Tag: 17th Century Art

EVCS | A newly discovered late work by Artemisia Gentileschi: Susanna and the Elders (1652)

European Visual Culture Seminar A newly discovered late work by Artemisia Gentileschi: Susanna and the Elders (1652) Adelina Modesti In 1652 Artemisia Gentileschi painted Susanna and the Elders, considered her last documented work, and believed lost. The painting has recently reappeared in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna with an attribution to the Baroque Bolognese artist Elisabetta Sirani, but identified as a work of Artemisia Gentileschi by the present speaker. This paper will explore the circumstances of the rediscovery, placing the work within the context of Gentileschi’s oeuvre, tracing its provenance and proposing a possible patron, based on recently discovered documents and on literary accounts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dr Adelina Modesti is an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Historical & European Studies, La Trobe University, Melbourne. Date: Monday 16 July 2012, 6:30pm Venue: Jim Potter Room, Old…

What are you looking at? | Mark Shepheard – Nicolas Poussin, The Crossing of the Red Sea

Nicolas Poussin, The Crossing of the Red Sea, 1633-34 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Poussin’s Crossing of the Red Sea was once something of a problem painting. Indeed, its exact relationship to the pendant Adoration of the Golden Calf (National Gallery, London) has made great fodder for undergraduate essay questions. The two works, clearly related in content and—as we shall see—origin have often been seen as quite dissimilar in composition and style, and these differences were once taken to indicate that the two paintings date from slightly different periods in the 1630s. We know from Bellori’s Life of Poussin (1674) that both the Crossing and the Golden Calf were painted for Amedeo dal Pozzo, Marchese del Voghera (1579-1644), and that they hung in his palazzo in Turin. Luigi Scaramuccia in his treatise on Italian painters—Le finezze de’ pennelli italiani, 1672—adds…

News | NGV unveils restored Poussin ‘The Crossing of the Red Sea’

Today the National Gallery of Victoria unveiled Nicolas Poussin’s The Crossing of the Red Sea’ after an intensive, twelve-month conservation project. The painting is one of the NGV’s, and arguably Australia’s, finest European masterpieces. It was painted by Poussin in 1633-34 along with its companion piece The Adoration of the Golden Calf, which is housed in the National Gallery in London. The restoration project was sponsored by BNP Paribas Australia & New Zealand, who have for the past eighteen years helped to restore over two hundred paintings, including works from the Chateau de Versailles, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Art Gallery of NSW, the Neue Pinakotheque in Munich and many other collections. The painting was cleaned twice during the twentieth century, once in 1947 while still in a private collection, and again in 1960 by London-based restorer Horace Buttery, in connection…

Review | Franco Mormando, ‘Bernini: His Life and His Rome’. Reviewed by John Weretka

Franco Mormando, Bernini: His Life and His Rome, 2011 John Weretka Franco Mormando, Bernini: His Life and His Rome, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2011 (ISBN-13 978-0-226-53852-2). Surprising as it may be, in a world awash with biographies of his somewhat older contemporary, Caravaggio, Bernini has all too frequently been overlooked in the traditional life-and-works genre. After filling the better part of half a century with a torrent of works in almost all media and for almost all occasions, the employee of a succession of popes and a leading figure in shaping the look of Rome during its seventeenth-century Golden Age, Bernini passed into eternity almost unnoticed: as Franco Mormando notes, we know reasonably little about the artist’s death and funeral exequies from contemporary notices, all the more surprising given the sumptuousness of the similar events to which he contributed during his own life.…

Call for Papers | Renaissance Society of America Conference, 2013, San Diego

Call for Papers The 59th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America 4–6 April 2013, San Diego Call for Papers: Submission Deadline: 15 June 2020 The Program Committee welcomes submissions for individual papers or panels on any aspect of Renaissance studies, or the era ca. 1300–1650. You need not be a member of RSA to submit a proposal, but if your paper is accepted you must become a member and register for the conference. Proposals will be evaluated by the Program Committee for their original scholarly contribution to an aspect of the field. For full details on how to submit a paper see the RSA San Diego webpage General principles 1. Each proposed paper must include: author’s name, email, and affiliation; paper title; abstract (150-word maximum); keywords; and a one-page curriculum vitae. 2. Proposals may be submitted by individual scholars, by…

What are you looking at? | David Packwood – Giuseppe Caletti, David with the Head of Goliath

Giuseppe Caletti, David with the Head of Goliath, Birmingham Museums and Art Galleries, c. 1650 The future King of Israel, David, is contemplating the head of the slain Goliath, champion of the Philistines. As the book of Samuel recounts, David hurls a stone from his sling, which hits Goliath in the centre of his forehead and fells him; David subsequently cuts off his head which results in the flight of the Philistines. In Caletti’s painting, David seems to focus on the wound made by his slingshot; it is a congealed ochre smear, the aftermath of violence, reminiscent of the great red spot of Jupiter, or a bloodshot cyclopean eye. Now the giant’s real eyes are closed forever, but this mark seems to fascinate David as he seems to think back to the time of the battle. The impact must have…

What are you looking at? | David R. Marshall – Bernini’s Raimondi Chapel in S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome 1638–48

Bernini’s Raimondi Chapel in S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome 1638–48 David R. Marshall The Raimondi chapel in S. Pietro in Montorio is proof of the triumph of sculpture over painting. At 8.30am on a cold winter’s morning, when the church opens, it is the one well-lit part of the church (Fig. 1). Opposite, Sebastiano del Piombo’s Christ at the Column is plunged in gloom, from which it is barely rescued by artificial lighting (Fig. 2). To be sure it is a question of condition, but then the condition of the Raimondi chapel is not great either, with loose pieces of marble lying about, but it does not affect the experience. What stands out is the sarcophagus below the right hand Raimondi (Monsignor Girolamo, died 1628) (Fig. 3). The Bernini conceit of hinging back the top of the sarcophagus (which I…

Exhibition Review | Guercino: A Passion for Drawing – The Collections of Sir Denis Mahon and the Ashmolean Museum by David Packwood

Guercino: A Passion for Drawing – The Collections of Sir Denis Mahon and the Ashmolean Museum Ashmoleon Museum, Oxford, 11th February 2012 to 15th April 2012 Reviewed by David Packwood Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, better known as Guercino (1591-1666) because of his squint, was one of the most prolific draughtsmen of the seicento. Many of his drawings survive, attesting to his industry, commitment and unwavering belief in his art. Born in Cento—mid way between Bologna and Ferrara—the biographers say that he drew from the age of six. Beckoned by the flourishing Carracci academy in Bologna, Guercino went there to study their art, but had the confidence to set up shop on his own. With the election of a Bolognese pope from the Ludovisi family in 1621, Guercino found artists from that region favoured, and so he graduated to painting ceilings of palaces…

EVCS: Callum Reid ‘Annibale Carracci’s Holy Family at the National Gallery of Victoria’

Callum Reid ‘Annibale Carracci’s Holy Family at the National Gallery of Victoria’ This paper examines the little- studied Holy Family by Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), which hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria, and discusses its style, iconography and position within the artist’s oeuvre. The subject of the ‘Holy Family’ was repeated several times during the artist’s transition from a Bolognese to a Roman style, and it provides a means of studying this development closely through a comparison between each painting: the constancy of theme and figures serves to highlight the critical changes in style. This paper presents the Melbourne Holy Family within the context of these smaller devotional works, considering both the social and personal transitions that they represent. It also brings to light new documents concerning the painting’s provenance and artistic reception. Date: Monday 5th September, 2011, 6:30pm. Venue: Rm 150, Elisabeth Murdoch Building, the University of Melbourne, Parkville. All Welcome. Drinks and nibbles provided (gold coin…

Exhibition Review: Gabriel Metsu – National Gallery of Art, Washington by John Weretka

Exhibition Review Gabriel Metsu  1629–1667 National Gallery of Art, Washington April 17 – July 24 2011 Reviewed by John Weretka Difficult as this is to believe for a painter of his significance, this is only the second comprehensive exhibition of Gabriel Metsu’s work, the last having occurred in 1966. Although confined to just two rooms in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington and exhibiting almost forty of the painter’s panels, this show nonetheless makes a significant contribution to the study of Metsu, a painter whose works are confined largely to two decades (the 1650s and 1660s) and number scarcely over 130. The first room of the exhibition is largely, though not wholly, dedicated to the genre works of the 1650s and the second to domestic interiors popularised by Vermeer that occupied Metsu increasingly in the…

NGV Lecture: The Poussin Project

NGV Lecture The Poussin Project Carl Villis, Conservator or European paintings before 1800 Nicholas Poussin’s Crossing of the Red Sea (c. 1634) is one of the National Gallery of Victoria’s most prized paintings. For NGV conservator Carl Villis, thanks to a special grant from French bank BNP Paribas, a full year has been set aside to complete restoration of the work, and to publish weekly updates on the NGV website. Join Carl for a discussion of the work undertaken so far, and the opportunity to ask questions. Speaker: Carl Villis, Conservator or European paintings before 1800. Date: Saturday 4 June, 2pm. Venue: Clemenger BBDO Auditorium, NGV International. Cost: $12 NGV Member / $18 non-member. Bookings: Ph +61 3 8662 1555, 10am-5pm daily. Event code: M1127 or see website. For further information on the Poussin project see the NGV website.

Call for Papers: Rembrandt van Rijn Symposium – Scholarship for the New Century

Call for Papers Rembrandt van Rijn Symposium: Scholarship for the New Century Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland OH Deadline: Sep 1, 2020 In conjunction with the exhibition Rembrandt Paintings in America and Rembrandt Prints in the Morgan Library, both to be presented at the Cleveland Museum of Art February 19 to May 28, 2012, the Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Art are sponsoring a half-day symposium on the art of Rembrandt van Rijn, to be held on April 15, 2012. We seek papers from younger scholars, either advanced dissertation students or those who have finished their doctorate from 2002 to the present, on any aspect of Rembrandt’s paintings, prints, and/or drawings, including the history of collecting and exhibiting Rembrandt’s work and Rembrandt historiography. Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words to Jon Seydl, The Paul J.…

David R. Marshall – A Carracciesque Landscape at the Powerhouse

What are you looking at? A Carracci School Landscape on the lid of a virginal at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney On display in the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, at the moment is a virginal, which according to the label is a Bolognese work of 1629, made by a local priest, Vincentius de Taeggiis (85/372 OIC) (Fig. 1). The underside of the lid is painted with a landscape, by an unidentified artist (Fig. 2).  It is in a rather old-fashioned (for 1629) Flemish style, with layered trees, hunting scenes, trees composed of broad leaves painted light over dark over light (centre) and a yellow light in the sky. But there are also Carracci elements: the stress on Pozzoserrato-like mounds (Louvre Hunting landscape), a composition extending laterally with evenly weighted vertical elements, open expansive landscapes between, and framing coulisses (Berlin River Landscape),…

NGV Talk this Thursday: The Long Portrait Gallery with Curator Laurie Benson

The NGV has recently re-hung a portion of their extensive portrait collection to create ‘The Long Portrait Gallery: Renaissance and Barqoue Faces’. The new space includes works by Bernini, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, EL Greco, Titian, Tintoretto and Rubens. Join curator Laurie Benson at this talk and gain a greater insight into the artist’s practices and colourful stories of their sitters featured in this newly presented space. Speaker: Laurie Benson, Curator of International Art, NGV. Cost: Free Time: Thursday 1st July, 12:30pm Venue: Exhibition Space, Level 1, NGV International

New Database: Payments to Artists – 17th-Century Rome

A new database has been launched based on the research of Richard Spear for his recent book Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of Seventeenth-Century Italian Painters (see this earlier post for details on the book). The database is described on the Getty website as follows: Artists’ wealth, like that of most Renaissance and Baroque painters, was principally derived from what they earned selling their art. Data that documents payments to artists—as opposed to resale prices or inventory evaluations—is the primary means for analyzing the socioeconomic lives of painters in early modern Europe. This online database contains approximately 1,000 payments recorded in Rome between 1576 and 1711. Information concerning painters active in Rome for a small portion of their careers is limited to their Roman phase. Richard Spear gathered this set of data in order to write the Rome section…