' The Louvre and the Masterpiece ' Exhibition at MIA

October 20, 2009

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts(MIA) showcases an exhibition "The Louvre and the Masterpiece", that has commenced on Oct 18th and will progress till Jan 10,2010. This ambitious traveling exhibition, which is the result of years of collaboration between Atlanta's High Museum of Art and the Musee du Louvre, covers 4,000 years of history and showcases some of humanity's great cultural treasures .It includes masterworks of sculpture, decorative arts, painting and drawing, which has been obtained from each of the famed French museum's eight collection areas.

Though the big names of art history are definitely well represented, the works in this exhibition aren't essentially the museum's most famous pieces. While there are a number of familiar pieces, there are also a reasonable number of modest treasures, even some amazingly persuasive forgeries, in the bunch. This collection of work has been collected to promote conversation on the very idea of the masterpiece.

Works are organized through the galleries to explicate three broad themes: the evolving historical and cultural definitions of what constitutes a "work of genius; issues of "authenticity and connoisseurship"; and the role played by changes in taste and scholarship over the years. Visitors are given the opportunity to appraise the merits of similar pieces side-by-side, and to see for themselves how curators have been fooled by and consequently unmasked fakes in their collection.

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Painting of Venice Fetches Highest ever DC Bid

October 3, 2009

painting
An unidentified Bethesda woman submitted an 18th century oil painting of the Grand Canal in Venice that is supposed to be the work of an associate of Giovanni Antonio Canaletto.Canaletto's paintings usually command millions, and those by his acquaintances generally claim six figures.The painting was originally priced by the Chevy Chase auction house Sloans & Kenyon at between $6,000 to $8,000. The president of the auction house informed that normally with unknown work, they value it conventionally and set aside for the market to eventually drive the final price.

13 phone bidders, 9 of those who called from Europe, competed with live bids in the auction house. It sold to a bid in-house from an agent on behalf of a London buyer. The winning bid was $575,000, which was raised up to the final tally with a 19.5 percent buyer's premium.

The earlier highest bid for a painting in the Washington area was $442,500 for "Hampstead Heath, Looking Towards London" by British artist John Constable, which was sold at the same auction house when it functioned under the name of C.G. Sloan & Co.The buyer for that painting was also from London.

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