Old Masters

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

Five generations of Brueghels are brought together for the first time

New show will examine the political and economic conditions that shaped the family’s fortunes

Technologyanalysis

A question of attribution: just how useful can AI tools be?

Connoisseurs and app makers agree on one thing: artificial intelligence-driven apps may supplement but do not replace the human eye and expertise in assessing a picture’s authorship

Baroque sensation Elisabetta Sirani finally has her first solo show outside Italy

The 17th-century Bologna-based painter is the subject of a concentrated presentation at Robert Simon Gallery in New York

Drunkard or genius? London's National Gallery gets up close and personal with Frans Hals

First major survey of Dutch painter in three decades will include reunited panels and monumental paintings

‘Clearly a copy from the 19th century’—Old Masters scholars reject AI-attributed Raphael

The so-called de Brécy Tondo has in the past been assumed to be a Victorian copy

Auctionsanalysis

Long-lost canvas by Flemish painter Michael Sweerts propels Christie's Old Master sale in London to its best result in seven years

The auction house made £53.9m (with fees) from 38 lots, and saw a new record established for Fra Angelico

Auctionsanalysis

Selective buying leaves 35% of lots unsold at Sotheby's Old Master sale in London

The £39.4m auction was led by a 15th-century painting by the Master of the Baroncelli Portraits at £7.9m, while a new record was set for a work by William Hogarth—albeit sold to a single bid

From the 'Bloomsbury stud' to unseen works by Winifred Nicholson—our pick of London Art Week

The annual eclectic gallery trail finishes on Friday, with 51 participants to see around central London

Italian painter arrested as investigations continue in Old Master forgery scandal

Lino Frongia is suspected of producing the fakes that sold for millions of euros

The Big Review: Georg Baselitz: Naked Masters at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna ★★★★★

Bold pairings of paintings by the contemporary German artist with those of the Old Masters are both provocative and elegiac

Vermeer blockbuster officially breaks record at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum

The recently-closed exhibition drew 650,000 visitors in its four month run

For just the third time this century, a Fra Angelico work heads to auction

Rediscovered panel painting comes to Christie’s evening sale in London next month with an estimate of £4m-£6m

Propelled by Marie Antoinette's poodle, mid-season Old Masters auctions in New York fetch nearly $13m

Specialists at Christie’s and Sotheby’s dismissed concerns about a decline in the Old Masters market

'Girl with a Pearl Earring' reexamined in 100 billion pixels: discoveries from the Vermeer symposium in Amsterdam

Experts from around the world have revealed fascinating new information about the Dutch Old Master and his works

How Lavinia Fontana went from ‘prospect’ to first professional woman artist

An exhibition of the 16th-century Italian painter at the National Gallery of Ireland tells the story of her unique circumstances and reveals the results of a recently restored work

Diaryblog

President Macron gets a private tour of the Rijksmuseum's blockbuster Vermeer show

The French head of state and First Lady pondered over masterpieces such as The Milkmaid and The Lacemaker

'Are Old Masters having a renaissance? Leaner times breathe new life into a tired market'

Collectors tend towards safety in times of trouble—and current uncertainty is causing a shift in buying habits