Old Masters

The ‘pearly triangle’: neurological investigation reveals secret of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring

The study also found that when volunteers looked at five works of art in the Hague’s Mauritshuis museum, their brains responded ten times more positively than when they viewed reproductions

Art marketanalysis

At Italy's leading Old Master fair, dealers anticipate a foreign collector influx

The latest edition of the Biennale Internazionale dell’Antiquariato di Firenze (Biaf) opens at a time when wealthy individuals are moving to Italy in growing numbers

Triple show to celebrate the Dutch Old Master Maarten van Heemskerck, who fell out of favour until the 1980s

The exhibition across three venues in the Netherlands will include new findings and the artist's restored masterpiece, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna

Cranach portrait will be sold in accord between Pennsylvania museum and Jewish heirs

The portrait of the Duke of Saxony, attributed to Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop, will be auctioned by Christie’s in New York in January 2025

A very national gallery: how the London museum's collection is being shown around the UK this summer

Under the National Treasures scheme, 12 UK museums are mounting exhibitions around the loan of masterpieces from the National Gallery

In partnership withThe National Gallery

The National Gallery, London: an artists’ collection for two centuries

The gallery's curators reveal the role played by living artists and women in building the institution’s all-embracing character over the past 200 years

In partnership withThe National Gallery

‘It's stuck with me all my life’: David Hockney on Piero della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ

Ahead of an exhibition at the National Gallery in London that will pair two of his works with the Renaissance masterpiece, Hockney talks about what makes the work so special

The Big Review: Michelangelo: the Last Decades at the British Museum, London ★★★☆☆

In the absence of large-scale works, the London show focuses instead on the objects that reveal the artist’s deepening spirituality

Muted Old Master evening sales in London provide relative bargains but no fireworks

Slim auctions at Christie's and Sotheby's saw a rediscovered Quentin Metsys and a modestly priced Botticelli come to the block

Rubens sketch illegally sold in aftermath of Second World War returned to museum in Germany

The oil sketch “Saint Gregory of Nazianzus” (1621) is one of five works by the Old Master that were unlawfully taken from the Friedenstein Foundation, with two still missing

From one hand to another: painting reworked by Rubens to be sold at Sotheby’s

Conservation has revealed the extensive changes Rubens made to a work originally by Herri Met de Bles

A canny couple: Amsterdam’s former mayor and his wife identified as sitters in Frans Hals portraits

Fresh research has revealed how the prestigious pair seized the moment to ensure their likeness was painted by the great Dutch artist

Lely portraits owned by bankrupt collector James Stunt flop at auction

Works by the painter, owned by the controversial "playboy" socialite, were offered at Christie's New York this month

New ‘Caravaggio’ work—once estimated at auction for €1,500—to go on show at the Prado

Numerous scholars endorse recently attributed piece depicting Jesus in a crown of thorns

Spanish-Peruvian artist brings Old Masters to the New World at the Venice Biennale

Sandra Gamarra Heshiki references 17th-century European paintings in her investigations of Spain’s colonial past and its ongoing repercussions

The Week in Art podcast | Marlborough Gallery closes, Rose B. Simpson in New York, Caravaggio’s final painting

Looking back at the history of the pioneering dealership in post-war art, plus a thought-provoking new installation in Madison Square Park and Caravaggio's The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula

Art marketcomment

It’s time to end the predatory practices of 'sleeper hunters'

Sleeper hunter dealers must recognise they have an asymmetrical relationship to vulnerable people pressured by circumstance to sell off their treasured heirlooms

New York Old Master sales deliver tepid results at Christie's and Sotheby's

Scattered seven-figure highlights failed to make up for dozens of passed lots and multiple key withdrawals

Rothschild foundation acquires lost Guercino masterpiece

The portrait of Moses surfaced in Paris in 2022 and will form part of a loan exhibition at Waddesdon Manor in March

Rewriting history? The fraught politics behind India's new Ram temple

Plus, the challenges facing the Old Master market and a lithograph by Honoré Daumier

Art marketanalysis

The Old Master trade is still seeking new ways to restore it to life

The category’s extraordinary works sell well, but the middle and lower ends of the market are in need of new ideas

Revealed: the damp-proof lead layer protecting Rembrandt’s The Night Watch

Scientists discovered extra seam during Operation Night Watch conservation project at the Rijksmuseum

Auctionsanalysis

Rediscovered paintings by Rembrandt and Canaletto fail to turbocharge London Old Master auctions

Evening sales at Sotheby's and Christie's drew in £19.4m and £21.3m, respectively

Long-unseen royal portrait by Diego Velázquez could bring $35m at auction

The painting could more than double the Spanish Old Master's auction record when it hits the block at Sotheby's

Cimabue ‘kitchen’ painting placed under export ban ends up at the Louvre

The culture ministry had been given 30 months to raise the funds to purchase the work after its sale at auction in 2019 was halted

New insights about Hans Holbein and his sitters come to light ahead of London and Frankfurt shows

The exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery will display rarely shown drawings, while the Städel Museum survey will show what might be the artist’s oldest known painting

How Princeton rediscovered a Rubens in its collection

Layers of earlier well-meaning but overzealous restoration work had obscured the Old Master’s hand—until now

Six paintings stolen from a Dutch town hall left on art detective's doorstep

Arthur Brand, who helped to recover a Van Gogh painting last month, says he was watching a "boring football game" when the surprising delivery was made

Dutch dealer returns Weenix landscape stolen in the Second World War to Dresden museum

The painting, acquired by Augustus III, hung in a Soviet general’s home after the war