The crawling pace of a weekend NJ Transit schedule had OMNP sprinting over to East side for Saturday’s panel on “The New Market for Old Masters,” arriving at the Morgan Library out of breath, yet pleasantly surprised.
The panel of Andrew Robison, Senior curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery, journalist Judd Tully, long time OM dealer Richard Feigen, Nicholas Hall-head of Christie’s Old Masters department in New York, and Scott Schaefer- Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Getty Museum, left for a standing room only crowd in the Morgan’s auditorium and confirmed to OMNP that interest in the market’s recent vitality is strong. Alas, newfound diversity within this gathering could not be found.
A quick survey of the audience from the top step of the room’s ampitheater-like setup found the backs of several balding, or gray heads of hair. Old Masters remains relegated to an older generation of collectors, yet between the purist chuckles of the Contemporary market’s recent comeuppance, and drowsy collecting experiences retold by audience members, a few intriguing topics offered some glimpses as to how to excite a future generation.
Many nuggets came from the ever-obstinate and always entertaining Mr. Feigen, whose countless war stories would make him a clear shoe-in for fireside chats on the PBS special: “Art Dealing Through the Ages.” Juicy details such as finding a swastika on the back of a Nazi-looted painting are common fodder for Feigen’s repertoire; what intrigued OMNP the most was his mentioning of underrecognized Old Masters-the experimentalists such as British landscape artist Richard Parkes Bonington, or the painters of the Early Italian Renaissance. Mr. Feigen described collecting opportunities that can still be found for many of these geniuses.
Bonington, for example, was a cutting-edge Romantic who left an indelible mark on modern painting in a brief but spectacular career. Here was a pioneer whose technique drew from the Old Masters, yet paved the way for Impressionism. He shared the gold medal with the legendary John Constable at the famous Paris Salon of 1824, and suffered the fate of many of the greats-passing on at the all-too-young age of 25. Here is where collectors have yet to really catch on…or at least most of the time. In 2005, a diminutive vignette of a dock scene, (left) carrying the artist’s trademark brushwork was auctioned off at €110,000 euros, a tad bit over its initial €10,000 – 15,000 estimate.
I thought the symposium was very good as well.I especially liked Robison’s analogy of the red chalk drawing by Rembrandt or Lievens or just a good artist with it’s value very “fluid” but the drawing never changes.
your ‘Two Leonardo discoveries in two weeks’ was also good. keep up the good work.