Caring for your Paintings
Is your contemporary painting more temporary than you think? Is the title to an early 1960s art-conservation guide that has always amused the author. It was a serious little publication by Louis Pomerantz the founder of the Art Institute of Chicago’s conservation laboratory and an attempt to help artists of the day use materials to […]
The Great Art Robbery
The siege of Jerusalem bas-relief in the Rome, Arch of Titus Andrea Mantegna 1486 – 1505 The Triumph of Caesar, Royal Collection Hampton Court Palace, London. THE CÔTE D’AZUR SEEMS SOMETIMES to be the vacation destination of choice for Europe’s professional art thief, combining a stress-free vacation while keeping his professional skills in shape. This […]
Restoring Old Masters
The dark arts and sciences of restoration are midwives nowadays always present during the preservation of paintings in personal private and public collections. Restoring paintings to preserve them for the education and enjoyment of generations yet unborn is a quite modern concept. In earlier times it would have seemed quite strange that anyone should want […]
(Art)Transportable Wealth
Taking it with you You may have an old oil painting or a family portrait in your home that has cheerfully hung there both ignored and unnoticed by everyone for generations. Apart from being an important family document or a pleasing work of art, a painting can be valuable in other unexpected and curious ways. […]
A (Short) History of Naughty Pictures
A (Short) History of Naughty Pictures Fragments of naughty art survive as red-Attic vase paintings from classic-era Greece, Tarquinian Etruscan tombs and Pompeian frescos. To meet the demand of the profitable private collector, Italian Renaissance artists often painted scabrous subjects. The rediscovery of Greek and Roman classical art and Michelangelo’s aggressively naked male and female […]
Don’t throw that Old Master out just yet
YOUR OLD OIL PAINTING MAY BE MORE VALUABLE THAN YOU THINK. A PAINTING DONE A HUNDRED YEARS AGO still has the power, even today, to move us by its beauty, be it a landscape, a portrait or a still life. Owners who treasure their old oil paintings recognize how fragile they can be and how […]