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Dates: 2 Oct 09 - 4 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Keizersgracht 672 Amsterdam 1017 ET
Tel: Website

Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 15 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Jan Luijkenstraat 1 Amsterdam 107 ZD
Tel: +31 (0)20 674 7000 Website

Forty-five of Hendrick Avercamp’s paintings and drawings have been assembled for this show of chaotic and bustling winter scenes of people enjoying the frozen rivers and canals that came to typify 17th-century Dutch winter landscapes. The 20 paintings on show are supplemented by 25 of Avercamp’s drawings, the works having been loaned by such museums as the National Gallery, London, the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition is the first to be devoted to Avercamp’s works. After studying with the Danish portrait painter Pieter Isaacks (1569-1625) in Amsterdam, Avercamp (1585-1634) moved to Kampen in 1608 where his winter scenes found great popularity. This exhibition, however, also includes works that shed light on other more surprising areas of his oeuvre. The drawings on show include summer landscape studies, depictions of 17th-century workers and costume sketches that often appear in subsequent paintings. These less well known graphic works show Avercamp, say the show’s organisers, at his “most varied and adventurous”. The show, which travels to the National Gallery of Art, Washington (21 March-5 July 2010), is accompanied by the publication of Hendrick Avercamp, Master of the Ice Scene, edited by Pieter Roelofs, and published by Nieuw Amsterdam (€29.95). The museum is launching a special programme for deaf and hard of hearing visitors to coincide with the exhibition. Hendrick Avercamp was himself deaf and mute.

Winter Landscape with Skaters (detail), about 1608.

Dates: 1 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Schiphol Airport Amsterdam
Tel: +31 (0)20 674 7000 Website

Dates: 28 Sep 09 - 11 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 1 Michalakopoulou Street, 50 Vassilios Constantinou Street Athens GR-115 28
Tel: +30 210 723 5857 Website

Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Emory University, 571 South Kilgo Street Atlanta 30322
Tel: +1 404 727 4282 Website

Dates: 4 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master Decorative
Address: University of Texas at Austin Austin 78712-1205
Tel: +1 512 471 7324 Website

Dates: 4 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: University of Texas at Austin Austin 78712-1205
Tel: +1 512 471 7324 Website

Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 30 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Palau Nacional, Parc de Montjuïc Barcelona 08038
Tel: +34 93 622 0360 Website

Dates: 3 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: St Alban-Graben 16 Basel CH-4010
Tel: +41 (0)61 206 62 62 Website

Dates: 3 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master Modern (1900-1945) Post-War (1945-70) Contemporary (1970-present) 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: St Alban-Graben 16 Basel CH-4010
Tel: +41 (0)61 206 62 62 Website

Dates: 14 Nov 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: St Alban-Graben 16 Basel CH-4010
Tel: +41 (0)61 206 62 62 Website

This exhibition focuses on the newly restored Adoration of the Magi by Frans II Francken (1581-1642). The work, bequeathed to the museum in 2004, required restoration due to the risk of damage from nails used to secure the painting. This show heralds its return to the collection after the restoration work, where it sits alongside works from Francken’s Antwerp contemporaries to put the work in context. Although Francken created many altarpieces and panels, it is for his smaller cabinet works that he is most celebrated and this Adoration together with 12 lesser-known pieces loaned by private collectors exemplifies his characteristic attention to detail. According to curator Bodo Brinkmann, the Kunstmuseum’s curator of old master paintings, these lesser-known works are perfect examples of the work that gave Francken such a reputation as a “gifted story-teller”. A recently discovered panel by Francken is also included in the show. Belshazzar’s Feast, around 1610, has been loaned by the Hermann Beyeler Collection and according to Brinkmann the panel provides ample evidence as to why the “elite of connoisseurs and art collectors have never ceased to admire Francken’s work”

Adoration of the Magi

Dates: 26 Aug 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: 12 Bennet Street Bath BA1 2QL
Tel: +44 (0)1225 464 640 Website

Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Spandauer Damm 20-24 Berlin 14059
Tel: + 49 (0) 331 96 94 200 Website

This is an exhibition of more than 200 objects in two sites. It has been organised by the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg in cooperation with the Evangelical parish of St Petri-St Marien, Berlin. The main idea of the show is to relate the art patronage of the Hohenzollern dynasty from 1417 to 1613 to the events of that period. The chronological brackets enclose the inauguration of the Hohenzollerns as Electors of Brandenburg, the events of the Protestant Reformation, the uncertain rise to power of Brandenburg as a small, but significant, segment of the Holy Roman Empire to the eve of its establishment as the centre of a quasi-independent state, the emergence of a middle-class urban elite in Berlin, and the internal religious and political tensions within the Hohenzollern territories, as well as those states the empire and the rest of Europe. The first part of the exhibition in the Charlottenburg Palace opens with a depiction of the founder, Friedrich I, in a donor portrait on the Cadolzburger Altar, a winged altarpiece made around 1430 by an anonymous Nuremburg painter. There follows a series of works by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), his workshop and his son Lucas the Younger (1515-86), commissioned by or during the reign of the Elector Joachim I (1499-1535)—portraits (shown here, of his son and heir, Joachim II, around 1555), the nine Passion Cycle paintings, 1537, a self-portrait and an early version of the Naiad, 1515, as well as sculptures, prints, textiles, ceramics, books and manuscripts by other artists. An ardent Catholic and supporter of the emperor, Joachim I’s personal religious convictions were at variance with many, if not most, of his subjects who were Lutherans. Joachim tried to ensure a Catholic succession, but, following his death and that of the emperor, his successor, Joachim II, converted to Lutheranism in 1555. In the period covered by this part of the exhibition, the viewer is shown how the Hohenzollerns developed a realpolitik that permitted the artistic expression of various antagonistic religious alliances. The second part of the exhibition at the St Marienkirche illustrates the interests of the emergent bourgeoisie of Berlin. A Last Judgement, 1558, by Michael Ribestein (1539-65) and sculptures by the Swabian Catholic Hans Schenck (1611-45), made for the St Marienkirche, are evidence of lively local, if not widely significant, ecumenical art production. The Renaissance ideal of the educated gentleman was bolstered by a rapidly expanding print culture, demonstrated by many works from the St Marien church library, and documents concerning the foundation in 1574 of “Zum Grauen Kloster”, which became Berlin’s most prestigious grammar school. D.L. A 272-page catalogue, Cranach und die Kunst der Renaissance unter den Hohenzollern: Kirche, Hof und Stadtkultur, with 327 colour illustrations, is published by Deutscher Kunstverlag (€34.90 ISBN 9783422069107) and the exhibition is sponsored by the Kultur Stiftung der Länder and the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung. Donald Lee

Joachim II, around 1555

Dates: 11 Sep 09 - 22 Nov 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: Hodlerstrasse 12 Bern CH-3000
Tel: +41 (0)31 328 09 44 Website

The Uffizi holds the largest collection of drawings by Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, 1591-1666) and this exhibition consists of a selection from that collection of 50 sheets by the artist along with 42 by his workshop and pupils and drawings by such Bolognese masters and contemporaries as Ludovico and Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni and Domenichino. The idea is to give the viewer a sense of Guercino’s singularity and of the riches of artistic invention that radiated out from Bologna to other parts of Italy and beyond at the end of the 16th and in the first half of the 17th centuries. The exhibition is sponsored by Credit Suisse. D.L.

A Doctor, Assisted by Two Devout Women, Tending the Wounds of St Sebastian, 1619

Dates: 19 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Museo Plaza 2 Bilbao 48011
Tel: +34 (0)94 439 60 60 Website

This is an exhibition of about 50 paintings by the Spanish Counter-Reformation artist par excellence, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617/18-82). Murillo’s reputation has waxed and waned over the years—being the object of the highest admiration in his lifetime and in the 18th and early 19th centuries, through a steady decline in the latter half of the 19th to its nadir throughout most of the 20th century. At first admired for his soft, idealised, melting forms (particular in his Immaculate Conceptions), sweet expressions and soft, sfumato colourings, he was later castigated for his sentimentality and sugariness. Now his work is better appreciated by being viewed historically and this exhibition of 50 paintings from the early part of his career (that is roughly before 1660 when he was appointed the joint president of Spain’s first painting academy, in Seville) focuses on his artistic education. With works such as St Francis, around 1645-50, St Lesmes, around 1655, St Peter Weeping, around 1650-55, and St Jerome, 1665-75, from the Bilbao and the Seville Fine Arts Museums, the viewer can observe the emergence of Murillo’s characteristics—tenebrism, naturalism and his soft, lucent brushstrokes. The exhibition is curated by Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez and Benito Navarrete. Illustrated above, The Holy Family with a Little Bird, around 1650. Donald Lee

The Holy Family with a Little Bird, around 1650

Dates: 21 Nov 09 - 3 Jul 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 465 Huntington Avenue Boston 02115-5519
Tel: +1 617 267 9300 Website

Dates: 16 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Husova 18 Brno 662 26
Tel: +42 5 42215753 Website

Dates: 10 Sep 09 - 25 Apr 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Dijver 12 Bruges B-8000
Tel: +32 (0)5 044 8711 Website

Dates: 1 Nov 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Budavari Palota Budapest 1250
Tel: +36 20 39 7442 Website

Dates: 28 Oct 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Dózsa György út 41 Budapest 1146
Tel: +36 (0)1469 7100 Website

Szépmûvészeti Múzeum (Museum of Fine Arts), Budapest 28 October-14 February 2010 www.szepmuveszeti.hu This is the second exhibition (the first was the Spanish 16th- to 19th-century painting show in 2006) of a series presented by the Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts that aims to present a canonical overview of a national school of a specific period, in this case the early and high Italian Renaissance. On view are more than 130 works, about half of which are on loan from the Louvre, the Prado, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, the National Gallery, the National Gallery of Art, and Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Berlin Gemäldegalerie, the rest being complemented by works from the museum’s own collection. This exhibition will not only provide the Hungarian public with an excellent opportunity to see masterpieces that would otherwise be beyond view, but also to afford the museum the chance to stage a much-needed money-making blockbuster, a goal its publicity department is vigorously exploiting with an international media campaign, hoping to attract at least 300,000 visitors. On view are works by such artists as Botticelli, the Bellinis, Giorgione, Raphael, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto, and many others. Above, Raphael, The Esterházy Madonna, 1508. D.L.

Raphael, The Esterházy Madonna, 1508

Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 28 Mar 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Cathays Park Cardiff CF10 3NP
Tel: +44 (0)29 2039 7951 Website

Dates: 10 Oct 09 - 15 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 111 South Michigan Avenue Chicago 60603-6110
Tel: +1 312 443 3600 Website

Dates: 3 Nov 09 - 11 Apr 10
Categories: Old Master 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: University of Chicago, 5550 South Greenwood Avenue Chicago 60637
Tel: +1 773 702 0200 Website

Dates: 29 Aug 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Sølvgade 48-50 Copenhagen DK-1307
Tel: +45 33 74 84 94 Website

Nicolai Abildgaard (1743-1809) is little known outside Denmark. Although his years of study in Rome (1772-77) brought him into contact with artists such as Füssli and with the early Romantic currents that prized Shakespeare, Homer, Ossian and Norse mythology, his style throughout his career remained committedly classical. His early training at the Royal Danish Academy of Art, his study tour of Italy and his tenure as professor (and intermittently as director) of the academy from 1778 until his death, were dedicated to the ideals of Titian, Raphael, Michelangelo, the Carraccis, Poussin and Claude. The peaks of his career were the commission in 1780 to decorate the Knights’ Hall of the Christiansborg Palace with 10 monumental history paintings (seven were destroyed by a fire in 1794) and a decorative project at what is now Christian VIII’s Palace at Amalienborg (1794-98). Abildgaard’s success was, however, frustrated by his uninhibited expressions of liberal, anti-monarchical and anti-religious views and his endorsement of the French Revolution—even after the Terror (summed up in Jupiter Weighs the Fate of Mankind, 1794) when many European supporters were disillusioned. Unlike Goethe or David, he was unable to make the necessary adjustments to adapt his thinking to a changed world nor to temper his classicising style with the insights afforded by Romantic interiority and emotional expressiveness. Nevertheless, in this show of 150 of his paintings, his technical mastery is obvious, especially in his handling of colour, his harmonious tones and the power of some of his subjects (shown above, The Wounded Philoctetes, 1775). The fact that Abildgaard doesn’t quite make it to the first 11, the fact that he was the teacher of such stars as Bertel Thorvaldsen, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg and Philipp Otto Runge, warrants our recognition and attention. This is the final leg of a three-stop tour, having been seen at the Louvre and the Hamburger Kunsthalle. It will be interesting to see if the artist undergoes a more favourable reassessment in the wake of this extensive European exposure. Donald Lee

The Wounded Philoctetes, 1775

Dates: 24 Aug 09 - 4 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Residenzschloss, Taschenberg 2 Dresden D-01067
Tel: +49 (0)3 51 49 14 20 00 Website

Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Berger Allee 2 Düsseldorf
Tel: +49 (0)211 899 6170 Website

Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 14 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: The Mound, Belford Road Edinburgh EH2 2EL
Tel: +44 (0)131 624 6200 Website

Dates: 20 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: Corso Ercole I d'Este, 21 Ferrara 35121
Tel: +39 (0)532 244 949 Website

The “Master of Swish” receives a major exhibition in his hometown of Ferrara, focusing largely on works created by the artist in Paris between 1871 and 1886. This show explores how impressionists such as Manet, Degas, Meissonier and Caillebotte influenced the early work of the Italian, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest Belle Epoque portrait painters of 1890s Paris. Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) moved to Paris in 1871, settling in the Place Pigalle, an area popular with artists and writers. He quickly became accustomed to life in the French capital and befriended leading artists of the day including Degas, whom he often accompanied to the theatre and concert halls. It was a prolific and highly experimental period for Boldini, during which he created pieces in several genres including portraiture and landscapes. On view are 100 works of various genres drawn from international public and private collections. The show opens with an early self-portrait made in Florence in 1865 while he was a student at the Accademia di Belle Arti. On loan from the Modern Art Gallery at the Pitti Palace, the painting shows Boldini’s modern take on portraiture by depicting himself in his study rather than opting for a neutral environment. The exhibition is organised into thematic sections including: fanciful paintings created specifically for the American and European art markets; cityscapes that record modern life; landscapes; scenes that capture the vibrant nightlife of Paris including a painting of a singer entiled, La Cantante Mondana, about 1884; scenes of his atelier, including A Woman in Black, about 1888; and finally, for what Boldini is by far best remembered—portraiture. The show ends with his society portraits. Like Sargent, Boldini counted the crème de la crème of high society among his patrons. An 1894 portrait of socialite and author Gertrude Elizabeth Blood, Lady Colin Campbell is on loan from the National Portrait Gallery, London. After its debut in Ferrara, the exhibition will travel across the pond to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts (14 February-25 April 2010). The US presentation will be the first major display of Boldini’s work outside Europe. E.S.

Cléo de Mérode, 1901

Dates: 30 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master Decorative
Address: Schaumainkai 17 Frankfurt D-60594
Tel: +49 (0)69 212 34037 Website

The influence on European furniture culture of the renowned sculptor and cabinet maker to Louis XIV André Charles Boulle is explored in this major show of about 150 pieces of furniture, bronzes, clocks, tapestries, paintings and drawings selected by art historians Jean Nérée Ronfort and Jean Dominique Augarde with Ulrich Schneider, director of the Museum für Angewandte Kunst. Boulle found success early, being invited by Louis XIV into his workshops at the Palais du Louvre before the age of 30, and his designs soon became symbols of prosperity and success, a position they still hold, with his designs featuring in the world’s leading museums and private collections. The king of Spain and the electors of Saxony and Bavaria were drawn to his elaborate works that combined such materials as gilt bronze, exotic woods, tortoiseshell and brass to create elaborate ornaments and floral marquetry. Objects have been loaned by 44 institutions, including the Hermitage, St Petersburg, Le Mobilier National, Paris, and the Royal Collection of Sweden, signifying Boulle’s widespread and lasting international influence. The show is under the patronage of Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, and Horst Köhler, President of Germany.

Sphinx, 17th century.

Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Durerstrasse 2 Frankfurt D-60596
Tel: +49 (0)69 605 09 80 Website

It is a commonplace that some artists reach in their old age a “late style” characterised by loose, free expression and a distillation of experience (for example, Michelangelo and Titian) while others wither and decay (for example, Pontormo and Domenichino). Botticelli is reckoned, however, to have taken a different trajectory by turning, in his old age, from a mature style and content to the manner and concerns of his youth. The life and work of Sandro Botticelli is, like Caesar’s Gaul, divided in partes tres: his Florentine early training and career, from his birth in 1444/45 to around 1478, covering the years of his apprenticeship under Fra Filippo Lippi and in which he produced works such as St Sebastian, 1473-74, and a number of frescoes in Florence and Pisa, most of which are now lost. During the years of his maturity, around 1478 to 1490, he painted most of the works for which he is famous: frescoes in Florence and Rome, altarpieces, portraits, allegories and mythological narratives. Here he perfected his personal style, perhaps best described as a combination of International Gothic and classical prototypes, an assimilation of the stile nuovo and antico, in which figures are presented in supple contours, contrapposto, graceful proportions, most memorably exemplified in the Primavera, around 1478, and The Birth of Venus, 1482-86. This high courtly style also informed his religious paintings (shown, The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child, about 1490), which may have incurred the censure of the charismatic Dominican reformer, Girolamo Savonarola, who, it is believed, came to influence Botticelli as, from the 1490s until his death, the artist turned back to the simplicity and affective expression of his early work. This maniera devota, inspired by moral and religious sentiment, resulted in works such as the Mystic Nativity, around 1500, and the illuminations for a luxurious, unfinished manuscript edition of The Divine Comedy, 1490s. Following his death, Botticelli fell from favour and it was not until 19th-century art historians began to resurrect and elevate Florentine artists that he came again into favour. This process was initiated mainly by German art historians and collectors: the Berlin museum acquired the St Sebastian and the Bardi altarpiece in the 1820s; Walter Ullmann produced the first Botticelli monograph in 1893 and Aby Warburg produced his influential dissertation in the same year. Thus it comes as something of a surprise that this is the first Botticelli show to take place in the German-speaking world (pace the exhibition of the Divine Comedy illuminations in Berlin in 2000-01). The exhibition is curated by Andreas Schumacher, the director of the pre-1800 Italian, French and Spanish paintings collections, and is the first in line to celebrate the quincentenary of the artist’s death (1510). The show, like Botticelli’s life, is in three parts: his portraits and allegorical paintings, the mythologies and, finally, his religious œuvre. Although many of the works have recently been seen in the shows at the Palais de Luxembourg (2003-04) and at the Palazzo Strozzi (2004)—the fragility, the renown and the limited number of his works make it impossible to transport many of them—this exhibition includes workshop pieces and drawings from private lenders never seen before in public. Special attention is given to the unrequited love Botticelli bore for the celebrated beauty Simonetta Vespucci (around 1453-76), wife of a Florentine nobleman, who is thought have been his model for his Venuses (and with whom he was buried), and to his works commissioned by the Medici. In addition to the 40 Botticelli paintings, there are 40 by Verrocchio, Antonio del Pollaiuolo and Filippino to put Botticelli’s work into a historical context. The show is sponsored by the Commerzbank-Stiftung with support from Alnatura Produktions- und Handels, the Italian National Tourist Board, Weleda and Ikarus design. The catalogue is edited by Dr Schumacher and published by Hatje Cantz (€49.80).

The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child, about 1490

Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 2, rue Charles-Galland Geneva CH-1206
Tel: +41 (0)22 418 2600 Website

Dates: 6 Nov 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Schloss Eggenberg, Eggenberg Allee 90 Graz 8020
Tel: +43 (0)316 8017-9770 Website

Dates: 2 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Glockengiesserwall Hamburg D-20095
Tel: +49 (0)40 428 131 200 Website

Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Contemporary (1970-present) Modern (1900-1945) Old Master
Address: Willy-Brandt-Allee 5 Hanover D-30169
Tel: +49 (0)511 980 7686 Website

Dates: 10 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 600 Main Street Hartford 06103
Tel: +1 860 278 2670 Website

Dates: 24 Sep 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Kungsgatan 11 Helsingborg SE- 252 21
Tel: +46 (0) 42 10 74 00 Website

Dates: 1 Sep 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: Kuusilahdenkuja 1 Helsinki 00340
Tel: 09-4778 330 Website

Dates: 11 Sep 09 - 31 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: Bulevardi 40 Helsinki 00120
Tel: +358 (0)9 1733 6460 Website

Dates: 21 Oct 09 - 14 Mar 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Salomonkatu 15 Helsinki 00100
Tel: +35 (0) 89 310 87001 Website

Dates: 14 Sep 09 - 28 Mar 10
Categories: Old Master 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc) Curious
Address: 10 Salisbury Road, TSim Sha Tsui Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2721 0116 Website

Dates: 11 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 4000 Michigan Road Indianapolis 46208-3326
Tel: +1 317 923 1331 Website

Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 16 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: The Castle Kilkenny
Tel: +353 (0)1 566 1106 Website

Dates: 31 Oct 09 - 27 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: Okazaki Enshoji-cho, Sakyo-ku Kyoto 606
Tel: +81 (0)75 761 4111 Website

This exhibition of about 50 works from the Galleria Borghese in Rome—including masterpieces by Raphael, Botticelli, Caravaggio and Bernini—gives the Japanese audience a rare opportunity to experience a collection of art from the Italian Renaissance assembled by one of the greatest artistic patrons of any era. Scipione Borghese owed his wealth and influence to his role as favoured nephew of Pope Paul V (pontiff 1605-21), who gave him control of both papal and Borghese family finances. As a result, he was able to put together one of the greatest art collections in Europe. Many of the Borgheses’ Greek and Roman antiquities were transferred to the Louvre in Paris during the Napoleonic occupation of Italy two centuries later, but Scipione’s Renaissance collection has survived intact; it was taken over by the Italian state in 1902, and is still housed in the Villa Borghese. The show, which transfers to Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (16 January-4 April 2010), includes numerous works never shown before in Japan, such as Raphael’s Lady with Unicorn, 1505-06, and one of Caravaggio’s final works, St John the Baptist, 1609-10, acquired from the artist’s estate soon after his death. Also on show is Bernini’s bust portrait in marble of Scipione Borghese, one of a pair commissioned by the patron and executed in 1632. Bruce Millar

Raphael’s Lady with Unicorn, 1505-06

Dates: 21 Oct 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc) Modern (1900-1945) Old Master
Address: Gallery Road London SE21 7AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 8693 5254 Website

Dates: 13 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Gallery Road London SE21 7AD
Tel: +44 (0)20 8693 5254 Website

Dates: 15 Sep 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master Contemporary (1970-present) Post-War (1945-70) Modern (1900-1945) 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 13 Berkeley Street London W1
Tel: +44 (0)20 7409 5730 Website

Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 29 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 7/8 Mason’s Yard, Duke Street London SW1Y 6BU
Tel: +44 (0)20 7930 2437 Website

Dates: 21 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Latin American Old Master
Address: Trafalgar Square London WC2 5DN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7747 2885 Website

Today’s audience is familiar with the quest for the hyper-real in work by contemporary artists such as Duane Hanson, Robert Bechtle and Ron Mueck. But what are the precedents for this tradition? The National Gallery mounts an exhibition devoted to religious art from 17th-century Spain—the country’s artistic Golden Age—when hyperrealistic paintings and polychrome sculpture reigned supreme. This landmark presentation pairs 15 paintings by artists such as Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbáran alongside 14 examples of Spain’s lesser known art form—painted sculptures—to show how artists who painted on canvas were inspired and often competed with those who painted sculpture. This is the first major exhibition of Spanish polychrome sculpture ever staged and contains many pieces never before shown outside of the Iberian peninsula. Works are drawn from the museum’s collection as well as private and public collections in Spain, the UK and the US. According to the exhibition’s curator, Xavier Bray, from the museum’s 17th- and 18th-century paintings department: “In Spain, sculpture was the preferred artform to make religion more immediate, more direct. It was a shock to the senses,” adding: “We want to reintroduce this lost art form.” Scenes of the Passion were especially popular, with artists exercising their entire repertoire, including using glass for eyes, pieces of bark to simulate coagulated blood and real bone for toe and fingernails, to create the most realistic pieces. As some of the sculptures are still used as devotional objects, Bray was presented with difficulties in term of both negotiating loans and displaying the objects. In order to secure the loan of an Immaculate Conception work from a Spanish convent, Bray agreed, after a five-hour conversation, to mark the feast day (8 December) by bringing a priest into the museum. “We want to respect religious decorum as much as we can,” said Bray. One of the biggest coups is the sculpture St Francis Standing in Meditation, 1663, by Pedro de Mena. The work has never before left the sacristy of Toledo Cathedral and access to it is so limited that an Emperor of Brazil was even denied access. The exhibition also sees the return to Europe of two major paintings by Zurbáran. St Serapion, 1628, is on loan from the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, US, and The Crucifixion, 1627, considered lost until it was purchased by the Art Institute of Chicago in 1952. Both pieces have not been on view in Europe in more than 50 years. Accompanying this presentation is the focused exhibition “The Making of Spanish Polychrome Sculpture”, which features as its centrepiece the recently conserved sculpture St John of the Cross, 1675, by Francisco Antonio Ruiz Gijón. Above, Pedro de Mena, Christ as the Man of Sorrows, 1673. Coinciding with the National Gallery show is “The Mystery of Faith: an Eye on Spanish Sculpture 1550-1750” at Matthiesen Gallery. The display features 30 terracotta, stone and wood sculptures by leading Spanish artists. E.S.

Pedro de Mena, Christ as the Man of Sorrows, 1673

Dates: 5 Nov 09 - 19 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: 147 New Bond Street London W1S 2TS
Tel: +44 (0)20 7493 3939 Website

Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 26 Mar 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 125 Kensington Church Street London W8 7LP
Tel: Website

Dates: 18 Jul 09 - 30 Nov 09
Categories: Old Master 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 1151 Oxford Road Los Angeles 91108
Tel: +1 626 405 2125 Website

Dates: 6 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master Latin American
Address: 5905 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles 90036
Tel: +1 323 857 6000 Website

Dates: 1 Nov 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: 2035 South Third Street Louisville 40208
Tel: +1 502 634 2700 Website

Dates: 28 Oct 09 - 22 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Avenue Ceramique 250 Maastricht 6201 KX
Tel: +31 (0)43 329 0190 Website

Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Paseo del Prado Madrid 28014
Tel: +34 (0)91 330 2800 Website

Dates: 2 Jun 09 - 1 Nov 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Paseo del Prado Madrid 28014
Tel: +34 (0)91 330 2800 Website

Dates: 3 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Paseo del Prado 8 Madrid 28109
Tel: +34 (0)91 369 01 51 Website

Jan Van Eyck’s Annunciation Diptych, 1441, from the museum’s own collection is at the centre of this exhibition of 18 paintings, illuminations, textiles, ivories and sculptures that examines the variety of grisaille works in late medieval art. The monochromatic technique employed by artists is based on the gradual application of a single colour, usually grey, to create a sculptural, sometimes trompe l’oeil effect. The Annunciation is brought together with another Van Eyck work, Saint Barbara, 1437, from the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp. Whereas the Annunciation is painted with a reduced palette to create two sculptural figures, Saint Barbara is “either an unfinished painting or one of the first independent drawings that has survived”, says the curator, Till-Holger Borchert. “The works on show come out of the idea that art history has always interpreted [grisaille] in a certain way by looking at specific genres. The paintings have received the most attention, but painting scholars don’t always know manuscripts, let alone sculptures, and suddenly you end up with explanations that are short of covering the whole ground.”

Jean Le Noir, Psalter of Bonne de Luxembourg, around 1360.

Dates: 14 Aug 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: Mosley Street Manchester M2 3JL
Tel: +44 (0)161 235 8888 Website

Dates: 18 Sep 09 - 13 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: Route 30 South Middlebury 05753
Tel: +1 802 443 3168 Website

Dates: 29 Oct 09 - 21 Feb 10
Categories: Decorative Curious Old Master
Address: Via Manzoni, 12 Milan 20121
Tel: +39 (0)2 794 889 Website

Dates: 15 Oct 09 - 15 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: via Brera, 28 Milan
Tel: +39 (0)2 89421146 Website

Dates: 27 Jun 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master Modern (1900-1945)
Address: 2400 Third Avenue South Minneapolis 55404
Tel: +1 612 870 3000 Website

Dates: 18 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945) 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc) Decorative Old Master
Address: 2400 Third Avenue South Minneapolis 55404
Tel: +1 612 870 3000 Website

Dates: 18 Oct 09 - 11 Apr 10
Categories: MIA Masterpieces Old Master
Address: 2400 Third Avenue South Minneapolis 55404
Tel: +1 612 870 3000 Website

Dates: 8 Aug 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 2400 Third Avenue South Minneapolis 55404
Tel: +1 612 870 3000 Website

Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 6 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Barer Strasse Munich D-80333
Tel: +49 (0)89 238 050 Website

In 1514 the Florentine businessman Giovanni Battista Puccini commissioned Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531) to paint a Holy Family with St John the Baptist, St Elizabeth and Two Angels, which he intended as a present for the French king, François I. On completion, he was clearly so taken with the picture that he kept it for himself and had the artist make a second version for the king (one assumes that the king was not made aware that he was getting second best, as it were). Following an extensive restoration, the first version (in the Bavarian State Painting Collections), which has not been on public display for nearly 20 years, is shown alongside the second, which is on loan from the Louvre. Part of the exhibition is dedicated to showing the various stages of the restoration work; another explains the primary version’s travels from Puccini’s hands to Munich, and the main section concerns itself with the differences and similarities of the two paintings, the delicate colouring, sfumato effects and dynamic composition which help one wholly to understand why Puccini was reluctant to let go of it. D.L.

St Elizabeth and Two Angels

Dates: 23 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Barer Strasse Munich D-80333
Tel: +49 (0)89 238 050 Website

Dates: 5 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Barer Strasse Munich D-80333
Tel: +49 (0)89 238 050 Website

Dates: 9 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Theatinerstrasse, 8 Munich D-80333
Tel: +49 (0)89 22 44 12 Website

Dates: 5 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Barer Strasse 29 Munich D-80333
Tel: +49 (0)89 23 805 280 Website

Dates: 3 Nov 09 - 14 Mar 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Salzstrasse, 28 Münster D-48143
Tel: +49 (0)251 4924503 Website

Dates: 6 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc) Modern (1900-1945)
Address: 1 East 70th Street New York 10021
Tel: +1 212 288 0700 Website

Dates: 21 Oct 09 - 28 Nov 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: 40 West 57th Street New York 10019
Tel: +1 212 541 4900 Website

Dates: 10 Sep 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street New York 10028-0198
Tel: +1 212-535-7710 Website

The Milkmaid, 1658, perhaps the most celebrated painting by Johannes Vermeer, goes on Vermeer’s Masterpiece The Milkmaiddisplay in the US for the first time in 70 years. The work is being loaned to the Metropolitan Museum by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, to mark the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage from that city to New York. The exhibition places the painting alongside all five of the Metropolitan’s canvases by Vermeer together with engravings and drawings illuminating the theme, as well as works by other Delft artists including Pieter de Hooch, Gabriël Metsu, Hendrick van Vliet and Hendrick Sorgh, who were all active during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century. Hannah Keck

The Milkmaid, 1658

Dates: 2 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master Archaeology & Ancient art
Address: 225 Madison Avenue New York 10016-3405
Tel: +1 212 685 0008 Website

Dates: 2 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 225 Madison Avenue New York 10016-3405
Tel: +1 212 685 0008 Website

Dates: 17 Nov 09 - 27 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 645 Fifth Avenue New York 10022-5910
Tel: +1 212 486 4448 Website

Tracing the influences of Byzantine and Renaissance art on artist workshops in 15th- and 16th-century Crete—the background in which the old master painter El Greco was trained—this exhibition brings together 46 works that demonstrate the relationship of Cretan icon painters with Western European art. The show includes early works by El Greco as well as panel paintings by his immediate predecessors and contemporary on loan from public and private collections in Greece, Europe, the US and Canada, and many of them traveling to the States for the first time. The show is curated by Dr Anastasia Drandaki, curator of the Byzantine collection at the Benaki Museum, Athens.

Dates: 29 Oct 09 - 5 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 34 East 69th Street New York 10065
Tel: +1 212 628 0700 Website

Dates: 10 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Kelfkensbos 59 Nijmegen 1474
Tel: +31 (0)24 360 8805 Website

Dates: 2 Nov 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Christ Church College, Canterbury Quadrangle, Oxford University Oxford OX1 1DP
Tel: +44 (0)1865 276 172 Website

Dates: 19 Nov 09 - 28 Mar 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: piazza Eremitani, 8 Padua
Tel: +39 (0)49 820 45 01 Website

Dates: 24 Oct 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master Curious
Address: 14, rue Bonaparte Paris 75272
Tel: +33 (0)1 47 03 50 00 Website

Dates: 26 Oct 09 - 29 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master Curious
Address: 14, rue Bonaparte Paris 75272
Tel: +33 (0)1 47 03 50 00 Website

Dates: 30 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 23, rue de Sévigné Paris 75003
Tel: +33 (0)1 44 59 58 58 Website

Dates: 16 Sep 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Decorative
Address: 19, rue de Vaugirard Paris 75006
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 34 25 95 Website

Dates: 10 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc) African
Address: 37, quai Branly, portail Debilly Paris 75007
Tel: Website

Dates: 4 Nov 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Curious Decorative
Address: 6, place d’Iéna Paris 75116
Tel: +33 (0)1 56 52 53 39 Website

Dates: 11 Sep 09 - 11 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 158, boulevard Haussmann Paris 75008
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 89 04 91 Website

Continuing its series of exhibitions focused on major collectors, the Jacquemart-André Museum presents 50 Flemish, Italian, German and Dutch works amassed by Baron Samuel von Brukenthal (1721-1803). The pieces are drawn from the Brukenthal National Museum in Romania—home to one of the most prestigious art collections in Central Europe. A career politician, Brukenthal was made governor of his native Transylvania by Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, who considered him a close personal adviser. He began acquiring his collection in Vienna and quickly earned a reputation as an insatiable collector with a discerning eye, purchasing nearly 16,000 books, 800 etchings, 12,000 paintings and a number of objets d’art. Particularly rich in 17th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings—the Golden Age of Art in the Low Countries—the collection was supplemented by a number of works presented to him by Maria Theresa. His baroque palace in Sibiu, central Romania, was constructed as a showcase for his collection and upon his death in 1803 it was opened to the public. The exhibition aims to show the quality of his collection by presenting the very best pieces amassed by Brukenthal. Most of the works are Flemish, a school particularly popular with 18th-century Viennese collectors. The show is arranged in five thematic sections: portraits, landscapes, genre paintings, still-lifes and history painting. The segment dedicated to portraiture is dominated by works by the Flemish Primitives, a group of 15th-century artists concerned with the precise rendering of details such as jewellery, fabrics and furs. The oldest portrait by Van Eyck, Portrait of the Man in a Blue Turban (1430-33), shows the artist’s desire to include details like the sitter’s fur coat and beard, and Hans Memling’s Portrait of Reading Man (1485) shows the careful rendering of the book’s gilded pages. Included in the section devoted to landscapes is one of Bruegel’s best known works, Massacre of the Innocents (1566-67), a piece depicting villagers being slaughtered by soldiers following the orders of Philip II of Spain. Visitors can see genre paintings by Dutch artists David Teniers and Frans Van Mieris, still-lifes by Jan Davidsz de Heem and Erasmus Quellinus and history paintings by Jacob Jordaens. Pieces by Italian masters Lorenzo Lotto and Titian are also included in the display. The show is curated by Flemish art specialist Jan de Maere and Jacquemart-André curator Nicolas Sainte Fare Garnot. E.S.

Bruegel’s Massacre of the Innocents, 1566-67

Dates: 7 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 28, place de la Madeleine Paris 75008
Tel: +33 (0)1 43 25 71 41 Website

Dates: 13 Sep 09 - 5 Apr 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: piazza Botta, 10E Pavia 27100
Tel: +39 (0)382 33 853 Website

Dates: 3 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: piazza Botta, 10E Pavia 27100
Tel: +39 (0)382 33 853 Website

Dates: 24 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 1219 Southwest Park Avenue Portland 97205
Tel: +1 503 226 2811 Website

Dates: 14 Nov 09 - 24 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: Vassar College Poughkeepsie 12604-0703
Tel: +1 845 437 5632 Website

Dates: 18 Sep 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 224 Benefit Street Providence 02903-2723
Tel: +1 401 454 6500 Website

Dates: 10 Oct 09 - 14 Mar 10
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc) Old Master Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Piazza Malatesta Rimini 47900
Tel: +39 (0)541 78 7669 Website

Dates: 30 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: piazza San Pietro Rome
Tel: Website

Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master Modern (1900-1945) Post-War (1945-70) Contemporary (1970-present)
Address: piazzale Scipione Borghese, 5 Rome 00197
Tel: +39 (0)6 858577 Website

Dates: 6 Oct 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: piazza del Campidoglio Rome 00186
Tel: +39 (0)6 6797034 Website

Dates: 12 Nov 09 - 13 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Palazzo Primoli, via Zanardelli, 1 Rome 00186
Tel: +39 (0)6 686 1089 Website

Dates: 12 Sep 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master Photography Modern (1900-1945) 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: Westzeekijk 341 Rotterdam 3015 AA
Tel: +31 (0)10 440 0300 Website

Paintings from the Hague School (1860-90) are here presented alongside documentary photographs, both of which point to the impact that the industrial revolution had on the 19th-century rural Dutch landscape. The exhibition reveals, through more than 90 paintings and photographs, the landscape that has gradually become overtaken by Dutch industrialisation. The works are supplemented by a film by Bert Koenderink about the industrial revolution that informs the landscape painting of the time. The paintings and photos have been gathered from the collections of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the Neue Pinakothek, Munich. The exhibition capitalises on the partial closure for renovation of the Rijksmuseum to secure loans that make up a large part of the display. Aside from paintings and photographs, other historical material is presented, such as railway maps, that further illustrate the evolution of the Hague School’s native landscape. A large part of the photographic material comes from Johann Georg Hameter (1838-85). Hameter presented work at the first exhibition of photography in the Netherlands in 1855 and his photographs on show here tell us as much about early photography as they do about the rapidly industrialised landscape. R.C.

Dates: 13 Nov 09 - 7 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Residenzplatz 1 Salzburg A-5020
Tel: +43 (0)6 62 840451-0 Website

Dates: 15 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 100 University Street Seattle 98101-2902
Tel: +1 206 625 8900 Website

Dates: 29 Aug 09 - 6 Dec 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: Davidstrasse 40 St Gallen 9000
Tel: +41 (0)71 222 1014 Website

Dates: 29 Aug 09 - 17 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Museumstrasse 32 St Gallen 9000
Tel: +41 (0)71 242 0671 Website

Dutch landscape came into its own, so it is said, as a result of the revolt or war of independence (1568-1648) when artists celebrated the nascent independent nation with views, real and imaginary, that celebrated the country’s rural environs and, of course, its sea coast and shipping. This exhibition compares and contrasts actual visual transcriptions of sites (the topographies) and the invented or dreamed images that evoked a beloved, but unreal, country (that included, in the baroque, alpine scenes). This exhibition includes works in three media by artists such as Esaias van de Velde, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruisdael and Rembrandt, thus showing the development of landscape from renaissance “realism” to baroque panoramas and inventions. The prints on show have been loaned by an undisclosed private Swiss collection and are being shown to the public for the first time. D.L.

Dates: 7 Nov 09 - 7 Mar 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Konrad-Adenauer-Strasse, 30-32 Stuttgart D-70173
Tel: +49 (0)711 470 40 0 Website

Dates: 1 Nov 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 27-29 Sderot Shaul Hamelech Boulevard Tel Aviv 61332
Tel: +972 3 695 7361 Website

Dates: 12 Nov 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 8 Korte Vijverberg The Hague 2313 AB
Tel: +31 (0)70 302 3456 + 440 Website

The Mauritshuis Museum hosts the first ever monographic exhibition of works by Dutch 17th-century artist Philips Wouwerman. While Wouwerman was highly regarded in his time and up until the 19th century, today his work is largely overlooked. Curator Quentin Buvelot is seeking to reintroduce the artist to a wider public as one of the main figures of 17th-century Dutch painting. The Mauritshuis holds a large collection of works by the artist that were previously owned by the Dutch royal family. Chronologically organised, the exhibition consists of 33 paintings, a third of which originate from private collections and are previously unseen by the public. “It was time to finally show Philips Wouwerman at the Mauritshuis,” Buvelot said, “as he is among the great painters of the Dutch Golden Age.” Wouwerman, who is known mainly for his equine paintings, is shown to be a versatile artist engaging with a variety of themes in landscapes, religious paintings and genre scenes. “There will be many surprises for the visitor,” Buvelot promises. The show includes the 1655-60 painting Battle Scene at War. This “complicated painting”, as Buvelot describes it, emphasises Wouwerman’s painterly talent and sets the tone of the exhibition. Also on show are 10 drawings, several of which have recently been attributed to Wouwerman, which will be a “revelation for the visitor”, Buvelot says.

Dates: 17 Oct 09 - 3 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Nicolaaskerkhof 10 Utrecht
Tel: +31 (0)30 236 2362 Website

Dates: 15 Sep 09 - 10 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Maria Theresien-Platz Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 525 240 Website

The favourite impresa or heraldic emblem of Charles the Bold was a device showing the flint, steel and flames. With hindsight, this piece of armorial self-promotion ironically summarises the duke’s essential weakness, rather than the power and energy he intended it to project. The English and German translations of his posthumous epithet “le Téméraire”—“the Bold”, “der Kühne”—fail to convey the harmonics of the French: foolhardy, rash or overreaching, as well as brave and daring. Sparks flying from steel and stone can set fires that run out of control as well as provide heat and light. Charles’s reign brought the Duchy of Burgundy to its white-heat culmination as one of the most brilliant, aesthetically refined European courts of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, and finally to cinders and dust with his ignominious death on the battlefield of Nancy. The four Valois Dukes of Burgundy, a branch of the French royal house, built up their territories from the accession of Philip the Bold (“le Hardi”) in 1363 by inheritance, marriage, conquest and purchase. Over four generations, their territories expanded from an area of about a 100-mile radius around Dijon and Besançon to a state that also included all of present-day Alsace-Lorraine, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and most of north-eastern France. Until Charles the Bold, the dukes had—not without dollops of good luck—advantageously manipulated their geographical position between France, the Holy Roman Empire and England (for example, Charles married Mary of York, the sister of Edward IV, to whom Charles had made massive loans, thus binding England to Burgundy with ties of marriage and money). The dukes were also lavish patrons of the arts, none more so than Charles’s father, Philip the Good (1396-1464) as well as Charles himself. This exhibition, having been seen in Bern and Bruges, places intimately connected with Charles’s death and life, now comes to its final stage in the city most closely associated with the heirs to the bulk of the Burgundian wealth and power, the Habsburgs. On show are some of the most magnificent works created for the court of Charles the Bold (1433-77), who reigned from his father’s death in 1467. It features paintings by artists patronised by the Burgundian dukes, most notably Roger van der Weyden, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes and Jan van Eyck, textiles including Arras and Tournai tapestries, embroideries, vestments, court costumes and other luxury fabrics, and arms and armour (some tailor-made for Charles). Also included is metalwork and jewellery by Parisian, Bruges and Augsburg goldsmiths, among which are several precious gold chains with jewelled and enamelled pendants of the Order of the Golden Fleece, founded by Charles’s father in 1430. A highlight is the reliquary of St Lambert’s finger presented by the figure of Charles the Bold in his Milanese parade armour, supported by his patron, St George (Charles belonged to the Order of the Garter)—modelled on the figure of the same from Van Eyck’s Van der Paele altarpiece. The reliquary had been commissioned by Charles in 1467 and presented by him to the cathedral in Liège in 1471. Illuminated manuscripts (including Charles’s Book of Hours from the Getty) and other documents, medals and medallions, tableware, plate and ceramics round out the display. The show is divided into six sections covering: Burgundian court culture; political administration and trade in the mid-15th century; objects directly related to Charles the Bold and Margaret of York; materials relating to the ceremonies of the meeting of the Emperor Frederick III and Charles in Trier in 1473; Charles’s ill-judged gamble on a war with the Swiss Confederation, 1474-77, which brought the break-up of the Valois hegemony with Charles’s death on the battlefield where, plundered, his naked corpse, ravaged by wolves, was later found (one of his favourite jewels, “The Three Brothers”, a setting of three rubies and three diamonds that was looted, eventually found its way into the hands of Elizabeth I, who prized it highly and is shown wearing it in Nicholas Hilliard’s The Ermine Portrait, 1585); and, finally, the Habsburg heritage (Charles’s daughter, Mary, married Maximilian I, bringing the Low Countries into the Habsburg sway). The exhibition’s extremely well and intelligently designed catalogue has an English edition published by Mercatorfonds (£45, $80 hb ISBN 9789 061538592). Donald Lee

Reliquary of St Lambert’s finger

Dates: 6 Oct 09 - 28 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc) Modern (1900-1945)
Address: Maria Theresien-Platz Vienna A-1010
Tel: +43 (0)1 525 240 Website

Dates: 20 Nov 09 - 12 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Fürstengasse 1 Vienna 1090
Tel: +43 (0)1 319 57 670 Website

Rudolf von Habsburg was born in 1552 in Vienna, the eldest son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. He spent his formative years, from the age of 11 to 19, at the stiffly formal court of his uncle, Philip II, King of Spain, an experience that seems to have made him pensive, melancholy, secretive, reserved and aloof. He developed a great love of the arts and (occult) sciences. He succeeded his father as Emperor in 1576 and moved the court to Prague (he was also King of Bohemia, as well as of Hungary and Archduke of Austria) where he created a Wunder- and a Kunstkammer, the former consisting of natural curiosities and specimens, musical instruments, clocks, water works, astrolabes, compasses, telescopes and other scientific instruments, and the latter containing over 2,000 works by such cutting-edge artists as Bartholomäus Spranger, Hans von Aachen, Giambologna, Josef Heintz, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Aegidius Sadeler, and Adrian de Vries, as well as “old masters” such as Dürer and Brueghel. He patronised the botanist Charles de l’Ecluse and the astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, and kept a menagerie of exotic animals and botanical gardens. He never married. His reigned was marked by inconclusive wars with the Ottomans and a revolt by his Hungarian subjects, as well as the turmoil brought about by the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Church’s retrenchment. These events came to overwhelm him and, stripped of all power, save the imperial, by his younger brother and successor, Matthias, he died in 1612. The conventional (and teleological) view has been that while he was a great patron of the arts, he was an inept and disastrous ruler, taking steps that made the Thirty Years War (which saw the complete dispersal of his collections) inevitable. Revisionist views have come to emphasise his far-sightedness in looking to the arts and sciences as means of surmounting theological and ideological differences, his tolerance of Judaism and Protestantism, his backing of the moderate protagonists of the Counter-Reformation and his ambiguous sexuality as modern man avant la lettre. This exhibition is the fourth in 20 years to have focused on Rudolf II, and each successive show has reconfigured him according to the temper of the times. Collectors and collecting studies, much in fashion in the 1970s and 80s, informed “Prag um 1600” at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and the Villa Hügel, Essen, in 1988-89, while “Rudolf II and Prague” at the Wallenstein Palace and the Prague Castle Museum in 1997 clearly reflected the Czech Republic’s need to assert its European roots and identity, after decades of occident-phobic and Russophile Soviet domination. (Under communism, Rudolf was portrayed as a fool.) Interestingly, the Prince von und zu Liechtenstein refused to lend works of art to this exhibition in protest at the seizure, first by Czechoslovakia and then by the communists, of his family estates at Valtice and Feltrice in Moravia. Hard on the heels of the Liechtenstein Biedermeier show at the Pushkin Museum earlier this year, this exhibition may well be another gesture of the House of Liechtenstein’s recent Ostpolitik, underscoring the family’s connections with Eastern Europe and, in this case, emphasising the Liechtenstein hand in Bohemian culture and life. From around 1597, Rudolf relied on Prince Karl I (1569-1627) to advise and help him to assemble his art collection. (The Emperor made him steward of the imperial household in 1600 and the viceroy of Bohemia in 1622.) The prince himself owned a considerable collection, works from which feature in this show, particularly two works recently acquired and restored: Diana with her Hounds and Two Companions, with Actaeon in the Background, 1602, and the Coronation of the Virgin, 1602, by Joseph Heintz the Elder.

Coronation of the Virgin, 1602 (detail)

Dates: 9 Sep 09 - 15 Feb 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: Vienna A-1130
Tel: +43 (0)1 81113 Website

Dates: 26 Sep 09 - 13 Dec 09
Categories: 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc) Modern (1900-1945) Post-War (1945-70) Old Master
Address: Compton Verney Warwickshire CV35 9HZ
Tel: +44 (0) 1926 645500 Website

Dates: 1 Oct 09 - 31 Jan 10
Categories: Old Master 1800-1900 (Impressionism, etc)
Address: Fourth Street at Constitution Avenue Northwest Washington 20565
Tel: +1 202 737 4215 Website

Dates: 21 Jun 09 - 29 Nov 09
Categories: Old Master
Address: Fourth Street at Constitution Avenue Northwest Washington 20565
Tel: +1 202 737 4215 Website

Dates: 21 Nov 09 - 7 Mar 10
Categories: Old Master
Address: 55 Salisbury Street Worcester 01609-3196
Tel: +1 508 799 4406 Website