leonardo da vinci

Raphael, Rembrandt and More At Christie's Old Masters Sale

It's still possible to set a record in this art market; it just takes an amazing lot from a far-off period in time. On December 8, 2009, a drawing by Italian renaissance artist Raphael will go under the gavel. The piece is expected to pull in a world record $19.7 million. The 12-inch drawing (in black chalk) will be auctioned by Christie's at its Old Masters auction. It was a study used for a muse in Raphael's fresco of Parnassus, which is in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican. This is the highest quality piece by Raphael to come to auction since the 1980s.

Christie's is selling the Raphael drawing on behalf of an anonymous private collector, though it's been owned in the past by Sir Thomas Lawrence and King William II of Holland. It hasn't shown up at auction in more than 150 years. The history associated with this piece, as well as the piece itself, are what make it a threat to the record of 8.1 million pounds paid for the drawings "The Risen Christ" (Michelangelo) and Leonardo da Vinci's "Horse and Rider." They sold in July 2000 and July 2001, respectively.

The drawing was completed between 1508 and 1511 at the request of Pope Julius the II. The artist died in 1520 at the age of 37.

The sale will feature other major works including a masterpiece by Rembrandt, shown at right. Unseen in public for almost 40 years and offered at auction for the first time since 1930, Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo, 1658, is offered from a distinguished private collection and is expected to bring in £18 million to £25 million. One of the most significant Old Masters to be offered in recent years. Saint John the Evangelist by Domenico Zampieri, called Il Domenichino (1581-1641), will be presented for sale for the first time in over 100 years. It is expected to sell for £7 million to £10 million.

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Is The Lady A Da Vinci?

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Could the lovely lady at right be a work by Leonardo da Vinci? Antiques Trade Gazette has a fascinating piece that speculates that this small (13" x 9") picture on vellum mounted on an oak board could be a long-lost da Vinci. The portrait, listed as "German, early 19th century" sold for $19,000 at Christie's New York in 1998 to art dealer Kate Ganz who sold it for around the same amount to art connoisseur Peter Silverman in 2007. But now Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of History of Art at Oxford University has said that the painting might belong to the Renaissance master. Evidence gathered using a "multispectral" camera from Lumière Technology of Paris has found a fingerprint near the top left of the work. The fingerprint may be similar to a print on Leonardo's St Jerome in the Vatican. A palm print left on the neck in the painting may also reflect da Vinci's hands-on approach to shading. Analysis also shows the drawing and hatching were done by a left-handed artist, which da Vinci was. The lady's hair and costume would be appropriate for the time period.

Professor Kemp believes the lady in the picture may be Bianca Sforza, daughter of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (1452-1508), and his mistress Bernardina de Corradis and dates to around 1496 when she was 13 or 14. Peter Silverman, who had been an underbidder in the 1998 Christie's sale had mentioned the work to Dr. Nicholas Turner, formerly Keeper of Prints & Drawings at the British Museum. He directed Silverman to Professor Kemp who is a da Vinci specialist. The portrait hasn't been shown in public since its reattribution and Kemp has written a book about the subject which has not yet been published. The painting's new value should be around £100 million. It is set to go on display next March at a show called And There Was Light: The Masters of the Renaissance Seen in a New Light to be held in the Eriksbergshallen, Gothenburg, Sweden.

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Tags: art, leonardo da vinci, LeonardoDaVinci, painting, renaissance

Jesus Stops Traffic on 5th Ave

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

A row of cars waiting for a green light was concealed by four large canvases proceeding across New York's busy Fifth Ave., creating the appearance of emptiness from W. 51st St to Central Park and beyond. Artist Nelson Diaz chose Palm Sunday to reveal his latest project, "The Isolated Christ," to the people of New York. The response to this unique mix of street art, performance art and oil on canvas was nothing short of astounding.

Five years in the making, The Isolated Christ is a four-part rendering of the most famous figure in one of Leonardo Da Vinci's most recognized works. Diaz "isolated" the image of Jesus Christ from the apostles in DaV inci's "The Last Supper" and plotted thousands of points on the image by hand. Then, using advanced calculus techniques, he fed the point into an equation that exposes "hidden" four dimensional space in the original image and used the results as the foundation for his signature perspective.

The result is four faces of DaVinci's Jesus, reflecting various situations. The final canvas – transcendence – offers an obscure, almost headless presentation, signifying the departure from the norm. The meaning is left to the viewer, with the religious assuming resurrection and the atheist likely to posit obsolescence. Diaz remains coy with his intention, believing that interpretation (like faith) is a personal affair.

With half a decade spent on the vision and production of The Isolated Christ (all four paintings were completed by hand – sans brushes, literally with his fingers), Diaz spent the last few months struggling with venue. He decided last summer to skip the traditional alternatives (such as art galleries) during his protest against the treatment of art as a commodity, during which he auctioned 10 paintings on eBay for the princely starting bid of $1 each.

"The old way of doing things is dead," he explained during several of our meetings. Deep-pocketed buyers writing checks for pieces they don't understand, he believed, would not be able to sustain itself ... a lesson to which the art market was treated last September. Diaz wanted a public setting. As with his eBay experiment, he wanted to return the aesthetic to everybody, not a self-proclaimed elite.

That left only one "gallery" from which to choose: the streets of Manhattan.

Gallery: Nelson Diaz and The Isolated Christ