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durfort

Art at Dante’s times

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After 2020, the unfortunate year dedicated to Raphael on the 500th anniversary of his death,  we are ready to embrace 2021 which in Italy, and around the world, will be the year of Dante’s celebrations, seven hundred years after the death of the great poet. It will be a year full of exhibitions, theatrical productionsmeetings, readings and conferences to which it will be possible to participate online, if not live, to celebrate Dante and the art of his time.
Although the scholastic definition of the Middle Ages as a “dark period” is widespread, we can confidently assert that art in Florence at the time of Dante was anything but dark! It was dazzling in its colors and extraordinarily flourishing in its many variations: from painting on wood to sculpture, from wood carving to mosaic decoration, from miniature to goldsmithing. An art rich in secular and profane symbolism, where form and content became one to convey concepts through images.
Art–Test had the pleasure of participating in the study of the cenotaph of Guillaume Bertand de Durfort, French count of Artois, who came to Italy as a military tutor and advisor to Aymeric de Narbonne at the service of the King of Naples Charles II of Anjou. He fell during the famous battle in the Campaldino plain, to which Dante himself took part.
The Count’s remains were brought to Florence and buried in the Church of the Santissima Annunziata, given the spiritual link between the leader and the newborn Order of the Servants of Mary. The work, attributed to an artist of Byzantine culture, is characterized by a sober and fully absorbed classicism, by a broad definition of the expressive yet impassive face and by the elegance of the molded frames. And, speaking of art dazzling in colors, it is interesting to note that diagnostic investigations revealed that the work was originally polychrome!

 

 

 

(Federica Fani)

Confronto tra i due ritratti con "medaglione"

A proposal for Botticelli (at auction)

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“In the past century, and at the beginning of this one, dealing with Botticelli would have seemed madness”, wrote Symonds, a great scholar, specialist of the Italian Renaissance, in 1877. And in 1895, Bernard Shaw followed, among others: “Today ten acres of Carracci, Giulio Romano, Guido, Domenichino and Pietro da Cortona, would not buy an ounce of Botticelli, Lippi or Giovanni Bellini”. And in fact it was only at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that there was an abundant traffic of Botticelli’s works, at gradually increasing prices – and of course also of fakes, including documented ones by Joni.

However, original, exceptional works were also sold. For example, the Bardi family, heirs of the commissioners, sold the Santo Spirito altarpiece (Pala Bardi), now in Berlin.

Pala Bardi, Botticelli

Primitives were very popular, and people came to Tuscany to admire them, study them and buy them (the Horne museum, after all, was born this way).

And today? Botticelli are very rare in the market. Are they still so desirable? Or has taste changed?

This is what we will see on January 28 at Sotheby’s, where a very intriguing painting is auctioned. “The portrait of a young man with a roundel” is in fact per se a puzzle. Who is it? Why is he holding this small portrait cut from a more than a  century older painting?

The closest Botticelli painting we know is the “Portrait of a Young Man with a Medal” from the Uffizi. This medallion is also a “foreign body” embedded in the artwork.

Portrait of a Young Man with Medallion, Botticelli

The investigations on the work at auction (rather complete, with a dossier very similar to the one that Art-Test offers to our customers) refers of an unusual adhesive that is located at the edges of the roundel, and therefore it cannot be said with certainty that the composition we see today was originally so. Maybe he too originally had a medal in his hand?

Is it one of the Botticelli brothers who were goldsmiths, portraying their products? Was they who created the medallions with Cosimo?

In fact, the “sitter” of the Portrait of the Uffizi is also unknown. And, given the similarity with Botticelli’s self-portrait of the Pala with the Adoration of the Magi, the hypothesis of a brother has been advanced.

If it is not his brother, we have an idea. He is an ancestor of John Travolta.

procida

Sustainability: anything to do with Culture?

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With a crescendo reminiscent of Zimmer’s musical pieces, in recent years we have increasingly heard, read and defined the word: sustainability.

In the beginning it seemed to be almost something elitarian but it turned out to be quite the opposite.

So what does sustainable mean for us? Is culture sustainable? Should it be?

Perhaps the time has come (although admittely talking about time in this period is actually a bit weird) to address this topic and try to understand how culture can be be part of a sustainable economy.

That is, an economy that safeguards the earth’s resources.

One of the Goals indicated by the UN 2030 Agenda is: “Providing quality, equitable and inclusive education, and learning opportunities for all.

We would like to briefly reflect on this.

In our opinion, when a society manages to make culture accessible to all, it creates a future of people capable of actively contributing to global sustainability.

Even more, only if this role for culture is recognized, it will be possible to have a virtuous circle that will see investments in this sector coming also from other parts of the economy, aware that it is the humus that feeds a sustainable future.

It will be the multiplier of every action aimed at the well-being of a community. If we think about it, this reflection is also the primitive thought that led to the creation of the European Cities of Culture.

The cultural programs presented in these occasions are the implementation of that virtuous circle we mentioned before. Culture is the beginning and ultimate end of living the community well, and therefore of contributing to the evolution of the world economy, which increasingly needs to continue in a sustainable way.

In recent years, for all Italian and European cities the sustainability of the projects presented was the keyword for the feasibility of it.

For all of them there was a new renaissance.

(Emanuela Massa)

ppippo

Will the show go on?

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We also love the virtual tours, the lessons, the interviews, the insights that museums and cultural institutions are publishing online.

But we would like to dispel a doubt. These videos are produced in an attempt to keep the cultural world visible.

Many videos are interesting, some illuminated, almost all enriching

With a digital platform it is possible to attract the attention of a considerable number of spectators.

However, this is does not mean it is the solution to keep this sector alive.

Art historians, conservators, and art diagnostic specialists went on stage during these months of closure in an attempt not to be forgotten, but they want to continue to do what they do best, ie. their profession, and they want this work to be appreciated and valued.

The art world is suffering, and we are not too sure competing with Netflix has any chance to succeed.

(Anna Pelagotti)
WhatsApp Image 2020-11-19 at 23.59.11

1630 plague bacteria still around

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The papers presented at Florence Heritech, a scientific conference on restoration and diagnostics of cultural heritage, have been published in the IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering journal.

A great opportunity for those who missed the event, to still browse through them.

Art-Test  contributed with a work that paves the way for the scientific testing not only of artworks, but also of the diagnostic images that are used in the attribution process (See publication, and  video).

Of the many contributions presented, we highlight the work of Pier Giorgio RIGHETTI – honorary professor of the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, of the Politecnico di Milano: “What Sherlock Sorely missed: The EVA Technology for Cultural Heritage Exploration“, which presents the results of a new investigative method. It is a functionalized film that can be used to capture all materials present on a surface without damaging it in any way.

With this new non invasive diagnostic method, iconic items were analised: Bulgakov’s manuscript of Master and Margarita, where traces of morphine have been found, and the shirt worn by Anton Chekhov at the time of his death, where tuberculosis bacteria were found.

But more spectacularly than that, the surviving documents of the plague of 1630, preserved in the historical archive of Milan, were also analyzed. And even centuries later, Yersinia pestis bacteria were still detected.

Another example presented is George Orwell‘s letter discovered in the Russian state archive, on which, although it was typewritten, the bacteria of the tuberculosis he contracted weeks before in Barcelona, were still present.

A fascinating studio that will surely lead to more exciting surprises!

(AP)
WhatsApp Image 2020-10-18 at 21.35.38 (1)

Tale of two copies and one thief (a Cardinal)

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When in 1507 the Raphael‘s Baglioni Altarpiece was placed on the altar of San Matteo in the Church of San Francesco al Prato, in Perugia, no one would ever have imagined that about 100 years later Cardinal Scipione Borghese would have craved its possession so much to commission its theft. Robbery that, following the riot of the Perugians, in a few days became a “voluntary donation” by the friars, immediately ratified by Scipione’s uncle, Pope Paul V.

At the time of the crime, in 1608 Raphael’s art, the Baglioni Altarpiece and the subject of the central altarpiece, “The Transport of Christ“, still enjoyed great fortune. Therefore, many copies had been made over the years.

Two of these are now preserved in the National Gallery of Umbria.

Although of the same size (184 × 176 cm), and equal to the original one, which is now in the collection of the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the Perugian copies were made at different times and on different media.

A copy on wood was made in 1554, when the original was still in its initial location, by Domenico Alfani, a friend of Raphael, in collaboration with his son Orazio. The panel was destined to the church of Sant’Agostino, also in Perugia.

The other copy, instead, on canvas, is attributed to Cavalier d’Arpino, and dated 1609, considering that it was commissioned by the cardinal to compensate the city for the deprivation of the original.

On both of these two copies, Art-Test Firenze performed with the Vis-IR scanner Infrared Reflectography on the entire surface. Thanks to the particular flexibility of the instrumentation, and to excellent coordination with the restorers and art historians of the National Gallery of Umbria, we were able to complete the works in just two consecutive days.

The reflectographic campaign, returning the image of the preparatory drawing, will be used by scholars to study the theme of “copies”, evaluating the methods of execution, through similarities and differences between them and with the original, that was also recently investigated and restored. All of this was to be on display at the exhibition, currently canceled for the closing period due to COVID19, entitled “The fortune of Raphael’s Pala Baglioni through its copies”. 

We hope it will be rescheduled soon!

(Emanuela Massa)

fakeforreal

A scientific approach is always crucial. Even museums know it!

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The case of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne is very topical, with the exhibition “Russian Avant-garde at the Ludwig Museum: original and fake. Questions, research, explanations“, which sees works certified as authentic (for example by Kazimir Malevich and Natalia Goncharova) alongside others whose attribution was rejected by the museum’s researchers, following an investigation campaign diagnostics carried out on each artwork.

It is interesting to note the participation of other museum institutions, such as the Momus Museum in Thessaloniki and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, which have lent some pieces from their collections.

The emergency of Covid-19 has unfortunately led to the suspension of the exhibition until 30 September, which for the moment remains scheduled until 3 January 2021.

The exhibition scheduled at the House of European History  in Brussels Fake for Real, A History Of Forgery And Falsification is also temporarily closed, but scheduled until next October 2021.

“In the routine of daily life, the sensational, spectacular and supernatural are sweet seduction. They allow us to escape the ordinary. But the game of deception is only fun when we have agreed to it. When we are deliberately deceived, we are on the losing side in many regards, losing our money, credibility, integrity or even our existence”

We hope that it will be possible to return to visit museums soon and soon and that they will remain a beautiful example of historical-artistic and technical-scientific research finally “exhibited” together!

(Federica Fani)

Boetti Senza Titolo (uno nove sette otto), 1978

From riches to rags

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It goes without saying that the certainty of authenticity is an indispensable prerequisite for a work of art and is what allows the collector, in some cases together with a certain amount of valerian, to sleep soundly.

We can only imagine how abrupt the awakening of the buyer must have been, when he, ten years after the purchase of a tapestry by Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994) on Telemarket Spa, discovered he had a fake in his hands!!

When it could be estimated between € 350,000 and 500,000 as in last Christie’s auction.

Before you begin to look with suspicion at the portrait of a gentleman that you now exhibit in the room and to doubt the Fabergé egg that you keep in the cabinet, we inform you that there can be a happy ending, at least in litigations, as it has happened in this case.

However, the advice we will never tire of giving you, is to request a valid authentication and a complete diagnostic file before purchasing!

(Federica Fani)

vasari _bello_streep

A Vasari in the attic

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The picture  from private collection, “The temptations of St. Jerome“, attributed to Giorgio Vasari, a brilliant painter, architect, historian and biographer of the Italian Renaissance, was sold at auction at a world-record price for the artist of 800,000 euros.

A great satisfaction for the auction house, and a supposedly good time for ancient art, even one should consider that this selling price is still around 16% of, for example, the 5 million euros paid for “Black Ground (Deep Light)” by contemporary artist Julie Mehretu. (Don’t you know her?)

Vasari’s painting, on whose autography none appears to have doubts, is accompanied by a free circulation certificate, and therefore can be exported outside Italy. We therefore do not know if it will remain in the country.

The painting is identical in its subject and size to the one exhibited at the Galleria Palatina in Florence, that Art-Test studied in 2010, during its restoration.

Given the almost perfect overlap of the version at auction with that in the public collection, a comparative study would have been interesting, a reflectographic survey, for example, to establish which of the two versions was the first, and to investigate the adherence to the execution methods in which Vasari excelled.

Art-Test, in fact,  had the pleasure of investigating many paintings by this extraordinary artist, and admiring, in addition to his sublime inventions, the extraordinary technical ability of himself and of his atelier.

(AP)

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