate Christmas Tree 2009, “Weihnachtsbaum” designed by Tacita Dean, shocked critics by actually appearing “Christmassy”[Bloomberg] This weekend, Tate Modern’s vast Turbine Hall was taken over by Rob Pruitt‘s festive ‘Flea Market’ – originally held at Gavin Brown’s Passerby gallery in New York in the late 1990s, this event was programmed to coincide with the Tate Modern exhibition Pop Life: Art in a Material World, in which Pruitt also appears [POP Magazine]
Italian police have seized works of art belonging to Carlisto Tanzi – founder of the Italian firm Parmalat who collapsed in a massive fraud scandal in 2003. The 19 paintings and drawings, included works by Picasso, Monet and Van Gogh, and is estimated to be worth more than 100million euros [BBC News]
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Antony Gormley’s Event Horizon that will appear in New York’s Madison Square Park in March 2010 via ArtInfo
Antony Gormley has announced plans to install 31 nude sculptures cast from his own body in and around Madison Square Park in Manhattan’s Flatiron District beginning March 26 [NY Times]
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Caravaggio’s “Conversion on the road to Damascus” (1601) Via FT.
Currently showing at Rome’s Galleria Borghese is an exhibition of paintings by Italian master Caravaggio and the 20th century Irish painter, Francis Bacon. The exhibition, which has already drawn over 70,000 visitors, displays 14 paintings by Caravaggio along with 17 paintings by Bacon and functions as a kind of commemoration– marking 400 years since Caravaggio’s death and 100 years since Bacon’s birth. Mixing the past and present masters together gives rise to inevitable comparison, and although it is widely acknowledged that Caravaggio had no direct influence upon Bacon, their work shares a broad range of thematic and stylistic properties– among them, a fascination with anatomy, a fixation on depicting an anguished and tormented human condition and revolutionary approaches towards depicting the human form and the expressive portrait in pursuit of realism.
Francis Bacon’s “Study of George Dyer.” (1969) Via FT. (George Dyer, Bacon’s most significant and constant companion and model, committed suicide in 1971, two days before Bacon’s major exhibit at the Grand Palais in Paris.)
More text, images and related links after the jump…
Dirck van Baburen, Young Man Singing (1622), part of the current exhibition at The Städel Museum. Via Art Knowledge News.
Through July 26, The Städel Museum is showing forty works by Caravaggio and his contemporaries in genre, the so-called Utrecht Caravaggists. Sponsored by Stiftung Flughafen Frankfurt/Main für die Region, the exhibition includes paintings by Henrick Terbrugghen, Gerard van Honthorst, and Dirck van Baburen, whose 1622 painting of a disheveled musician recently joined the Städel’s holdings.
Related links:
Caravaggio in Holland – Current Exhibitions – Städel Museum
The Städel Museum shows Caravaggio in Holland: Music and Genre in the Utrecht Caravaggists [Art Knowledge News]
Caravaggio, The Coronation with Thorns, at The Städel Museum. Via ArtTattler.
More images and story after the jump.
Caravaggio’s ‘Kiss of Judas’ or the ‘Taking of Christ’ via ArtDaily
Caravaggio’s ‘Kiss of Judas’ aka ‘Taking of Christ’, stolen from Odessa, is recovered; theft previously reported by AO in July here [ArtDaily]
The Moment interviews the Vogels, a New York couple who built a formidable contemporary art collection on a postman’s and librarian’s salary [NYTimes the Moment]
The New Yorker’s 10 best art exhibits of 2008 [NewYorker]
Reactive moments from Julian Schnabel on 60 Minutes [CBS]
The collage in question via the Independent
Damien Hirst cites 16 year old artist for copyright infringement regarding £65 collage works bearing Hirst’s imagery [IndependentUK]
Lehman Brothers to sell $8M collection [GuardianUK]
The Raft of the Medusa via rhett.biz
A new novel is based on Gericault’s painting, The Raft of the Medusa [holartbooks via C-Monster]
Italian curator Francesco Bonami will curate the 2010 Whitney Biennial [NYMag]
The Taking of Christ (Or, The Kiss of Judas), Caravaggio, 1573-1602 via Coxsoft
A painting by the master artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ (Or, The Kiss of Judas) was reported stolen from the Odessa Museum of Western and Eastern Art in the Ukraine. Thieves were able to sidestep the outdated alarm system, and escape through the museum’s roof. Originally purchased by a Russian ambassador, the painting had come into the museum’s hands last century. More details after the jump.
Caravaggio Stolen From Odessa Museum [Artinfo]
Caravaggio’s Christ Painting Stolen [Abc News]
Ukraine Laments Theft of a Caravaggio from museum [Reuters]
Caravaggio Work Stolen from Ukranian Museum (IHT)
