Art History Today

Poussin and “The Shock of the Nude.”

Well, for better or worse there’s no doubt that modern artists like Poussin. This time it’s the turn of the late pop artist Richard Hamilton. His last major artwork was interrupted by death last year; but as the Independent reports here, “he allowed the National Gallery to incorporate three of his Photoshop studies in a show of his works he was already planning with them.”

The image above was inspired by Balzac’s famous story about an artist, Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu I have used this source on my courses, but I usually choose Picasso's witty drawings and paintings on the subject- scan down this post for examples. But I might use Hamilton’s unfinished work now as I find the nude, Poussin, Courbet and Titian an intriguing juxtaposition. It invites interesting perspectives on art history.

One thing. If Poussin represents “youth” in this fragment of the “Balzac  Triptych”, I should point out that Poussin was middle-aged when he did his self-portrait in 1649-50; though Poussin is a young, unknown painter in Balzac’s story, but Hamilton could have chosen the British Museum S/P which shows NP as a younger man. Titian’s fine for old age, and as for Courbet, he might be too young for middle-age. It’s a pity Hamilton isn’t here to explain what he meant to say here.

A slideshow is available here.

Luke Syson. Leonardo and the Curators.

I wish I could get to this interesting looking talk to be given in Scotland later this month by Leonardo curator Luke Syson of the Met..

• Tuesday, 28th August 2012 ,6-7.30pm
• Free but ticketed

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Hawthornden Lecture Theatre - Gardens Entrance (Scottish National Gallery)

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For an artist of Leonardo's almost overwhelming fame, there is astonishingly little agreement as to what he actually painted. Thus the choice of works for 2011's London exhibition received considerable attention. And since the attribution to Leonardo of only one of the paintings in the show - The Vatican Saint Jerome - has never been doubted, there is much at stake.

Luke Syson, Iris and B Gerald Cantor Curator in Charge, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, focuses on three of the most debated: The Madonna Litta in Saint Petersburg, the newly restored London Virgin of the Rocks and the Buccleuch Madonna of the Yarnwinder. He will consider the role of traditional connoisseurship as set against what we learn from documentary and, in particular, scientific evidence. What was considered a Leonardo in the years around 1500 and how might we answer - or even ask - that question today?

This talk has been funded by the Association of Art Historians and is a joint initiative between the University of Edinburgh (History of art), Edinburgh Art Festival and the National Galleries of Scotland.

Free tickets available from the Information Desk at the Scottish National Gallery

The origins of controversy in modern connoisseurship began with Leonardo. See my review of this book. I’m intrigued by what Syson has to to say about traditional connoisseurship, although I can guess. Last year’s Leonardo at Milan catalogue, complied by this curator and others didn’t seem to take much account of the more traditional variety of connoisseurship. Instead we were told to bow down to the findings of technical research conducted by laboraties such as the Hermitage concerning such works as the Litta Madonna (above), even though most people dispute the attribution for good reasons. That’s just one of many cases.

If anybody attends this event, I wouldn’t mind a report on the issuers raised.

A Debate in Parliament

As I’m pressed for time I’m just going to post verbatim a report I’ve received from the Camerons about the Malmesbury Judgement of Paris. It is important new evidence, and comes from no other source than Hansard, the record of Parliamentary proceedings. I agree with GC; the timing is weird given that I’ve just posted about connoisseurship, Eastlake and the painting itself. Are the gods looking down on this blog!

 

An example of Hansard from the 19th century.

Verbatim from Graeme and Norman Cameron.

“Important New Research Evidence of Lord Malmesbury's "The Judgement of Paris" involving 'Sir Charles Eastlake' and the painting's 'Louvre Paris Exhibition', and also 'Connoisseurship Matters' in The House of Lords Hansard, of July 1869.

In a fascinating twist of providence, a valuable historical account has now been discovered by art researchers Graeme and Norman Cameron, with direct links to the same Three Topics covered in "Art History Today's" recent Posts. In an amazing coincidence, further significant new evidence as to the distinguished status of Lord Malmesbuy's painting comes from no less than the House of Lords, London Debate Report, in the Hansard of 26th. July 1869..

It concerns the National Gallery London's picture purchases, particularly of a Rembrandt, in the course of which, Lord Malmesbury contributes observations to the Debate. In a lengthy response he refers to a Letter of Attestation he has from the Late Sir Charles Eastlake; ( this Letter was earlier cited in these Posts, but its contents were unknown ). However, Eastlake's letter said, "It was one of the finest Giorgione's he had ever seen". This unequivocal statement from the still revered former the inaugural Director of the National Gallery, London, Artist & Connoisseur, when added to those of Prof. Gustave Waagen, Dr. J D Passavant, and Sir Martin Conway, shows just how acclaimed this painting was in the 19thC.

More importantly, Lord Malmesbury's speech reveals that Eastlake's regard for the painting was such that he arranged for "The Judgement of Paris" to be exhibited at the Louvre in Paris the late 1860's. Interestingly whilst there, a Louvre official expressed "it was not by "Giorgione" but another "Venetian Master", (Titian?)

This adds a most significant previously uncited "foreign" Exhibition credential to this painting's already extensive United Kingdom exhibition record and shows just how acclaimed this masterpiece was by both doyen Connoisseurs and the general public, as confirmed at both Manchester & Leeds Art Treasures Exhibitions and those at the RA's "Burlington House", etc..

Lord Malmesbury's speech also gives fascinating insights into his family's ownership and custodianship of the painting, especially his generous allowing weekly private viewing to art loving admirers at his Stafford Place residence, and gives other rare insights on 19thC collecting and altruism, which are equally relevant even today.”

The relevant section of the debate is below, the reference to the Judgement, its exhibition in Paris, and the Louvre curator’s non-Giorgione attribution  comes right at the end. Here’s a link to the whole of the Lord's debate of 1869, on Hansard’s web site. Now why can’t David Cameron- who studied art history at Eton- start a debate on the merits of connoisseurship and attribution in the Commons!

The Upper Chamber, the House of Lords.

HL Deb 26 July 1869 vol 198 cc651-65 651

Relevant section

The Earl of Malmesbury said, they must all feel obliged to the noble Lord (Lord Overstone) for his explanation, which showed that the Trustees displayed their judgment without fear or favour in choosing pictures for the National Gallery. If, indeed, there were any part of the noble Lord's speech with which he felt inclined to find fault, it was that in which he appeared to be more than displeased at these Questions having been put. The noble Lord must be aware that Questions of this kind, when asked in either House, were not only perfectly fair in a Parliamentary point of view, but were likewise a proof of the great interest felt by the public in the success of the National Gallery. He was sure that the noble Lord himself did not desire that the people of this country should wander in stupid silence through the rooms in which these pictures were hung, and no one with such a liberal mind as his could find fault with the remarks and criticisms, however extraordinary, which those who inspected the treasures of art preserved in the Gallery might make. These were after all, nothing more nor less than expressions of opinion. The noble lord had styled the Questions put to him this evening as ungenerous Questions; but for his own part he (the Earl of Malmesbury) thought they were evidences of the pride and interest which all persons in this country, whatever their rank might be, took in the art treasures which were to be found in our National Gallery. He maintained that it was entirely a matter of opinion as to whether a picture were genuine or not, and more especially must this be the case with regard to pictures painted by the Old Masters. When it was considered that upwards of three centuries had elapsed since the Venetians put their pencils to the canvass, it was obviously impossible to have what in a court of justice would be called complete and positive evidence that such and such a picture was painted by such and such a man who lived in the 16th century; all we could do was to trace the pedigrees and successive owners of these pictures, and to draw an inference from the facts as to whether they were genuine or not. 663 Most of the paintings in the National Gallery had, he believed, passed through that ordeal, and might be regarded with pride and confidence as genuine works of the Masters to whom they were ascribed. If it had not been for the Questions put this evening, the public would not have had the advantage of being acquainted with the complete pedigrees of the pictures to which the noble Lord had referred. Considering the great difficulty of identifying ancient pictures, he could not but admire the characteristic sagacity of a certain class of collectors—he meant those men who, having in the course of a life of practical business accumulated large fortunes, and having great taste and a desire to form galleries of pictures, almost universally discarded the Old School and laid out their money in purchasing modern pictures, the genuineness of which could be ascertained far more readily than the authenticity of works alleged to be by the Old Masters. This circumstance showed that the public were excusable if they were suspicious and timid with respect to purchasing pictures of the Old Masters; and the noble Lord and his Colleagues—for whose exertions he felt assured the country was deeply grateful —must occasionally expect Questions similar to those which had been asked this evening. The noble Lord had quoted various authorities; but it would not be difficult to show that those authorities did not agree among themselves. He himself possessed a picture which for the last 100 years had been deemed to be an undoubted Giorgione. Some lovers of art used to come to look at it two or three times a week, and he had a letter from the late Sir Charles Eastlake, in which he stated it was one of the finest Giorgiones he had ever seen. Yet when he sent that picture to the Exhibition at Paris, a gentleman employed at the Louvre pronounced it to be the work, not of Giorgione, but of another Venetian master. Indeed, he believed there was only one way of discovering the real authors of these ancient pictures —namely, by calling in the aid of spiritualism, and bringing ourselves into correspondence with Mr. Home, who should be requested to interrogate Giorgione, Titian, and other great artists on the subject. Until their Lordships believed in spiritualism, however, they must rely upon opinions such as had been adduced 664 this evening by the noble Lord (Lord Overstone.)

A Restoration Too Far

Leonardo da Vinci, Virgin, Child and St Anne, Louvre, c. 1510.

 

Well, things have come to a pretty pass when eminent French curators refuse to associate themselves with the procedures of the Louvre. The Guardian reports that Ségolène Bergeon and Jean-Pierre Cuzin no longer agree with the cleaning treatment of one of the Louvre’s treasures- Leonardo’s Virgin and St Anne. Bergeon, an eminent expert on the cleaning of pictures said: "I can confirm that I have resigned from the international consultative committee, but my reasons I am reserving for a meeting with the president-director of the Louvre, Henri Loyrette."

Nobody can get a comment out of Cuzin, one of France’s greatest experts on paintings, but the Guardian says:

“Cuzin, the Louvre's former head of paintings, declined to comment beyond confirming his resignation. But a senior museum source said the experts believed the restoration had gone too far, and that steps had gone ahead without adequate tests. The restoration has divided the committee between those who believe the painting is now too bright and those who regard the cleaning as moderate. There were also disputes over whether an area dismissed as removable repaint was in fact a glaze applied by Leonardo."

The committee from which Bergeon and Cuzin have resigned include Luke Syson (curator of the current Leonardo exhibition) and Larry Keith, a restorer at the NG. It is emerging that the English, not the French wanted this restoration. "The English were very pushing, saying they know Leonardo is extremely delicate but 'we can move without any danger to the work.” Even the Louvre had doubts about undergoing this restoration since in the words of the Guardian:

“Seventeen years ago, the Louvre abandoned an earlier attempt to clean the painting amid fears over how the solvents were affecting the sfumato, Leonardo's trademark painterly effect for blurring contours. Since then, the British influence on restoration has helped to sway the Louvre.” And all this time I had doubts about the Louvre and cleaning!

Naturally, and understandably, this has roused the ire of the pressure group ArtWatch. It’s leader Michael Daly said  "Implicitly, this is a vote of no confidence in the National Gallery cleaning policy because the most pro-active members of the [Louvre] committee have been the advisers from the National Gallery."

The final verdict is that Leonardo’s St Anne has been “overcleaned” and there will be another inspection on the 3rd January. As for Syson and co, I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. Why on earth were they so overzealous for pressing for this restoration which experts tell me has irrevocably damaged the work?  Hardly an auspicious way to ring in the art history new year. Leonardo done in by committee.

 

A Tale of Two Pictures

What does it mean when an art historian changes his or her mind about an attribution? On the one hand, it might demonstrate flexibility and open-mindedness; on the other, it could indicate vacillation and even invite speculation about the scholar’s ability to judge the work of art. Of course there’s the practical aspect: new evidence emerges which might prompt a re-assessment of the case. Bernard Berenson changed his mind all the time; the lists he drew up of Italian renaissance paintings were subject to continual revision.[1]

Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, Portrait of a Woman, “La Belle Ferronière”, Louvre, Paris, about 1493-4, oil on walnut panel, 63 x 45 cm.

 

Revised edition of Clark’s Leonardo book.

Perhaps one of the most glaring examples of a revision was made by Berenson’s student Kenneth Clark. In earlier editions of his ground-breaking monograph on Leonardo, Clark attributed the Louvre version of the picture known as La Belle Ferronière- now in the landmark Leonardo show- to his pupil Boltraffio. This was pointed out by John Brewer in his interesting discussion of Clark’s role in the fortunes of La Belle Ferronière- both versions in his important book. As Brewer observed, in the 1939 and 1952 editions of the monograph, Clark wrote “It is reasonable to suppose that Leonardo, occupied in multifarious commissions for the Sforzas allowed this promising youth [Boltraffio] to complete work from his designs, and that under his guidance the pupil achieved a delicacy absent from his later, independent work.” This comes after Clark has said “Some such hypothesis seems necessary if we are to explain the authorship of the painting in the Louvre, known as La Belle Ferronière.” I’ve quoted this as it appears in Brewer’s book because my copy, which is 1958, says something completely different, which was noted by Brewer. After analysing the Louvre painting, including noting its “commonplace pose” and comparing it to Lorenzo Costa- a minor Ferrarese painter- Clark concluded with this orotund pronouncement. “No one who prefers truth to finality should be dogmatic about La Belle Ferronière, but I am now inclined to think that the picture is by Leonardo, and shows how in those years he was willing to subdue his genius to the needs of the court.”

[2]

Lord Clark on Civilization.

Brewer is the first to point out not the change of mind per se, but the fact that it is not pointed out to the reader.[3] Of course this could be Clark writing for the cognoscenti, and expecting them to pick up on the changes invisible to the un-initiated; however, his Leonardo monograph- quite rightly so- has found a much wider readership outside the charmed circle of connoisseurs and experts, yet many people remain ignorant of the original Boltraffio attribution. Brewer confessed himself puzzled by this volte-face, but I prefer to see it as reticence on Clark’s part to assign the portrait to Leonardo. The comment about subduing his genius to the needs of the court is hardly a ringing endorsement of the painting, and it must be remembered that Clark initially quoted Berenson’s weary words: “one would regret to have to accept this as Leonardo’s own work.” Berenson was never fond of the Milanese school anyway, and dismissed Leonardo’s imitators like Boltraffio, professing interest only in Leonardo’s share of their work, not the intrinsic qualities of their own. Berenson rued the day that Leonardo had come to Milan, and fervently wished he had stayed in Florence. Milanese painting would then have evolved differently, probably turning into an outpost of Venetian or Brescian painting.The School would have culminated in Veronese rather than Luini.[4] I don’t think Berenson would have liked the London show at all!

Unknown artist, possibly 17th century French, Portrait of a Woman, “La Belle Ferronière”, Private Collection, USA.

Although Brewer was nonplussed by Clark’s turnaround, he did introduce a cautious hypothesis: Clark who had been studying photographs of the American Leonardo, the “Hahn Leonardo” might have been swayed by them into a reassessment. Perhaps Clark’s “acquaintanceship with photographs in 1956 and his knowledge that the picture was on the market led to his revaluation.”[5] At this time Clark found himself in the middle of an attribution war orchestrated by Maurits van Dantzig, the founder of “pictology” and nemesis of art historians-see my review of Brewer’s book. Van Dantzig who had visited the London Leonardos in the N.G. in 1957, and circulated copies of pages of Clark’s Leonardo book in order to highlight the change of mind, worked with Frank Glenn who’d helped Harry Hahn publish his Rape of La Belle in 1946. Glenn and Van Dantzig were obviously trying to get the painting sold, hence their pursuit of expert opinion. To cut a long and labyrinthine story short, Van Dantzig finally turned to his friend Helmut Ruhemann, the “father of picture cleaning” to make representations to Kenneth Clark about the Hahn La Belle, which had now been brought to Europe. Ruhemann met Clark in June, 1958, and the plan was to persuade Clark to help with negotiations with the Louvre who had agreed to the showing of both pictures side by side- behind closed doors- way back in 1923. Everybody in the Hahn camp was gearing up for a sale, but Van Dantzig’s death in 1960 threw the strategy out of balance, though his wife took up the cause and tried to arrange a meeting with top officials of the London N.G. as well as Ruhemann. One would have to endorse Sir Philip Hendy’s declaration, who on seeing the picture in London on the 13^th May, 1960 cried “not a Leonardo!” Despite Ella van Dantzig’s consternation, Hendy was unfailingly polite and very gracious, impressing the widow by giving her and a daughter a masterclass with the Hahn “Leonardo” next to the Virgin of the Rocks, though one would hardly need that to see the difference. Ella van Dantzig’s remembrance of the encounter with Hendy are worth repeating. “He thought it was very pretty, and was much prettier than the picture in the Louvre. But it was not a Leonardo.”

Art Historian’s disguise kit.

Despite this major setback, Ruhemann continued his charm offensive on Clark which would result in Clark actually seeing the picture under conditions of secrecy. Responding to Ruhemann, Clark asked if he could “slip” into the NG one day, without anybody seeing him, in disguise. It emerged years later via a letter from Clark that he had actually gone to see the Hahn La Belle when it was in London; and that he had worn a disguise, swearing the restorer who showed it him to secrecy! I would expect Anthony Blunt to get involved in this cloak and dagger stuff, but Clark! Was he ashamed to admit interest in the picture?

Laurent de La Hyre, Allegory of Grammar, London, National Gallery, 1650, oil on canvas, 103 x 113 cm

Ruhemann was to persist with the Louvre over the Hahn La Belle, but that’s another story. Meanwhile, Clark was done with the picture. He said in a letter to Ruhemann that he was “completely convinced” that the Louvre La Belle was “the original of the Fifteenth-Century, and the Hahn picture a post-Raphaelesque copy.” Brewer notes that Clark still doesn’t say the Louvre version is by Leonardo. Interestingly, when Martin Kemp examined the Hahn Leonardo in 1993, in its sealed vault in Omaha, he judged it “probably a northern European copy of the first half of the second century, perhaps by the French academician, Laurent de La Hyre.[6] This apparently, conformed with the view of Duveen’s cohort of connoisseurs. Thinking about it, this seems a good call to me. La Hyre is a graceful, “sweet” painter, but this is offset by his drawing which relies heavily on the contour. His line is sharp, sometimes too much so, which lends his pictures an air of the studied academicism rather than naturalism. La Hyre, like the painter of the Hahn La Belle, is an exponent of line drawing rather than mass drawing. Though there is shading, it’s seldom allowed to blur his edges. It’s difficult to mount a comparison, but you’ll get an idea of La Hyre’s style from his Allegory of Grammar in the London National Gallery. I’m not saying definitely that the Hahn La Belle is by La Hyre, or in his style. That’s a question that might be resolved in the future, although that seems increasingly unlikely with the Hahn Leonardo buried in a private collection.

As a coda, in his very well researched entry on the Louvre La Belle, in the catalogue to the current London exhibition, Luke Syson refers briefly to the attribution issues bound up with this painting, stating that “the picture has been regularly removed from Leonardo’s corpus of fully autograph pictures, assigned wholly or in part to a pupil or follower, most frequently Boltraffio.” This of course brings us back to Clark and his intriguing revision of the 1950s, in a book where he stated that Leonardo was willing to subdue his genius to “the needs of the court” in order to paint pictures such as the Louvre La Belle Ferronière, assuming he did paint it.[7]

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[1] See David Alan Brown’s catalogue to the exhibition, Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Italian Painting, (Washington, 1979), 43-4.

[2] Kenneth Clark, Leonardo da Vinci: An account of his development as an Artist, (London, 1958), 56-7.

[3] Brewer, The American Leonardo, 297.

[4] Bernard Berenson, Italian Painters of the Renaissance: Vol. 1, Venetian and North Italian Schools, (London, 1952), 87-8.

[5] Brewer, The American Leonardo, 197.

[6] As reported in Brewer, The American Leonardo, 349.

[7] Luke Syson in Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, (NG, 2011), no. 17, 123.

A First for the Louvre and an Omission in the National Gallery.

Georges de La Tour, Christ in the Carpenter’s Shop, 1645, oil on canvas, 137 x 101 cm.

 

Reading Art History News and the Tribune de l'Art posts about the Louvre's acquisition of a painter, hitherto unrepresented in that museum, Jean Le Clerc, got me thinking about a glaring 17th century French omission in our own National Gallery. This is a painter who may have influenced Le Clerc, Georges de La Tour. Though the gallery has a good collection of the French school, Poussin, Claude, Mignard, Le Sueur, the Le Nain, Champaigne, Vouet, it doesn’t posses a La Tour, though it had the chance when one was offered to the gallery for a low price under Kenneth Clark’s directorship. However, Clark with typical patrician scorn dismissed La Tour’s wonderful Christ in the Carpenter’s Shop as too vulgar, even when Anthony Blunt and an influential aristocrat tried to sway Clark. It isn’t always the acquisition budget that counts in these matters.

If you’re wondering what museum now has possession of the rejected La Tour- given to it in 1948….Take a wild guess!

National Gallery Notes

With the opening of the Leonardo exhibition just days away. the National Gallery are marking the event with the publication of their latest Technical Bulletin, no. 32,.all on Leonardo da Vinci. As Art History News says- thanks for the link- this is “art history nirvana.” Better still, it’s free. While you’re here, also download another free edition of the Bulletin, no. 31, which looks at a Verrocchio work, and the wider question of the relationship between Verrocchio and his students, including Leonardo. The essays on Leonardo in Verrocchio’s studio, in no. 32, and this essay should ideally be read back to back.

I took time out from my busy teaching schedule to visit the NG last Monday. I  wanted to look at the exhibition on Sir Charles Locke Eastlake before it closed, at the end of this month. I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t a bigger installation, just five pictures acquired by the first director of the NG, and one of the instigators of “scientific connoisseurship.” However, it was worth visiting, especially for the opportunity to peek at some pages of Eastlake’s travel journals, see his passport, and some letters. A nice little ensemble celebrating the man’s achievements. In addition to a copy by Eastlake of Titian’s Martyrdom of St Peter Martyr, there are works by well known artists like Pisanello, Giovanni Bellini;, G. Catena; there’s also pictures by obscure artists like Bona da Ferrara and Ambrogio Bergogne. Hurry, if you want to see it as it’s due to close very soon.

 

Pisanello, Apparition of the Virgin to Sts George and Anthony Abbot, 1445, egg tempera on poplar,  46.5 x 29 cm. Presented by Lady Eastlake to the NG, in memory of her husband, in 1867.

Though there wasn't any literature to accompany the exhibition, I did visit the bookshop and pick up a copy of Susanna Avery-Quash and Julie Sheldon’s Art for the Nation: The Eastlakes and the Victorian Art World, which I daresay I’ll read and review on the blog, when time permits. I also bought a copy of John Brewer’s The American Leonardo, a tale of connoisseurship, greed and deceit. Can’t wait to read that! I still have more Leonardo lectures to put up and one connoisseurship- oriented post on the Raphael Judgement of Paris. So much to do, so little time- the common complaint!

A Correction, and some Technical Notes on Holbein

1.Hans Holbein the Younger, Portrait, Princess Elizabeth Tudor, Private Collection, about 1542,tempera and oil on oak panel, 52 x 42 cm.	2.Details showing bonnet and brooch. A miniature world of elegance hinting at the sitter’s status and wealth.

I need to make a correction about the Holbein in the review of Graeme Cameron’s book, which has been pointed out to me by the author. Still, it gives me the opportunity to show better quality images of the painting.

I erroneously said that the frame of the Holbein portrait of the young Princess Elizabeth had been dated to 1542. This is not the case. The frame was examined in 1997 by Dr Peter Klein, of Universitat Hamburg, for dendrochronology testing, but he was unable to find any Oak end grain growth rings to help the dating. However, the panel of the portrait has been dated to 1542. In addition to various scientific testing, including infra-red scanning carried out by others, Dr Libby Sheldon of University College, London, analysed its pigments and materials. To cut a long story short, the painting materials in the portrait were found to be consistent with other works by Holbein, including the Lady with a Squirrel and Starling, in the National Gallery, London.

3.Ground azurite powder for use as a pigment.	4.Natural ultramarine.

Interestingly, the blue pigment azurite, which a NG Technical Bulletin says was “a standard pigment of German artists in particular” was detectable in both. To the uninitiated it might look like lapis lazuli or ultramarine, and in fact the two were often confused, since lapis lazula was a term applied to many blue pigments. However, azurite was also in demand; research  has shown that azurite was used more in the past, especially in medieval times. It;s interesting to speculate why Holbein and other German artists favoured this blue rather than others. Below is a composite image showing the face of Elizabeth and the woman in  the London portrait, which shows the colour. Note that Elizabeth’s face is shown during restoration, with earlier darkened over painted layers removed, the whole in need of further restoration, including filling in the craquelure.

5.Faces of Elizabeth and Lady with Squirrel merged. Similar technique and physiological features,, e.g. eye. Elizabeth panel suffers from craquelure.	6.Hans Holbein the Younger, Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling, National Gallery, London, about 1526-8, oil on oak, 56 x 38.8 cm.

In addition to colour and technique, there are also physiognomic concordances between the Elizabeth portrait and another Holbein, this time in Toledo, Ohio.

7.Hans Holbein, Elizabeth Tudor and Portrait of a Lady, probably a member of the Cromwell family, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, c. 1535-40.

This has been a short post, but I’ll return to these matters at length in a post I’m planning on the newly discovered Judgement of Paris, later in the month. Images 1,2,5,6,7 courtesy of Graeme Cameron.

Poussin’s Revenge

The above is what  a colleague of mine is calling the wave of  impending strikes at the National Gallery. In response to concerns about security, the foot soldiers of the museum are threatening a series of strikes next month that could seriously disrupt the high-profile Leonardo exhibition due to start on the 9th November.  The cause of these projected walkouts are the new security arrangements. From the Guardian:

“Under pressure from government cuts, the gallery has instructed its warders – now called "gallery assistants" – to each watch over two rooms rather than one, as previously. Warders claim the new arrangement allowed the Poussin vandal time to attack two paintings because the warder was in the adjoining room.

About 200 members of staff – including curators – have signed a protest petition to the gallery's director, Nicholas Penny.”

Security has been a burning issue since the attack on Poussin’s Golden Calf perpetuated in the summer. I can only assume that the great French master would have approved of the action the warders, or “gallery assistants” as they are now forced to call themselves, might take on behalf of his art, Leonardo’s and all the other old masters in the gallery.

The article doesn’t mention it, but it remains to be seen how other major museums like Cracow and the Louvre are going to react to this growing storm, since their valuable masterpieces will be vulnerable too.

I haven’t yet booked a ticket for the show, and that might prove a blessing in the long run.

A Medic in the Museum

The connection between museums and medicine does not spring to mind, although there is a historical link. Some museums were originally ecclesiastical institutions that ministered to the sick, such as the Hôtel Dieu in Beaune or the Museo di San Marco in Florence. At Beaune, the sick were placed before Rogier van der Weyden’s impressive Last Judgment for solace.

One of the best attempts to fuse the art museum and the medical institution is in Ivan Gaskell’s Vermeer’s Wager in which he says the following:

“Many analogies can be drawn between art museums and hospitals: more, probably, than between art museums and the institutions with which, as sites of scholarship, they are most often compared: universities. One analogy concerns the techniques of education of their staffs. Pierre Bourdieu has described the differences in education conferred by medical facilities of arts and science. He demonstrates that, whereas in the latter the production and reproduction of knowledge are formalized and transmitted rationally, medical education is the acquisition of an internalised set of skills constituting an art. In consequence, the relationships between the teacher-patrons and the pupil-clients differ markedly within the two institutions; Conditions in art museums more closely approximate the medical model than they do those of the arts and science faculties.”[1]

The French sociolinguist Pierre Bourdieu- mentioned in Gaskell’s extract- compared the “great surgeon” to the “supremo” of a hospital department. As Gaskell’s says, we need only substitute “museum director” or “head of curatorial department” for the medical categories. The pupil-clients become interns, or junior members of staff, who follow the teacher-patron on his rounds.

However, I’m now reading about a surgeon who takes his students on walks round the London National Gallery, visiting pictures like patients on morning call. Professor Michael Baum, a cancer expert, brings his diagnostic skills to bear on the problem of interpreting famous works like Piero di Cosimo’s so-called Nymph and Satyr. More generally, Baum stresses the importance of the eye in diagnosis and the art of painting itself.

"Art and medicine have parallel histories: accurate drawings of dissections were crucial for anatomical education, for example, while art therapy has provided patients with powerful cathartic releases. And now when we look with a trained eye, it is clear these artists had considerable medical knowledge and often used it with considerable subtlety."

The quality of perspicacity, not just defined as acuity of vision, but also the act of penetrating beneath the surface is of paramount importance here . As Baum obviously knows, in the early modern period some surgeons and doctors were art admirers and were trained in the analysis of pictures. To them there were parallels between opening up the body to determine the nature of a disease or the cause of death, and stripping back the layers of both paint and meaning in a work in their own collections. It’s true that Baum could be over-interpreting in his artistic/medical exposition of Piero’s painting, but many art historians have been guilty of wielding the scalpel of over-analysis when probing the mysteries of Piero’s work. As for the “waiter’s tip”, I’m in no position to say- not a medical expert. However, I think Baum’s surgical approach is instructive, and  I look forward to more diagnoses from the hospital ward of the National Gallery in the future.

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[1] Ivan Gaskell, Vermeer’s Wager: Speculations on Art History, Theory and Art Museums, Reaktion, 197-8.