By: James Panero In September 2000 art conservator Marco Grassi was attending an estate auction in Paris with an old friend, a European private collector. In the warren of salesrooms at the Drouot Hotel, mixed in with the chipped crockery and worn sofas, was a small rectangular painting in a dusty glass case. It appeared to [...]
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Talking Pictures: Revolutionary Road
June 2009“I should be photographing more steel mills or paper factories,” Edward Weston wrote in his daybook on Sept. 13, 1923, “but here I am in romantic Mexico … There are sunlit walls of fascinating surface textures, and there are clouds!”
Continue reading...Design: Wonder Child
June 2009“Suddenly, without any kind of warning, I found myself completely naked, in the heart of the city of Milan, on the morning of Oct. 24, 1907.” With this astonishment began the fantastic life of Bruno Munari, an artist and designer whose every moment was imbued with the wonder of a child emerging from the womb.
Continue reading...Traveling Collector: Hungarian Rhapsody
June 2009Many cities around the world have had the dubious fortune of living through “interesting times,” as the old saying goes. But what makes Budapest unique is that its tumultuous past is still writ large across the city’s face. Forged in 1873 from Buda and Pest, two separate towns that faced each other across a bend in the Danube, practically every vista in this beautiful metropolis seems to offer a lesson in cultural history.
Continue reading...Books: Venetian Finds
June 2009Perhaps it is just coincidence. Or maybe deeper forces are at work to cause two novels built around paintings by Giovanni and Gentile Bellini to be published at the same time—and by the same publisher. It’s not entirely baffling, though; if one were writing a novel about the fate of an Old Master painting, one would do well to pick a Venetian one.
Continue reading...Today's Masters: Sublime Wilderness
June 2009The large painting on the easel is still somewhat inchoate. But it already evinces an impressive form and scale. It is the jagged outline of a majestic summit in the Himalayas. “I was trekking for several weeks last November in Nepal and Bhutan,” says Richard Estes in his matter-of-fact way, not acknowledging that such vigorous activity is at all out of the ordinary for a 72-year-old.
Continue reading...Ancient Art, New Rules
June 2009The field of antiquities—the art of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt and the Near East—has had some hard knocks lately. A spate of lawsuits and even a headline-grabbing criminal trial have focused the public eye on the pitfalls of the trade and on the international debate over whether or not it is ethical to collect ancient cultural objects. Yet demand and prices for antiquities remain strong. In part this trend is a testament to the fact that there’s no such thing as bad publicity—due to the news stories, more people than ever before are aware that antiquities exist, are beautiful and desirable and are for sale—but also, it reflects the fact that the antiquities trade has made important alterations in the way it functions.
Continue reading...In a Nutshell: Up to Snuff
June 2009Some objects that modern collectors regard as works of art were not seen that way by the people who originally made and bought them; so it is with snuff bottles. Tobacco reached China in the 16th century, but the use of snuff, its powdered form, became fashionable in the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Its wealthy inhalers carried their personal rations in bottles rather than the boxes their European counterparts favored.
Continue reading...Collecting: Premium Blend
June 2009For 40 years London dealer Indar Pasricha has been collecting Indo-European furniture, a hybrid genre that was a byproduct of the spice trade that brought the Portuguese, and later the Dutch, French and English, to the Indian subcontinent and its island neighbor, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). “The ebony furniture, with its low-relief carving, looks extraordinary in a modern setting,” says Pasricha.
Continue reading...Shining On
June 2009The light seems to come from nowhere and everywhere. As the sun suffuses the haze and shimmers on the surface of still waters, the atmosphere holds a glow that might be silvery, bluish or fiery red. The view recedes gradually into the distance, passing through several distinct planes. The overall impression is one of silence and deep peace.
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