The Art Gallery of New South Wales presents Alphonse Mucha: Spirit of Art Nouveau. This exhibition traces the remarkable life and work of one of the great pioneers of the 19th-century art world, Czech art nouveau master Alphonse Mucha,and will be the largest exhibition ever seen in Australia of this visionary artist’s work.
In seductive, sinuous compositions, Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) developed a new stylistic language that defined the look of late 19th-century Paris to be the very spirit of art nouveau, creating some of the most instantly recognisable and best-loved works in modern European art.
This exhibition, exclusive to the Art Gallery, is realised in close cooperation with the Mucha Foundation, Prague, and is drawn from the Mucha Family Collection. The exhibition features more than 200 works including paintings, illustrations, posters, jewellery, photographs, sculpture and more. It is co-curated by Tomoko Sato, curator of the Mucha Foundation, and Jackie Dunn, senior curator of exhibitions at the Art Gallery.
Declared during his lifetime as ‘the greatest decorative artist in the world’, Mucha rocketed to fame with the posters he created for legendary actor and international superstar Sarah Bernhardt, before going on to receive global recognition through his advertising and product design – and the ‘decorative panels’ that were his first steps towards the democratisation of art that he so desired.
This exhibition will explore his full oeuvre from the early years before he moved to Paris in 1887, to his famed poster art and the development of the ‘Mucha style’. His late great painting cycle the Slav Epic (1912–26), comprising 20 grand canvases, is brought to life in Sydney as an immersive digital experience.
Art Gallery director Michael Brand said: ‘Alphonse Mucha was one of art’s great stylistic innovators and whilst best known for his iconic posters and decorative designs that contributed to the development of art nouveau, we hope this truly comprehensive exhibition will offer audiences the chance to take a deeper look at the remarkable life of this fascinating artist and his humanistic ideals.’
‘We are grateful to the Mucha Foundation for their generosity in lending these treasures to allow audiences here in Sydney the chance to discover an exhibition not only rich in art but also in history, human achievement and political commitment,’ said Brand.
Minister for the Arts, Music and the Night-time Economy, and Minister for Jobs and Tourism John Graham said: ‘Lovers of art nouveau will be treated to a spectacular exhibition of the life and work of this visionary artist. Between this and the annually anticipated Archibald Prize exhibition, visitors to the Art Gallery of New South Wales are in for a visual feast this winter.’
Alongside Mucha’s own work, the exhibition will also feature a selection of Japanese prints from the Art Gallery’s exceptional ukiyo-e collection, the likes of which circulated during Mucha’s time in Paris in the late 19th century and profoundly influenced the art nouveau style. Also on display will be an exciting selection of 1960s and 1970s band posters and LP record covers, as well as more recent Japanese manga, that followed the countercultural rediscovery of Mucha’s art, showcasing his recent and ongoing influence on modern culture.
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue, written by Tomoko Sato, a leading Mucha expert and curator at the Mucha Foundation. The publication features over 200 stunning images depicting Mucha’s art and life, including rarely seen archival photographs.
One of Vincent van Gogh’s 'Sunflowers' paintings from Arles in France is to travel outside the United States for the first time since it was acquired in 1935 – offering the unique opportunity to realise one of Van Gogh’s ideas for a decorative arrangement.
The picture, now at Philadelphia Museum of Art, will be lent to the National Gallery’s exhibition Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers (14 September 2024 ‒ 19 January 2025), where it will be seen alongside the Gallery’s own Sunflowers painting for the first time since early 1889 when they were in the artist’s studio.
The Philadelphia 'Sunflowers' was left initially with Van Gogh's friends, Mr and Mrs Ginoux in Arles and was bought by Mr Carroll Tyson, of Chestnut Hill Philadelphia, in 1935, before being acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1963. The London 'Sunflowers' was sent to Van Gogh’s brother Theo in May 1889 and stayed in the family until the National Gallery bought the picture in 1924. The two pictures were never been exhibited together and, therefore, were in the artist’s studio when they were last together in early 1889.
While the National Gallery Sunflowers was painted in August 1888, the Philadelphia version was executed in Arles in January 1889, reaffirming the artist’s continued fascination with these still lifes.The two 'Sunflowers' will be shown flanking 'La Berceuse' (1889), his symbolic portrait of a woman with cradle cord, a very important loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, United States.
Months after he painted these pictures, while in Saint-Rémy, near Arles, Van Gogh discussed potential arrangements of them for display and sent a sketch to his brother Theo in a letter of late May 1889.
While in Arles, Van Gogh first painted several portraits of Augustine Roulin. He undertook a new interpretation in bold colours against a highly stylised floral background. The rope in her hands suggests a cradle beyond the confines of the frame. At right, the painter inscribed the title La Berceuse, which can be translated as ‘lullaby’ or ‘she who rocks the cradle.’
Writing to his brother he imagined his painting ‘in the cabin of a boat’ where fishermen in ‘their melancholy isolation, exposed to all the dangers, alone on the sad sea…would experience a feeling of being rocked, reminding them of their own lullabies.’
As well as marking the Gallery’s 200th anniversary this year, 'Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers' also marks the centenary of the Gallery’s acquisition of 'Sunflowers' as well as Van Gogh’s Chair (1888), two of its most famous pictures, in 1924.
The Gallery’s first exhibition devoted to Vincent van Gogh (1853‒1890) will also be the first anywhere to focus on the artist’s imaginative transformations. It will feature over 50 works and loans from museums and private collections around the world, including important pictures from the Kröller Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands, the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Groups of Van Gogh’s most ambitious canvases and works on paper will explore the artist’s creative process and his sources of inspiration.
Dwelling on Van Gogh’s time in Arles and Saint-Rémy in Provence (1888‒1890), the exhibition investigates the artist’s fascinating practice of turning the places he encountered into idealised spaces in his art, thus crafting a deeply resonant and poetic framework for his oeuvre. The exhibition will also show how portraits played a vital role, as Van Gogh assigned his models symbolic meaning within his artistic universe such as the Poet and Lover of the exhibition’s title.
'Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers' will explore how the poetic imagination and ideas associated with love evolved into central themes for the artist. In Arles, for example, Van Gogh designated the public park in front of the Yellow House (in which, in 1888, Van Gogh rented four rooms) as a Poets’ Garden, envisioning Italian Renaissance poets Petrarch and Boccaccio strolling there. Some of Van Gogh’s most glorious paintings and drawings of the time are associated with this idea, and pairs of lovers appear in paintings such as Starry Night (Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 1888).
In May and June of 1889, after Van Gogh was admitted to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole hospital in Saint-Rémy, he imagined the asylum’s overgrown garden as a secluded site for lovers. He painted spectacular compositions depicting views of the grounds. The exhibition will show how this idealising, euphoric exploration of the asylum garden contrasts dramatically with works from the autumn when Van Gogh instead associated the very same location with his and his fellow patients’ sufferings.
In Arles, in late summer of 1888, Van Gogh planned to decorate his Yellow House with his pictures on the theme of the Poet’s Garden, the Sunflowers and the Poet and the Lover. These paintings were instrumental in his conception of a decorative scheme that quickly grew beyond the walls of the Yellow House. 'Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers' will show how the artist sought to create important compositions for exhibitions in Paris, initially in 1889, year of the Exposition Universelle, when he hoped to display them as a cohesive group alongside works by fellow avant-garde artists.
The exhibition will explore how Van Gogh’s choices for these works reflect his thinking about painting in series, his repeated references in letters to pendants, his use of opposites or contrasts to create harmony and cohesion. The artist continued to pursue these ideas later in Saint-Rémy, as his works became increasingly known in avant-garde circles.
As well as the many loans, the exhibition will draw on the artist’s works in the National Gallery’s collection. In addition to 'Sunflowers' and 'Van Gogh’s Chair', the Gallery owns other major paintings of great significance to the exhibition’s reassessment of Van Gogh at a key moment of his career: Wheatfield with Cypresses (1889) acquired in 1923, and Long Grass with Butterflies (1890), which entered the collection in 1926.
'Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers' is curated by guest curator Cornelia Homburg, and Christopher Riopelle, the Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National Gallery, from an initial concept by Cornelia Homburg.
Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, London, says: ‘This is the first exhibition devoted to Van Gogh ever held at the National Gallery. It marks two centuries of the Gallery’s existence and one since its acquisition of 'Sunflowers'. Museums and collectors have been astoundingly generous in lending great paintings to this show.’
‘I must tell you that I love the collection of the National Gallery’.
(David Hockney in a letter dated 5 March 1979 to the then Director of the National Gallery, Michael Levey)
Two masterpieces by David Hockney (born 1937) that feature reproductions of Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (probably about 1437–45) will go on display at the National Gallery alongside the original Renaissance painting from 8 August until 27 October 2024.
This focused exhibition will explore the figurative painter David Hockney’s lifelong association with the National Gallery and passionate interest in its collection in general and with the 15th-century Italian painter Piero della Francesca (1415/20–1492) in particular. Indeed, on one occasion, Hockney confessed of 'The Baptism of Christ', ‘I'd love to have that Della Francesca just so I could look at it every day for an hour.’
In Hockney’s 'My Parents' (1977), completed after two earlier attempts at painting this double portrait of Kenneth and Laura Hockney, a reproduction of Piero’s 'The Baptism of Christ' is reflected in a mirror on a trolley behind the sitters. 'Looking at Pictures on a Screen' (1977), depicts Hockney’s close friend Henry Geldzahler, the Belgian-born American curator of 20th-century art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, peering at a folding screen in the artist’s studio on which are stuck four posters of favourite National Gallery pictures including 'The Baptism of Christ'.
The exhibition will encourage visitors to draw comparisons between the 15th-century painting by Piero and the two paintings by Hockney, and to promote ‘slow looking’, an activity that, in Hockney’s opinion, is vital in letting people rediscover just how beautiful the world around them is.
It will also be an opportunity for the Gallery to celebrate 200 years of working with contemporary artists and to reinforce its continuing role in bringing artists, paintings and publics into a fruitful three-way dialogue, a key element of the celebrations to mark the Gallery’s Bicentenary.
Piero was the first artist to write a treatise on perspective 'De prospectiva pingendi' – that is, creating an illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat surface. In 'The Baptism of Christ', Piero’s earliest surviving painting, he has used mathematical principles to order his design, creating a visually harmonious and timeless image. Yet it is set within a landscape familiar to its original viewers in central Italy, thereby uniting them personally with this momentous episode from the New Testament, where earth and heaven conjoin at Christ’s baptism and his divine nature is announced from heaven.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated publication that will include an in-depth interview with David Hockney. Other chapters will examine the relationship that has existed between practising artists and the National Gallery over two centuries, highlighting how its paintings, especially Piero’s 'The Baptism of Christ', have provided a continued source of inspiration for artists. It will also consider how the Gallery’s pioneering exhibition series, 'The Artist’s Eye', in which Hockney participated in 1981 with 'Looking at Pictures on a Screen', allowed artists to act as curators and share pictures in new ways with broad audiences.
David Hockney, says ‘I didn’t visit London until I was 18 years old. The National Gallery was just there. They didn’t do exhibitions in those days. But I often went there as a student. I was always looking at Fra Angelico, Piero, Vermeer and Van Gogh. On those early visits I remember being affected by Piero’s 'The Baptism of Christ', it was marvellous. I understand what reproductions do. They've enriched my life a great deal, and I know a lot of things from looking at them. On the other hand, when you see the real paintings it is a different experience.’
Dr Susanna Avery-Quash, Lead Curator, says ‘As part of the Bicentenary celebrations, this focus display draws attention to the powerful if hidden story of the National Gallery as a catalyst in the creative life of the nation through its encouragement of contemporary artists to draw inspiration from its collection. David Hockney has been a lifelong devotee of the Gallery as this ‘in-conversation’ between two of his pictures and 'The Baptism of Christ' by Piero attests. We invite visitors to join in this visual conversation, to feast their eyes and be reminded of the pleasures and benefits to be derived from careful looking.’
This July’s Old Master & 19th Century Paintings Evening auction is led by a wonderful Virgin and Child by Sandro Botticelli and his Studio formerly in the Rothschild collection. (Below)
Among the many highlights in this sale are a pristinely preserved pair of Venetian views by Antonio Canaletto;:
a magnificent set of monumental frescoes by Giandomenico Tiepolo; A Set of Six Paintings depicting the Celebrated Deeds of the Porto Family of Vicenza:
altarpiece wings by Bartholomäus Zeitblom with unbroken provenance since their moment of creation; a recently rediscovered landscape by Herri met de Bles that was owned and remodelled by Sir Peter Paul Rubens; and a pair of boldly coloured unlined canvases by Cesare Dandini, formerly in the collection of Sir Francis Dashwood.
Also featured in this sale is an array of important British paintings, including two rare works by Agostino Brunias and two naval scenes by Richard Paton commemorating King George III’s 1773 review of the British Fleet in Portsmouth harbour. We are also delighted to offer one of Arnold Böcklin’s most powerful compositions, as well as a delicate and refined canvas by Albert Joseph Moore once owned by H.R.H. Princess Mary.
Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian (Pieve di Cadore circa 1485/90-1576 Venice) Rest on the Flight into Egypt oil on canvas, laid on panel 18.1/4 x 24.3/4 in. (46 x 62.9 cm.) Estimate: £15,000,000 - 25,000,000
Coming to the market for the first time in more than 145 years, Titian’s early masterpiece Rest on the Flight into Egypt will headline Christie’s Old Masters Part I sale on 2 July 2024, presenting a very rare opportunity for buyers to become part of the next chapter in this fabled picture’s remarkable story (estimate: £15,000,000 – 25,000,000). One of the last religious works from the artist’s celebrated early years to remain in private hands, the picture has passed through some of the greatest collections in Europe and was last auctioned by Christie’s in 1878, before entering the collection at Longleat House.
Orlando Rock, Chairman, Christie’s UK commented: “This sublime early masterpiece by Titian is one of the most poetic products of Titian’s youth. Of impeccable provenance and having passed through the hands of Dukes, Archdukes and Holy Roman Emperors, this magical devotional painting has the rare notoriety of having been stolen not once but twice – firstly by Napoleon and secondly in the late mid-1990s. We are honoured to be entrusted with bringing this important and beautifully observed painting to the market in London this July.”
Andrew Fletcher, Christie's Global Head of the Old Masters Department commented: “This is the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation and one of the very few masterpieces by the artist remaining in private hands. It is a picture that embodies the revolution in painting made by Titian at the start of the 16th century and is a truly outstanding example of the artist's pioneering approach to both the use of colour and the representation of the human form in the natural world, the artistic vocabulary that secured his status as the first Venetian painter to achieve fame throughout Europe in his lifetime and his position as one of the greatest painters in the history of Western art.”
PROVENANCE
The roll call of illustrious provenance for this painting begins with it being first documented in the collection of the Venetian merchant, Bartolomeo della Nave (1571/79-1632), described in 1629 as a ‘mercante da droghe’, whose activities focused on the spice trade. Della Nave's inventory reveals an astonishing collection that is unlikely to have been equalled in Venice during his day and included no fewer than fifteen works by Titian, notably including The Gypsy Madonna of circa 1511; his Violante of circa 1510-15; the Nymph and Shepherd of circa 1570 (all in Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum); and the artist’s mature masterpiece of 1565-76, The Death of Actaeon, now in the National Gallery, London. In 1636, the Longleat picture was valued at £200 in della Naves's inventory, twice the amount for the Death of Actaeon, suggesting Titian's early works were more highly prized than their later counterparts.
Through Bartolomeo’s brother, Andrea della Nave, and Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh, King Charles I’s ambassador to Venice, the majority of the collection was acquired en bloc by the latter’s brother-in-law, James, 1st Duke of Hamilton and sent to England. Following Hamilton’s execution by parliament in 1649, the collection was sold to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1647-1656. The picture appears in Teniers’ copper panel depicting The Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Picture Gallery in Brussels (Madrid, Museo del Prado), where it is shown hanging alongside other works by Titian acquired from della Nave’s collection, among which are the Nymph and Shepherd, Violante, and his Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery, circa 1511 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), an unfinished panel that the young Anthony van Dyck had made a sketch of during his visit to see the Venetian merchant’s collection in 1622.
The Longleat picture remained in the Imperial collection – passing by descent from Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor (1685-1740), Vienna, to Maria Theresa (1717-1780), Holy Roman Empress, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, to Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1741-1790) – and was transferred to the Belvedere Palace in Vienna by 1781, where it was looted by French troops in 1809 for the Musée Napoléon. It was subsequently owned by Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar (1797-1864), a Scottish landowner, amateur artist and one of the most important patrons of Turner. Munro formed a celebrated collection that included Rembrandt’s Lucretia (Washington, National Gallery of Art), Veronese’s Vision of St. Helena (London, National Gallery), and at least ten pictures by Bonington, of which the finest was A fishmarket near Boulogne (New Haven, Yale Centre for British Art).
LONGLEAT - MAKING THE HEADLINES
Titian’s early masterpiece Rest on the Flight into Egypt was acquired by the 4th Marquess of Bath in 1878, more than 145 years ago. Enjoyed by multiple generations, the painting made the headlines in 1995 when it was stolen from Longleat. Seven years later, following a £100,000 reward being announced for information leading to the picture’s safe return, it was found in 2002 in a carrier bag in Greater London, minus the frame, by a leading art detective of the time – the late Charles Hill, a former Scotland Yard officer.
THE DATE OF THE PAINTING
Always regarded as a youthful masterpiece by Titian and generally dated circa 1510, there are however some inevitable variations on the precise dating. In his 2012 exhibition at the National Gallery in London: Titian, A fresh look at nature, Antonio Mazzotta, who dates the picture to circa 1508-9, observed that the monumental figure of the Virgin ‘prefigures other Titian heroines’ from the period, notably that of Judith as Justice in the detached fresco fragment from the Merceria entrance to the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, circa 1508 (Venice, Ca d’Oro), a key early commission, and that of the Magdalen in the artist’s slightly later Noli me Tangere, 1511-12 (London, National Gallery). In his review of the 2012 National Gallery exhibition, the centrepiece of which was Titian’s Flight into Egypt of 1506-7 (St. Petersburg, Hermitage), Paul Hills singled out the Longleat picture for particular praise and the artist’s masterful use of colour: ‘The red of the Virgin’s dress, offset by the [white] napkin, is treated with marvellous breadth, and the ultramarine of her cloak is spread across the bank to meet the strong amber of Joseph’s mantle, which in turn contrasts with the violet of his robe. The solicitous movement of the figures, counterpoised by the tilt of tree-trunks, is underscored by this drama of colour.’
GEORGE STUBBS, A.R.A. (LIVERPOOL 1724-1806 LONDON) Mares and Foals in an extensive landscape signed ‘Geo: Stubbs’ (lower right) oil on canvas 72.5/8 x 107.7/8 in. (184.5 x 274 cm.) Estimate: £7,000,000-10,000,000
One of the largest pictures that George Stubbs – the most revered animal painter in the history of European Art – executed, and one of the last two on this scale of any subject to remain in private hands, Mares and Foals will be a highlight of Christie’s Old Masters Part I sale on 2 July, during Classic Week in London this summer (estimate: £7,000,000-10,000,000). Dated to circa 1769, this monumental canvas is the artist’s grandest statement on the theme of Mares and Foals, the series of paintings executed in the 1760s which arguably stand as Stubbs’ crowning achievement. The picture is believed to have been painted for the Prime Minister of Britain from 1768-1770, Augustus Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (1735-1811), who was part of the closely-connected nexus of ‘Whig’ statesmen that provided Stubbs with his most important patronage during this career-defining period. Having only appeared at auction once before, almost 50 years ago, it will be on public view in New York from 18to 22May, and in the pre-sale London exhibition which runs from 28June to the morning of 2 July.
John Stainton, Christie's International Deputy Chairman, Old Master Paintings, commented: “George Stubbs’ genius for animal painting is nowhere more evident than in his series of Mares and Foals paintings. Steeped in scientific study, the artist created wholly original compositions which describe a bucolic idyll; seemingly informal yet conveying a sense of restrained grandeur. It is a great privilege to be offering this, Stubbs’ most ambitious work on the theme, in our summer sale.”
STUBBS AND HIS PATRONS
Stubbs arrived in London in 1758 or early 1759 and quickly came to the attention of Joshua Reynolds, the painter then emerging as the leading portraitist of his day. It was almost certainly through Reynolds that Stubbs was introduced to a circle of noblemen with a shared passion for horse racing, many of whom belonged to the recently founded Jockey Club and Brooks', the London club so central to the formation of the Whig political party. Figures such as the Duke of Richmond, the Duke of Grafton and Lord Rockingham, in Stubbs' words, 'delight in horses, and who either breed or keep any considerable number of them' (cited from the artist’s introduction to his The Anatomy of the Horse).
Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, who had sat for Reynolds in 1759 and for whom this picture is believed to have been painted, was one of the first of these young Whigs to order work from Stubbs. Frederick St. John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke commissioned the first of the artist's Mares and Foals in circa 1761-2, a work showing six horses in what is presumably the park at Lydiard Tregoze, his house in Wiltshire. Bolingbroke's canvas must have been seen and admired by others within this Whig circle and thus followed, over the course of the decade, the most celebrated series of equine pictures from the golden age of British painting.
THE PICTURE
This painting last appeared on the market in 1976, since when it has been part of an important private collection in Illinois, U.S.A. A beautifully crafted composition, the picture is imbued with a calm and lyrical quality which is a hallmark of Stubbs’ Mares and Foals series. The last of his grand-scale equine set pieces, he masterfully brings a heightened nobility to his subjects in this work by presenting them on a more imposing scale than he had used previously. This is exemplified by the large grey Arabian mare on the far right of the group, theatrically lit against the brooding sky.
The 1760s bore witness to the full range and originality of Stubbs’ work. It was during these years that Stubbs painted his sublime Whistlejacket for Lord Rockingham (circa 1762, London, National Gallery) and Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, another outstanding masterpiece from the period, painted for Lord Bolingbroke in circa 1765, which set a world auction record for the artist when it sold at Christie’s in 2011 for £22.4 million.
The masterful naturalism which Stubbs achieved over the course of his career laid the foundations for artists who excelled in animal painting of subsequent generations such as Gericault and Degas.
STUBBS – THE EARLY YEARS
Born in Liverpool in 1724, Stubbs would have immediately come into contact with animals through his father's trade as a currier and leather seller. He drew from an early age, and by the early 1740s was painting professionally, his principal subject-matter at the time being portraits. He was in York from 1745-1753, before visiting Rome briefly in 1754. After two years back in Liverpool, he settled in Lincolnshire where he worked on his ground-breaking Anatomy of the Horse project, ahead of moving to London at the end of the 1750s.
Quentin Metsys (Leuven 1465/6-1530 Antwerp) The Madonna of the Cherries oil on panel 29.5/8 x 24.3/4 in. (75.3 x 62.9 cm.) Estimate: £8,000,000-12,000,000
TheMadonna of the Cherries is one of the most celebrated paintings by Quentin Metsys, the father of the Antwerp school, to whom the National Gallery in London devoted a focused exhibition last year. The picture will be a highlight of the Old Masters Part I sale at Christie’s headquarters in London on 2 July, during Classic Week (estimate: £8,000,000-12,000,000). Painted in Metsys’s maturity in the 1520s, The Madonna of the Cherries is a work that had a wide-reaching and long-lasting influence, inspiring generations of artists and giving rise to numerous copies and variants. The painting is on view at Christie’s New York until 22 May, before returning to London for the pre-sale exhibition from 28 June to 2 July.
Henry Pettifer, Christie’s International Deputy Chairman, Old Master Paintings commented: “We are delighted to be offering this work by Quentin Metsys that has only recently been recognised as the prime version of his celebrated late masterpiece – The Madonna of the Cherries – which helped cement his reputation as the founder of the Antwerp School of painting.”
PROVENANCE: A MUCH-PRIZED WORK OF GENIUS
In August 1615, the rulers of the Spanish Netherlands, Archduke Albert VII of Austria and Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia paid a visit to the wealthy Antwerp spice merchant Cornelis van der Geest (1577–1638), one of the foremost art collectors and connoisseurs of his age. From the treasures of his cabinet, the regents offered to acquire his most prized possession: Quentin Metsys’s Madonna of the Cherries. Their visit was commemorated thirteen years later by Willem van Haecht in his painting The Cabinet of
Cornelis van der Geest of 1628 (Antwerp, Rubenshuis), in which van der Geest is surroundedby a semi-fictional bevy of Antwerp’s artistic and social elite, including Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, as well as van der Geest’s nephew Cornelis de Licht and the Antwerp collector Peter Stevens, both of whom would successively own TheMadonna of the Cherries. Van der Geest’s Kunstkammer stood both as a homage to Antwerp’s role in the arts and Flemish painting, at the centre of which TheMadonna of the Cherries was the zenith.
A TRANSFORMATIVE CONSERVATION TREATMENT
All trace of Metsys’s Madonna of the Cherries was lost following its sale after the death of Peter Stevens in 1668. By the time the painting resurfaced in Paris at a sale in 1920, its composition had been altered including the addition of a curtain across the window and landscape and it was no longer recognised as the painting that had once belonged to van der Geest. With the overpainting and a thick layer of discoloured varnish, the painting was offered for sale in these Rooms in 2015 as a studio variant deriving from Metsys’s original, reflecting scholarly opinion at the time. Subsequent conservation was transformative, revealing the exceptional condition of the original paint surface and enabling scholars to recognise it as the prime of Metsys’s Madonna of the Cherries (see before and after images illustrated below).
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