MASTER PAINTINGS WEEK LO 009 NDON 4 -10 JULY 2 Oxford St. D e ✦ r Whitfield Fine Art in Sq. Hanover g St. New Bond St. Brook St. St. George Hanover St. Maddox St. ✦ Ben Elwes Moretti Fine Art Ltd ✦ Sotheby’s ✦ Fine Art Richard Green ✦ Conduit St. Bruton St Old Burlington St. Thos. Agnew & Clifford St. Savile Row Sons Ltd New Bond St. ✦ Cork St. ✦ Charles Beddington Ltd Albemarle St. Grafton St. ✦ Sphinx Fine Art Exhibiting at The Gallery Hay hill Philip Mould Ltd ✦ Whitcomb St. Old Bond St. Burlington Gardens Haymarket Robilant & Voena ✦ Dover St. Jermyn St. ✦ P&D Colnaghi & Co. Ltd Fergus Hall ✦ William Thuillier Regent St. Master Paintings – Orange St. ✦ Exhibiting at ✦ John Mitchell Fine Paintings The National Deborah Gage Gallery Trafal Piccadilly Pall Mall gar Sq. The Weiss Gallery ✦ ✦ Duke St. Bury St. Dickinson St. Jermyn St. To Trafalgar Square James’s St. Moatti Fine Arts ✦ The Matthiesen Gallery ✦ Verner Åmell Ltd ✦ ✦ Mason’s Johnny Van Haeften Ltd Ryder St. Yard Michael Tollemache ✦ Derek Johns Ltd Fine Art ✦ ✦ Rafael Valls Ltd Trafalgar Galleries ✦ ✦ Christie’s King St. MASTER PAINTINGS WEEK LONDON T. +44 (0)20 7491 7408 F. +44 (0)20 7491 8851 [email protected] MASTER www.masterpaintingsweek.co.uk PAINTINGS PRESS ENQUIRIES WEEK Sue Bond Public Relations T. +44 (0) 1359 271085 [email protected] Special Exhibitions and Events Saturday and Sunday 10am – 5pm ✦ Monday to Friday 10am – 6pm Open evening Sunday 5 July, 5 – 8pm (invitation only) CHARLES BEDDINGTON ✦ Italian View Painting and Capricci, and other Discoveries P&D COLNAGHI & CO LTD ✦ Cranach: Artist in focus Lunch-time talk on Cranach, Monday 6 July, 1 – 2pm DICKINSON ✦ Three Centuries of plein-air Painting, including a selection of works by Jean-Michel Bacquet (b. 1956), in association with Galerie René-François Teissèdre, Paris BEN ELWES FINE ART ✦ Joseph Bonaparte – newly discovered paintings from the Château de Mortefontaine RICHARD GREEN ✦ 17th-century Dutch and Flemish Paintings and Italian Vedute JOHNNY VAN HAEFTEN LTD ✦ Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the 17th century, including a Royal group portrait by Gerrit van Honthorst DEREK JOHNS LTD ✦ Selected French Masters from the 17th and 18th centuries MOATTI FINE ARTS ✦ Selection of French, Italian and Northern European Paintings to coincide with the inauguration of the gallery MORETTI FINE ART LTD ✦ Selection of Italian works from the 14th to 16th centuries PHILIP MOULD LTD ✦ The young Thomas Gainsborough Lunch-time talk on the exhibition, Tuesday 7 July, 1 – 2pm ROBILANT & VOENA ✦ Florentine 17th-century Paintings: A selection of works highlighting the discovery of The Bath of Bathsheba by Simone Pignoni SPHINX FINE ART ✦ 100 Old Master Paintings Champagne reception Monday 6 July, 6 – 10 pm WILLIAM THUILLIER ✦ 18th-century Classical Landscapes,Views of Venice and Historical Portraits MICHAEL TOLLEMACHE FINE ART ✦ Flemish Paintings 1550 – 1690: A selection by Jan de Maere TRAFALGAR GALLERIES ✦ European Painting from the 14th to 19th centuries RAFAEL VALLS ltd ✦ Young Faces: Portraits of children from the 17th and 18th centuries THE WEISS GALLERY ✦ Early Portraiture 1540 – 1700 WHITFIELD FINE ART ✦ Three Madonnas from the Florentine High Renaissance Lunch-time talk on Florentine High Renaissance, Sunday 5 July, 1 – 2pm The National Gallery and the Art Trade The National Gallery was in a very poor way a hundred or so years ago. Its trustees, several of whom were selling Old Master paintings of their own, and a couple of whom were actively buying them for their own collections, took so little interest in acquiring work for the Gallery that the Director was hardly able to persuade them to travel to Cobham Hall to form an opinion on the eligibility of the Earl of Darnley’s portrait of a man with a quilted sleeve by Titian. Among the many supporters of the Gallery who were dismayed by this state of affairs were some of London’s art dealers, among them Sir George Donaldson. He had been knighted for his support of musical education, the chief area of his philanthropy. When the trustees failed to make a reasonable offer in the time allowed them, the Titian was bought by Sir George and held, at the Director’s request, until the trustees came to their senses, prodded by London’s leading connoisseurs and amateurs, whose chief organs were the newly founded National Art Collections Fund and The Burlington Magazine, and the Director was able to raise funds from private individuals. So Donaldson really acted as a one man Export Reviewing Committee long in advance of the establishment of that official device. In the last decades of the twentieth century, it would perhaps be the proceedings of that Committee which best dramatised the conflict of interest between the national institutions and the art trade. But to an unprejudiced investigator familiar with the situation in other European countries, the single most remarkable feature of those proceedings would surely be how prepared to collaborate and eager to help the art dealers so often were. Donaldson’s generosity to the National Gallery was demonstrated by a gift, made in the same year (1904), one of the most remarkable that the National Gallery has ever received – that of Goya’s portrait of Don Andrés del Peral. This painting is breathtaking in its silver greys against deep black. Form emerges from rapid brushwork, and with form, a remarkable expression and memorable personality, at once vulnerable and challenging. It is one of Goya’s greatest portraits, executed at the height of his powers. Goya had risen rather suddenly in the esteem of collectors and connoisseurs. To own such a painting at that date was to know that it would increase in value at a sharp rate, especially because of the interest in Spanish art which was growing among the major collectors in New York. But Donaldson’s thought was that this should go to the National Gallery before it was too late. He knew that Goya was too recent an artist to be a high priority for the trustees. Donaldson was not the only art dealer to whom the National Gallery has reason to be grateful. The assistance provided by the firm of Thomas Agnew and Sons in numerous transactions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is especially notable. And, when the story is told of the part that Joseph Duveen played in selling national treasures abroad, it is seldom emphasised how much London institutions owe to his munificence. It was he, the dealer, not Benson who offered the Gallery a great painting from Benson’s collection of Italian Renaissance masterpieces – and yet Benson was a Trustee of the National Gallery. I have dwelt on the emergencies of a hundred years ago and do not wish to discuss here the relationships – although they have often been exceptionally cordial – between the National Gallery and London’s art dealers in recent decades except to say that I deeply appreciate the generous support given by so many to the campaign conducted by the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Gallery to acquire Titian’s Diana and Actaeon and to secure the future of the Bridgewater loan. The stimulus given to the interest in Old Master paintings by the initiative of Master Paintings Week is something we welcome very warmly and our doors are open together with those of all commercial galleries collaborating in the venture. NICHOLAS PENNY Director of The National Gallery Master paintings week 17/4/09 16:16 Page 1 Richard Parkes Bonington, La Ferté, about 1825. Accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the National Gallery pending a decision on permanent allocation, 2007. n o d n o L , y r e l l a G l a n o i t a N e h T © o t o h P Photo © The National Gallery, London Photo © The National Gallery, COROT TO MONET A FRESH LOOK AT LANDSCAPE FROM THE COLLECTION SAINSBURY WING, 8 JULY–20 SEPTEMBER 2009 During Master Paintings Week, a new exhibition opens at the National Gallery that draws on the Gallery’s rich collection of 19th-century French landscapes. Featuring all the major artists of the genre, Corot to Monet charts the development of plein-air landscape painting from the late 18th century to the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. Opening with scenes by Corot, Simon Denis and Valenciennes of the Roman Campagna and other picturesque locations, such as Tivoli, before moving to France and works by the Barbizon School, the exhibition provides an opportunity to study the landscapes that were vital to the later development of Impressionism. Early works by Monet, including his Beach at Trouville, will be displayed alongside the beach scenes of Eugène Boudin and late works by Corot. 8 Grafton Street Thos. Agnews & London ✦ W1S 4EL Sons Ltd T. +44 (0)20 7290 9250 F. +44 (0)20 7629 4359 www.agnewsgallery.com JEAN-BAPTISTE LEPRINCE BARTOLOMEO SCHEDONI (Metz 1734 – 1781 Saint-Denis-du-Port) (Modena 1578 – 1615 Parma) A Russian camp The Holy Family with the infant Oil on paper laid down on canvas St John the Baptist 7 3 6 /8 x 10 /4 in. (17.5 x 27.2 cm.) Oil on walnut 7 13 /8 x 10 in. (35.5 x 25.5 cm.) 6 ✦ MASTER PAINTINGS WEEK LONDON 2009 THOS. AGNEWS & SONS LTD ✦ 7 4 Ryder Street ✦ St. James’s Verner Åmell Ltd London ✦ SW1Y 6QB T. +44 (0)20 7925 2759 F. +44 (0)20 7321 0210 www.amells.com ALEXANDER ROSLIN OTTMAR ELLIGER, THE ELDER (Malmö 1718 – 1793 Paris) (Göteborg 1633 – 1679 Berlin) Portrait of the Comtesse de Bavière-Grosberg Still-life with lobster, fruit, and a Signed and dated centre right: nautilus shell Pt par le Chev.