Research Archives - Jordi de Nadal

Seven for seven: From Paris to Cluny.

Posted on 16 November, 2017

1. The always surprising Louvre.

If you travel to Paris, don’t miss François Ier et l’Art des Pays-Bas at the Louvre. Conservator Cécile Scailliérez has put together this surprisingly generous, rich exhibition of Flemish and Dutch artists in Renaissance France, whose achievments had been overshadowed by those of their Italian counterparts for too long. The catalogue is a reference work in the field.

2. Picasso, day-to-day.

Picasso 1937. L’anée érotique at the Musée Picasso in Paris gives you more than what its catchy title promises. You can trace Picasso’s amazing work capacity, and his ability to jump from one style to another, in a matter of days, all as part of coherent, brilliant journey on the many languages at his disposal.

3. The quality is old, the money is new.

You will find a good account of the extraordinary sale of the Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi in artnet, plus a video recording the bidding at Christie’s. The auction house’s strategy of offering the Old Master’s masterpiece in a Contemporary Art sale has proved brilliant, since the last two bidders were represented by Francois de Poortere, International Director and Head of the Old Master’s Department, making small advances, and Alex Rotter, Chairman of Post-War and Contemporary Art for the Americas, who placed great increments, until his winning bid at $450.3 million (including fees).

4. Buy cheap, give generously.

In ARCA’s blog, you will find an interesting article explaining a “clever” fiscal optimization scheme: buy some important ancient artwork at a good price; have it appreciated for much, much more than your purchase price by some “expert” appraiser (duly provided by the seller); make a gift of the artwork to a museum; collect the tax-benefits attached to the donation – worth up to three times than your purchase price.

5. Promising.

*Anonymous (Antwerp), Carved retable of the Passion of Christ, c. 1510. Burgos, San Photo: Lesmes, Capilla de Salamanca* (Hans Nieuwdorp Archive, Illuminare – Centre for the Study of Medieval Art | KU Leuven).

Brepols will publish in January next year “Netherlandish Art and Luxury Goods in Renaissance Spain”, (edited by D. van Heesch, R. Janssen, J. Van der Stock), which will “explore the diverse ways in which Netherlandish art and luxury goods permeated the artistic landscape of Renaissance Spain”, and therefore “providing a fascinating and multifaceted view of the reciprocal relationships between the Low Countries and Spain in the fifteenth, sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries”. It will follow a symposium of the same title hold at the University of Leuven, in February 2016.

6. The Tàpies case: a German contribution.

Regarding artist Antoni Tàpies private collection’s sale, I took the side in favor of it, since I had read no article or study relating it to the late artist’s oeuvre. Well, it could be very well I was wrong: Barbara Catoir at the FAZ make a good case presenting it as a “typische Künstlersammlung”, short of any really important work, but with many ties to Tàpies’ creative process.

7. The monk’s treasure.

The heroes of the Révolution missed it, and it remained unearthed until last September: at the CNRS online blog, you can read the report of the fascinating finding of a treasure trove (“2,200 silver coins, 21 gold dinars, a gold signet ring with a Roman intaglio, a folded piece of gold leaf, and a small gold object”) found in the Abbey of Cluny, by a MA student working on the site.

Seven for seven: From New York to Madrid.

Posted on 10 November, 2017

1. A lesson in connaisseurship – and research.

Met Curator Carmen C. Bambach explains to The New York Times how she attributed a new drawing (Sleeping Reclining Male Nude With Boy-Genius) to Michelangelo. She is is presenting it in the forthcoming retrospective at the Met (from November 13th to February 12th, 2018).

2. New issue.

The Autumn 2017 issue of the online journal Nineteenth Century Art Worlwide is out there, and you all can enjoy it for free. Not a single article related to Catalonia or Spain this time, but still full of good contributions, like this rich review of Medardo Rosso’s retrospective in Saint Louis by Susan Waller, Professor at University of Missouri.

3. A Goya for almost 98 Fortuny.

The Garantía del Estado program (equivalent to UK’s Government Indemnity Scheme) insured the early “The Victorious Hannibal” by Goya (oil on cavas, 87 x 131,5 cm), for his recently extended exhibition term at the Museo del Prado, with 18 million euros. At the same time and under the same program, 98 works by Marià Fortuny, which are coming to the Prado for the upcoming retrospective, are covered with 18,804,239.60 €.

4. And a hundred Picasso’s for 1,200,000 €.

No doubt one of the season’s most desired lots for engravings’ lovers is n. 317 of the sale at Ader Paris on November 25th: a Suite Vollard from the collection of Henri M. Petiet (estimate: 1.2 million euros). The lot’s notice summarizes the Suite’s troubled history.

5. Abolish the “scholarship tax”.

A group of leading British art historians have written an open letter against what they call the “scholarship tax”, e. g., the fee for reproducing photos from works in museums in their papers and books – a full report on the subject in the blog of the anti-tax activist Bendor Grosvenor’s.

6. Gurlitt, the aftermath.

According to Marcel Brülhart, Vicepresident of the Dachstiftung des Kunstmuseums Bern, there was not many Nazi-tainted works in the Gurlitt collection they are now exhibiting (Gurlitt: Status Report.“Degenerate Art” – confiscated and sold, until March 4, 2018, with a parallel exhibition in Bonn), but its coming to the Kunstmuseum Bern has prompted research in many other Swiss museum to fill provenance gaps of other works in their collections – interview in F.A.Z.

7. The best must be inside.

*Photo: Museo de las Colecciones Reales*

The new Museo de las Colecciones Reales has announced its opening for January 2020. The building is already competed (and duly awarded, as reported). It is, as you can see, a dry irony for a museum whose mission is to show the Spanish Royals as tastemakers. The collection inside will we, however, splendid – including the exquisite Armory.

Seven for seven: From Collection Godia to the Return of History

Posted on 27 October, 2017

1. Books 1: Keep the curator.

The Godia Fundation left its site in central Barcelona last year and sold some of its works, but kept its curator, Mercè Obón. And so Obon’s contiuous research on the collection keeps bringing new discoveries: in the catalogue for the exhibition hold in Museo Episcopal de Malaga last July (La esencia de la belleza), you will find who the sitters in this magnificient Ramon Casas are, and other interesting new data.

2. Books 2: a Tefaf’s veteran comes afresh.

As we announced some weeks ago, Eguiguren first showed this grand panel in Tefaf Maastricht 2016 as the work of a Spanish anonymous artist, and will now present it in Tefaf New York as the work of the Maestro de Belmonte. To accompany they are publishing a catalogue by Alberto Velasco (Virgin and Child with Musicina Angels. The Master of Belmonte and Late Medieval Aragonese Painting, Eguiguren 2017) which is in fact a complete study of the 16^th century school of Calatayud, completed with other new attributions and a generous supply of technical data.

3. Books 3: Michelangelo

You can already book the catalogue for the upcoming exhibition at the Metropolitan (opens on November 13^th), edited by Carmen C. Bambach, at yale.com for $65.

4. Women, women, women everywhere.

*Maruja Mallo. Kermés, 1928. Castres-Musée Goya, Musée d’art hispanique © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Jacques Faujour © Maruja Mallo, VEGAP, Málaga, 2017*

Before going for Olga Sacharoff (1889-1967) in the Museu d’Art de Girona (from November 25^th), you can travel to the Museo Picasso in Malaga to see their selection of 18 Surrealist ladies, under the title Somos plenamente libres. Las mujeres artistas y el Surrealismo (until January 28^th, comment in El Mundo). Meanwhile, Guillermo de Osma shows in Madrid a retrospective of Maruja Mallo (1902-1995), until November 10^th(catalogue here). The exhibition coincides with the launching of Mallo’s oil paintings catalogue raisonné initiative, lead by Mr Osma, Juan Pérez de Ayala and Antonio Gómez Conde. You can send your photos of Mallo’s works to catalogorazonado@marujamallo.com (website: www.marujamallo.com)

5. A family tradition.

The daughter of the late sculptor Pau Gargallo follows her family’s generous tradition with a new donation, this time of five important bronzes to the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid (note from Efe). It is thanks to Mme. Gargallo’s mother that the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya holds an excellent selection of her father’s works.

6. Weimar in Frankfurt.

The Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt opens an exhibition about art in the Weimar Republic, with a fine digitorial – Splendor and Misery in the Weimar Republic, until February 25th, 2018.

7. The return of Seven for Seven’s Challenge: again, find the 7 differences.

Again, too hard. History does repeat itself.

Seven for seven: From Sitges to the Professor Castiñeiras.

Posted on 21 September, 201721 September, 2017

1. Sitges as usual.

The day of conferences (October 20^th) hosted by the Museums of Sitges, near Barcelona, and devoted to collectionism, museums and the art market, will as usual mark the rentrée in this corner of the Mediterranean. In a fitting coincidence, one of the speakers, Glòria Domènech, will elaborate on the late Antoni Tàpies as collector, just two weeks after some of the works he treasured will have gone to auction at Christie’s – at the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction (6 October, London) and the Up Close Sale, (3 October, London), with further works at the Impressionist and Modern sales in February 2018.

2. An Austrian abroad: Max Hollein.

*Photo: Fine Arts Museums San Francisco*

The FAZ has the ability of making good interviews to German-speaking directors abroad. Max Hollein, the former star of the European museum sector as director of the Frankfurt’s museums, and since last year, director of the Legion of Honor and the M.H.de Young Museum in San Francisco, says:

“European museums are heavily influenced by public cultural policies. There is not state-lead cultural policy in America. The museums are far more influenced by what the Board of Trustees says, not only from the economic point of view”.

3. A German abroad: Eike Schmidt.

All the same for Eike Schmidt, the current director of the Ufizzi: “The Italian bureaucracy is a giant hurdle. I have overcome it successfully many times”, states he in this interview for the FAZ. As it is known, he will leave the Florentine museum for the KHM Vienna in the second half of 2019.

4. Our common friend Leviathan.

The poor owner of Pleurant n. 17 from the tomb of Philippe the Bold (which has been reconstructed in the Musée de Beaux Arts de Dijon), can trace his ownership back to 1813, and has lent the piece to all the relevant exhibitions. Moreover, when he decided to sell it, he approached the tax authorities for a in lieu scheme, and also the museum of Dijon for a fundraising campaign, unsuccessfully. But when he eventually put it to auction, the heroes of Leviathan finally awoke, and he now risks expropriation by the French state on the grounds of a rule of 1804 (the tomb was however dismantled in 1793, articles at La Connaissance des Arts and Bilan).

5. A family matter.

ARCA’s blog explains us the family connections behind the robbery of a Big Leaf in the Bode Museum, Berlin. Otherwise, you can find in Die Zeit a video showing three of the detainees, in their way home after the job, taking a walk together into an empty, CCTV surveilled S-Bahn.

6. Böhler? Ask the ZI.

The ZI in Munich has secured funds for research on the Julius Böhler archives (1903-1949), which they acquired in 2015. They are however looking for more suport for the digitization of all the material. Böhler was one of the most important German Old Masters dealers of the first half of the 20th century, closely related with the Royal museus an collections in Berlin and Munich. He was also active with American Museums – the MFA Boston bought him this fine Saint Francis by Francisco de Zurbarán.

7. A man with a mission.

Professor Manuel A. Castiñeiras carries on in his effort to put the Hispanic Romanesque art in its right international context. In his new book you will find articles by the many specialists form home and abroad attracted by him in his seminars and courses, at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and elsewhere (Manuel A. Castiñeiras, ed.: Entre la letra y el pincel: El artista medieval. Leyenda, identidad y estatus, Círculo Rojo, 2017, 420 p.; ISBN: 978-8491603368).

Seven for seven: From Monaco to Iraq.

Posted on 14 September, 201714 September, 2017

1. Morgan the judge.

In the case brought in Monaco against him by his former client Dimitry Rybolovlev, over commissions as his advisor, Swiss “King of the Freeports” Yves Bouvier has been feeling the benefits of a having judge, Morgan Raymond, asking the Russian magnate the right questions (article at Bilan, via artnet). Morgan came in some months ago, after the previously assigned judge asked for a low-key transfer to the Réunion Island (see Le Temps).

2. Fred the art historian.

We read at CODART’s news service Dr. Fred G. Meijer, an specialist in Dutch Golden Age painting, has left the RKD, where he was the point of reference in his role as Senior Curator, and has set up shop by himself (at www.fredgmeijer.com). He offers attribution services, excluding any valuation, on a set hourly fee, plus lectures, essays and collection cataloguing.

3. Manuel the director.

The opening of the magical “Louvre of the Sands” in Abu Dabhi is scheduled for November 11^th. Il Giornale dell’Arte offers you an exclusive interview with his director, Manuel Rabaté.

4. See you in Berlin…

…to see Jean Fouquet’s Von Melun’s Diptych surviving panels reunited, along others works of the master and his contemporaries, at the exhibition in the Gemäldegalerie, until January, 7^th, 2018.

5. And in Florence afterwards…

… at the 30^th Biennale de l’Antiquariato (from September 29^th to October 7^th), the first one after the changes in Italian rules for the export of cultural goods. This changes were partly based on the conclusions of a symposium hold by the Biennale’s organization in March this year.

6. Or even in New York …

*Photo: Cover of the Lindau Gospels, The Morgan Library.*

… to see Magnificient Gems: Medieval Treasure Bindings at The Morgan Library, a small exhibition of their extraordinary holdings on jeweled Medieval bindings (plus their Beatus from San Salvador de Tábara, Castille). But if you cannot visit it, you don’t need to worry, because the Morgan has a put online generous selection of its collection, with thousands of images and fine commentaries.

7. ARCA’s blog.

For me, one of the best blogs in heritage and heritage protection is the one published by ARCA (Association for Research into Crimes Against Art). Their last post is about an Iraqi Jewish Archive to be returned by the US authorities to the Iraqi ones next year. It teaches you about what to do when papers and books have been hit by water: freeze them.

Seven for seven: From Valldoreix to your clients.

Posted on 7 September, 201714 September, 2017

1. In good hands.

The last issue of RESCAT the biannual bulletin of the CRMB, Catalonia’s Institute for Restauration in Valldoreix (Barcelona), includes many examples of the good work the institute is doing with important works of art owned by the Church – among them 31 pieces of jewellery currently in the Museu Diocesà de la Seu d’Urgell or the Mare de Déu del Patrocini in Cardona (photo). You will find also find an interview with Father Jesús Tarragona Bay, a key figure in heritage protection in Lleida.

2. Grandeur.

If you are a Biennale-goer (September 11-17), most probably you are also a Kugel-goer, and next week you will be enjoying their Classical sculptures and Old Masters paintings exhibition, in the new six rooms extension of their grandiose gallery in the Hôtel Collot, at Quai Anatole (article at the Antiques Trade Gazzette, paying).

3. Tefaf NY Fall.

The American leg of TEFAF has posted its list of exhibitors, and photos of some of the works on offer – like this recently attributed Madonna and Child by Musical Angels by the Maestro of Belmonte (146 x 121 cm), at Jaime Eguiguren’s. The doors of the Park Avenue Armory, New York, will open on October 27^th, for just 6 days.

4. The rise of the online catalogue raisonée.

The Wildenstein Platter Institute is following the trend and has plans to put online not only the vast Wildenstein archive, but also the catalogues raisonées of Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Claude Monet. The WPI is a partnership between the Wildenstein Institute and Hasso Platter, the co- founder of the tech giant SAP SE and the man behind, among other things, the successful Museum Barberini in Postdam. Now the obvious advantages of the online catalogue are more and more clear, is good to remember the pioneers, like the Fundació Dalí in Figueres, breaking ground since 2004.

5. Miró introduces Dalí to Breton.

The City Council of Girona has put online the archives of the fabled Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, given by the heirs of art critic Rafael Santos Torroella following Girona’s purchase of his art collection. You will find there this letter of introduction for Salvador Dalí, written by Joan Miró to André Breton in March 20th, 1920, and also the catalogue with prices of Miró’s first solo exhibition, of just two years before.

6. “Museums are still about their collections, and about striving for a higher experience”

Artnet offered a two-installments interview (here and here) with Philippe de Montebello, on the place of museums in our societies, and his plans to revive the Hispanic Society in New York.

7. Sure you know all that.

In this article in Artnet you will find some basic advice you can always give to someone new to the Old Masters field. I will only add the great joy of discovering, buying and researching a good piece.

Seven for seven: From Florence to Lisbon.

Posted on 31 August, 201714 September, 2017

1. Bold.

In its coming auction, Pandolfini has decided to be open about a difficult issue: auctioning to an international audience important works that are already banned, or in risk to be banned, for export, because of public heritage regulations. They will devote them a specific section, with a refined title: Opere di Eccezionale Intresse Storico-Artistico. No more nasty surprises, then.

2. New rules in Italy.

Pandolfini initiative is related to the rules for the export of artworks in Italy. We read in Il Giornale dell’ Arte the Italian senate has approved the reform of the Codice dei Beni Culturali, softening Italian’s strict export rules for private cultural goods in two points. They now give free export to (a) all works not older than 70 years (before was 50 years), provided they have not been classified as of cultural importance; and (b) to works older than 70 years with a value up to € 13,500 (the statement declaring the value being provided by the vendor).

3. Museummaker.

In the FAZ, Ulrich Raulff publishes an obituary for Martin Roth, the former director of the Dresden Museums and the V&A in London. He finds a name for him, “museummaker”, and notes that (in my own free translation):

“Roth was a fundraising genius, and took no shame in it, because he knew very well what kind of fuel needs the most important motor for success in a museum. This motor is called research”.

Otherwise, in artnet you will find a review of his last book, Widerrede, published posthumously

4. Next stop, Barcelona?

If everything goes as planned, Barcelona will have a new large exhibition hall (6350 sqm) that should help it attract the international blockbuster art shows still rare in the city. According to a surprise announcement of an agreement (to be signed in September) between the ICUB, the city house’s body responsible for culture matters, and Fira Barcelona, the one responsible for commercial shows: after a year of reforms to be started in October, the second will allow the first to use of the Pabelló de Victoria Eugenia in Montjuic. The only problem is that this building was wanted by the nearby sitting Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya for expansion. Will see.

5. A proposal.

Let’s contribute with our own ideas for exhibitions in this brand new space. My first one could have for title “Gold for God. Medieval silversmithing in the Catalan-Aragonese Crown”, borrowing from collections in cathedrals (like Zaragoza, Barcelona, Girona, Valencia), museums (Victoria and Albert, Musee de Cluny, Metropolitan), and private collections. The setting could be as elegant as in this room in Zaragoza’s cathedral museum, called Alma Mater Museum.

6. A second proposal.

In any case the agreement for the exhibition hall establishes the principle of more space for art in Montjuic. But I find it a bit too shy: I would rather see a whole plan for all the area, bringing together the museums already there, the university faculties and research centres relevant to the field, the official art restoration centre, the public art library and even the public cultural authorities – and the big exhibition hall, of course. In fact, this is the idea behind the Humboldt Forum in the original Museumsinsel, in Berlin – although back there the Berliners are still asking themselves whether form and function, that is, the somehow rebuild Prussian imperial palace and a colletion in part inhereted from colonialism, are a really good pairing; see director Neil McGregor trying to answer the question in this interview in Zeitonline, and this one in the FAZ (paying).

7. Otherwise, we’ll have always Lisboa.

MNAC vs. MNAC.

Seven for seven: From Barcelona to Bilbao.

Posted on 24 August, 201714 September, 2017

1. Back to work.

I am reviewing these notes, which I wrote some days ago for this week’s post, after six days of extraordinary events in my city and my country. One of the attacks’ objectives was to break up our way of life, and it would be too easy to pretend nothing has changed. But, even if they have hit hard, some good is coming out of it, thanks to the stubborn and generous efforts of so many. We are healing the wound, and perhaps these notes, which are business as usual, are not out of place.

2. MNAC’s list.

I just realized an interesting fact. In 2009 the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya celebrated its 75^th anniversary with an exhibition called Guests of Honour, bringing into the museum a group of fine works the museum wished were in its collection. For most of them this was just impossible, since they were already in other museums. For others, still in private hands, there was still hope, and in fact, today two of them are hanging in its walls: The Darcawi Holy Man of Marrakesh, a watercolour by Josep Tapiró acquired in 2013, and Pere Serra’s Crucifixion of Sant Peter (c. 1400, tempera on wood), which was part of the Gallardo donation of 2015.

3. Fidel Aguilar (1894-1917).

One of the works in the MNAC’s exhibition was this Head by Fidel Aguilar of 1916, now in a private collection. It has been exhibited again, until two weeks ago, in the retrospective, short (Aguilar died with only 22 years) but very comprehensive, in the Casa Pastor of Girona (A Shooting Star: Fidel Aguilar (1894-1917). Its fine catalogue is by Eva Vàzquez and Jordi Falgàs. In both the central essay of the book and the central room of the exhibition they draw parallels between the works of Aguilar and his friend Enric Casanova, on the basis of their common influence by Archaic Greece’s sculpture – they were following the trend set by Aristides Maillol some years (as seen in the Maillol and Greece exhibition in the Museu Marés in Barcelona last year).

4. Enric Casanovas (1882-1948).

After Aguilar’s, perhaps it is time for a Casanovas’s retrospective – the last one was in 1984 in Barcelona, with Teresa Camps as its curator and writer of its catalogue. In 2008, Susanna Portell presented Enric Casanovas: escultor i amic, (“Enric Casanovas, and sculptor and a friend”) in the Fontana d’Or in Girona, which focused in his relationships with other artists. More recently, both Camps and Portell edited Les cartes de l’escultor Enric Casanovas (“The Letters of Enric Casanovas, Sculptor”, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2015).

5. Pere Jou (1891-1964).

A member of Aguilar’s and Casanova’s generation, Pere Jou has also received his share of research recently. Last year, Ignasi Domènech published his PhD dissertation, which is a biography and catalogue raisonné of his work: L’escultor Pere Jou, 1981-1964. Forma i matèria, (“The Sculptor Pere Jou, 1891-1964. Form and matter”, 2016, 334 pàgs; the original of the dissertation here.

6. Freedom works.

The reform of the Italian museums introduced two years ago, which gave them more autonomy and new directors (some of them foreigners), continues to deliver. Minister Franceschini proudly announced a global increase of 7% in visitors for the first half of 2017, reaching a record 50 million – Il Giornale de l’Arte features the case of the Galleria Borghese, which introduced a new ticketing system. Furthermore, Franceschini’s policy of allowing hiring non Italian directors has been recently uphold by the State Council, the highest administrative court in Italy, in the case over the Colosseum’s administration brought by the Major of Rome (more at Il Fatto Quotidiano).

7.The Zugaza’s factor.

Miguel Zugaza is performing as his best in his second round as director of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao. Their current exhibition, of the excellent collection of Alicia Koplowitz (until October 23th) is an enlarged version of the one showed in the Jacquemart-André in Paris. His is also talking about an expansion of the museum (article at El País).

Seven for seven: From Sijena to Washington.

Posted on 27 July, 201714 September, 2017

1. Italy, capital Sijena.

Among this season’s sleepers, this powerful Adoration of the Magi (155,5 x 130,5 cm) stands out. It came as “Italian School, 16th century” at Stuker Bern last June, 20th. It rocketed from a modest CHF 5,000 estimate to a CHF 130,000 result and can safely be assigned to the Aragonese Master of Sijena, probably for the main retable in the monastery of the same town – his Nativity from the same retable now at the Prado measures 171,5 x 130,5 cm, a difference of 16 cm that may be explained by some trimming on the bottom of the piece.

2. Sunnier days for Venusti?

At Christie’s last Old Masters Day Sale (July 7th), this fine Deposition attributed to Marcello Venusti (?1512/1515 – 1579) rose from an estimate of GBP 20,000 to a final price of GBP 115,000 (including buyer’s premium). It is a record for an artist who, as the title of the forthcoming catalogue by Dr Francesca Parrilla points out, has yet to come out from his friend Michelangelo’s long shadow (Marcello Venusti, un pittore all’ombra di Michelangelo, ed. Campisano, Rome). For a good report on the best results of the rest of the Old Masters sales, see this article at The Telegraph.

3. Already here.

Quite ahead from the opening day, the catalog for the upcoming exhibition “Murillo. The Self-portraits” in the Frick Collection, NY (30.10.2017-10.02.2018) and then in the National Gallery, London (28.02.2018 – 21.05.2018) is already on sale – edited by Xavier F. Salomon, Chief Curator at the Frick, and Letizia Treves, curator of later Italian, Spanish, and French 17th-century paintings at the National Gallery.

4. Rigaud reopens.

After a 9M€ refurbishment, the Musée Rigaud reopened last May. Didier Rikner dislikes the result. Anyway, you will still find there the great Retable of the Trinity, by the anonymous Master of the Llotja de Mar de Perpinyà, and also some new loans of works by Aristides Maillol from the Foundation Dina Vierny.

5. Challenging Nonell.

In this interesting article in Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide, Illinois University PhD student Maria A. Dorofeeva explores the reasons behind the negative contemporary reaction to Isidre Nonell’s exhibition in 1903, at the all-conservative Sala Pares, Barcelona: the gipsy, destitute women portrayed in his paintings challenged stablished and reassuring conventions about them.

6. It’s a hospital… are the new NATO’s headquarters …. no, it’s a museum!

The new but not opened Museo de Colecciones Reales (Madrid) has been bestowed with the FAD Architecture Award 2017. Not my taste.

7. Alternatives.

Artsy has a nice piece about fine new buildings for art – among them, David Adjaye’s strong and elegant National Museum of African American Art, Wahington.