Our News Letter for July 2, 2015

Frederick Walker, ARA (1840-1875)

The Lost Path, c. 1863

Oil on canvas

7½ x 5¼ in. (9.1 x 13.3 cm.)

Foundling Museum

In an age when sexual innocence was highly valued and sex for a respectable woman was deemed appropriate only within marriage, the loss of chastity for an unwed woman had multiple repercussions. The figure of the ‘fallen’ woman was popularly portrayed in art, literature and the media as Victorian moralists warned against the consequences of losing one’s virtue. More on this painting

Frederick Walker was a painter; born 26 May 1840, in London. Trained in architect’s office 1855, at Leigh’s Academy 1857 and Royal Academy Schools 1858, then with engraver Josiah Wood Whymper 1858–9; joined the Langham Artists’ Society 1859 and made his mark as an illustrator, contributing to publications including Once a Week and Cornhill Magazine, where his popular drawings for Thackeray’s The Adventures of Philip appeared; subsequently established a reputation as a watercolourist and oil painter of contemporary subjects, notable for their lyrical and poetic feeling and dealing with narrative and social realist themes; member of the Old Watercolour Society from 1864, exhibited at the RA during the 1860s and elected ARA 1871.

He was described by George Du Maurier as ‘small and slight, though beautifully made, with tiny hands and feet’. [4] Walker was a vivid and engaging personality and a sportsman, especially keen on hunting and fishing. Magdalene Keaney

Richard Redgrave RA (1804 - 1888

The Outcast, c. 1851

Oil on canvas

784 mm x 1071 mm x 22 mm

Royal Academy of Arts

The Outcast represents a fallen woman with her illegitimate child being evicted from her home by her stern father, despite the pleadings of the family. On the floor is a purse of money and an incriminating letter. The scene is made more pathetic by the snowy wastes outside the door and the innocent child’s hand raised in echo of the hand of the pleading sister. More on this painting

Richard Redgrave (1804–1888) was an English painter, writer, and art administrator. He began as a painter of anecdotal literary subjects, often in 18th-century costume, but in the 1840s he became a pioneer of scenes of contemporary social concern (The Poor Teacher, 1845, Shipley AG, Gateshead). ‘It is one of my most gratifying feelings’, he wrote, ‘that many of my best efforts in art have aimed at calling attention to the trials and struggles of the poor and the oppressed.’ In his later career his artistic output consisted mainly of landscapes painted when he was on holiday, as most of his time was taken up with administration: he was Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures (see Royal Collection) from 1857 to 1880, and also held various posts at the Government School of Design (which became the Royal College of Art) and the South Kensington (later Victoria and Albert) Museum. More on Richard Redgrave (1804–1888)

In an age when sexual innocence was highly valued and sex life for a respectable woman was deemed appropriate only within marriage, the loss of chastity for an unwed woman had multiple repercussions. The figure of the ‘fallen’ woman has been mythologised through contemporary art, journalism and literature as Victorian moralists warned against the consequences of losing one’s virtue. The Foundling Museum. 

The answer, as a new exhibition at London’s Courtauld Gallery demonstrates, is not always straightforward. Here, curator Dr Karen Serres talks to Lavender Au about the show and 'incomplete' works by del Vaga, Rembrandt, Monet, Cézanne and more

An exhibition at Paris's Musée Marmottan Monet invites you into the bathrooms of the beauties of yesteryear, thanks to the voyeuristic brushstrokes of greats like Claude Monet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,Pierre Bonnard, and Berthe Morisot. More

A valuable Picasso stashed away for 55 years, an illegitimate baby and a love affair between a Russian soldier and a Scottish teenager during the height of the cold war.

It sounds like something out of a spy novel or a Hollywood film.

But it’s actually the secret past discovered by Dominic Currie, from Methil near Kirkcaldy in Fife, while cleaning out his attic. More

Newly Discovered Photo from 1887 showing Emile Bernard (second from the left), Vincent van Gogh (third from the left), André Antoine (standing at center), and Paul Gauguin (far right), and Other Drunk Artists, in a group photo (via the Romantic Agony auctions) More

[LEONARDO DA VINCI] AND VARIOUS PHOTOREPORTERS - Documenting the Theft and the Return of Mona Lisa, Florence-Paris, 1913 intage silver print, about 130x180 mm. The painting's fame increased greatly when it was stolen on 21 August 1911. The next day, Louis Béroud, a painter, walked into the Louvre and went to the Salon Carré where the Mona Lisa had been on display for five years, he found four iron pegs.... The Louvre was closed for an entire week to aid in investigation of the theft. The French poet Guillaume Apollinaire as well as Pablo Picasso came under suspicion ... but were later released. It was Vincenzo Peruggia, a Louvre employee, who had stolen the psinting, entering the museum during regular hours, hiding in a broom closet and walking out the building with the painting hidden ... (Cf. L’Illustration, Le Retour de la Joconde). Peruggia was an Italian patriot who believed Leonardo's painting should be returned to Italy for display in an Italian museum.  

CIRCLE OF EMILE BERNARD (1868-1941) -  "Van Gogh seated, seen from behind," Asnieres, winter 1886-1887 aristotype, 132x160 mm, later mount, ink caption on the print by Bernard: "asnières, my portrait 1886 "[Asnieres, My Portrait in 1886], Reviews another handwriting on the folded mount precised". Émile Bernard in conversation with Vincent Van Gogh on the quays of the Seine at Asnieres in 1887 both made ​​a painting entitled "Le Pont d ' Asnieres "which can be seen in the background of this photograph [Émile Bernard in talking with Vincent Van Gogh on the Seine's banks at Asnieres. In 1887 Both made ​​a painting titled" The Bridge at Asnieres "bridge can be seen in qui the background of this photograph]. "

'Tete au masque', 

ceramic plate by Pablo Picasso estimated between £6,000 and £8,000

BEIRUT: As militants and opportunists take advantage of regional chaos to loot antiquities, Lebanon is filling warehouses with trafficked artifacts, keeping the priceless objects under lock and key until they can be returned to their countries of origin. The international cooperation, which has been going on for many years, has taken on new importance as the conflicts in Iraq and Syriathreaten to destroy cultural heritage across the region

Jamil Naqsh | The Muse, Messengers & Miniatures 

11 Jun - 11 Jul 2015 

Jamil Naqsh’s work is increasingly an elaboration of a private mythology – but a mythology that is, nevertheless, deeply rooted in the culture the artist belongs to. This mythology is, above all else, romantic. Romantic, both in the sense that it involves a backward glance, or a series of backward glances, to the Indian subcontinent’s princely past, and also, in a very different way, to the tradition of courtly love that flourished within that social context

THE HAGUE — The painting was sliced down the middle and straight through its center in the 19th century, probably to be sold as two Rembrandt portraits. At some point in the next 40 years, it was sutured back together with pieces of an entirely different canvas, and layered with paint to cover up its scars.

In 1898, the director of the Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery here proudly displayed it in the museum as “Saul and David,” one of Rembrandt’s most important biblical works. Then in 1969, a top Rembrandt authority discredited the painting, and for years it hung next to a label that read, “Rembrandt and/or Studio,” a serious demotion.

Edward Burne-Jones, The Rose Bower from the "Legend of Briar Rose."
Photo via: Wikiamedia Commons

A 2,000-year-old grave of a woman filled with treasures from the Roman Empire has been found in Northern Ethiopia. The British archaeologists who found the grave, have nicknamed the woman "sleeping beauty" because of the way her body had been positioned.

"She was curled up on her side, with her chin resting on her hand, wearing a beautiful bronze ring," Louise Schofield, a former British Museum curator who oversaw the dig, told the Guardian, which reported the story. "She was buried gazing into an extraordinary Roman bronze mirror. She had next to her a beautiful and incredibly ornate bronze cosmetics spoon with a lump of kohl eyeliner." More