New analysis reveals that these cave drawings are partially covered by calcite mineral, which has kept them safe for tens of thousands of years.
Credit
Adapted from ACS Omega 2026, DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.6c05061
Tucked away inside a limestone cave in southeastern France lies some of the oldest artwork in existence. Known as Chauvet Cave, the site is so historically important — and fragile — that its location is kept secret and locked behind a huge steel door. And now, researchers reporting in ACS Omega have devised a technique to safely investigate these artworks and understand the natural varnish that has protected them for centuries.
“We examine every piece of evidence to decode the techniques of prehistoric artists and understand how the paintings have been preserved over time.” — Philippe Walter
Somewhere around 37,000 years ago, a group of Paleolithic people entered what is now Chauvet Cave and left behind detailed artwork of local fauna, including cave bears, cave lions, bison, and horses. The drawings were sealed off by an ancient rockfall and left undiscovered until the 1990s. Several decades later, a lot can still be learned from these ancient works of art, including how the cave’s geology may have contributed to the artworks’ preservation. To study cave walls without damaging them, researchers have used UV fluorescence spectroscopy, which reveals fluorescent mineral deposits invisible to the naked eye. Philippe Walter and colleagues wanted to use the technique to noninvasively investigate these ancient drawings. Their focus was on mineral deposits that have formed atop the charcoal-based drawings and the techniques used to create the art.
Due to the fragility of prehistoric footprints in front of the artwork, the researchers set up a portable spectrometer on a protective walkway around 8 feet (2.5 meters) away from the cave wall. A beam of UV light was shone on the wall, and the resulting fluorescence from the mineral deposits and pigments in the artworks was analyzed by the spectrometer.
“Our methodology is much like forensic investigation: We examine every piece of evidence to decode the techniques of prehistoric artists and understand how the paintings have been preserved over time,” says Walter.
The researchers’ analysis revealed that:
Mineral-carrying water flowed over the wall’s limestone surface, leaving behind thin layers of calcite. That calcite glowed blue under a blacklight, revealing a natural varnish covering parts of the artwork.
Some areas displayed an orange fluorescence, which could be from hot charcoals or burning materials, like a lit torch, being rubbed against the wall to create the drawings.
These results showcase the careful interaction between humans and geology that allowed these artworks to be preserved for tens of thousands of years. Walter and team anticipate that the technique also has applications from forensic science to monitoring biofilms onboard the International Space Station — a project already underway.
Join us as we celebrate the culmination of our 25th anniversary year with an exhibition of exceptional works of American art.
Coinciding with the nation’s semiquincentennial, 25 | 250: A Celebration of American Art affirms and celebrates the gallery’s longtime, unparalleled expertise and market leadership in the field of American art.
The exhibition will feature works spanning the 1880s to the 2010s by Mary Abbott, Thomas Hart Benton, Patrick Henry Bruce, William Merritt Chase, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Richard Estes, Arshile Gorky, Marsden Hartley, Childe Hassam, Winslow Homer, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Joseph Stella, and Andrew Wyeth.
Around 90 masterpieces by artists such as Petrus Christus, Mino da
Fiesole, Botticelli, Giorgione, Dürer, Cranach the Elder, Holbein the
Younger, Titian, Sofonisba Anguissola, Rembrandt, Zurbarán, Anna
Dorothea Therbusch, and Tamara de Lempicka encompass a wide
variety of portraiture’s diverse aspects, ranging from glorious portraits of
rulers to intimate scenes of friendship and proud self-proclamations. Each
encounter tells its own story and invites wonder, comparison and
discovery.
The Exhibition Sections
Various forms and functions of portraits are examined in the four sections
of the exhibition. The prologue highlights the astonishing constancy of
mimetic portrait art, which has spanned many centuries, and also sheds
light on the genre’s roots in Europe.
Portrait Types North and South of the Alps
The first section of the exhibition explore the development of portraiture
in Italy and the North during the Renaissance. Various prototypes
emerged, such as the northern three-quarter profile used by Rogier van
der Weyden and the strict profile preferred by Filippo Lippi. Differing
tendencies towards naturalism and idealisation soon mingled and
influenced the development of portrait painting in the following centuries.
Self-Representation of the Elite
Portraits were a powerful means of social representation and distinction.
The clothing, poses, and size of a work all revealed the aspirations and
status of the person depicted. Anthonis Mor’s prestigious, knee-length
portrait of the Duchess Margaret of Parma, with her regal gaze, is on a
par with Giambattista Moroni’s portrait of the nobleman Don Gabriel de la
Cueva.
Family, Friendship and Intimacy
On the one hand, the section on family, friendship and intimacy is
dedicated to the private aspects of portraiture. Relatives, close friends,
and loved ones are captured in images that serve as personal mementos.
Sofonisba Anguissola’s mother, Bianca, engages with her daughter while
she paints, in a manner that is similar to how the wife of the painter
Eugen Spiro looked at her husband 380 years later. Portraits of the
deceased offer a final glimpse of them.
Portraits of Art Collectors and Artists
The final section of the exhibition focuses on portraits of art collectors and
artists. For centuries, self-portraits have not only served as a means of
self-exploration, but also as a way of positioning oneself and one’s work
within traditional contexts. Therbusch portrays herself as an intellectual,
while Poussin and Anton Raphael Mengs use their self-portraits to reflect
on their lives and artistic fame.
Self-Reflections in the Age of Selfies
“Portraits” is not just an art historical exhibition; it also reflects our current
image-obsessed world. In the age of selfies and social media:how do we
construct our identity? How do we read faces? And what does our view
reveal about ourselves? The reflection of masterworks from the past
provides the perfect opportunity to study and understand these current
questions.
Exhibition Catalogue
A richly illustrated catalogue provides an in-depth exploration of the
works and their relationships with each other (Michael Imhof-Verlag,
Petersberg).
Curatorial Team
The exhibition is curated by Sven Jakstat and Stephan Kemperdick, with
assistance from Marie-Luise Hugler.
EXHIBITION TEXTS
“Painting possesses a divine power […] that brings absent people into the
present; and even more than that, it makes the deceased appear as if
they were alive, even after many centuries, so that they are recognized by
spectators with pleasure and deep admiration for the artist.”
This is how Leon Battista Alberti describes the function of the still-young
genre of portraiture in his treatise on painting from 1435, not without
addressing ist creators. For portraits reveal not only the person but also
the individual style of the artist.
Portraits also possess a timeless dimension: even in portraits separated
by centuries, the expressions and gestures of the sitters can be strikingly
similar. The exhibition pairs portraits across chronological and
geographical boundaries. Works from the Gemäldegalerie enter into
unexpected dialogues with one another and with portraits from other
collections of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The juxtapositions span a
period from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. All the portraits gathered
here share a common striving for likeness to the sitters. Posture, clothing,
and accessories simultaneously convey social, political, or gender-specific
meanings. The exhibition invites reflection on how people saw themselves
in the past and how we see ourselves in the age of selfies and social
media.
Prologue
From antiquity to the modern era, certain elements have remained
constant in portraiture. This is true, for example, of the way the sitter
addresses the viewer through direct eye contact. We find this in mummy
portraits from Roman Egypt as well as in portraits of our own time. The
direct gaze creates a particular presence, one that is also sought in
depictions of the “Holy Face of Christ.”
Portraits of donors played a significant role in the development of
portraiture. They document the growing self-confidence of the patrons, as
well as their status and role in society. While early donor figures were
often depicted on a smaller scale, from the fifteenth century onward they
attained the same scale as the figures of saints. At the same time,
likeness became a central category and a key objective of portraiture.
Painting accuracy and the precise rendering of the smallest details are
just as much a possibility in portraiture as abstraction, extending all the
way to geometric stylization. Both approaches can be studied across
theages in the works featured in this exhibition.
Portrait Types North and South of the Alps
The modern portrait, with its emphasis on likeness, emerged in the
fifteenth century. Two regions were pivotal to its development: Italy and
the Netherlands. In Italy, there was initially a preference for the strict
profile view, which drew on ancient coins and medals. In the North,
however, the three-quarter profile quickly became established. It appears
more lifelike and allows for direct eye contact between sitter and viewer.
This was accompanied by a greater naturalism in the rendering of
surfaces, skin, and fabrics. In Italian painting, by contrast, there was a
tendency toward greater stylization. Likewise, classical elements –
particularly architectural features – were repeatedly integrated into
portraits. Sculptural portrait busts made of marble, which were initially
completely unknown in the North, demonstrate a direct connection to
Roman antiquity.
At the same time, there was a lively exchange of artworks and ideas
across the Alps. The three-quarter profile or the portrait set against a
landscape – another Flemish innovation – was adopted in Italy.
Conversely, classical motifs and a new physicality of the figures, inspired
by the Italian Renaissance, took root in the North. Such influences from
the South intensified around 1500 and continued to have an impact well
into the nineteenth century and beyond.
Self-Representation of the Elite
The portrait has always been – and remains – a powerful means of social
representation. Social and political identities are manifested in clothing,
accessories, and poses – often more clearly than in faces and
expressions. The cut and material of clothing carry significant meaning
that is easily understood even by today’s viewers. Velvet and shimmering
gold brocades suggest wealth, but black fabrics were also expensive and
signaled membership in the upper class just as much as, for example,
heavy gold jewelry.
Objects can allude to a person’s profession or illustrate their taste,
education, or privileges – in Velázquez’s work, for instance, a mere chair
back reveals a lady’s high social standing. Grand formats, even life-size
depictions, attest not least to the resources available to the sitters. They
appear with similar intentions from around 1500 to the present day.
Family, Friendship, and Intimacy
In addition to its representational purposes, the portrait has always served
private functions as well. Relatives, close friends, and loved ones are
captured in images that serve as mementos and make familial, friendly, or
social relationships visible. The exchange of glances between the artist
and the sitter often reveals a particular closeness.
Portraits of family members or close persons also make clear that notions
of family, marriage, childhood, old age, and gender roles have historically
been subject to change. The depiction of mothers, spouses, lovers, or
children always navigates the tension between individual personality and social expectations. It is precisely in this that these images reflect the
complex relationship between individuality and social norms.
At the same time, the portrait has the power to make people appear
present even after their death. Since the early modern period, this ability
has been understood as a special achievement of painting. Albrecht Dürer
wrote that art preserves “the images of men and women after their death.”
Beauty and Transience
Portraits reflect the ideals of beauty of their time – particularly clearly in
portraits of young women. To meet the wishes of their patrons, painters
often idealize the appearance of their sitters. In portraits of women,
sensual aspects are frequently emphasized. However, in the early modern
period, nudity or revealing clothing in a portrait was accepted only if
legitimized by a specific role or narrative. Thus, Maria Mancini appears as
Cleopatra – a disguise that justifies the exposure of her breast. In
modernist art, particularly in private portraiture, such a pretext is no longer
necessary, as demonstrated by the portrait of Lovis Corinth’s wife.
Portraits of elderly people and portraits of the deceased, which preserve
the last image of a person, form a counterpoint to this. They invite us to
reflect on loss, transience, and the portrait as a medium of memory. In the
early modern period, there was also a widespread belief that a person’s
nature and character are revealed particularly clearly in an aged face. At
the same time, depicting aged faces offered painters the opportunity to
demonstrate their artistic skills.
Portraits of Artists and Art Collectors
Portraits of artists reflect aesthetic and ethical ideals, as well as the status
that they claimed for themselves or that was attributed to them. When
their portraits are juxtaposed, similarities and differences in the various
ways they are presented become clearly apparent. Sometimes artists are
shown at work; in other cases, however, there are no references to their
profession. Self-portraits, in particular, served for centuries not only as a
means of exploring one’s own personality but also of situating one’s own
work within artistic traditions.
Portraits of art collectors also occupy a special place within the portrait
genre. In these works, collectors are depicted in relation to the art they
have collected. Shown side by side, these portraits illustrate changing
understanding of and approaches to works of art.
WORKS on Display
Prologue
Sandro Botticelli
Giuliano de'Medici
1478
57,1 x 38,4 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 106
Tamara de Lempicka
Porträt
um 1931
45 x 37 cm
Sammlung Ulla
und Heiner Pietzsch,
Neue Nationalgalerie,
Inv.-Nr. B UHP 87/13
Portrait Types North and South of the Alps
Albrecht Dürer
Bildnis des Hieronymus Holzschuher, mit originalem Deckel
1526
69,2 x 56 cm
Gemäldegalerie, Kat.Nr. 557E
Albrecht Dürer
Bildnis einer jungen
Venezianerin
um 1506
29,1 x 23,5 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 557G
12.1
Lucas Cranach d. Ä.
Bildnis der Frau eines
Rechtsgelehrten
1503
52,6 x 36,7 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 1907
Self-Representation of the Elite
Hans Holbein d. J.
Der Kaufmann Georg Gisze
1532
97,5 x 86,2 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 586
Albrecht Dürer
Bildnis eines Mädchens
mit rotem Barett
1507
32,5 x 22,3 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat. Nr. 557I
Family, Friendship, and Intimacy
Tizian
Bildnis der Clarissa Strozzi
1542
121,7 x 104,6 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 160A
21.2
Peter Paul Rubens
Das Kind mit dem Vogel
um 1614/25
50,9 x 41 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 763
Francisco de Zurbarán
Bildnis des Don Alonso
Verdugo de Albornoz
1635
186,6 x 104,5 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 404C
Beauty and Transience
Thomas Gainsborough
Bildnis der Margaret
Gainsborough
um 1758
76 x 63,5 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 2200
28.2
Peter Paul Rubens
Bildnis einer Frau
um 1637
97,7 x 71,8 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 762A
29.1
Joshua Reynolds
Bildnis der Lady Sunderlin
1786
238,5 x 147,9 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 83.4
Lovis Corinth
Donna Gravida
1909
95 x 79 cm
Alte Nationalgalerie,
Inv.-Nr. A II 143
Balthasar Denner
Kopf eines alten Mannes
1726/36
40,1 x 32,4 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 1014
Portraits of Artists and Art Collectors
Rembrandt
Selbstbildnis
1634
58,4 x 47,7 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 810
Lorenzo Lotto
Bildnis eines Mannes
mit Zirkel und Papierrolle
um 1535
108,5 x 86,6 cm
Gemäldegalerie,
Kat.Nr. 153
More IMAGES
Giambattista Moroni, Don Gabriel de la Cueva, 1560, 114,8 x 90,8 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Kat.Nr. 79.1 Foto: Christoph Schmidt, Berlin
Agostino Carracci, Anna Parolina Guicciardini, 1598, and Anders Zorn, Maja, 1900 Photo: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie / Katrin Hammer
Joshua Reynolds, Lady Sunderlin, 1786, and Wilhelm Dodel, Margaret Camilla Leiteritz, 1935 Photo: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie / Katrin Hammer
Sandro Botticelli, Giuliano de'Medici, 1478, 57,1 x 38,4 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Kat.Nr. 1068 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berli
Sofonisba Anguissola, Bianca Ponzoni Anguissola, 1557, 100 x 76,3 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Kat.Nr. 1705 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie / Jörg P. Anders
Sebastiano del Piombo, Junge Dame mit Fruchtkorb, 1512/13, 77,7 x 61,3 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Kat.Nr. 259B Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie / Jörg P. Anders
Giovanni Cariani, Bildnis eines Astronomen, um 1520, 91,9 x 82,1 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Kat.Nr. 2201 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie / Jörg P. Anders
Anthonis Mor, Herzogin Margarete von Parma, um 1562, 106,8 x 77,6 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Kat.Nr. 585B Foto: Christoph Schmidt, Berlin
Sandro Botticelli, Giuliano de'Medici (detail), 1478, 57,1 x 38,4 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Kat.Nr. 1068 Photo: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie / Jörg P. Anders
Major Rediscoveries in the Old Masters: Paintings - Drawings - Sculpture
TheOld Masters: Paintings - Drawings - Sculpture sale brings together paintings by major figures of French art, including Jean-Honoré Fragonard, François Boucher and Jean-Baptiste Pater, as well as European masters such as Ribera, Juan van der Hamen y León, Jan I Van Kessel and Cristoforo Munari. This selection includes several important rediscoveries, foremost among them Immaculée Conception by François Boucher (€300,000-500,000). A major work from the artist's mature period demonstrates the freedom Boucher achieved in relation to academic conventions. Recently rediscovered, the painting has been linked to a drawing by the artist in the Louvre and to the Assomption in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.
La fête du village by Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841) is another previously unpublished work featured in the sale. Rooted in the tradition of 17th-century Flemish genre painting, this composition is revealed as a preparatory sketch for the celebrated painting The Alehouse Door, now in the Tate Britain, London, which made Wilkie the first living artist to be represented in the British national collections at the National Gallery. While the Tate Britain painting was acquired by John Julius Angerstein (1735-1823), the present sketch appears to have been retained by the artist and presented to George Watson (1767-1837), President of the Royal Scottish Academy, as attested by a letter from Wilkie preserved on the reverse of the picture (€20,000-30,000).
Unseen on the market for a century, an enchanting Tête de jeune femme by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) has not been publicly exhibited since 1957 (€400,000-500,000). Fragonard's characteristic virtuosity and freedom of execution are fully expressed in this portrait, whose palette recalls Rembrandt'sPortrait d'Hendrickje Stoffels.
Sculpture is represented by several works from the collection of Ambassador J. William Middendorf II, including a figure of an apostle created in Limoges at the end of the 12th century (€20,000-30,000), as well as a magnificent cast of Cheval au passage, attributed to Antonio Susini after Giambologna (€150,000-250,000).
The Old Master Drawings section is composed primarily of works from the French school, notably an early drawing by François Boucher depicting Travail aux champs, a red chalk drawing by Hubert Robert, and a watercolour by Eugène Isabey representing l'Embarquement de mille volontaires sous la direction de Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) à Gênes, le 5 mai 1860.
