Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Barber Institute of Fine Arts

  • Birmingham – Barber Institute of Fine Arts (An Old Woman by Bernardo Strozzi)

    This artwork was painted by Bernardo Strozzi in Genoa in the 1620s and it’s not actually of anyone in particular. Instead it’s a study of old age and so wasn’t funded by some wealthy trader or influential politician from the period. The artist was also called il Cappuccino, likely derived from the Capuchin monks, as the coffee didn’t receive its name until much more recently.

    There doesn’t seem to be much provenance listed for this work, although the Barber Institute purchased it for £2,000 from the Hazlitt Gallery in 1966. I’m not very well placed to be an art critic, since I don’t know anything about art, but I thought that it was quite an eye-catching and powerful portrayal of the individual.

  • Birmingham – Barber Institute of Fine Arts (A Portrait of a Boy by Giovanni Bellini)

    This artwork was originally used as part of a lid of an inheritance chest and was painted in Venice in around 1475. I’m not entirely sure what an inheritance chest is (as opposed to any other chest) and an on-line search for the term just finds the description that the gallery have for this artwork. The information provided by the gallery does though add that the chest was constructed to hold the marble bust of Angelo Probi who died in 1474.

    Bellini was a Venetian artist who lived from 1430 until 1516 and I assume that he was quite prolific given how many of his artworks that still exist. The artwork was owned by the Holford family from at least the mid-eighteenth century and it was acquired by the Barber Institute in 1946 for £9,500.

  • Birmingham – Barber Institute of Fine Arts (Joseph Distributing Corn in Egypt by Bartholomeus Breenbergh)

    This artwork was painted by the Dutch artist Bartholomeus Breenbergh in 1655 and was purchased by the gallery in 1963. It shows Joseph distributing corn and it’s known that the location is in Egypt because of the obelisk. There’s another very similar painting to this which the artist painted in the previous year, although that artwork is now in private hands.

    There’s some provenance to this artwork, likely sold at an auction in Amsterdam during 1702 when works owned by the merchant and art collector Jan Agges were sold following his death. It was later purchased by P. Laendert de Neufville in 1756 who at the time was a wealthy merchant in Amsterdam, but he suffered severe financial difficulty in 1763 and after trying to pay his debts for some years the whole house of cards fell down in 1770. This explains the sale of the painting in 1771 to Fouquet and was later sold again in 1844.

    I still find the whole provenance of artworks such as this fascinating, as the route for this painting to end up in Birmingham is a long and complex one determined by some many different factors.

  • Birmingham – Barber Institute of Fine Arts (The Loggetta, Venice by Canaletto)

    I thought that this was a bemusing painting by Canaletto as he’s one of my favourite artists and this looks ridiculous. However, the information panel by the painting revealed the truth, which is that the top of the artwork was at some stage cut off. Bloody vandals…. It’s thought that it was to fit the painting above a door, with the top section of the Loggetta being painted out. The information panel doesn’t say, but I assume that it was cut down on the left hand side as well, as it looking irritatingly uncentred.

    The artwork was purchased by the Barber Institute in 1954 and it was during cleaning of the painting in 1964 that the painted out section at the top was revealed and then restored. The Loggetta, or bell tower, was constructed between 1537 and 1540 and the artwork was painted in the mid 1730s.

    I like paintings with provenance, and this is fortunately available for this one from throughout some of its history. It was purchased by the gallery from the art dealer Mr Edward Speelman in 1954 for £3,000 and it had been purchased at Sotheby’s in May the year before by a Mr. Murray for £2,300. Before that it had been owned by Sir Robert Mond who was an archaeologist and then before that it was owned by G. A. F. Cavendish-Bentinck MP, a prominent Conservative politician, who had sourced the painting from the art dealer Martin Colnaghi. Before that the artwork was owned by James Whatman who was the Liberal MP for Maidstone and West Kent and before that it was owned by George Gee.

  • Birmingham – Barber Institute of Fine Arts (The Blue Bower by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

    The word ‘bower’ in this painting’s title refers to the private apartment of a medieval lady, with the subject of this artwork being the artist’s mistress. It was painted by Rossetti in 1865 and the mistress was Fanny Cornforth who had worked as a servant and found it a difficult transition to associate with some of the friends of Rossetti.

    What was interesting to me is that the Rossetti Archive have listed the prices which have been paid for this work over time. It was purchased in 1865 for £120 (around £7,000 in today’s money) and was later sold to a Mr. Agnew for £500 and then eventually sold to the Barber Institute for £1,900 (around £40,000 in today’s money) in April 1959.

    The same archive site also lists that the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1883, at the Manchester Royal Jubilee Exhibition in 1887, at the Wembley British Empire Exhibition in 1924, in Newcastle in 1971 and at the Tate in 1984. I think it’s intriguing to think of people who came to these locations over the last 150 years and spent time looking at this artwork.

  • Birmingham – Barber Institute of Fine Arts (A Portrait of Bartolomeo Savona by André Derain)

    This painting was purchased by the Barber Institute in 1997, with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the National Art Collections Fund. The notes located by the artwork suggest that this was painted in 1906 and it’s of Bartolomeo Savona, who was a Sicilian student staying in the same guest house as Derain when he was visiting London. In return for acting as a translator during a visit to the dentist, Derain painted the student in three sittings of twenty minutes. A very nice gift….

    Derain was in London during 1906 as he was painting a series of artworks of the city, but he had a quite different style to previous painters. He created 30 artworks during his time in London, of which 29 of them are still in existence. Ambroise Vollard was the art dealer who suggested that Derain go to London, with the artist being 25 years of age at the time.

    The artwork remained in the family of the sitter until it was sold in the 1990s and brought to Birmingham. There was a detailed article written about this painting in 1997 by Richard Verdi and he noted that the family were keen for the artwork to remain in the UK. It was also discovered during cleaning that there were traces of pink under sitter’s lapel, suggesting the Savona at first sat for the painting whilst in shirtsleeves.

    I like the boldness of this artwork, it feels as though the painter had much sympathy for Savona and wanted to portray him in a youthful and positive light. It’s a colourful artwork and it’s the first that Derain is thought to have painted in London.