I hadnât heard about this but I normally assume a haughty scepticism to such finds.
good thread folks!
Iâm a big fan of Goyas black paintings .
http://http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wnKAugWW-wc/S53TNdg1T5I/AAAAAAAACnY/zRhD4ilMuGI/s1600-h/Goya_Black_Paintings_Duel.jpg
AN unfinished painting of the Virgin Mary and Christ owned by a former pilot is a lost masterpiece by Michelangelo.
If the attribution is confirmed, the work will rank alongside only three surviving panel paintings by the Italian master, potentially making it worth more than the record $118 million so far achieved for a work of art.
Antonio Forcellino, an art historian and restorer who has worked on Michelangeloâs masterpieces, first came across the pieta, a 63cm x 48cm oil painting on a panel made of fir, when he was contacted by email by its US owner.
He has since spent five years seeking documentary evidence in Europe and examining the painting at its location in Buffalo.
âThe first time I saw it, I was so struck by the strength of it that I felt breathless,â said Mr Forcellino, an Italian.
"Only a genius could have painted this â the darkness which underscores the suffering, the Virgin who looks as if sheâs screaming and the figure of Christ after he has been deposed from the cross. Itâs small, but the technique is extraordinary.
"Itâs definitely by Michelangelo, and I was lucky to find documents that prove it. The X-rays that have been done are the key.
âThey reveal his changes of mind; he moved the face of Christ, covered up grass to the left of the Virgin, and left an area next to her right leg unfinished. It couldnât possibly be a copy by another artist.â
In a new book out in Italy, La Pieta Perduta (The Lost Pieta), which will be published in Britain next year, Mr Forcellino argues that the painting was created in 1545 by Michelangelo â best known for his frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and his sculpture of David in Florence â and first mentioned in records in May 1546.
In a letter held at the Vaticanâs secret library, Cardinal Reginald Pole, a cousin of Henry VIII and later archbishop of Canterbury, offered it to Ercole Gonzaga, an Italian cardinal.
Subsequent owners included a baron who was honorary Prussian consul in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and a German baroness who left it to her lady-in-waiting, Gertrude Young, when she died. When Young died in 1905, the painting remained with her brother-in-law â the current ownerâs great-grandfather, who had settled in the US.
In 1999, Mr Forcellino identified a previously unrecognised Michelangelo masterpiece in a statue of Pope Julius II, who commissioned the artist to paint the Sistine Chapel.
The owner of the pieta will allow Mr Forcellino only to reveal his first name, Martin.
Martin told The Sunday Times in an email that he grew up with the pieta hanging in the family home. It once crashed to the ground when hit by a tennis ball he and his brothers were playing with, but was undamaged.
The family always believed the painting, which they affectionately called âthe Mikeâ, was by Michelangelo. His parents gave it to him nine years ago.
Vincent Van Goghâs At Eternityâs Gate, painted days before he shot himself.
Incredible.
I see 2 paitings by my favourite artists, Jack B Yeats, formerly owned by Graham Greene, are up for auction. This is the kind of thing the state should be investing in for the good of the nation. If they had any money of course, which I believe they donât.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/1102/1224282487871.html
I saw a copy of this lately and thought it looked good. JMW Turner painted it, I think its of a ship being brought on its last trip to the scrapyard after the Battle of Trafalgar.
http://www.davelevy.info/Downloads/wpaper/FightingTemeraire.jpg
An awful lots of Yeatsâ are dogs. Iâd say the second one here definitely is. Every twâpence haâpenny, jumped-up art collector of the Celtic Tiger vintage buys a Yeats, a Paul Henry and (Lord spare us) a Markey Robinson. Boring cunts.
[quote=âTwoRunnyEggs, post: 458436â]
I saw a copy of this lately and thought it looked good. JMW Turner painted it, I think its of a ship being brought on its last trip to the scrapyard after the Battle of Trafalgar.[/quote]
Beautiful, I love naval pictures. There are a couple of decent ones of the Dutch fleet under sail in the national gallery.
True SS, but a lot of Yeatâs work is quite brilliant at the same time.
Saw this little Van Eyck masterpiece last week, itâs about actual size, oil on board.
Eagle-eyed art enthusiasts will note that the sun is impossibly shining through the north windows of the church (the nave invariably runs East-West in churches from medieval times), this being a supernatural occurance, the sun shining from the north is being used by Jan to add to that feeling.
A curateâs egg, no doubt, Fitzy. Only someone such as myself or say, The Knight of Glin, could tell a good one from a bad one.
Australia must be a veritable wasteland when it comes to art? Iâm not going to pretend a few cave drawings or a carved boomerang painted by the Aborigines move me like a Raphael or a Vermeer.
Looks like something Edvard Munch drew in high infants. Garbage. His Rooftops over Paris in the National Gallery is far more pleasing.
A mixed bag somewhat SS to be honest. Some of the usual guff masquerading as art, some of the faux sub Constable sentimental English countryside transferred to the Australian outback. But there is some genuine originality, the likes of Sidney Nolan expecially. Iâll post some later, work (or more specifically lunch) calls.
I was in the Louvre in Paris a few weeks ago. Aside from the usual tourist trap of the Mona Lisa (didnât bother with it), you could happily spend a lifetime ensconsed in that building.
Your ma is garbage.
I know where youâll be Sunday night. I also know youâll be easily identifiable. So Iâd watch your lip sonny before I take a ratchet to your ugly mug in front of the punters of Vicar St.
[quote=âFagan O, post: 458446â]
Love this picture.
If ye ever get a change go to the Uffizi gallery in Firenze. Spent a great day there some years ago. Botticelliâs Birth of Venus and the Primeravera. Amazing stuff.
That Nighthawks is a cracking pic. Iâd be a big fan of the photorealists like Richard Estes etc. They wouldnât be unrelated to Hopper by any means.
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0geXc0D3Rj22B/340x.jpg
For me, one of the most alluring sculptures ever made in the round. Donatello depicts the boy David nonchalantly standing on the head of Goliath, hand casually on hips and sword loosely held in hand, naked save for his boots and hat. The polished bronze begs to be touched by the beholder. Personally I have no doubt that the master certainly meant the overt throwback to the deities of classical antiquity. This is unmistakably a Mercury, why else would his David wear a Mercurial hat? You will note also that this sculpture is not without wings either as Goliathâs helmet has winged decorations adorning it which rest on Davidâs calf. What was Donatello trying to say? The victory of God over the heathen, or God over false gods? Who knows.