Carnegie Mellon researchers are using explainable AI to uncover patterns hidden in centuries old paintings, to give experts a new tool for investigating who may have painted them
A few hundred years ago, authenticating whether a painting was created by a master like Rembrandt, or a talented copy-cat, was dependent only on the trained eye of an expert. Then, new tools like X-rays and infrared imaging allowed curators to see beneath the surface of a painting and analyze details invisible to the human eye.
Now, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are exploring how artificial intelligence can work alongside human experts to add another layer of evidence towards the unsolved mysteries in art attribution.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and led by mechanical engineering professors Phil LeDuc and Jon Cagan, alongside alumni Andrés Arias-Rosales and renowned Rembrandt scholar Arthur Wheelock Jr., the researchers have developed an AI framework that can examine a painting for visual patterns associated with the work of Rembrandt to help experts make the final call on a painting’s authenticity.
Attributing a painting to an artist like Rembrandt is no easy task. Experts consider everything from historical documents to the artist’s subject matter, his varied styles of painting throughout the course of his career, including brushwork and the types of paints and supports he used. On top of that, they must keep in mind that Rembrandt’s pupils and assistants may have sometimes painted alongside him, and that later restorers may have changed and added elements to Rembrandt’s compositions. To help them in their analyses, experts also consider technical information gained from such examination techniques as X-radiography, infra-reflectography, and X-ray fluorescence analysis.
For an art collector, or insurer, the stakes are high. A true Rembrandt painting is a piece of history and cultural identity. To get it right, the engineering team learned from Wheelock, who spent more than forty years as a curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and is an internationally recognized expert on Rembrandt and Dutch art.
“Working with him was a dream of mine,” Arias-Rosales said. “We wanted to understand Rembrandt through the eyes of a world-class expert, then understand it through the eyes of 'the machine', our AI approach, and bring those together.” Prior to diving into developing the new AI tools, it was crucial for the team to first go to the National Gallery of Art, DC, to study Rembrandt paintings and engage in in-depth discussions about the artist, his style, technique, and the questions and challenges surrounding his work.
The team then asked whether an AI approach could distinguish Rembrandt from paintings by artists whose work resembles that of the master. The team carefully curated a dataset of over thirteen hundred high resolution digitized images of paintings including 311 Rembrandts that were used for the AI analysis.
The AI model learned to identify statistical patterns across characteristics such as edges, color, light distribution, and visible brushstrokes to produce a score estimating how strongly a painting aligns with the patterns shown in Rembrandt’s work. When the model was highly confident, it classified paintings with 95.8% accuracy.
“Experts need to understand how the AI model/algorithm came to its decision,” said Cagan. “That is critical in successful human-AI collaboration, so we needed to make sure the algorithm could expose which areas of the painting influenced the algorithm’s conclusion.”
To do so, the AI approach classifies a painting as either Rembrandt or not, provides carefully calibrated probabilities and confidence scores, and generates visualizations that emphasize the painting areas and details that had the strongest influence in the AI-based classification. This becomes a useful tool for curators as they can focus on specific details within the painting that they may have otherwise overlooked. For example, if the AI was repeatedly highlighting the hands with a low score, suggesting that they likely weren’t painted by Rembrandt, the researchers can digitally remove them from consideration and ask the model to classify it again. If the hands disappear, and there is high confidence in a Rembrandt attribution, a curator may consider whether the hands were painted by a Rembrandt student instead.
“The most exciting cases are the ambiguous ones,” said Arias-Rosales. “We wanted to do more than bring opaque or simplistic answers to Wheelock; we wanted to bring him more questions and point to potentially interesting details for him to consider and help solve mysteries of art history.”
The team has already tested their AI on a real mystery. In 2024 a painting titled Portrait of a Girl was discovered in an attic in Maine, and later sold for $1.41 million because of its possible connection to Rembrandt. When the CMU model analyzed the image, it determined an 84.7% confidence that the painting was a Rembrandt. “These results aren’t an authentication, they are a statistical observation meant to be considered alongside historical research, material analysis, X-rays, and other tools with the final decision made by human experts,” said LeDuc.
Eventually, the team hopes this tool could become an interactive application for museums, curators and other art professionals. With Rembrandt as the test case, they believe it could be adapted to investigate other artists as well.
For LeDuc this project underlines how Carnegie Mellon’s interdisciplinary culture shines.
“Not everywhere will they bring together engineering, design, and art history to solve intriguing problems,” he said. “It’s such a CMU thing. We like to try to help with exciting fields in many different directions”
The Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg (MFA) is
showing its support for the Tampa Bay Rays in a big-league way. It’s putting a Monet in play.
As the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers face off in the World Series, the MFA and the
Milwaukee Art Museum have agreed to a friendly wager. Each institution is backing its team with
a beloved painting by Claude Monet. The museum on the losing side will send its painting on loan
to the winning team’s hometown for a victory lap in the galleries.
If the Rays bring home the championship, St. Petersburg will welcome Milwaukee’s Waterloo
Bridge, Sunlight Effect. If the Brewers prevail, the MFA will lend Houses of Parliament: Effect of
Fog, London to its Wisconsin counterpart.
A leader of the Impressionist movement and one of the most influential painters of the
nineteenth century, Monet transformed how artists depict light and color. The winning city won't
just take home a World Series title. Its museum will bring a Monet masterpiece to town, giving
the community more world-class art to enjoy.
Kim Sajet, Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, initiated the
wager. “When I moved to Milwaukee, I became a part of the Brew Crew. They're the best team
in baseball, and I’m backing them with one of our most beloved paintings. Two Monets will look
incredible in our galleries. Klaudio, consider this your invitation to visit Milwaukee. Go Brewers!”
“We admire Kim’s enthusiasm, but we think Milwaukee’s Monet would enjoy a little Florida
vacation,” said Klaudio Rodriguez, Executive Director & Chief Executive Officer of the Museum of
Fine Arts, St. Petersburg. “We’re backing the Rays all the way, and we’re ready to welcome
Milwaukee’s masterpiece to St. Petersburg. Let's see Milwaukee put its Monet where its mouth
is.”
Houses of Parliament: Effect of Fog, London is typically located in the MFA’s Collection Gallery,
which is temporarily closed until November 21 during the reinstallation for Art Unbound.
However, the museum has put the piece on view in the upstairs gallery in support of the Rays.
“Although our collection galleries are closed, we wanted to share the Monet during this rivalry.
For visiting Brewers fans, it might be their only chance to see it,” said Hazel and William Hough
Chief Curator Dr. Stanton Thomas.
While high-profile friendly wagers involving artwork are a popular trend among art institutions
during championship events, this is a first for the MFA. The wager involves a temporary loan;
ownership of each painting will remain with its museum. Loan and exhibition dates will be
announced following the series.
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), Waterloo Bridge, Sunlight Effect, ca. 1900 (dated 1903). Oil on canvas. Milwaukee Art Museum, Bequest of Mrs. Albert T. Friedmann, M1950.3. Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), Houses of Parliament: Effect of Fog, London, 1904. Oil on canvas. 32 1/2 × 36 1/2 in. Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Partial gift of Charles C. and Margaret Stevenson Henderson and Museum purchase 1979.5
For the first time in fifty years, the Kupferstichkabinett is once again
presenting an exhibition featuring more than 100 outstanding drawings by 28 Flemish artists from its collection. The drawings, which
are often astonishingly painterly and powerful, were created between
1570 and 1650 and offer fascinating insights into the creative process, as they were rarely produced as an end in themselves but rather as preparatory works for a piece to be executed. The impressive
range of subjects extends from Christian and allegorical scenes,
through mythological and historical motifs, to genre scenes, portraits, still lives and landscapes.
In the 15th and 16th century, one of Europe’s most important artistic centres emerged around the cities of Antwerp, Brussels, Mechelen, Bruges
and Ghent. Brussels, the residence of the Spanish governors, was the focal point of political and religious power. With its harbour, Antwerp developed into Europe’s leading trading hub, handling grain, textiles, iron goods
and spices.
Economic prosperity gave rise to a flourishing market for art
and luxury goods, while the urban bourgeoisie emerged as a new, selfconfident class of buyers. This, in turn, led to the specialisation of painters’ workshops, which produced small cabinet paintings of remarkable detail and painterly refinement to meet the growing demand.
Together with
cities such as Mechelen, Ghent and Bruges, the provinces of Flanders
and Brabant became strongholds of exquisite artistic production: finest
lace, valuable tapestries, sculptures and paintings were created here for
aristocratic, ecclesiastical and bourgeois patrons.
At the same time, the period between 1550 and 1650 was marked by continuous conflicts between the major European powers and opposing religious camps. The balance of power within Europe was in a constant state
of flux, revealing certain parallels with the processes of globalisation in the
21st century.
The seventeen provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands – an area corresponding to present-day Belgium, Luxembourg, northern France and the
Netherlands – were under Spanish rule.
Increasing centralisation, the curtailment of traditional privileges and the intensification of the Counter-Reformation led to unrest from the 1560s onwards, culminating in the outbreak of the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648). In the course of the war, the
seven northern Protestant provinces (today’s Netherlands) gained their independence, while the ten southern provinces remained under Spanish
rule.
The tolerant policies and artistic patronage of Archduke Albert and
Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia gave rise to an economic boom during the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609–1621), encouraging a cultural resurgence in the region.
In this period of tension, a new, powerful visual language characterised by
passionate emotion, vibrant colour and dynamic compositions developed
between 1580 and 1660.
The exhibition revolves around works by the
three great protagonists of the Antwerp Baroque: captivating drawings by
Peter Paul Rubens, powerfully sensual works by Jacob Jordaens, and
bold sketches by Anthony van Dyck. Shown alongside the work of predecessors and teachers, workshop assistants and contemporaries, they reveal a dense network of professional relationships.
Peter Paul Rubens – painter, collector, humanist and diplomat – was the
dominant artistic figure of his age. Several of the artists represented in the
exhibition trained in his workshop, and almost all collaborated with him in
one way or another. Following his return from Italy in 1609, Rubens consolidated his reputation as Antwerp’s foremost history painter through a
series of large-scale altarpieces and history paintings distinguished by luminous colours and a dramatic new style.
Like Rubens, Jacob Jordaens
trained with Adam van Noort. He assisted Rubens with major commissions, including the mythological cycle of more than one hundred paintings created for the King of Spain. Jordaens achieved success early in his
career and, following Rubens’s death, became Antwerp’s leading painter.
Anthony van Dyck was regarded as an artistic prodigy. At the age of sixteen, he entered Rubens’s workshop as a fully trained painter, absorbed
his master’s creative approach, copied, drew and painted extensively, and
gradually developed a distinctive artistic style that, while initially rooted in
Rubens’s example, soon became independent. From 1621 onwards he
pursued his own path and, in 1632, was invited to London as court painter
and an outstanding portraitist.
The works of these three artists are complemented by a small introductory
selection of earlier works by important predecessors, including two of Rubens’s teachers. These are followed by sheets by artists such as Jan
Brueghel the Elder, David Teniers the Younger and Frans Snyders, some
of whom were close friends of Rubens or collaborated with him.
Also included are figure studies by Adriaen Brouwer and Sebastian Vrancx, who,
like Rubens and Jordaens, studied under Adam van Noort; compositions
by pupils of Rubens such as Abraham van Diepenbeeck and Erasmus
Quellinus the Younger; and works by artists who worked as engravers for
Rubens, including Pieter de Jode.
The exhibition concludes with landscape drawings by David Vinckboons, Lucas van Uden, Lodewijk de
Vadder and Jacques d’Arthois.
EXHIBITION TEXTS
The exhibition revolves around virtuosic drawings by the three great
protagonists Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, and Anthony van Dyck.
Shown alongside the work of predecessors, assistants, and
contemporaries, they reveal a dense network of professional
relationships. Many artists specialized in particular themes and
collaborated in varying constellations. Almost all the drawings in the
exhibition were created in the context of larger projects; as rapid initial
sketches, compositional designs, or studies for paintings, engravings, or
tapestries, they help bring the creative process to life even today.
Precursors and Pioneers: Early Drawings
The exhibition begins with drawings by artists of the generation prior to
Peter Paul Rubens, including preliminary drawings for engravings still
indebted to late Mannerism. From the mid-sixteenth century on, printmaking played an important role
in the reproduction and dissemination of motifs. A little later, Rubens
would use it as a marketing tool to publicize his inventions throughout all of
Europe. With the publishing houses of Hieronymus Cock, Christoffel
Plantin, and Philipp Galle, Rubens’s home city of Antwerp had developed
into the most important center of the printing industry.
Peter Paul Rubens came from an Antwerp patrician family. He began his
training with Tobias Verhaecht in 1589 and later studied with Adam van
Noort and Otto van Veen. Two sheets from this early period are on view,
including a drawing by Rubens after a bronze statuette. Copying was a
part of training, and it remained a lifelong drawing practice for Rubens. He
copied paintings, sculptures, and prints, building a storehouse of motifs for
later use in other works.
Painter, Humanist, Diplomat: Peter Paul Rubens
In 1600, Rubens traveled to Italy, where he studied works from antiquity
as well as those of Raphael and Michelangelo. He served as court painter
to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua until 1608. In 1609, after his return
to Antwerp, he was appointed court painter by the Spanish governors,
ArchduchessIsabella Clara Eugenia and Archduke Albert. As a diplomat,
Rubens represented the Spanish crownin negotiations with England,
France, and the northern provinces of the Netherlands.
Rubens received extensive commissions from courtly and ecclesiastical
patrons and ran a workshop with numerous assistants. From 1619 on, he
produced engravings and woodcuts of his own compositions, strictly
supervising their execution. The prints sold exceptionally well and
significantly enhanced his fame. The well-educated painter amassed a
collection of sculptures and drawings and corresponded with scholars and
patrons throughout all of Europe.
His drawings, around forty of which are held in the Kupferstichkabinett,
were created not as ends in themselves, but in preparation for paintings.
As working material, they were neither signed by the artist nor made
available to the public. Rubens’sexpressive studies and designs reflect
the entire thematic range of his oeuvre.
Virtuoso of Color: Jacob Jordaens
Jacob Jordaens is known above all for his genre scenes of merry
companies and peasant life. Yet as a skilled history painter, he also
created ambitious classical-antique, biblical, and mythological scenes for
educated audiences and noble and ecclesiastical patrons.
Jordaens, who unlike Rubens and van Dyck never left the Netherlands,
was the son of a cloth merchant and was apprenticed to the painter Adam
van Noortin 1607. In 1615 he was accepted into the Guild ofSt. Luke, and
by ten years later was the head of a successful workshop. He
occasionally assistedRubens with large commissions for patrons such as
the city of Antwerp (1634–35) or King Philip IV of Spain (1637–38). After
Rubens's death, Jordaens became the most important painter in
Antwerp.
As a draftsman, he was extraordinarily independent.The exhibition
includes powerful figure studies as well as brilliantly colored designs for
paintings or tapestries that could be shown to potential clients. In these
carefully developed compositional studies, Jordaens proves himself an
outstanding virtuoso of color.
Familiar Landscapes: Jan Brueghel the Elder
Jan Brueghel the Elder ran a successful workshop that served the
growing demand from the bourgeoismiddle class for small-scale cabinet
pictures charac-terized by a wealth of detail and painterly refinement.
Brueghel received commissions from the Spanish governors in Brussels,
whose gardens and menageries he visited and studied for his flower
paintings and images of Paradise.
Brueghel was a close friend of Rubens, and the two collaborated on
motifs such as the popular image of the Madonna in a garland of flowers,
with Rubens painting the figures and Brueghel the flowers.
Inspired by the drawings of his father Pieter Bruegelas well as by
impressions from his visit to Italy in 1590–96 and his artistic exchange
with the painter Paul Bril, he made an important contribution to the
development of the landscape genre. He produced realistic views of his
native countryside, showing it with a low horizon in atmospheric light. He
skillfullyemployed rivers or paths to direct the viewer’s gaze into depth and
captured the expansiveness of the flat landscape. His precise drawings
are replete with narrative details.
Daily Life and Leisure: David Teniers the Younger
David Teniers the Younger is known primarilyfor his genre scenes, which
show village festivals, inns, and elegant companies and capture the
everydaylife and amusements of the country and the city. Teniers trained
in the workshop of his father and in 1637 married Anna, the seventeenyear-old daughterof the deceased Jan Brueghel who at that time was still
under the guardianship of Rubens. Through his marriage, Teniers gained
access to the most important artistic circles in Antwerp, and Rubens and
his wife Helena Fourment became godparents to his children. In 1651,
Teniers went to Brussels to serve as court painter to the Spanish governor
Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. There he oversaw the duke’s art
collection and publishedthe first illustrated gallery catalogue, the Theatrum
Pictorium.
Teniers_s graphite drawings, though seemingly jotted down with a loose
hand, capture impressions based on precise observation. They were
crucial for his paintings, which were executed using carefully planned
compositional designs as well as individual figure studies. His oeuvre is
directly related to the work of Adriaen Brouwer and Jan Brueghel.
Unvarnished Truths: Sebastian Vrancx and Adriaen Brouwer
Sebastian Vrancx was also a pupil of Adam van Noort. A friend and
collaborator of Brueghel, Vrancx painted conversation pieces, landscapes,
and battle scenes and is considered the founder of Flemish military
painting. His drawings depict soldiers, combat, and brutal attacks on
villages or travelers. Amid the horrors of the Eighty Years’ War, such
themes were especially in demand. Both Vrancx and Adriaen Brouwer
were members of the rhetoricians’ guild “De Violieren,” an influential
society of artists and poets that shaped cultural life through theater
performances and poetry competitions.
Little is known of the short life of Adriaen Brouwer, one of the most
important genre painters. A native of Oudenaarde, he settled in Antwerp
in 1631 where he lived with Paulus Pontius, an engraver fromRubens’s
workshop. Brouwer was a virtuoso at capturing affects and feelings and
expressed them masterfully through gesture and facial expression. His
incisive sketches and paintings, reflective of human interaction, were
admired by his contem-poraries: Rubens alone owned seventeen of his
paintings.
In the Shadow of Peter Paul Rubens: Pupils, Assistants and
Followers
This portion of the exhibition introduces several lesser-known artists of the
Flemish Baroque. They learned their craft from Rubens, served as
assistants in his workshop, or created engravings based on his
compositions.
Abraham van Diepenbeeck was trained as a glass painter. Considered
Rubens’s most faithful follower, he emulated the master’s style in his
paintings. In the1620s, he designed book illustrations for the
Plantinpublishing house together with Rubens and, at the latter’s behest,
copied Italian paintings during a visit to France.
Along with Quellinus and Jordaens, Cornelis Schut assisted with the
decorations for the entranceof the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand into
Antwerp in 1635, a commission the city had awarded to Rubens.He also
made engravings after Rubens and after his own designs.
Erasmus Quellinus the Younger studied philosophybefore devoting
himself to painting. The erudite artist drew modelli for tapestry series and
for woodcuts after paintings by Rubens, but also cooperated with Anthony
van Dyck, Frans Snyders, and Peeter Boel. After Ruben's death, his
widow commissioned Quellinus with the completion of unfinished
paintings.
Radical Experiments: Anthony van Dyck
Anthony van Dyck was an exceptional draftsman. Already at the age of
sixteen, he established himselfas an independent artist in Antwerp
following an apprenticeship with Hendrik van Balen. In 1616, he entered
Rubens's workshop as an assistant, where he participated in major
commissions and produced preliminary drawings for engravings after
paintings by the master. In 1620, van Dyck traveled to London and then to Rome, Venice, Sicily, and Genoa.He stayed there until 1627, acquiring an
excellentreputation as a portraitist. After a sojourn in Antwerp from 1627
to 1632, he went to London to serve as court painter to King Charles I of
England, where he became the most sought-after portrait painter of the
English aristocracy.
Van Dyck meticulously prepared his paintings, especially the early ones.
His numerous designs and individual studies, which he repeatedly varied,
show his love of experimentation in drawing. Many of his compositional
studies in pen seem raw and vigorous, focusing on the essentials while at
the same time evoking the highest degree of emotion.
Luxury and Transience: Still Life Drawing
Since very few Baroque still life drawings exist, only a small group of
works illustrate this important genre here. Frans Snyders specialized in
animal painting. He collaborated with Rubens, Jordaens, Quellinus, and
Boeckhorst to create images of sumptuously laden market stands, hunting
scenes, and artfully arranged still lifes with fruit, game,or poultry.
The still life shown here is derived from one of his brightly colored
renderings of a pantry, a motif the artist first developed during the
peaceful, optimistic period of the Twelve Years' Truce (1609–21). For
seventeenth-century viewers, such an arrangement conveyed not only
prosperity and the pleasures. of country life, but also the transience of all
earthly existence.
Peeter Boel studied with Jan Fyt, a pupil of Snyders.He collaborated with
Jordaens as well as with Rubens_s pupil Quellinus, who contributed
figures to paintings while Boel added the animals and still lifes. He was
one of the first artists to draw living animals outdoors in nature and in
natural poses.
Expansive Views: Late Landscape Drawings
The drawings in the final portion of the exhibition are related to the works
of Tobias Verhaecht, Jan Brueghel the Elder, and David Teniers the
Younger. They tell of the rise of landscape as an independent pictorial
genre rather than a mere background for religious or mythological scenes.
In the late sixteenth century, the fantastical “world landscapes” of artists
such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Joachim Patinir – panoramic views
shown from an aerial perspective – yielded to more realistic landscapes
inspired by the local environment.
Jan Brueghel made a decisive contribution to the representation of spatial
depth and the evocation of atmosphere, while David Vinckboons, who left
Antwerp as a religious refugee, created close-up views of forest
landscapes. Lucas van Uden, who stands in the tradition of Brueghel,
worked with Rubens and Teniers. Examples of his light-flooded,
atmospheric watercolors in subtle gradations of color, intended for middle class buyers on the open market, are exhibited here. Alongside Antwerp,
Brussels also developed into a center of landscape painting in the 1640s
with artists like Lodewijk de Vadder and Jacques d’Arthois.
Jacob Jordaens, Christus und die reuigen Sünder, um 1630, schwarze Kreide, Pinsel in Braun und Deckfarben, 308 × 368 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 5737 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Dietmar Katz
Peter Paul Rubens, Sitzende junge Frau mit erhobenem Arm, 1631/32 (Figurenstudie für den Liebesgarten), schwarze Kreide, Rötel, mit weißer Kreide gehöht, 423 × 500 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 4003 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Dietmar Katz
Anton van Dyck, Die Verlobung der heiligen Katharina, 1618–20, Feder und Pinsel in Braun, braun laviert, 186 × 264 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 1338 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Volker-H. Schneider
Jan Brueghel d. Ä., Flussufer mit Booten am Ausgang eines Kanals, um 1603, Gouache, 194 × 246 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 746 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Dietmar Katz
David Teniers d. J., Figurenstudien: Tanzende, Bogenschützen, um 1640, Grafit, 279 × 172 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 12024 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Dietmar Katz
Theodor Rombouts, Zwei sitzende Soldaten, 1627/28 Rötel, 170 × 210 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 13677 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Dietmar Katz
Peter Paul Rubens, Bathseba erhält das Schreiben Davids, 1612–1614, Feder in Braun, Pinsel in Grau, 192 × 269 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 5397 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Jörg P. Anders
Jacob Jordaens, Mädchen mit Früchtekorb vor einer offenen Tür mit einem Liebespaar, um 1635, schwarze Kreide, Pinsel Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Jörg P. Anders
Anton van Dyck, Skizzenblatt nach Figuren des Peter Paul Rubens, 1616, Schwarze Kreide, Feder in Braun, 310 × 202 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 5686 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Jörg P. Anders
David Teniers d. J., Blick auf Antwerpen, um 1640, Grafit, 167 × 265 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 6414 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Dietmar Katz
Adriaen Brouwer, Figurenstudien, Vorzeichnung in Grafit, Feder in Braun, 220 × 321 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 1374 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Dietmar Katz
Lucas van Uden, Waldweg mit Figuren, Grafit, Feder in Braun und Schwarz, Pinsel in Grau, aquarelliert, 213 × 340 mm Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv.-Nr. KdZ 14038 Foto: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Jörg P. Anders
(a) The central cluster of stars in The Starry Night (1889), left, and the Hyades cluster in Taurus, center. At right, the five stars in the painting (orange) are overlaid on the real stars (blue) after matching for size, orientation and position; red dashed lines show the residual differences. (b) The stars in Café Terrace at Night (1888), left, and the stars around the Summer Triangle, center. The panel at right follows the same layout as in (a).
Credit
Kim et al., Scientific Reports (2026), Figs. 2, 4 and S1
Research published in Scientific Reports, a Nature Portfolio journal, finds that the sky in Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889) matches, in both observation and shape, the pre-dawn sky over Saint-Rémy around 22 July 1889. In the early hours of that period, a waning crescent moon, Venus and the Hyades star cluster in Taurus appeared close together. The study was carried out jointly by SLLAB, a South Korean space-science company, and the School of Space Research at Kyung Hee University.
Astronomical readings of The Starry Night began with Albert Boime at UCLA (1984) and Charles Whitney at Harvard (1986). Because the two reached conflicting conclusions, however, neither displaced the prevailing religious and symbolic interpretations of the painting. In the roughly 40 years since, no study has treated its sky with observational geometry.
First author Elijah Jeong-hyun Kim, CEO of SLLAB and a Ph.D. candidate at Kyung Hee University’s School of Space Research, describes what drew him to the question. “To an observational astronomer, the cluster of stars in The Starry Night is the Hyades in Taurus. But the moment I read the earlier studies explaining it as Aries, I heard the painting calling to me.” Having built many telescopes and spent years observing the night sky, the team judged Aries an unlikely source of inspiration for the painter. The research began with two field trips to France in 2019 and builds on Kim’s popular-science book published in 2025, gathering additional evidence and extending it with quantitative data.
The painting has conventionally been dated from a letter Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo around 18 June 1889. Yet the waning gibbous moon of that period cannot account for the slender crescent in the painting. Around 22 July, by contrast, the Hyades rose in the east alongside Venus, and the moon’s shape was close to the crescent on the canvas.
That date, however, has long been assumed to fall within one of Van Gogh’s seizures. By cross-analysing the original French and Dutch letters, contemporary weather records and the letters’ remarks on cicadas, the team proposes that the seizure began in late July.
In Arles, the team verified the painter’s field of view in Starry Night over the Rhône (1888) with photographs taken on site. In Saint-Rémy, they located the spot from which Van Gogh drew the landscape beneath The Starry Night and reconstructed his view from there. Procrustes shape analysis then confirmed the correspondence between the five central stars of The Starry Night and the Hyades, with an even closer match in the pen drawing Van Gogh made after the painting. These results suggest that the sky in the painting was grounded in actual observation rather than pure imagination. Using the same method, the team also proposes that the stars in Café Terrace at Night (1888) may be the Summer Triangle.
“I hope this work prompts a renewed, multidisciplinary look at the sequence and working methods of the Saint-Rémy paintings, and at Van Gogh’s movements that summer,” Kim said. “Our conversation with Van Gogh’s other skies is still ongoing. We plan to tell those stories one by one.”
The article “The actual sky of Van Gogh’s Starry Night: a multidisciplinary reconstruction” is authored by Elijah Jeong-hyun Kim, Suna Kang, Jungwoo Song and Ho Jin. Scientific Reports (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-73025-5 Code and data: GitHub sllabinc/StarryNight; Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.21175816
A waning crescent Moon, Venus and the Hyades cluster all within the painter’s field of view — the first astronomical re-examination in roughly 40 years
Phillips is honored to present Tête by Amedeo Modigliani as the centerpiece of the New York Evening Sale of Modern & Contemporary Art on 18 November 2026
One of the largest examples from the artist's defining sculpture series comes to auction for the first time ever, after more than five decades in an esteemed private collection.
Phillips is honored to present Tête by Amedeo Modigliani as the centerpiece of the New York Evening Sale of Modern & Contemporary Art on 18 November. The sculpture has remained in the same important private collection for over half a century and Phillips will bring the work to auction for the first time in its history. Carved from a single block of limestone between 1911 and 1912, Tête belongs to Modigliani's celebrated series of heads, a group widely recognized as the pinnacle of his sculptural achievement and among the defining monuments of early Modernism.
Of the approximately 28 stone sculptures created by the artist during his lifetime, the vast majority are now housed in museum collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate, London; and the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Tête is among the most significant from the series and, at nearly 30 inches tall, it is among the largest of the few remaining examples in private hands. Following a tour to London (13–15 October) and Paris (17–21 October), it will be on view at 432 Park Avenue from 7–18 November ahead of the auction, where it will be offered with an estimate of $28–35 million.
Jeremiah Evarts, Deputy Chairman, Americas, Senior International Specialist, Modern & Contemporary Art, said: “It is an extraordinary privilege to bring this masterpiece to auction. Fresh to the market after almost half a century in the same important private collection, Tête embodies everything that makes Modigliani's sculpture so revered, including its profound art historical importance. Drawing on influences ranging from ancient Egyptian, Cycladic, and African art to the radical innovations of early 20th-century Modernism, the work bridges millennia of artistic tradition while remaining unmistakably Modigliani. As one of only a handful of examples still outside museum collections, it represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for collectors.”
Tête was created during a brief but transformative period in Modigliani's career, when he dedicated himself almost exclusively to direct carving, freeing the image out of the stone in the manner of Michaelangelo and inspired by his close friendship with Constantin Brancusi. As one of the most significant artists to be influenced by the true breadth of artistic creation, Modigliani developed a radically new sculptural language defined by elongated forms, restrained geometry, and spiritual intensity. Tête is among the earliest and most fully realized expressions of this vision.
The offering arrives amid sustained international demand for Modigliani's sculptural works, which are universally regarded as among the artist's rarest and most important creations. Conceived as part of Modigliani's unrealized vision for what he described as a “temple of beauty,” the sculpted heads were to serve as columns of caryatids and occupy a central place within the artist's oeuvre, bridging the ancient traditions that inspired him and the revolutionary artistic language of Modernism. More than a century after its creation, Tête remains one of the foundational achievements of 20th-century sculpture and an enduring testament to Modigliani's singular artistic ambition.
The Whitney Museum of American Art presents Charles
Burchfield: Elemental, an exhibition exploring Charles Burchfield’s (1893–1967) lifelong pursuit
of what he described as the “tremendous force of nature.” Drawn entirely from the Whitney’s
collection, the presentation brings together nine watercolors created between 1916 and 1960,
tracing more than four decades of the artist’s singular engagement with the natural world and
his transformation of landscape into an expression of emotion, atmosphere, and spiritual
intensity.
Opening October 22, 2026, Charles Burchfield: Elemental spans Burchfield’s career, from the
radical experimentation of his early works to the expansive, visionary landscapes of his later
years. Flowering meadows, insects, storms, rain, changing seasons, and turbulent skies
become more than observations of the environment in Burchfield’s work. Through heightened
color, rhythmic forms, and an intensely personal visual language, the artist rendered nature as
something alive, psychologically charged, and continually in motion.
“As we contend with a vulnerable planet, the watercolors in Charles Burchfield: Elemental are
important and resonant today,” said Caroline Webb, Curatorial Assistant. “Burchfield's attention
to the dynamic cycles of the natural world and the care and reverence with which he articulated
his unique perspective on nature in its most expansive sense reveals, as he once put it, ‘how
vital nature is, besides being beautiful.’”
Among the works on view are Cricket Chorus in the Arbor (1917), An April Mood (1946–55), and
Cold September Rain (1957). Together, the works reveal Burchfield’s remarkable ability to
translate sensory experiences—the sound of insects, the movement of wind, fluctuations of
light, or the arrival of a storm—into compositions that approach the transcendent.
Rather than
representing landscape as a fixed setting, Burchfield envisioned the natural world as an
elemental force capable of reflecting states of memory, wonder, solitude, and awe.
Burchfield began developing this distinctive approach to watercolor early in his career. His
works from the 1910s demonstrate an already unconventional understanding of landscape, in
which trees, flowers, weather, and sound seem to possess their own emotional and spiritual
presence. Across the decades that followed, he continually returned to these subjects,
expanding upon earlier compositions and developing increasingly immersive visions of the
environment.
The works gathered in Elemental demonstrate the extraordinary continuity of this
pursuit across his career.
The exhibition also marks seventy years since the Whitney organized Burchfield’s landmark
1956 retrospective, an important moment in the Museum’s longstanding engagement with the
artist.
The Whitney has collected Burchfield’s work for generations, establishing a significant
representation of his practice within its holdings of twentieth-century American art. Charles
Burchfield: Elemental offers a new opportunity to consider that history while examining the
continued resonance of his deeply personal interpretations of the American landscape. American art of our time and
serve a wide variety of audiences in celebration of the complexity and diversity of art and culture
in the United States.
Images
Charles Burchfield, Cricket Chorus in the Arbor, 1917. Transparent and opaque watercolor, brush and ink, and wax crayon on paper mounted on board, 22 1/8 × 18 3/16 × 1/8 in. (56.2 × 46.2 × 0.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Anne and John Straus 2009.203. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center
Charles Burchfield, Cold September Rain, 1957. Watercolor, chalk and charcoal on paper mounted on board, 29 15/16 × 39 3/4 in. (76 × 101 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Charles Simon Bequest 96.60.10. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center Publicity
Charles Burchfield, The Tall White Sun, 1917. Watercolor, colored pencil, and graphite pencil on paper, 22 × 18 in. (55.9 × 45.7 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase 31.410. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center
Charles Burchfield, Winter Light, Backyard, 1949-60. Watercolor on board, 39 7/8 × 25 13/16 in. (101.3 × 65.6 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Solomon K. Gross 76.34. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center
Charles Burchfield, Overhanging Cloud in July, 1947-59. Watercolor on paper mounted on board, 39 7/8 × 36 in. (101.3 × 91.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art 60.23. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center
Charles Burchfield, August Evening, 1916. Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper, 19 15/16 × 14 in. (50.6 × 35.6 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lesley G. Sheafer 55.43. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center
Charles Burchfield, Wet Snow and Ice, 1947-55. Transparent and opaque watercolor on paper, 37 7/8 × 30 in. (96.2 × 76.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Vincent B. Murphy, Jr. 95.89. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center
Charles Burchfield, An April Mood, 1946- 55. Watercolor and fabricated chalk on paper, mounted on board, 40 × 54 in. (101.6 × 137.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with partial funds from Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleischman 55.39. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center
Charles Burchfield, Noontide in Late May, 1917. Opaque and transparent watercolor, and graphite pencil on paper, 22 × 18 in. (55.9 × 45.7 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase 31.408. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center
From October 21, 2026, to April 4, 2027, the Museo degli Innocenti , for the first time, an extraordinary exhibition dedicated to Artemisia Gentileschi’s Florentine period.
In Florence, Artemisia reached her artistic maturity: she was the first woman to be admitted to the Academy of Arts, received prestigious commissions from the Medici family, associated with Galileo Galilei and her contemporary artists, and was at the center of the cultural life of the time. Here, Artemisia established herself as an artist, free from the intrusive media attention that had forced her to leave Rome, and found her own path—one that would lead her to take her rightful place among the great masters of art history.
The exhibition aims to explore a crucial and formative phase in the painter’s personal and artistic journey, marked by her departure from Rome and her deep integration into the cultural, intellectual, and artistic fabric of 17th-century Medici-ruled Tuscany.
The exhibition, titled *Artemisia Gentileschi in Florence* and curated by Costantino D’Orazio, Cristina Acidini, and Sandro Bellesi, focuses on Artemisia’s stay in Florence, which marks the moment when the artist reached her creative maturity. Having left behind the complex and oppressive media attention that had marked her time in the capital, the painter found in the Tuscan city the ideal conditions to assert her talent. It was precisely in Florence that she achieved institutional milestones of exceptional significance for the time: Artemisia became, in fact, the first woman ever to be admitted.to the Academy of the Arts of Drawing. During her years in Florence, she attracted the attention and esteem of the Medici court, receiving highly prestigious commissions from the grand ducal family, forming friendships and associations with leading intellectuals such as Galileo Galilei, and engaging with the city’s foremost contemporary artists.
The exhibition also features two masterpieces by Caravaggio.
IMAGES
Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes (c. 1623–1625
Artemisia Gentileschi, Allegory of Inclination (1616; oil on canvas, 152 x 61 cm; Florence, Casa Buonarroti)
Artemisia Gentileschi, Bathing Bathsheba (circa 1645–1652; oil on canvas, 286 x 214 cm; Florence, Uffizi Galleries, Palatine Gallery, Berenice Room)
Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders (1652; oil on canvas, 200.3 x 225.6 cm; Bologna, National Art Gallery, Emilia-Romagna Museum Complex). Courtesy of the Ministry of Culture—Photographic Archive of the National Museums of Bologna—Regional Directorate of National Museums of Emilia-Romagna
