Some museums are more generous than others when it comes to sharing images from their collections. Places like the Rijksmuseum are extremely generous in allowing users to get access to high resolution images of the works in their collections, with no strings attached. Others, like the Louvre, provide small images of most the works in their collections but not high resolution downloads, and limit image use even when it's for study or academic purposes. The trend is moving towards more open access, but some museums (particularly smaller institutions who lack a budget for digitizing collections) are somewhat behind the curve, leading to a gap in even famous artist's catalogue raisonne. This is even more the case for privately held works. Fortunately for us, exhibition catalogs help to fill that gap with images of artworks missing from digital collections.
Recently, our Professor Bill Clark brought in the exhibition catalog for "Icons of Modern Art: The Collection of Sergei Shchukin," a show held last year at the Louis Vuitton Foundation Museum in Paris. Works that were once owned by Russian collector Sergei Shchukin but scattered to different collections after the Revolution were finally shown together again, including many famous French and Russian modern artists. The works are now housed at institutions like the Hermitage Museum, Pushkin Museum, and Tretyakov Gallery, and until these collections become more readily available online, we can use the catalog to fill the gaps in our own Visual Resources Collection. Check out the additions in ArtStor!
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The NY Times has featured an article (in the Science section, no less) chronicaling the restoration of the Van Eyck brother's famous Early Renaissance piece, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, also know as the Ghent Altarpiece after its longtime home in the Ghent cathedral of St. Bavos. Using a cutting-edge technique called "macro-X-ray fluorescence analysis" conservationists were able to determine that below the many layers of varnish and overpainting lay the original Van Eyck brushstrokes. It actually convinced the restorers, who were originally only going to clean the surface, to instead strip away the top layers of paint and varnish from one of the world's most famous paintings and reveal the original painting. "The result was 'without a trace of hyperbole, a triumph: awe inspiring and transformative,' said Michael Gallagher, a member of the international committee of experts and chief conservator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York." Read more about the incredible process in the New York Times article here! |
About the VR CoordinatorJacqui Hopely Monkell has been the Visual Resources Coordinator at Queens College since 2015. She maintains this website while juggling her other VR responsibilities. If you find something art history related that she might find interesting, drop her a line! Archives
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