"Sunset at Montmajour" attributed to Vincent van Gogh

 It was inventoried among Theo van Gogh's collection of his brother's works in 1890 and then sold by Theo's widow, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger to a Paris art dealer in 1901.
 During the year of 1970, re-emerges as part of the estate of the recently deceased Norwegian industrialist Christian Nicolai Mustad.
However, Mustad was advised by the French ambassador to Sweden that it was not a Van Gogh. As a consequence, "Sunset at Montmajour" was stashed away in the attic, where it stayed until the current owners purchased it from him.

 In 1991, the unsigned painting was taken to the Van Gogh Museum, but at the time the museum experts didn't conclude as authentic.

 About twenty years later, its owners brought back to the museum to seek authentication, and its researchers have been examining it ever since.
Under the supervision of Louis van Tilborgh, the Van Gogh Museum’s senior researcher, it was recently concluded that the work was a genuine van Gogh painting because the pigments correspond with those of van Gogh’s palette from Arles. “This time, we have topographical information plus a number of other factors that have helped us to establish authenticity,” said the museum director,  Mr. Axel Rüger. “Research is so much more advanced now, so we could come to a very different conclusion.”

 Mr. van Tilborgh states that "Sunset at Monmajour" was was painted on the same type of canvas and with the same type of underpainting van Gogh used for at least one other painting of the same area, “The Rocks.” The work was also listed as part of Theo van Gogh’s collection in 1890. It has “180” painted on the back, which corresponds to the number in the collection inventory. “That was the clincher,” he said

 The date of completion of the painting  has been identified as July 4, 1888. This conclusion was based upon a letter that Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother on the next day, where he discribes the scene:

 “Yesterday, at sunset, I was on a stony heath, where very small, twisted oaks grow, in the background a ruin on the hill, and wheat fields in the valley. It was romantic, it couldn’t be more so, à la Monticelli, the sun was pouring its very yellow rays over the bushes and the ground, absolutely a shower of gold. And all the lines were beautiful; the whole scene had charming nobility.”

 The painter moved to Arles in February 1888, where he spent time exploring the landscapes in Provence and doing plein air painting. Van Gogh was particularly fascinated by the flat landscape around the hill of Montmajour, with its rocky outcroppings and hay-colored fields.

In a letter dated July 1888, he said that he had been to Montmajour at least 50 times “to see the view over the plain.”

 Art historian Mr. Leeman, said that “in hindsight, many pointers in his letters and entries in catalogs of the 1900s have been linked to other paintings or misidentified,” adding, “Here, we see a painting that fits those descriptions exactly.”

 Depicting dusk in the hilly, forested landscape of Montmajour, in Provence, with wheat fields and the ruins of a Benedictine abbey in the distance, the 73.3 cm × 93.3 cm (28.9 in × 36.7 in) oil painting was completed during the most important period of van Gogh's life, when he created his significant masterpieces, such as 'Sunflowers,' 'The Bedroom' and 'The Yellow House.'

 "Sunset at Montmajour" will be on display at the van Gogh Museum during one year, starting on September 24, as part of the current exhibition, "Van Gogh at Work," which focuses on other new discoveries about the painter’s artistic development.
According to Mr. Rüger, the current owners have not indicated what they intend to do with it after that.

 This is the first full-size painting by Van Gogh to be discovered since 1928.

Renoir's "Paysage Bords de Seine" was allegedly stolen and its auction has been cancelled

The story involving Pierre-Auguste Renoir's painting "Paysage Bords de Seine" (On the Shore of the Seine), bought at the Harpers Ferry Flea Market in Virginia, is starting to assume the form of a novel.

 Last week, The Art Inquirer mentioned that the 5 1/2 x 9 in oil on linen napkin painting was going up for auction this September 29th at The Potomack Company. But unforeseen events have detemined its cancellation.

 Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira, entered the library at the Baltimore Museum of Art and among the letters and artwork receipts from Baltimore arts patron, collector and important benefactor of the museum, Saidie Adler May, he found records showing that she had lent Renoir's to the museum in 1937. The discovery startled museum officials, who had already said the flea-market Renoir never entered their institution.

 In the possession of the loan registration number, museum officials ended up discovering an even-more-astounding clue about the painting's journey. An old museum loan registration document revealed that the "Paysage Bords de Seine" was stolen on November 17, 1951, from the Baltimore Museum of Art — shortly after May’s death.

A copy of the original police report from 1951 was provided by the Baltimore police this last Friday.

 Due to these unexpected events, the auction of the painting that had been acquired in 1926 by international lawyer Herbert L. May at the Gallerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris and bought at a flea market over eight decades after, has been cancelled and now the FBI is investigating, while at the same time museum officials are trying to learn more about the painting’s theft and why they couldn’t explain why it does not appear on a worldwide registry of stolen and lost art.

  The museum's Director Doreen Bolger has stated that the painting belongs in the BMA’s May Collection, but  for Potomack Company’s President Elizabeth Wainstein,  Herbert L. May is listed as the buyer by the French gallery where the piece was first sold, she’s not certain that Saidie May technically owned it.
According to Wainstein, the painting will remain at the auction house until the matter is settled.

These and other details may trigger a legal showdown over the painting's ownership and besides the already mentioned players (the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Potomack Company and the woman that inadvertently bought the painting together with a plastic cow and a Paul Bunyan doll at the flea market), one cannot forget about the company that insured the painting and paid a $2,500 claim for the stolen artwork.

 According to Christopher A. Marinello, executive director and general counsel of the London-based Art Loss Register, the world’s largest private database of stolen and lost art, the rightful owner of "Paysage Bords de Seine" might be the company that insured the painting at the time of its disappearance. In the mid-20th century, most art insurers had policies stipulating that they were entitled to stolen artwork that was recovered and for which they’ve paid claims.

 The Art Inquirer contacted The Potomack Company and received the following feedback:

Quote:

"Bellow is our press release from Thursday that explains the situation. Since then, a police report of the theft from the Baltimore Museum of Art has surface. Potomack Commpany is fullly cooperatin with the FBI to help ascertain who has the clear title to this work of art.


RENOIR PAINTING PAYSAGE BORDS DE SEINE WITHDRAW FROM SEPTEMBER 29 AUICTION.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

The Potomack Company announces the withdrawl of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's painting Paysage Bords de Seine from a planned sale on September 29 at the Potomack Company auction house after a question was raised by The Baltimore Museum of Art on Wednesday, September 26, about the ownership of the painting.


Backround:

On July 27, 2012, a consignor brought a painting into The Potomack Company that she had bought at a flea market., and Potomack's fine art specialist, Anne Norton Craner, confirmed that it was a known Renoir painting titled Paysage Bords de Seine painted in the late 19th century.

The same day, July 27, 2012, Potomack Company promptly contacted Art Loss Register – a service that records and follows missing and stolen works of art - confirming that the painting had never been reported stolen or missing. Potomack also consulted the FBI’s art theft website to confirm that it was not listed as stolen by the FBI. Potomack researched the provenance of the painting, determining that it was a painting listed in Bernheim-Jeune’s Renoir catalogue raisonne and that the last record of the painting’s exhibition or sale was in Paris in 1926. The buyer was Herbert L. May, husband of Saidie May until their separation in 1924. Saidie May was an important donor of paintings and other objects to the Baltimore Museum of Art.

On September 6, Potomack issued a press release announcing the upcoming sale and explaining the mysterious provenance and discovery of the painting. The release was sent to major news organizations, to The Baltimore Museum of Art and to international Renoir specialists. Since the press release, there has been worldwide media coverage of the painting and the mystery of its whereabouts since 1926."

End of Quote.


   As you can see, this story is far from over. Further developments will be reported as soon as they become available.
The Art Inquirer used Lynda Robinson and Magda Jean-Louis report at The Washington Post (Post Local) as a reference for this article.

Renoir's Painting found at a Flea Market in Virginia is Going for Auction

 It's one of those stories that we wish it would happen to us. During a weekend day at the Harpers Ferry Flea Market in Virginia, a Shenandoah Valley woman acquired a box of miscellaneous items - a plastic cow and a Paul Bunyan doll had caught her eye. After taking those two items, the remaining content was put inside a white plastic bag and stored in a shed. Later was moved into her car’s trunk and eventually into her kitchen.

 However, part of the content of the box, was also a painting of a landscape. But the woman wasn't really interested in the painting, but in the frame. She had already tored the brown paper off the back and thrown it in the trash when she asked her mother for help to take the painting from the frame.
Fortunately her mother told her to get the painting looked first before throwing it away. She hardly knew that she was in presence of a genuine Renoir, worth many times more than the price that she had payed for box's content: $50.

 A plaque on the frame with the author's name, led the owner to seek advice with a reliable expert, so she scheduled an appointment with The Potomack Company in Alexandria (VA).

 The painting's radiant plein air quality – the rapid brush strokes, the vibrant purple and pink colors, the Seine as subject matter and the luminous light, reminded fine arts specialist, Anne Norton Craner, of Renoir’s 1879 Landscape of Wargemont.
After further investigation, Craner was able to identify the painting as "Paysage Bords de Seine" (oil on canvas: 5 1/2 x 9 in), one of Renoir’s many river scenes painted along the Seine River near the towns of Bougival and Chatou.

 Anne Craner concluded the painting had been last purchased in 1926 from the Gallerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris, one of the preeminent dealers of Renoir’s work, by international lawyer Herbert L. May, husband of Baltimore arts patron and collector Saidie Adler May. Mrs. May was an important benefactor of the Baltimore Museum of Art, donating over 300 works of art as well as funds to establish the museum’s Renaissance and Modern Art wings.

 In the words of Elizabeth Haynie Wainstein, owner of The Potomack Company, the painting’s journey is a rare story of a lost treasure found, now expected to fetch $75,000-100,000 at auction.
 The painting will be auctioned as Lot 1 on September 29th, included in the Sale 40 - September 29th/30th Auction at Main Gallery.

Nature in America: Taming the Landscape

 

Until the 26 of this month, you are still on time to see a major exhibition of paintings, drawings, photographs, and prints—many rarely or never shown—of the American landscape. From the works by early artists of the Hudson River School through the mid-twentieth-century ones, before abstract expressionism changed the artistic dynamic.

 Presented by the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, "Nature in America: Taming the Landscape," comprises forty-four works on view, of which forty-two belong to the Art Center's permanent collection.

 The exhibition is arranged throughout three galleries, as to offer a better perception to the visitors, of the different interpretations of the American landscape from the depiction of the largely wilderness, passing through more intimate scenes after the Civil War, and until the early-20th-century with works inspired by the art of European modernists.

 The first part, entitled  "The Young Nation and Expansion: Domesticating the Wild," includes among other renowned artists, the names of Aaron Draper Shattuck, Andrew Joseph Russell, Frank Jay Haynes, Jervis McEntee, Thomas Doughty, Thomas Cole, and William Henry Jackson.

 Mountains, lakes, waterfalls, that is to say, a wilderness that is becoming more rare in Europe, is offered to the artists of the Hudson River School and to the early Western photographers.
Their paintings convey a sublime and romanticized landscape inspired by the dramatic American wilderness.

 After this, the visitor is taken to "After the Civil War: Softening the Face of Nature," a period during which a considerable number of painters, printmakers, and photographers in the United States, started creating more atmospheric up-close and intimate depictions of nature, with growing emphasis on strong passages and veils of color.

American painters start following the style of artists such as Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot and Theodore Rousseau, depicting an informal and vibrant landscape. It is also during this time that artists embrace a new way of painting, brought by those working in Europe: En Plein Air
These paintings often show the influences of the French Impressionsists, exhibiting luminous and color-saturated palletes.

In this section, one can find the works of Abbott H. Thayer, Coswell Rubincam, Daniel Garber, Dwight William Tryon, Henry Wolf, George Inness, John Francis Murphy, and Milton Avery among others.

 The exhibition ends with "The Progressive Era through the World Wars: Breaking Nature Apart."
In this part, one can perceive the depiction of masses, planes paterns and colours in the interpretation of the landscape. A style inspired by Matisse, Picasso and other European Modernists.
It's the first half of the twentieth century, a period of reformist politics and new ideas in the arts.

 Among the artists included in this section, some from the Woodstock Art Colony, are the renowned names of Andrew Dasburg, Ansel Adams, Arthur Dove, Ernest Fiene, John Marin, Rosella Hartman, and William Zorach.

 The exhibtion "Nature in America: Taming the Landscape" is sponsored by the Evelyn Metzger Exhibition Fund and can be visited until August 26,2012 at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, located at the entrance to the historic Vassar College campus.
Admission is free and open to the public. All galleries are wheelchair accessible.
The Art Inquirer consulted  the Dutchess County Tourism website as a resource for this article

Edvard Munch’s "The Scream" Sets a New World Record at Art Auction

On 2 May 2012, during the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale at Sotheby's New York, Edvard Munch’s "The Scream," a pastel on board (79cm x 59cm;  32in x 23 1/4 in) in its original frame and dated from 1895, set a new world record for any work of art sold at auction.

Munch's masterpice was sold for $119,922,500 / £73,921,284 / € 91,033,826 (includes buyer's premium), in an evening where $330,568,550 marked the highest-ever total for an auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Sotheby’s Worldwide.
A group of at least eight bidders showed interest in Edvard Munch's painting, but it would be an over 12 minutes long battle between two highly determined phone bidders that would settle the final selling price.

This is one of only four versions of the work in existence and widely regarded as the best. An oil version from 1893 is in the National Gallery in Oslo, while the Munch museum holds another oil version from 1910 and a pastel one.

The Scream is considered an iconic work of art and one of the visual keys to the modern consciousness, in the sense that expresses "...the horrifying moment when man realizes his impact on nature and the irreversible changes that he has initiated, making the planet increasingly uninhabitable." (in the words of Petter Fredrik Olsen)

Petter Olsen, the previous owner of this version of The Scream, decided that it was time to make the painting accessible to the general public. He inherited the work as part of an art collection that included other Munch's works assembled by his father Thomas Fredrik Olsen, of whom he was a friend and patron.
With the money resulting from the auction, Petter intends to build a museum in Hvitsten, Norway, where Munch once owned property and near where Olsen has an estate, to house the rest of his father's collection.

“I was walking along the road with two Friends / the Sun was setting – The Sky turned a bloody red / And I felt a whiff of Melancholy – I stood / Still, deathly tired – over the blue-black / Fjord and City hung Blood and Tongues of Fire / My Friends walked on – I remained behind / – shivering with Anxiety – I felt the great Scream in Nature – EM” (The artist’s hand-painted inscription on the frame of the present work.)



Several other important works of art made part of the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, including: Pablo Picasso’s Dora Maar titled Femme assise dans un fauteuil $29,202,500); Joan Miro’s Tête humaine from 1931 ($14,866,500) and Paul Gauguin’s Cabane sous les arbres ($8,482,500). All from Theodore J. Forstmann's art collection.

A Salvador Dali's Printemps nécrophilique from 1936, which has not appeared on the market in nearly 15 years, achieved $16,322,500, a group of five gouaches by René Magritte from a private European collection totaled $4,588,500 and Max Ernst’s 1940 depiction of his lover and fellow Surrealist Leonora Carrington titled Leonora in the Morning Light, sold for $7,992,500.
From an important European collection, Constantin Brancusi's Prométhée achieved $12,682,500, while a group of pieces by Auguste Rodin – including four lifetime casts – totaled $5,878,000.

This was without a doubt a memorable evening for Sotheby's auction house and an evidence that despite of all the world crisis that we're going through, there's alot of money set aside.

Next year will take place the 150th anniversary celebrations in Norway of the birth of Edvard Munch (1863-1944).

Although the value payed for Edvard Munch's work is out of reach for the mere mortal, it dims when compared with the staggering sum of €190 million (£158 million, $250 million) payed last year for Cézanne's painting "The Card Players."

Last days of In the Presence of Things. European Still-Life Painting (1840 - 1955) with extended hours

The major exhibition In the Presence of Things. European Still-Life Painting (1840 - 1955) will close at 23h00 during its last three days (6,7 and 8 of January 2012).

Only 120 people are allowed each time and during these last days the waiting time can be longer than usual.

This still life exhibition organized by the Gulbenkian Museum and curated by Neil Cox PhD, offers a rare opportunity to see the works by some of the most celebrated artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In The Presence of Things. Four Centuries of European Still-Life Painting - Part Two: 19th - 20th Centuries

Today inaugurates one of the most expected exhibitions organized by the Gulbenkian Museum and curated by Neil Cox PhD.

Exhibiting the works by some of the most prominent names, with particular focus on modern still life in the 19th century and on the fundamental changes which occurred during the first half of the 20th century, "In the Presence of Things. Four Centuries of European Still-Life Painting (1840 - 1955)", invites the viewer to observe the different approaches to still-life painting through different ages and geographical places.

The exhibition, which in portuguese is entitled "A Perspectiva das Coisas. A Natureza-Morta na Europa 1840-1955," includes 93 paintings from 70 artists, including those of Realists and Impressionists such as Claude Monet, with his painting Still-life with Melon, one of the most important pieces owned by the Gulbenkian museum, the paintings of Post-Impressionist painters like Cézanne, Van Gogh, Manet and Gauguin, as well as works by Picasso, Duchamp, Braque, Matisse, Magritte, Dalí, Man Ray and Max Ernst.



This is a unique opportunity to observe in person, works of art which were gently loaned by some of the most important museums in the world, in a total of 37, including Centres Georges Pompidou (Paris), Kunstmuseum (Basel), Musée D'Orsay (Paris), Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid), Philadelphia Museum of Art (USA), Tate (London), National Gallery of Art (Washington), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), and The Museum of Modern Art (New York).



In The Presence of Things. Four Centuries of European Still-Life Painting - Part Two: 19th - 20th Centuries (1840 - 1955), can be visited between 21 Oct 2011 to 8 Jan 2012 at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Temporary Exhibition Gallery:
Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 - 18:00
Thursday and Saturday 10:00 - 20:00
Admission: 5€ | Admission + audio-guide: 6€

The first part (17th - 18th Centuries) took place last year, with curatorship supervised by the Prof. Peter Cherry.

Monet's Water Lilies triptych at the Nelson-Atkins

Brought to New York in the 1950's Claude Monet's Water Lilies triptych was separated, and the individual panels were sold to the St. Louis Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum. The last time that these panels were exhibited together as they were meant to seen was in 1979, and now in collaboration with the other two museums, the Nelson-Atkins reunites the right-hand panel from its collection with the other ones, making this a rare opportunity to observe one of the most famous works of who is considered the most important Impressionist painter.

Each panel measures 6-feet tall by 14-feet wide and is believed that Monet started working on these in 1915, then continuosly reworking them in his studio at Giverny until the year of his death in 1926, according to Nicole Myers, Associate Curator at the Nelson-Atkins. This is most evident due to the fact that through x-ray imaging, light boxes, and computerized cross-sections, conservators have discovered the artist obsessively changed the composition over the years. For example, beneath a cluster of water lilies on the Nelson-Atkins canvas, conservators found the image of an agapanthus plant that Monet suppressed halfway through painting it. An x-ray of the agapanthus will be part of the exhibition. "We don’t even know for sure whether he considered them finished," said Simon Kelly, who, as curator of modern and contemporary art at the Saint Louis Art Museum and former associate curator of European painting and sculpture at the Nelson-Atkins, has been working on this exhibition for more than three years.

Through a range of archival photographs and a rarely seen film from 1915, showing Monet painting in his garden, wearing a white suit and a straw hat, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, the exhibition will bring to life the beauty of the garden and his passion for it.

Visitors will be able to use touch screens to "make your own Monet", which can be displayed on the museum's website, while another permits a close-up observation of the artist's loose and short brush strokes. Another panel can be used by visitors to describe their experience, description that will then be projected in light on the walls of that room.

In a separate, dedicated space, the paintings themselves will be displayed with side panels at slight angles to recreate something of the panoramic experience of the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris where several of Monet’s water lily triptychs are mounted.

The Water Lilies triptych will be on view, from April 9 to Aug. 7, 2011 at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City (MO, USA), after which it will travel to the Saint Louis Art Museum in the fall of 2011, before showing at the Cleveland Museum of Art at a date to be confirmed.

With the exception of a triptych in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, this is the only Monet triptych in the United States.

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. In Kansas City the exhibition is supported by the Hartley Family Foundation, Carol and Fred Logan and the Campbell-Calvin Fund and Elizabeth C. Bonner Charitable Trust for exhibitions. Frontier Airlines is the official airline sponsor.

This article contains excerpts from the museum's press release