Article – Page 5 – Artwatch International

2015-04-16 - The Frick Collection expansion proposed

A Different Era of Historic Preservation: Will New York Landmarks Law be able to last another 50 years?

Ruth Osborne

As the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission celebrates fifty years this month, it seems a pertinent time to consider the impact of this organization on the city’s landscape and its effectiveness in preserving the many histories of New York.

In response to the devastating destruction of Penn Station in 1963, the LPC and Landmarks Preservation Law were established in 1965 to provide a legal advocate for aesthetically and historically important sites and structures that make up the multi-layered character of the city. Since then, there have been wins and losses, demonstrating the necessity of such a law to protect New York’s history from complete disregard by the vested interests of developers and even politicians. Substantial numbers have arisen in the form of community and preservation groups now able to better protect the city’s heritage.

Proposed Frick Expansion. Courtesy: Neoscape Inc./The Frick Collection.

But it seems even the caretakers of a landmarked building can hold the potential to put its historic character in danger. In recent months, the Frick’s newly-announced expansion has raised many eyebrows, including those of former Frick director Everett Fahy. Their proposal, announced last June, would add a 106 ft tall addition (equivalent to ten-stories) above its landmarked 1913-14 building by Carrère and Hastings. It would also require the removal of the small 70th St. garden by distinguished 20th century landscape designer Russell Page and its accompanying Reception Pavillion with large windows onto the garden. The group Unite to Save the Frick has formed in response to what they deem a “destructive proposal,” stating their aim to “[preserve] the signature residential character that makes the Frick such a unique place to experience art…We urge the Frick to honor its own tradition of thoughtful additions and explore the many reasonable alternatives that exist for thoughtful expansion and modernization.” They have collected several artists, architects, historians, museum professionals, college deans, and others involved in the governance of various organizations committed to art and preservation. This long list includes former commissioners of the NYC LPC and the NYC Parks Dept., the founder of the Central Park Conservancy, and several other entire groups that have proven their strength in fighting for and funding preservation in New York. Does this sound like a group of advocates who would be denied a listening ear?

Proposed Frick Expansion (showing original and new sections). Courtesy: Wall Street Journal.

But this seems to be happening as the stewardship of cultural landmarks yields to the modernization of museum collections into giant conglomerates. Why must blockbuster exhibitions – which leave lines wrapping several times around the block – be the reasoning behind transforming this private domestic house museum into one with expansive conservation labs and more gallery space? Did Frick intend it as a museum of his artful interiors? Or as a second Met? The fall 2014 press release by current Director Ian Wardropper stated the “exciting plan” will allow the Frick to “now provide the amenities of a twenty-first-century museum.” It reads more like an advertisement for a hotel or apartment renovation than for a museum.

In a recent interview with the the Observer, architect Charles Warren maintains that this proposed addition is in no way a “modest” alteration to the building. Warren, a strong supporter of the United to Save the Frick group, presents a reasonable argument against the changes, despite preservation advocates often being portrayed as having an extreme or unrealistic mindset: “I’m not one of those people who wants to stop time, this isn’t [Colonial] Williamsburg, but is this needed?” Journalist Nate Freeman reminds readers that “several – if not nearly all – recent museum renovation projects have been over-budget and unsuccessful.” The Frick has still failed to make public even a rough estimate for the cost of the expansion. And while Wardropper insists that these changes are in the interest of creating “ample space” and an “expanded shop” for the Frick’s “growing constituency” and “new educational programs,” as well as opening up the second floor to visitors, the plans by Davis Brody Bond will add only 24% more public gallery space compared with the additional 84% increase in conservation lab space. It will also add another hill of limestone on top of a neighborhood gasping for green space.

Garden at the Frick by Russell Page (1977). Courtesy: Wall Street Journal.

We still await the Frick’s proposal to land on the desk of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which should happen any day now. In the meantime, we encourage you to consider just how this will impact the nature of the collection and what precedent this sets for historic house museums and the historic landscape of the city at large. Is there a case for protecting smaller museums against becoming swallowed up by sprawling institutions with billion-dollar endowments? Similar questions arose with the repurposing of the the Corcoran Gallery in D.C. as it entered new ownership recently. Will landmarked sites no longer be able to preserve the very memory they were landmarked for in the first place?

April 16, 2015/0 Comments/by Nick

Article, ArtWatch UK

The Conservation Laundering of Illicit Antiquities

Einav Zamir

Marion True, former curator of antiquities at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles [Fig. 2], once hailed as the “heroic warrior against plunder,” [1] was indicted in 2005 for violations against Italy’s cultural patrimony laws.[2]

True became the first American curator to face such charges [3] — not coincidentally, it was also the first time that a source country had the means, financially and politically, to investigate and prosecute violations of their cultural patrimony laws [4]. The Swiss police and Italian Carabinieri’s raid on Giacomo Medici’s warehouse in Geneva a decade earlier [5] exposed an elaborate system, designed to avoid suspicion from authorities [6]. The subsequent investigation threw a spotlight onto the dubious activities of museum curators.

To read more of this ArtWatch UK article, click here.

March 29, 2015/0 Comments/by Ruth

Article

A Look at Art Conservation in the News.

Ruth Osborne

In order to get a better sense of how conservation is presented to and perceived by the public today, ArtWatch has undertaken an overview of art conservation as it has appeared in the media over the past year.

Thoughts and opinions on the purpose of conservation have developed and changed over the past 150 years as society considers new scientific technologies. Noticing trends in news coverage of conservation interventions, as well as the state of the field as a whole, will allow for an understanding of the role of conservation as it is understood in the 21st century. This post will consider the following:

(1) How are conservators represented in relation to the works they’re treating?

(2) What is given precedence in reports of current conservation treatment, the work itself or benefits for the field at large?

(3) According to news coverage, what is the ultimate goal of modern conservation and what is being put in place to further this goal?

Patricia Favero, conservator at The Phillips Collection, with Picasso’s The Blue Room and showing its under layer. Courtesy: Evan Vucci/AP.

Art conservation as a field was born of the need to care for works of art as they experienced the ravages of time and misuse. Taking this into consideration, would it not come as a surprise that so many news stories covering the work of conservators focus on the promise of discovery instead of preserving the physical nature of the work from further deterioration? Is the act of prodding for findings beneath layers of paint with infrared imagery to discover an underlying image that the original artist painted over considered “conserving” the work from future deterioration? Regardless of how this fits into contemporary or classical theories of conservation, research into Picasso’s The Blue Room was still presented in the media last June as being part of the work’s conservation.

Just this week, The New York TImes reported on a new “discovery” of Jackson Pollock’s technique revealed by conservators treating his 1947 Alchemy at the Guggenheim Venice. His intentional, rather than random, paint-splattering technique has in fact been acknowledged by scholars before. Time magazine’s art critic Robert Hughes wrote in 1982 that: “…Pollock–in his best work–had an almost preternatural control over the total effect of those skeins and receding depths of paint. In them, the light is always right. Nor are they absolutely spontaneous; he would often retouch the drip with a brush.” It is certainly interesting how computer imagery can unpack the layers of this painting. But cannot the eyes of connoisseurs already perceive his technique by examining the painting and its underlying grid in a thorough visual analysis, instead of relying on computer analysis to reveal his method?

But dialogue is being pulled away from connoisseurship and its capabilities and towards a heavy reliance on science to achieve “objective” proof. Is science truly as definitive and free of error as is assumed by the media?

Leonardo da Vinci, La Belle Ferronière, 1490-96. Courtesy: Louvre, Paris

After announcement was made in February 2014 of the Louvre’s plan to restore the extremely vulnerable La Belle Ferronière by Leonardo, and after Michael Daley of ArtWatch UK questioned the safety of this plan, several months later it was revealed that it was to be the first Leonardo to show in the Middle East. Its planned transportation to the Louvre’s new satellite museum in Abu Dhabi was released to the press in October. This risky proposal to transport an extremely important confirmed Leonardo was precisely what necessitated its conservation, no doubt, as Louvre representatives related: “For such an important painting it is very important for us to have time. The first [restoration] committee met last week and now we will restore the painting and take all the time we need [and then] we will be very proud to show the restored painting.” But how does one simply gloss over the danger of transporting an already vulnerable painting overseas for temporary exhibit? Is it to be assumed that restoring it will make it less susceptible to damage? We have already had our share of works severely ruined on transport within the same country – even within the same museum building.

On another Leonardo panel surrounded by much controversy is his Lady with an Ermine, which has been altered by several restorers over the centuries. In 2007, ArtWatch reported on the promise of the picture’s digital reconstruction through a multispectral high-res camera. In these investigations, the role of conservation proposes to help undo the work of past ill-treatments and restore a more authentic version of the original. However, as we wrote:

“It is critical to remember that the conclusions drawn as a result of these diagnostic tests are not necessarily correct. Even the most ‘objective’ scientific evidence requires interpretation, and so many of the public announcements that have been made, touting the newest discoveries of the original intentions of the artist, are not universally agreed upon, nor should they be…the concern lies in the knowledge that historically latest technologies have often been used to promote rather than replace restorations. The fear in this case is that believing to fully understand what lies beneath the surface of an artwork will embolden restorers and justify their aims to go looking, with their preconceived notions, for what they now expect to find.”

Digital imaging showing three different versions of Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine. Courtesy: BBC News.

Come 2010, ArtWatch UK argued against its traveling to London on loan for a National Gallery exhibition. To prevent damage in transit, and to ready the painting for blockbuster exhibit, pieces are often sent to the conservator’s studio with the hope of increasing stability in the work. But the more a painting is handled and touched, the more its integrity is altered, no? BBC coverage last fall revealed conservators were still working with the panel to reveal “extraordinary revelations” about Leonardo’s work through this process. The reporter highlights the promise of new discoveries about Leonardo’s method as this digital digging has used “intense light” emitted from a multi-lens camera to make visible three different stages of the canvas. Who knows what this might mean for any future proposed traveling exhibitions on Leonardo’s process for which this work could be put at risk again?

Conservators’ abilities to unravel mysteries about the artist and his subjects with the help of technology was certainly a popular theme in 2014. It was seen in the multiple reports on the “artist’s original intention” that emerged from Gustave Cailleboite’s Paris Street; Rainy Day at the Art Institute of Chicago. Revelations about the artist’s true palette and the canvas’s true dimensions abounded. Here, the conservator serves to uncover a truer version of Cailleboite that had been “hidden” for decades since its last restoration (of an unknown date). Under old varnish, the sky was found to be a more saturated blue and to contain greater light and movement in its surface gradation. Sharper details overall, according to this report, have now altered relationships between the figures and buildings in the composition.

Art Institute of Chicago conservator Kelly Keegan with Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day. Courtesy: Art Institute of Chicago.

One article on the Art Institute’s website even suggests that: “The result is a transformed sense of light and atmosphere that is likely to change the way viewers respond to Caillebotte’s vision of 19th-century Paris and its people.” But does the woman’s hand inserted into the central man’s arm not still indicate their relationship as walking partners? Though the skies have cleared up a bit, wasn’t it presumed this would happen with cleaning of the varnish? Even if the sun may be about to come out, does it really reveal all that much about the artist’s true intentions, as the figures’ umbrellas are still up to protect from rain?

Meanwhile, the The Wall Street Journal reported that this treatment is now the reason to confirm the artist’s designation as an Impressionist: “As a result, curators now believe Caillebotte is likely to be viewed more as a bona fide Impressionist and less a traditional realist.” But wasn’t this already assumed by scholarship? Is this treatment really a breakthrough, as the media might have us believe?

These breakthrough discoveries were only made possible by a series of scientific tools, including infrared imagery, microscopy, and UV light and X-Rays, apart from the actual cleaning via swabs. While it is certainly important to have a solid understanding about a work’s makeup before treatment, will all works now expect to reveal hidden secrets every time they are cleaned? Have the expectations on a work of art increased, and will this help or hurt the integrity of works in the long run? The notion about conservation revealing hidden secrets in a painting continued in coverage of Villanova’s two-year treatment of the Triumph of David in September. In this case, the news report touted the x-ray and infrared tools that allowed conservators to “see into the painting.” According to this coverage, conservation once again aims to return works to, what is presumed to be, a more authentic state.

In a related issue, conservation has also been promoted for its “forensic” capabilities for authenticating authorship of works. Last March it was reported that two canvases by the nineteenth-century American romantic painter Martin Johnson Heade underwent testing at the Atlanta Art Conservation Center to prove their authorship through the existence of the artist’s finger print and brushstrokes, after being denied by Harvard’s Fogg Museum. In this press release, lab testing is referred to as “forensic science” that should take precedence alongside the connoisseur’s trained eye: “…the public needs to realize that connoisseurship has to adapt to a new and demanding educational standard. That standard I believe will become the future of proper art attribution…”

Henry Lie, Director of the Harvard Straus Center for Conservation. Courtesy: Index Magazine.

Hand-in-hand with the claimed abilities of science and technology to do what the human eye is no longer trusted to, came unreserved praise for new high-tech conservation lab techniques. Reports on the newly re-opened Harvard Art Museums emphasized above all the dynamic influence of science in the origins of modern conservation: “it was really the beginning of the field…the first time a science-based approach was taken to looking at these materials.” Meanwhile, the role of new “optical illusions” was the focus of one article on conservation studies at American universities. According to this article, the microscopy, nanotechnology, and x-ray tools conservators use allow them to bring back to life that which was once considered lost. Terms like “forensic tool” are used. But can we truly bring back something from the past? Will all traces of time truly be wiped away? That seems to be what this reporter would have his audience believe is possible.

Finally, the last line from an article entitled “What does a conservator do?” adds rather presumptuously: “Above all they are soothsayers, probing cultural materials to reveal the secrets of how and when they were made, and how they will survive into the future” (emphasis added).

March 24, 2015/0 Comments/by Nick

Article

The Power – and Danger – of Attributions.

Ruth Osborne

Triumph of David removed for conservation treatment. Courtesy: Villanova University.

In the fall of 2013, a badly-damaged 17th century painting attributed to Pietro da Cortona (known for his frescoed ceiling at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome), was exhumed from the microfiche storage room of Villanova’s library. The work, entitled Triumph of David, has been undergoing a two-year $100,000 conservation effort ever since.

On Villanova’s website, the September 2013 press release about the treatment campaign says the painting is “by 17th century Italian artist Pietro da Cortona,” while a December 2014 report in The Washington Times praising the effort states twice that the painting is only attributed to the Baroque master.

Conservators setting up canvas for x-rays. Courtesy: Villanova University.

In media coverage of art conservation, scientific methods are often promoted as a way to return the canvas to an “original,” more “authentic” state. In this view, conservation is a truth-finding mission that serves to uncover enlightening facts for public benefit. As such, works can be subjected to treatment in the lab solely for this purpose – for the promise of discoveries beneath the surface (such as with the man found beneath the Picasso at the Philips Collection last summer). The danger of this emphasis on truth-finding is that finding the more “authentic” state of a work does not necessarily protect its physical well-being. It is also misleading, as works can exist in multiple states throughout their history, and thus it is up to the present conservator to judge which is the best state to which the work must be returned. But can it even be truly returned, as if history had never happened? The work will still be altered by the conservator with whatever solvents or lasers that change the chemical structure of the work to remove varnish, dirt, and bad in-painting that retrieve the preferred aesthetic condition. These and other issues are discussed by conservator Dr. Salvador Muñoz-Viñas in his Contemporary Theory of Conservation (2005).

A Villanova blog following the restoration project of the Triumph of David continues to assert Cortona’s authorship, while the above mentioned press release emphasizes the uniqueness of the large work in Cortona’s proven oeuvre:

“Only a handful of collections in the world contain works on canvas by this artist, and for an American collection to possess a painting of this magnitude attributed to Pietro da Cortona is even more uncommon.”

A comment from Villanova’s Vice President for Academic Affairs proudly proclaims the wider benefits of this treatment for art historical scholarship:

“Not only will the restoration be a workshop on the techniques of conservation for the artistic community, it will also be a classroom for students and faculty alike to discover the riches of this artist and the methods of bringing back to life a great masterpiece.”

Being able to attach a legitimate name like Cortona’s to the canvas would indeed make it a work of large renown within the artist’s surviving oeuvre. When interviewed, the head conservator and chemist involved in the treatment only refer to “the artist,” not Cortona himself. Attributed works, it seems, can turn into confirmed works at the hands of an eager press, almost like a game of art historical telephone.

Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Kathy Boccella writes that Philadelphia Museum of Art curator Carl Strehlke was rather uncertain of the painting’s authorship, while head conservator Kristin DeGhetaldi related that Cortona’s “vibrant blues, lovely colors, beautiful skies” do not appear on the canvas. Further uncertainties about the work include: its history/provenance before the donor acquired it in the 1930s upon moving to Castle Nemi near Rome, and precisely how it was transported to the United States after having suffered damages during WWII.

Leonardo’s drawing of d’Este (left) with attributed painting (right). Courtesy: The Telegraph.

If anything is to be made of note here, it is that there is great power that can be wielded by assertive attributions.

When newly-discovered works are attributed to well-known artists, as in the case of the Triumph of David, public relations crazes can heat up and make assumptions not backed by solid scholarly research or historic documentation. Thus, works can easily slip into an artist’s oeuvre without much question of its validity in the public mind. Case in point: Leonardo scholar Carlo Pedretti’s denied attribution of the uncovered portrait of Isabella d’Este in a Swiss bank vault. Or, an attribution that is just beginning to be questioned, that of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s pair of bronzes to Michelangelo. When an attribution is, all too often, simply taken as fact and not questioned by the media, the story runs away from the scholar actually doing the work. And then, when anything new comes to light to reverse an attribution, the fanfare of the exhibition or publication that happened decades ago has easily been forgotten, but what is done to right the artist’s oeuvre in public memory?

Pair of bronzes at the Fitzwilliam. Courtesy: Michel Jones/The Fitzwilliam Museum.

March 5, 2015/0 Comments/by Nick

Article, Position Statement

On the “Pride and Prejudice” of Conservators: Lecture by Dr. Salvador Muñoz-Viñas a the IFA.

Ruth Osborne

Dr. Muñoz-Viñas at the IFA.

Last week, the IFA (NYU) hosted a lecture by visiting professor and conservator Dr. Salvador Muñoz-Viñas of the Universitat Politència de València in Spain. As the author of the insightful Contemporary Theory of Conservation (2005), Dr. Muñoz-Viñas argued for the need for a more open dialogue about conservation treatments and their difficulties. Rather than presenting conservation as a dogmatic science, he took a rather humble and honest opinion that we at ArtWatch find refreshing and, indeed, necessary for the future of the field.

Muñoz-Viñas began by asserting his presentation would be thought-provoking. Choosing from a wide array of opinions from professionals in the field over the past two centuries, he asked the audience to consider the reasoning behind conservation treatment. The speaker did not shy away from such harsh criticisms for and against those removers of varnish, including Ernst Gombrich’s label of “radical stripper” versus John Constable’s “grime-loving connoisseur.” He admitted to the risky nature of removing varnish, but did not display any kind of defensive attitude towards those who questioned the work of the conservator

The larger goals of conservation came into question: what is the logic behind such a risky endeavor? Is it to attain a closer, more “authentic” vision of the artist’s original intent? Actually, M-V argued that the classical narrative of artist’s intent is vaporous, highly hypothetical, and doubly subjective, as our minds attempt to delve into that of the artist. Pointing out the conflicting statements on the purpose of conservation in the classic essay by Neil Maclaren and Anthony Werner (1950)[1], he gave a warning to the audience (which consisted of both professional conservators and students in conservation): the logic of the field has the potential to be misleading. It can almost act as a mythology. Do we even care about the artist’s original intent when, for example, we display an ancient Egyptian sarcophagi on a white pedestal in the middle of a gallery? Certainly not. Intention behind conservation is more complicated than that. This near-mythology dangerously supposes that the individual utilizing it – the conservator – is a robot carrying out a basic procedure. He or she either obeys a command or does not.

However, as M-V went on to explain, there are elements of “pride” and “prejudice” in the conservator that will inevitably impact the work they are treating. Quoting connoisseur Sir George Beaumont’s famous line “A good picture, like a good fiddle, should be brown,” he insisted that there is aesthetic prejudice inherent in anyone’s mind. For a conservator, this will alter the way one thinks a painting should be treated, and to which aesthetic preference to which it will yield when its treatment is complete. Psychologists’ study of modern aesthetic preferences, M-V pointed out, is just now beginning. This should have the potential to help us understand what visual prejudices are behind the work of conservators that then end up on a treated canvas.

Pride, too, is at work in the hand of a conservator, for why wouldn’t one want to be noticed for their painstaking work behind-the-scenes? While “greed” and “avarice” have been presented as the major threats to artworks at the hands of the conservator, M-V countered that these are easier to deal with than the pride that inevitably impacts the conservator’s treatment. This pride, he believes, is part of the necessary process of going about planning to treat a painting. A conservator must have a pre-conceived notion of how a painting should look look (or, at least, about how a painting should not look) that is an essential part of his or her approach to the point of its “cleaning.”

This insistence that we acknowledge a conservator’s humanity, that he or she is not an objective “scientific” robot participant, is essential in opening the dialogue about how works of art are cared for. If anything, working towards a better understanding of the conservator’s preconceived point of view, their own aesthetic curiosity, sense of beauty, etc. that impact their hand and eye in treatment, is a step forward in the discussion of artistic stewardship.

By Ruth Osborne

[1] Neil Maclaren and Anthony Werner, “Some Factual Observations about Varnishes and Glazes,” The Burlington Magazine. 92 (1950), 189-92.

February 20, 2015/0 Comments/by Nick

National Gallery of Art. Courtesy - Boomsbeat

Article

Corcoran Questions: Mistrust as the Collection is Dismembered in Washington.

Ruth Osborne

Corcoran School of the Arts & Design website.

The new page for the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design on George Washington University’s website uses an image from the original landmarked Beaux-Arts gallery on 17th St. NW to connect with the history of what was the oldest art museum in D.C.. This year, the School and the Gallery embark upon a disjointed future, being now partly the property of GWU, and partly the property of the National Gallery of Art.

Over the past few weeks, criticism of the Corcoran’s new caretakers has emerged. This is, however, to be expected, as voices against the Corcoran’s dissolution in August 2014 were rather strong.

The Corcoran’s 17,000-piece collection is currently being filtered through the hands of the NGA with a great deal of secrecy. Granted, this could be maintained with the defense that both are private non-profits that are, by law, not required to make public any decisions or policies. However, Peggy McGlone at the Washington Post has questioned this secrecy, revealing the connection of various group interests with the Corcoran’s future. With over $100 million in public funds, supplied through the federal government, where is the place of the public trust in this process? As one interviewee has demanded, “How can a federal institution not be transparent?” The lack of transparency has, unfortunately, led to a good deal of confusion and mistrust from the arts community awaiting the NGA’s reveal of their final selections.

National Gallery of Art. Courtesy: Boomsbeat.

Lee Rosenbaum has also questioned the lack of a known timeframe for the NGA to sift through the Corcoran’s works. Comments from the NGA suggest their interest in selecting the best works for “filling gaps” in their own collection, with the rest to be divvied up amongst other museums that have the right connections to tug on. What is also missing is a clear plan for the GWU’s promised renovations of the 17th St. former gallery building. Concerns surrounding the treatment of this landmarked site has also drawn together D.C. preservationists and the Save the Corcoran group in order to insist upon proper maintenance and preservation. Despite throwing off any concern for public trust, these voices appear to be demanding consideration.

These and other questions remaining as the Corcoran continues into an unknown future lead us to the larger issue of the corporatization of art collections and museums. This century has thus far witnessed the few behemoths at the top expand, while the relevance of the small historic house museum is questioned. Meanwhile, historic collections spaces are being relinquished by museums that, interestingly enough, are are rather important players in the world of art. Take, for instance, the Whitney’s recent long-term lease of its historic Breuer building to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the removal of the Barnes collection to from its original home in Merion, PA to Philadelphia. These two cases in particular are linked to issues of insufficient funding and board management. Be on the lookout, as there is more to be seen in the months to come concerning how artistic and cultural heritage are stewarded into the 21st century.

Aerial view of the Mall, with the NGA in the distance on the left. Courtesy: Joshua Brousel.

January 30, 2015/0 Comments/by Nick

Article

The Cause of Preservation in the Valleys of the Kings and Queens.

Ruth Osborne

Painted wall showing Queen Nefertari playing senet. Courtesy: G.E. Wood.

The tomb of Queen Nefertari (13th century B.C.) has been referred to as the “Sistine Chapel of Ancient Egypt” for its fantastically well-preserved wall paintings.

Since its 1904 discovery in the Valley of the Queens by Ernesto Schiaparelli, the tomb has, like many artistic treasures, been exposed to the ravages of vandals and much environmental damage. It wasn’t until 1933 that access to the tomb was first restricted. The Art Newspaper recently reported that the tomb will now be re-opened once a month, despite it having been closed to visitors in 2006. Before that, the tomb had been restricted to a very limited number of guests after the conservators from the Getty worked for several years to stabilize the brilliantly preserved wall paintings.

This past April came the proud announcement of its re-opening for the 110th anniversary celebration of its discovery. As the press release on the Egyptian Tourism Authority’s website states, there were “several Italian archeologists” who attended. No doubt, these professionals served to allay any fears of the tomb being mistreated by those who should know best. Reluctant Minister of the ETA, Hesham Zaazou, is reported to have said the re-opening will have “an important impact on promoting cultural tourism in order to assure stability and security were restored in Egypt.” So, a piece of ancient heritage that has preserved the artistic traditions of those who built Egypt thousands of years ago will be subservient to the need to restore stability to the terribly torn modern nation? For the sake of renewing the inflow of income from visitors to the tomb? Surely the irony does not fall on deaf ears here – risking an already at-risk piece of ancient artistic and cultural heritage for the sake of making money off it? Where does this money then go – to the maintenance and preservation of the site? Will its needs for preservation not then increase precisely due to the fact that it has been opened again?

Antechamber (east wall), Vestibule, and access route to Lateral Chamber of Tomb QV66. Courtesy: G.E. Wood.

In the late 1980s, emergency methods had to be utilized by the Getty Conservation Institute in their attempt to secure the wall paintings from further eroding. The condition, analysis, and treatment are outlined in a report from conservator Frank Preusser, presented at the 1987 symposium on The Conservation of Wall Paintings organized by the Courtauld and the Getty. According to this report, conservators and scholars had worked for nearly five decades to determine the optimal solution for preserving the wall paintings.

Following the emergency treatment, the tomb was reopened in 1995 for about 10 years to only 150 visitors because of the continued risk of exposure to increased humidity, carbon dioxide, and microbiological activity from humans. The Getty even produced a large colorful volume meant to share the beauties of the tomb as a “descriptive walk-through…while conveying a strong message regarding the need for conservation and continuous monitoring to ensure the long-term survival of the tomb’s paintings.” It was at this same symposium that concern over the appropriate levels of cleaning for the Sistine ceiling was addressed.

Factum Arte working on color-matching in Tutankhamun’s tomb, 2009. Courtesy: Factum Foundation.

Factum Arte’s recently finished project with the popular tomb of Tutankhamun stands in stark contrast to the treatment of Nefertari’s tomb. Work began on this tomb in view of celebrating the 90th anniversary of its opening in 1922. Not yielding to the pressures of dwindling state coffers, the EU and Minister Zaazou, who is mentioned above, enlisted the help of Factum Arte in 2009 to study, scan, and recreate the tomb’s artwork with three-dimensional printed facsimiles. Not only did the project battle ongoing damage from human contact, but also previous conservation attempts in the tomb. Unfortunately, Tutankhamun’s tomb is one of the many art works that has suffered from eager but insufficient treatment before better methods are developed.

BBC’s coverage of Factum Arte’s facsimile questions its effectiveness in terms of the tomb’s preservation, due to the site’s continuous popularity with international visitors: “…years of visitors trekking around the old tombs of the pharaohs is causing these historic sites to deteriorate…but will tourists really want to travel to Egypt just to visit a mock-up?” However, while the facsimile has been completed and delivered to Egypt, it remains to be installed and utilized for protection of the original site from further deterioration. According to one tourist interviewed by the BBC: “We need to have that passion to see the real thing. If you’re seeing a replica, you don’t have that same passion.” But is it really authentic if it has been destroyed by years of exposure and bad conservation attempts? These sites simply weren’t made thousands of years ago for this kind of exhibition. Can Egypt’s Tourist Authority manage to see the things in a greater perspective and care for the long-term well-being of their cultural heritage?

According to artist Adam Lowe, founder of Factum Arte, “How works of art were looked after and protected in the past reveals how they were seen and valued…The same is true about the way we care for things now. To future generations it will reveal a lot about us – assuming we have not destroyed most of the things we inherited.”

Egypitian Minister Zaazou has expressed hope that the recent re-opening of other new ancient sites over the past several years will help double tourist revenue back to where it was before the 2011 revolution. This included the reopening of the pyramids at Giza in 2012. However, this followed on the heels of a series of stolen antiquities from museum collections and reported break-ins at archeological sites.

Meanwhile, Egypt is not alone in its problems caring for important ancient cultural and artistic sites. In Peru, Chan Chan – the largest pre-Columbian city in South America – faces the possibility of losing its UNESCO World Heritage site title (since 1986). This has developed with mounting damage to the archeological site due to lack of proper monitoring of visitors and nearby construction.

Since 2009, the Getty has committed to a new conservation effort at Tutankhamun’s tomb, working in partnership with the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). One of the main goals is for their collected data to update recommendations for better use and safer preservation of the site during visitation and commercial filming and photography. Though researchers have apparently found that “the condition of the paintings is excellent,” their assessment of the tomb’s use relates an urgency to improve the wider public’s understanding of their impact on ancient heritage sites and why conservation is necessary. Putting into effect the Getty’s recommended changes to the site’s infrastructure and presentation would involve improving the areas open to visitors and the numbers that are allowed in.

All of this is part of a larger project to help better manage the visitation to and preservation of the site at the Valley of the Kings and Queens. The questions still remain, however, as to when, how and to what effect will these improvements in management of important cultural sites be implemented. This ultimately is up to the Egyptian government, and we hope they make the right decisions.

Egyptian Tourism Authority website.

Sources:

“Celebrating Nefertari’s tomb discovery to take place in Luxor,” Egypt Tourism Authority: News. 18 August 2014. http://en.egypt.travel/news/id/416 (last accessed 8 January 2015).

“Chan Chan at risk of losing ‘Cultural Heritage’ title.” IIC News in Conservation (December 2014) p. 4. https://www.iiconservation.org/system/files/publications/journal/2014/b2014_6.pdf (last accessed 8 January 2015).

Christopher Torchia, AP. “King Tutankhamun’s Stolen Dad Found; Egypt Sites to Reopen on Sunday.” ArtDaily. February 2011. http://artdaily.com/news/45106/King-Tutankhamun-s-Stolen-Dad-Found–Egypt-Sites-to-Reopen-on-Sunday#.VKIoucACEA (last accessed 8 January 2015).

“Conservation and Management of the Tomb of Tutankhamen.” The Getty Conservation Institute: Current Projects. Last updated March 2013. http://www.getty.edu/conservation/our_projects/field_projects/tut/scientific.html (last accessed 8 January 2015).

Conservation Perspectives (Vol. 23, No. 2, Summer 2008). The Getty Conservation Institute. http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/newsletters/pdf/v23n2.pdf (last accessed 8 January 2015).

“Egypt reopens Pyramid of Chefren to tourists.” BBC News (11 October 2012). http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-19912940 (last accessed 8 January 2015).

“Facsimile of the Tomb of Tutankhamun,” Factum Foundation: Projects. http://www.factumfoundation.org/ind/40/Facsimile-of-the-Tomb-of-Tutankhamun (last accessed 8 January 2015).

Florence Hallett, “We Made It: Factum Arte.” The Arts Desk: We Made It. 19 December 2014. http://www.theartsdesk.com/we-made-it/we-made-it-factum-arte (last accessed 8 January 2015).

Frank Preusser, “Scientific and Technical Examination of the Tomb of Queen Nefertari at Thebes,” in The Conservation of Wall Paintings: Proceedings of a Symposium organized by the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Getty Conservation Institute, London, July 13-16, 1987. http://d2aohiyo3d3idm.cloudfront.net/publications/virtuallibrary/089236162X.pdf (last accessed 29 December 2014) 1-12.

Garry Shaw, “Egypt reopens tomb as tourism falls,” The Art Newspaper: Conservation. (Issue 263, December 2014). http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Egypt-reopens-tomb-as-tourism-falls/36357 (last accessed 8 January 2015).

Husni Mouafi, “Egyptian tourism minister looks to future,” Al Monitor. 9 January 2014. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2014/01/egypt-tourism-comeback.html (last accessed 8 January 2015).

Liz Jobey, “Conservation: Factum Arte remaking history,” FT Magazine (26 July 2013). http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b851d86c-f4c3-11e2-a62e-00144feabdc0.html (last accessed 2 January 2015).

“UNESCO volunteers working on Chan Chan conservation.” Peru This Week: Archeology (8 July 2014). http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-unesco-volunteers-working-on-chan-chan-conservation-103440 (last accessed 8 January 2015).

“Will a mock-up of Tutankhamun’s tomb pull in tourists?” BBC News: Fast Track (21 January 2013). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fast_track/9786255.stm (last accessed 8 January 2015).

January 8, 2015/0 Comments/by Nick

Article

A Weight of Evidence: An Interview with Dr. Martin Eidelberg on the Watteau Abecedario

Ruth Osborne

Jean-Antoine Watteau, L’accord Parfait, 1719. Courtesy: Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection / Watteau Abecedario.

This past October, I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Martin Eidelberg, well-respected Jean-Antoine Watteau scholar, on his recent project, the Watteau Abecedario. He shared with me his insights on the world of art scholarship and publishing, attributions and misattributions, connoisseurship, dealer and auction house mishaps, and art conservation as it has changed the way one is able to study Watteau.

RO: As you know, ArtWatch is an advocate for the voice of art itself. And what’s wonderful about our work is the focus on connoisseurship, especially your current project, the Watteau Abecedario. I want to start off by asking you how your own research developed into the first website you created, Watteau and His Circle. Why did you choose this format to publish your work? Free of charge to users?

ME: The reason I went online, although I am a luddite at heart, is that serious art magazines are fewer in number than before and are deemphasizing older art. Contemporary art is where the money is. So many of these magazines I previously published in have disappeared. Also, editors want you to use fewer pages and fewer images. They want more in color. When you explain you’re writing about something that doesn’t exist except in an old black and white photograph, they’re not happy. So, I’m now master of my own ship.

RO: How long would you say you’ve been working on your website?

ME: The first website began about four years ago. I originally planned that the Abecedario would be a part of that. But it’s physically too big to be accommodated easily, so I’ve moved it to a separate site. However, the two are interlinked. “Watteau and His Circle” contains essays, whereas the Abecedario is a proper catalogue raisonné focused on object entries.

RO: The sentiment of putting art out there for more people to experience and appreciate is often the reasoning behind works being made to travel around the world for loan exhibitions. But are they really having that impact? Are people actually learning about a piece that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to see? Whereas your work attempts this in a different, more practical way, without being invasive to the condition of the works themselves.

ME: The Abecedario is more universal. A show is only on view for a certain period of time and it only travels to a few cities. Thus it is an experience of limited duration. On the other hand, everybody uses the catalogue that survives. This website is a way in which art gets distributed not only free of charge but more conveniently. You don’t even have to go to a library. You can do your research at home.

RO: You also have a section on contested works. And you compare works of art and cross-reference them. It’s a really extensive project.

ME: Oh, truly enormous. But there are several people who now are helping me. Also, the internet itself is a great tool aiding research and speeding the process. Institutions like the Getty and its Provenance Index have digitized the contents of early sale catalogues and have provided wonderful finding aids. Which means you can just press a few buttons, and find almost every painting by Watteau or Boucher or Fragonard sold between 1680 and 1820. It’s brilliant! The Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie in The Hague has scanned most pre-1900 sale catalogues. Gallica has made so many older publications available on line. Some are going to say that this has taken the human quality out of the humanities but that’s not true. Once this basic ingathering of documentation has occurred, there then comes the crucial element of interpreting the data.

RO: And even though digitizing research and scholarship is not just looking at images, do you think that it can still help improve the place of connoisseurship in today’s art world?

ME: Of course, because you have access to more and more works of art, and you realize the range of the artist and, conversely, what is not authentic. One sketchily-rendered painting, thought to be a preliminary version of a painting now in the Soane Museum, came up for sale around 1900 in New York and was bought by a woman from Cleveland, ultimately given to the Cleveland Museum. Gradually it was downgraded as curators people tried to find a name to attach to it. The museum sold it, then it knocked about a bit and came up for sale several times. A few years ago, when it came up at auction with an optimistic re-attribution to Watteau and the circumstances of its previous history downplayed, it sold for a good sum of money. Ultimately the buyer went to court to get his money back and won the case. Once you know more about the artist and his aesthetic, that tells you something useful. There is the weight of evidence.

RO: And some of these misattributions may have already been revealed. But do you feel like your work could lead to a greater understanding of a work that maybe has been attributed but is not?

ME: First of all, the oeuvres of Watteau’s followers have been clouded over because works not worthy of their master have been assigned to them in a haphazard manner. It takes time to sift it all out. Wrong attributions have serious repercussions for our understanding of these artists. Impartiality is the key to it all. The dealer, auction house, and collector alike don’t want to hear bad news about paintings being downgraded. That’s one of the major dangers these days for the catalogue raisonné-er. There are cases where people whose works of art were downgraded became belligerent or litigious. Legislation currently pending in the New York State Assembly would prevent people from suing someone who is preparing a scholarly catalogue raisonné just because they disagree with your opinion.

RO: I know that recently there is a greater reluctance of scholars to say anything. And it shouldn’t be that way. It’s only helping the dealer. Ten or twenty years down the road something marketed improperly will still come out as false.

ME: There are important questions surrounding this pending New York legislation. Whom will it protect? Will it protect only an art historian working in New York State? Or will it protect Americans in general? And what about on the international scale? I don’t think France or Germany will abide by New York State legislation. That needs to be dealt with. What if an ordinary person like myself, who has no financial investment, gets involved in a lawsuit? The expense involved is incredible. Lawyers charge several hundred dollars an hour, and a case can go on for several years. The opposition can wear you down just by the incredible demands they put on your lawyer, whom you are financing. And if you win, what do you win? You don’t win money to pay even for your legal representation. That is a serious issue, because there are a lot of people in the art world who are dealing with large sums of money. When a painting sells for millions of dollars, there is strong motivation for wanting positive attributions.

RO: Do you feel there might be people reluctant for a work like your Abecedario – dedicated to Watteau or any artist – to emerge because paintings it might question the authenticity of paintings in their possession that haven’t been questioned in the past? And then what are they to do about it?

ME: Art history isn’t a pure science. You can’t put a work under a microscope and tell whether it’s this virus or that virus. Even for technicians who look under the microscope at a painting, what they see is debatable and open to interpretation. Traditionally, when a book comes out, there are reviews. And there are famous cases of open exchanges between feuding scholars. So I presume for the Abecedario there will be some people who will complain (although so far the response has been overwhelmingly favorable). Some may object that this painting couldn’t be a Watteau, or what you claim to be a copy is definitely authentic. Actually, I look forward to such exchanges. I hope that the Abecedario will generate a certain amount of feedback. Because it’s on the internet, I can always rectify errors. We only have ten entries up and an additional installment will be out in a few weeks, but some revisions to the first ten are already planned.

RO: I think that shows you care for the works themselves. And you understand it can kind of be an organic thing. And there has to be discussion.

ME: No person can ever find all the information. Sometimes the key is somewhere else where you wouldn’t have even looked. Or worse, where you’ve looked but forgotten you saw it.

RO: That’s a wonderful way to look at your own work. It’s not putting this pressure on.

ME: I don’t write ex cathedra.

RO: I think that there can be a real danger to not approaching art that way. And this approach makes the work more exciting, and it places the scholar in a more humble position.

ME: Humble and liberating. Because you can advance a theory, then retract it, and start all over again.

RO: But in the interest of collectors wanting to know “yes or no,” it can be extremely difficult for them to accept that opinions can change.

ME: Works of art that they bought with one attribution can prove to be not as good as originally claimed. Or they can turn out to be much better. It’s not all bad news. One of Watteau’s paintings came up for sale recently. The auction house was on the fence as to whether it was the original version or just a copy, especially since another version was in a public collection. After the sale dendrochronologist tested it on behalf of the new owner and the panel proved to be wood from a tree felled around 1708, perfect for an early Watteau. Also, although the new panel was evidently cut down, more of the original was intact than had been thought. Not least of all, a judicious cleaning of the panel brought back the original surface. So, all of that was good news.

Another instance revolves around a portrait of Watteau posed in a garden at his easel, standing next to his friend and dealer, Jean de Jullienne, who is playing the cello. It was argued in the 1920s that Julienne had an engraver make up this double portrait for an engraving and the overall composition wasn’t by Watteau. But drawings for the two figures exist and help substantiate the attribution. I found documentation that the painting had been cut down not long after Watteau’s death, which helps explain why it couldn’t be traced in later collections. Recently the whole composition showed up on the Paris market, and the auctioneer and the expert were convinced this was the original Watteau. I said, “look at the surface, it’s not an original Watteau surface.” And they said, “ it suffered.” I pointed out that that the composition had been cut down into two or more parts by c. 1760. Therefore the painting being offered couldn’t be the original. You can’t resurrect it whole from the grave. But they went ahead and sold it as a Watteau. I think that many people agree it isn’t the original version but there are still some, like the buyer, who don’t want to hear that.

RO: But in this instance, you were able to freely give your scholarly opinion.

ME: I was able to through connoisseurship and documentation, but that doesn’t come along all the time. Sometimes it’s just a matter of connoisseurship. It would be very nice if there were documentation for every case. But why think you’re going to find something no one else has found? There are so many cases where you know of records being destroyed, even by the artist themselves. Records of commercial firms are often lost or destroyed. So, what are you going to do? We have to use the little factual data that has survived as skillfully as possible and weave around that our narrative of what we think actually happened.

RO: And just admit what you don’t know for sure.

ME: Exactly. Moreover, to pursue new archival research is extremely expensive. This is why early art historians, particularly many of the major ones, were personally wealthy or had support from wealthy patrons.

RO: Throughout history, it’s always the importance of these relationships between benefactors or, now, corporations, and scholars that allow things to be done.

ME: Yes, but it’s very important that it all remain impartial. For example, when Bernard Berenson worked for certain clients it muddied the waters. If you’re working for someone who has a vested interest, it may well color your research. One must be as innocent and beyond reproach as Caesar’s wife.

RO: But I think that the digitization of collections and archives can change what people are able to do and how they can seek out documentation. You don’t have to travel and see things, you don’t have to know the right people, you just know that it’s out there.

ME: There are indeed new electronic resources that are free and accessible online. It’s sort of armchair scholarship, which is great because formerly travel was an expensive part of being an art historian. As often is the case, we come back again to issues of money.

Now you didn’t ask me one important question, which is why my catalogue is called an Abecedario.

RO: No, I didn’t ask you that.

ME: “Abecedario” was a title used very often in the eighteenth-century for literary works that were arranged alphabetically: A, B, C, D, etc. Most catalogues raisonnés are arranged chronologically or thematically. Watteau’s oeuvre proves difficult to arrange either of those ways. He painted for little more than ten 10 years. He never signed, much less dated, a painting. Except for three or four of his works, we don’t have really fixed dates. If you look at art historians’ accounts of Watteau’s chronology, they are all over the map. Some paintings that they claim were the earliest, turn out to be the latest, and vice versa. Ultimately we’re splitting fine hairs for a decade-long career. I don’t think the dates are particularly illuminating when they are a specific year. What do you do with a painting that was partially executed one year and finished several years later? So I gave up on the idea of chronology, which I recognize some colleagues will not like. Arranging Watteau’s works thematically is equally difficult, especially since fêtes galantes don’t really have subjects. An alphabetical listing by title is not without issues, but hopefully it will prove to be efficient.

RO: The benefits of having this kind of research online, I hope, would inspire some institution to begin supporting efforts like yours.

ME: I am very concerned about where the research will be located in the future. Will there be a site fifty or a hundred years from now that will host the Abecedario?

RO: Perhaps it’s up to the owner who care about what will happen to it in the future. I just wonder if there are collectors nowadays that think about that.

ME: Certainly many collectors spend their idle moments reading monographs and looking through catalogues to learn about the artists and to see what’s around. They’re generally very interested in learning about other examples of the artist’s work. I’ve met lots of interesting collectors, and there is a reciprocal benefit because they often get information.

RO: Information that is useful if not simply to understand the artist better, then that will enable them to collect more knowledgeably.

ME: With collecting Watteau, there are important considerations. Not only subject and style, but condition. Frankly, how much is by the restorer? That’s a major issue. Watteau was a very bad technician, especially in the early part of his career. Some paintings are total disasters. So how much of the original Watteau are you looking at?

RO: How much would you be willing to admit isn’t original?

ME: I try to be as exact as possible, although it is often not easy to tell from just an examination of the surface. There’s a very interesting painting in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. In the nineteenth-century they transferred it from panel to canvas. Then it needed a little retouching here and there. But, in fact, the restorer really re-painted much of the work. The two figures and the trees that dominate the left side of the painting aren’t by Watteau. The restorer apparently didn’t like Watteau’s asymmetrical composition and totally changed it.

RO: But does the restorer document this?

ME: Not in the nineteenth-century and not for much of the twentieth century. Even if you document it today, where will the restorer’s records be tomorrow? A painting in Lille that I’d never seen in person was restored a half century ago in the Louvre laboratory for conservation. While cleaning and restoring it, they decided that the Watteau figures in the landscape were not original, especially because they x-rayed it and could see other figures beneath. So, they removed the Watteau figures to reveal the original toga-clad figures below. But when the solvent went down the drain, it took Watteau’s portion of the painting. It’s gone. As far as I know, they never documented the process. They never photographed the pre-restored state of the painting in color.

RO: And I’m assuming you asked directly what happened? You don’t think that they had records that they didn’t show you?

ME: I don’t know. I was just told that they weren’t any records or color photos.

RO: And you never saw an image of the painting before this?

ME: I have a black-and-white photograph of the painting with the original Watteau figures. However, a black and white image of a dark painting isn’t really fulfilling. Where do private restorers’ records go? I know of independent restorers who have retired or will one day retire. Where will those records be stored? There’s no depository for them.

RO: That can make people forget about how much a painting can change. And you don’t think about it just coming off the street, walking into a museum and seeing a work. I didn’t think about that until I was an undergraduate, then things drastically changed.

ME: Right, until you’re trained to know what to look for.

RO: So you’re not really learning, when you’re looking, until you’re trained to look.

ME: Sometimes the restorations look better than the original work, because the restorers are very well-trained in painting.

RO: Were there any restorers who stood out who didn’t actually publish or document their restoration work?

ME: No particular cases. One restorer said, “this picture was a dream to work on, because it hadn’t been touched since the eighteenth century.” She said that all she had to do was remove the varnish. Everything underneath was intact. That’s what one would like to hear. I know of another painting where, more or less the same thing was said. Except they also admitted that the restorer reinforced certain lines around the faces and in the drapery. That’s not the kiss of death, but it warns you that there’s been a little finagling. But I don’t know where those official records are. Sometimes you can tell by looking at the photographs that were taken in 1920, 1950, 1980, and today. You can see slight changes, you have intimations of what occurred. The facial features weren’t as sharp before. The trees are much more defined than they used to be.

RO: But again unless you know what to look for, or unless you are exposed to knowledge of his work. Even just knowing Watteau’s tendencies to paint with less-than-stable materials helps inform me to look at his work.

ME: There’s a painting that’s been surrounded by controversy; it’s been up for sale for a while. X-rays were taken. Conservation was done, portions were cleaned, and some important revelations were brought to light. But I still wonder if several principle figures are actually in a perfect, original condition as purported. The conservation report can disguise certain aspects under terms like “the area has been stabilized.”

RO: But then what happens when conservation reports differ?

ME: Interpretations of data are always an issue. A half century ago when Watteau’s signboard for Gersaint was studied in the Louvre laboratory, they found that Watteau had painted part of a cart in the street at one side. Recently the museum in Berlin carefully analyzed all their Watteau and Watteau-related paintings and presented them at a symposium that I attended. I asked why they didn’t mention the cart and they replied that there never was one. I said “but it was in the x-rays.” They said, “it wasn’t there.” How you read x-rays, you know, is very tricky. Some people see objects in the shadows. Others don’t. It is all open to interpretation.

RO: But then who becomes the person to declare “this is true, this is not”?

ME: Who’s in charge of the lab when the conservation is being done? The person who prepares the report. Who’s the art historian who’s going to declare what is and what isn’t authentic? The person who’s in charge of the publication or the website. Of course, other people can agree or not. That’s why it’s not a science. But even in the sciences, you wonder who is in charge and how these decisions are made. Often they come back and correct their opinions in later years or rerun the tests differently.

RO: Which is why it’s so interesting to hear your views on the point of scholarship, that it’s a discussion.

ME: It’s growing, it’s evolving, it’s organic, evolutionary. It’s an exciting challenge.

RO: And it’s something that you don’t go into to find yes or no answers.

ME: Or you try to, with the understanding that today’s “yes” might be tomorrow’s “no.”

RO: I feel like that should be in the fine print.

ME: Or the top banner! Things do change. When I was teaching the history of art, I had certain favorite Rembrandt paintings, until the Rembrandt Committee went around and declared all my favorite Rembrandts to not be by Rembrandt. What’s a fellow to do! Sometimes their negative opinions have been reversed. So it is a kind of fluctuating system. Art history is an accumulation of knowledge and opinion. The great thing for an art historian is that longevity helps. The longer you study, the more you have seen, the more you understand the field. You become a richer person from all that.

RO: Well, I didn’t expect you to inspire me in my own work today, but I feel like you have. Thank you, it’s been wonderful to talk with you.

ME: My pleasure.

December 5, 2014/0 Comments/by Nick

2014-11-17 - James Beck Memorial Lecture Salmagundi Club

Article, Event

Recap: ArtWatch International’s Sixth Annual James Beck Memorial Lecture

Ruth Osborne

Inlaid Table from Tumulus MM in situ, 1957.

Last Thursday, November 6th, ArtWatch International hosted the sixth annual James Beck Memorial Lecture and Reception in New York at the historic Salmagundi Club on lower Fifth Avenue.

Alternating between London and New York, ArtWatch holds this event each year to honor memory, scholarly efforts, and unwavering commitment to artistic stewardship of its founder, Professor James Beck. Since Beck’s death in 2007, the lectures have been organized to continue Beck’s campaigning on the arts’ behalf, as well as to provide a platform for lectures by distinguished scholars, to commemorate his own contributions.

Michael Daley, Director of ArtWatch UK.

Another remarkable force in the art world, and supporter of Beck’s efforts, New York painter Frank Mason, is also honored at the Beck Memorial Lectures. The Frank Mason Prize is awarded each year to an individual who has contributed to a courageous effort to benefit art scholarship and research. Frank’s dedication to traditionalist artistic training, his long teaching career at the Art Students League in New York, and protests against harmful restorations at the Metropolitan Museum leave behind a strong legacy. He was also instrumental in the founding of a precurser to ArtWatch International, The International Society for the Preservation of Art. This year’s recipient, Dr. Martin Eidelberg, has expressed similar dedication to traditionalist methods of studying art in his work on the eighteenth-century French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau.

Dr. Martin Eidelberg

Since his professorship at Rutgers University, Dr. Eidelberg has been instrumental in making his extensive scholarship on Watteau and his circle available online. This year, his work on the “Watteau Abecedario” project, an online alphabetical catalogue raisonné will offer online audiences a comprehensive study of his oeuvre and will also address past and current issues of attribution, and in so doing present art history research as an ongoing, organic process. He says of his project that:

Francois Boucher, Portrait of Antoine Watteau, 1727. Courtesy: FAMSF.

Having the Abecedario available online is much more universal. A show is only on a certain period of time. And my experience is that it mostly goes to three cities, for three months at each city, and then it’s gone. And these days, it’s getting harder and harder to follow a show. The online catalogue raisonné is a way in which art gets distributed not only free of charge, but conveniently. So in part it’s good will. In part, it actually is a very useful tool.

The internet itself is a great tool. Because it really is a way of spreading knowledge and keying in. Now places like the Getty have digitized them and have finding aids. Which means you can just press a few buttons, and you can get every painting by Watteau or Boucher or Fragonard sold between 1680 and 1820. It’s brilliant.

Some people are going to say you’ve taken the human quality out of the humanities but that’s not true because then comes interpretation and it just means you don’t have to do so much other work sifting through the mass of data.

**Be on the lookout in the coming weeks for our full interview with Dr. Eidelberg on his project.

Dr. Eidelberg with Ruth Osborne, Director of ArtWatch International.

Dr. Elizabeth Simpson

This year’s lecture also enjoyed a most captivating speaker whose lecture focused on the necessity of engaging, and sustaining, a dialogue on art’s behalf. Dr. Elizabeth Simpson, professor of ancient art, archaeology, and museology at the Bard Graduate Center, presented on the excavation and conservation of ancient wooden furniture from King Midas’s Tomb in present-day Turkey.

Since the excavation of royal Phrygian Tumulus MM[1] in Gordion, Turkey in 1957, the story of King Midas’s inlaid wooden furniture has taken several twists and turns. From it, we can learn a great deal about conservation pros and cons, the impact of underdeveloped preservation methods, and the importance of paying close attention to the materials used for storage and display.

Rodney Young and colleagues outside Tumulus MM, Gordion, 1957.

When the tumulus was first opened by Prof. Rodney Young and archeologists from the University of Pennsylvania Museum, the already-damaged furniture was further harmed by excavation methods and initial attempts at preservation. At this time, there had not been sufficient research or experience in the field of archeological wood conservation, and the furniture suffered. But come the early 1980s, Dr. Simpson had the opportunity to lead a team of conservators in Ankara to correct some of the early mistakes made under Young. Using improved methods and materials, they succeeded in returning the furniture to a more stable condition, even restoring some of the contrast of the wood inlay. The techniques used on this project would set new standards for conservation in the field of dry archeological wood.

Inlaid table as displayed at Museum at Ankara, 1983.

The display of the newly conserved Midas furniture at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey also went through some trial and error. The first glass cases contained materials that damaged the furniture while on display, and had to be replaced in the 1990s. We then learned that, despite the great improvements made by Dr. Simpson and her group, which were able to be sustained through years of careful scrutiny, recent changes at the museum have discarded the improved and safer display cases for new ones that put the furniture in danger of harm yet again. The story is not yet over, and it serves as a prime example that one’s work on behalf of art is never truly finished.

We want to thank Dr. Simpson for sharing with us her piece of the story of King Midas’s furniture, which stimulated a brilliant discussion on the development of conservation practices afterwards. Another warm thank you to Michael Daley, Director of ArtWatch UK, who was able to join us for this year’s lecture. He opened our event with a wonderful speech on the beginnings of ArtWatch and the work of James Beck and Frank Mason. As one who has had the privilege of working closely with Beck for several years, Michael puts forth a sincerity about his work with ArtWatch that is contagious. We here in New York are indebted to his investment in the organization and his work on the behalf of art, and are greatly looking forward to next year’s lecture in London.

[1] Tumulus MM was named as such for “Midas Mound.”

November 17, 2014/0 Comments/by Nick

Article, Position Statement

Conversing with Conservators

Angelea Selleck

While I was a graduate student I had the opportunity to interview two conservators for a research project. After reading extensively about cases of botched restorations, I felt it was important to get the opinion of professionals in this field in order to gain a deeper insight into how such atrocities can occur and how it is viewed in the conservation community.

It was clear that the conservators were aware of these issues and the mentioning of botched restorations is a sensitive topic. However, I was assured they strictly adhere to and respect the code of ethics and such cases are few and far between. Below, are accounts of my interactions with two conservators.

I spoke with a Swiss conservator who works at a very prestigious institution in Zürich. This conservator was very open and welcoming of questions, even if they were rather probing. Her methodology and practice was very conservative and had an approach of “less is more” when it came to cleaning paintings. While this is the approach that the majority of conservators apply, there are unfortunately ones who do not adhere to this method. Some of the most devastating cases are Vermeer’s painting at the National Gallery or the restoration of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. In-painting is where the majority of restorations can go wrong. However, for the Swiss conservator, in-painting is considered to be a technique of the past and resorted to only on a few occasions. However, she did have clients that requested objects in the painting to be painted a different color or elimination of a tree or shadow because the owner believed it would look better. With these clients, the conservator laughed and said she would never do any sort of thing but mentioned that there are other conservators who would. Indeed there are conservators who would restore a painting to the tastes of the client instead of preserving the integrity of the work. When this happens, the conservator is taking his or her own artistic license with the original work. In these unfortunate scenarios, the conservator’s code of ethics is not being adhered to. Are conservators under any authority that reprimands when one’s responsibility first and foremost to the work of art is tossed out the window?

Conservators either work for institutions (i.e. museums and galleries) or operate for private clients. The private conservator I interviewed was quick to emphasize that there her and her colleagues all strictly abide by the conservator’s code of ethics and place the interests of the work before those of the client. In addition to an interview, she also showed their lab, which was a large warehouse-like appendage to their offices, as well as some of the projects that she and her colleagues were working on. They were all curious and welcoming to a foreigner and answered any questions I had. Their projects ranged from a small faded portrait on wood to a large contemporary piece that needed some cleaning after being outside in the Swiss winter. My experience at this institution was positive and I did not get a sense that they felt I was intruding or looking for a scandal. They were aware of the bad publicity that conservators sometimes receive but viewed malpractice as the exception and not the rule. However, if botched restorations are isolated incidents, how do they happen to well-known works of art in major institutions around the world?

I also reached out to an American conservator who works for a museum in the United States. He knew very well the work of Art Watch and the reputation of James Beck and Michael Daley. After sending him a section of my dissertation, which focused on art restoration and advocated for greater reform, I did not hear back from him. It is unclear whether my association with ArtWatch caused him to not get back in contact with me or perhaps was too busy to reply. In any case it is a shame. He is an accomplished conservator who would have had a lot of insight. It was a real surprise that he never replied back after showing genuine interest in my work.
Over the years, art conservation has made an effort to become a more serious and credible institution with strict codes of ethics and dedicated to preserving our world’s greatest works of art. However, mistakes and poor judgement can still transpire. Unfortunately, as we have discovered over the past 20 years, some conservators are reluctant to disclose any unfortunate mishaps on the job, which only conceals the problem for future caretakers and could result in greater damage to the work. When this happens it is important for conservators to be as transparent as possible in order to prevent further cases of destruction to our artistic heritage. And it seems they are making steps in the right direction.

September 11, 2014/0 Comments/by Nick

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