Palazzo dei Diamanti
Boldini in Impressionist Paris
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
British Museum
Dates: 24 Sep 09 - 24 Jan 10
Categories: Archaeology & Ancient art
Latin American
Address: Great Russell Street London WC1B 3DG
Tel: +44 (0)20 7323 8299 Website
A dejected ruler murdered by his own people after failing to prevent Spanish forces from conquering his once mighty empire that at its height stretched from the Pacific Ocean the Gulf of Mexico; this is the image of Moctezuma II that resonates five centuries after his demise. This show, the last in the museum’s series to explore power and empire through historical figures, investigates the less well-known period in the life of the Aztec emperor—the 18 years he reigned prior to the arrival of the conquistadors. The display tells the story of Moctezuma (reigned 1502-20) through monumental sculpture, gold and turquoise artefacts, codices, European portraits and enconchados (oil paintings with mother of pearl detail inlaid on wood panels) drawn from the museum’s collection as well as those in Mexico, the US and Europe. “We want to reinsert Moctezuma into the Columbian world as a unique ruler in his own right—not merely as a post-colonial figure. It’s a wonderful challenge,” says Dr Colin McEwan, head of the museum’s Americas department and curator of the show, in cooperation with his Mexican colleagues Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Leonardo López Luján and Felipe Solís Olguín, who died in April 2009. Divided into thematic sections, the show examines various aspects of Moctezuma’s life including his role as a semi-divine figure or intermediary with Aztec gods, his military prowess and his varied achievements as a ruler. The exhibition also delves into the Spanish conquest and presents an alternative version of the ruler’s death. On display are two 16th-century codices—shown together here for the first time—one of which depicts Moctezuma in chains and the other with a rope around his neck, suggesting he might not have willingly welcomed the Spanish, but rather been a captive who was later dispatched by the Hispanic invaders. “We’re showing how history is constructed and represented and how events can be read in the 21st century. We want to bring less well-known aspects of his life into Western historicity,” says McEwan. The show presents new scholarship on the emperor including the first in-depth reconstruction of a lost portrait of Moctezuma carved into Chapultepec Hill in Mexico City. E.S.
Turquoise mosaic mask, Aztec/Mixtec, 1400-1521 AD
Musée Jacquemart-André
Brueghel, Memling, Van Eyck: the Brukenthal Collection
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
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