Scientists Seek to Reveal Mona Lisa as Disguised Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci
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| Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452-1519). Self-portrait (ca. 1512-15). Red chalk on paper. 33 x 21.6 cm (13 x 8.5 in.). © Royal Library, Turin. |
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| Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452-1519). Portrait of Lisa Gherardini (Mona Lisa) (ca. 1503-06). Oil on poplar wood. 77 x 53 cm (30.3 x 20.9 in.). Musée du Louvre. |
By STAN PARCHIN
January 24, 2010
The Times of London reported today that a team of scientists from Italy's National Committee for Cultural Heritage is seeking the French government's approval to exhume the presumed remains of Italian Renaissance artist
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) in Amboise Castle's chapel of Saint-Hubert, interred there since 1874. The forensic specialists want to revisit a theory that
Mona Lisa (ca. 1503-06) is in fact a disguised self-portrait of the genius using the modern tools of facial reconstruction. The hypothesis was first proposed by self-proclaimed "morphodynamicist" Lillian F. Schwartz in the April 1995 issue of
Scientific American magazine.
In Schwartz' controversial study, the computer artist placed the right side of the painted portrait of the youthful Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo (1479-1542/51) next to the reversed right half of Leonardo's questionable pen-and-ink Self-portrait (ca. 1512-15) in old age. Schwartz enlarged the drawing, considerably smaller than the oil on poplar wood painting, to prove her point.
Anthropologist Giorgio Gruppioni feels that when the skull of Leonardo is recovered (if indeed it belongs to the painter), experts can then recreate the artist's face and compare it to that of the Mona Lisa. However, documentary evidence discovered in 2005 revealed that the portrait's sitter was Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant, making this proposed investigation pointless. Nicholas Turner, esteemed former Curator of Drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California, said, "It sounds a bit fanciful, slightly mad. We know that Mona Lisa was a specific person. She existed and it's her portrait."
According to the Italian experts, talks with France's cultural officials and the owners of Amboise Chateau have resulted in an agreement that may culminate in approval for a Summer 2010 exhumation. If all goes as planned, the dubious remains in the Loire Valley castle will be carbon-dated and DNA-tested to compare with samples from several supposed male descendents of Leonardo buried in Bologna, Italy.
Sotheby's to Auction La Belle Ferronnière by
Follower of Leonardo da Vinci
By STAN PARCHIN
January 11, 2010
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| Follower of Leonardo da Vinci. Portrait of a Woman, Called "La Belle Ferronnière" (probably before 1750). Oil on canvas. 55 x 43.5 cm (21.7 x 17.1 in.). Collection of Jacqueline Hahn. |
Sotheby's New York will auction
Portrait of a Woman, Called "La Belle Ferronnière" (probably before 1750), a controversial copy by a later follower of Leonardo da Vinci, on January 28, 2010. Anticipated to sell for an estimated $300,000 to $500,000, the beguiling image of a woman in three-quarters profile is one version of a famous work (ca. 1496-97) in the
Musée du Louvre. Believed to be a portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli (1452-1508), a mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (1452-1508), the original oil on wood composition was painted by Leonardo (1452-1519) with one of his pupils. The painting takes its name from a type of decorative headband worn by women in Renaissance Milan.
A Wedding Gift and a Trial
La Belle Ferronnière was given as a wedding gift in 1920 to Harry Hahn, a World War I American serviceman and car salesman, and Andrée Lardoux, by Louise de Montaut, his French bride's godmother. Despite the work's authentication by a French art expert not skilled in Italian Renaissance painting, the newlyweds tried to sell the painting to the Kansas City Art Institute for $250,000. A reporter from
The New York World heard about the supposed deal and telephoned Sir Joseph Duveen, then a leading art dealer, on June 17, 1920 at 1:00 AM, to get his opinion. The sleepy Duveen's instant dismissal of a painting he had never seen as a fake caused the institute and other parties to lose interest in purchasing the
Hahn Leonardo. It also triggered a much-publicized legal battle between Andrée Hahn and Joseph Duveen for slander and damages amounting to $500,000.
In the lawsuit, Hahn claimed that Duveen's assertion about the painting's authorship was intended to remove the picture from the art market and increase the revered dealer's international prestige. The American jury at the 1929 New York State Supreme Court trial was not impressed by the scarce concrete evidence provided by European experts and connoisseurs who appeared in Duveen's defense. After a vote of nine to three in favor of Hahn, Duveen settled out of court for $60,000. Years later, science proved Duveen to be correct.
After the trial,
La Belle Ferronnière was consigned to a bank vault. In the last half of the 20th Century, the painting remained unable to be sold because of its discredited reputation among scholarly circles.
Recent Scientific TestingJacqueline Hahn, daughter of the painting's owners, submitted
La Belle Ferronnière last year to the
J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California for examination. Scott J. Schaefer, Curator of Paintings, agreed with conservators' pigment analyses of the work. The composition, an oil on canvas, was probably executed before 1750, perhaps by a French artist.
Update: La Belle Ferronnière was purchased for $1,538,500.
"Portrait of a Woman, Called 'La Belle Ferronnière'" will be exhibited at Sotheby's Los Angeles office on January 13, 2010 and the auction house's New York showroom beginning 10 days later.
Source
Brewer, John. The American Leonardo: A Tale of Obsession, Art, and Money. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Michael Brand Resigns as Director of Getty Museum and Villa
By STAN PARCHIN
January 7, 2010
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| Dr. Michael Brand. Photograph courtesy of Virginia Museum of Fine Arts/Mike Curtin. |
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J. Paul Getty Museum Courtyard at Dusk. © 2003 J. Paul Getty Trust. |
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Etruscan. Chimaera of Arezzo (ca. 400 B.C.). Bronze. 78.5 x 129 cm (30.9 x 50.8 in.). Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze. © Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana. Photograph by Ferdinando Guerrini. |
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| Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640). The Calydonian Boar Hunt (ca. 1611-12). Oil on panel. 59 x 90.2 cm (23.2 x 35.5 in.). J. Paul Getty Museum. |
The
J. Paul Getty Trust announced today that Dr. Michael Brand, a respected authority on Indian art and architecture, resigned as Director of the Getty Museum and Villa, effective January 31, 2010. Both parties are not bound by a non-disclosure agreement. Each declined respectfully to elaborate on details regarding Brand's decision to leave his high-profile position, a move the scholar reportedly deliberated upon since late last year. Brand is available for consultation through the end of this Summer. His responsibilities will be assumed by David Bomford, Associate Director for Collections, until a successor is named by a search committee to be formed shortly.
AccomplishmentsMichael Brand was the first director to run both the Getty Museum's Los Angeles and renovated Malibu campuses, the latter devoted almost exclusively to Greek and Roman art. He inherited leaderhip for a world-renowned institution mired in issues of antiquities repatriation. Brand ably settled disputes with the governments of Italy and Greece during his four-year tenure, a feat of international diplomacy for which he will forever be recognized and commended. Under his watchful eye, some 40 classical works of art, many mainstays of the Getty Villa, were dutifully returned to Italy after painstakingly thorough investigation of their
provenances or histories of ownership.
The personable Dr. Brand's efforts helped to foster a new era of cooperation amongst museums on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. His long-term arrangement with Florence, Italy's Museo Archaeologico Nazionale brought the
Chimaera of Arezzo (ca. 400 B.C.), a hallmark of Etruscan art, to the Getty Villa from July 16, 2009 to February 8, 2010.
Photography, Acquisitions and Special ExhibitionsUnder Michael Brand's aegis, the Getty Museum saw the opening of its Center for Photographs, the largest of its kind in the United States. It acquired major works of European art, including the
Northumberland Bestiary (12th Century),
The Calydonian Boar Hunt (ca. 1611-12) by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and
The Abduction of Europa (ca. 1645) by French artist Claude Lorrain (1604-1682). Among the international loan exhibitions mounted during Brand's tenure are
Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai (2006-07),
Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture (2008),
The Golden Graves of Ancient Vani (2009) and
Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference (2009-10). Other shows brought to the Getty Museum under his guidance include
Medieval Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art (2007-08) and
The Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry (2008-09), a selection of revered manuscript illuminations from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Regarding his remarkable accomplishments, Michael Brand stated, “I am very proud of what I have been able to achieve as Director of the Getty Museum, especially the successful conclusion of negotiations with Italy and Greece, the establishment of new relationships with sister institutions in Mexico and opening up the museum’s exhibition program to non-Western and contemporary art. I am very pleased at how the Getty Museum has continued to mature into a highly innovative and respected art institution since my appointment in 2005."
Dr. Brand earned his B.A. from the Australian National University in Canberra and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. The former Head of Asian Art at the National Gallery of Australia, he was the Assistant Director of Brisbane's Queensland Art Gallery from 1996 to 2000. As Chief Executive Officer of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts from 2000 to 2005, he successfully led the institution's $163 million capital campaign to fund its largest expansion.
Bill Moggridge Named New Director of Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
By STAN PARCHIN
January 6, 2010
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| Bill Moggridge. Photograph courtesy of IDEO/Nicolas Zurcher. |
The Smithsonian Institution's
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York announced today the appointment of Bill Moggridge as its new Director, effective March 2010. He succeeds Paul Thompson, who left the museum in July 2009 to become the Rector or President of the Royal College of Art in London.
EducationBill Moggridge studied industrial design at the Central School of Design in London, from where he graduated in 1965. He returned to the United Kingdom to study typography and communications before establishing his consulting business in 1969.
ExperienceMoggridge is best known as the designer of the Grid Compass, the first laptop computer, in 1980. He co-founded IDEO, a renowned innovation and design firm, in 1991. Since 2000, Moggridge has written books, produced videos and given presentations. The author has been a consulting associate professor in the design program at Stanford University since 2005. He received the Cooper-Hewitt's Lifetime Achievement Award for Design at the White House in 2009.
New ResponsibilitiesMr. Moggridge will oversee the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum's $64 million expansion, begun in 2006. The renovation includes an 60 percent increase in exhibition space, the construction of a new library and the establishment of additional classrooms for the institution's master's degree program.
Wayne Clough, Smithsonian Secretary, said, "Bill Moggridge is an entrepreneur, innovator and visionary leader in the design world. The Smithsonian and Cooper-Hewitt are poised on the edge of a new era and having Bill Moggridge as Director of our national design museum offers exciting prospects for the future."