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“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” We’ve all heard the philosophical riddle that makes us question our understanding of perception. If we are not present does something still happen? In the case of a work of art, your presence is paramount, because an artwork needs you more than you might realise.
In his seminal work Art and Illusion, first published in 1960, art historian Ernst Gombrich wrote about “the beholder’s share”. It was Gombrich’s belief that a viewer “completed” the artwork, that part of an artwork’s meaning came from the person viewing it. He wasn’t concerned with the artists and what their intentions were; he was interested in what we, the viewers, brought to an artwork. What we project onto an artwork depends on our backgrounds – our upbringing and education, the experiences we’ve had, how we process information, how we look at the world. The meaning we give an image is filtered through all the years of life we’ve lived.

Historians, and those with an interest in history, are always keen to explore new periods and broaden their historical knowledge and understanding – but are often put off by images. Despite so many shared features, the ‘history of art’ is always slightly separated from ‘history’. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, for example, the history of art department shared a faculty with architecture rather than history.But there are many reasons why historians should welcome history of art into the fold and notbe fearful of images.
This fear, or ambivalence, oftenstems from a lack of understanding about what to do in front of a work of art – and it is perfectly understandable. Visual literacy is not encouraged at school and most people interested in general history would be flummoxed by the idea of undertaking a visual analysis of an artwork. And yet, a formal analysis – spending time in front of an artwork, looking closely at the image – is one of the basic elements of art history. The good news for those who want to understand artworks a little better is that it is both deeply rewarding and easy to do.
What should I look for?A visual analysis begins by looking, really looking, at an image. Museum researchers tell us that the average visitor spends just 17 to 27 seconds in front of an artwork. No wonder people are so convinced art is hard to understand if they’re spending so little time engaging with it. I don’t think I’d get very far understanding the Franco-Prussian War if I just listened to half a minute of a lecture. We need to slow down and start noticing all the elements of an artwork. Before rushing ahead to consider content and context, simply consider the basic formal elements of the image: line, colour, shape and form. Here’s a brief guide to get you started…
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Lines

Let’s imagine we’re looking at a painting on a canvas. Firstly, focus on the lines– look at what sort of marks have been made on the picture surface and try and describe them. Is the line thick, bold, expressive or dotted, etc? What emotions or moods do these lines and marks suggest to you? Are the lines horizontal or vertical and what is the effect of these lines? Are some lines more noticeable than others? Do they dominate the image? For what purpose? Are the shapes in the painting outlined? What is the effect? Can you see under-drawing or any other marks underneath the painting? Has there been an attempt to disguise these?

Colour

Next look at colour. What colour scheme has been used? Unmixed primary colours? Secondary colours? Are the colours complementary? Monochrome? Cool or warm? Is the palette broad or muted? Do any colours dominate the canvas? Does the choice of colour make you feel anything in particular? What is the effect of the colour choices? Are the colours bold and vibrant, or pale and muted? All the time when looking at the formal qualities, ask yourself what the effect is of their appearance in the artwork. For example, if the image is in black and white monochrome, what does it remind you of? Newspapers or old photographs, perhaps? Does the absence of colour give the artwork a sense of a loss? Or does the monochrome palette shift the focus of the painting onto another element – like its form or content?

Shapes and forms

Next in your visual analysis, look at the shapes and forms. Is the scheme geometric, angular or free-flowing? Are the shapes irregular, simple or complex?  Are the shapes/forms repeated and what is the effect of this? How are the shapes arranged? Are they grouped together, or far apart? Are they overlapping? Do they fuse with other shapes/forms? What are the edges of the shapes and form like? Are they distinct or fuzzy? Are there any relief (3D) elements to the painting? Does the paint build up sculpturally on the canvas? Is any other material added to the canvas? What about perspective? Is there a vanishing point? Is there an illusion of the three-dimensional on the two-dimensional picture surface?

This is a very brief guide to what a formal visual analysis of a painting is – there’s plenty more to look at and discuss – but I hope it gives you a way in. The main tip is to observe and describe the formal elements of the artwork generally and in detail, before analysing it in relation to any external factors. Because when we deeply observe an artwork, we see and understand so much more and this ultimately leads to achieving a greater enjoyment from looking at art.

Content

​Having completed a formal analysis then it is time to move on to content. Simply, what are you looking at. What, or who, is being depicted, if anything. Are any scenes or figures recognisable from history, religious stories, current affairs, or pop culture? Or do they perhaps remind you of something in your own life? Can you work out the relationship of the figures to each other in the artwork? What can we tell about them from the clothes they wear, the poses they adopt or the expression on their faces? What objects, props or places are included in the artwork? Are they recognisable? Are they symbolic? Finally, what is the title of the artwork? Does it enhance your understanding?
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Context

Finally, we look at context and this is where history of art and history are as one. This is the critical analysis; the point at which we explore and evaluate all the social, political, economic and cultural factors that may have had a bearing on the artwork or the artist, or were simply present at the time when the artwork was created. We also can look at what comparisons can be made with other artworks or artists. And this is the point to ask what was the artist’s original intention in creating the artwork and where was it originally displayed?
So we only look at the artist at the very end. The most important person in the whole process is you. What do youthink when you look at an artwork? You are at the centre of the visual analysis. Gombrich was quite right: it is the viewer who completes the artwork. So my advice for getting more out of art is to spend more time in front of it and to look really closely, because you are the only critic who matters.

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​Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens on Sept. 22, 2018, offering visitors a glimpse into the technical processes of a senior conservator working on the famous painting as well as background on its history, mysteries, and artistic virtues. One of the most iconic paintings in British and American history, The Blue Boy, made around 1770 by English painter Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), is undergoing its first major conservation treatment. Home to the work since its acquisition by founder Henry E. Huntington in 1921, The Huntington will conduct some of the project in public view, as part of a year-long educational exhibition that runs through Sept. 30, 2019.
The Blue Boy requires conservation to address both structural and visual concerns. “Earlier conservation treatments mainly have involved adding new layers of varnish as temporary solutions to keep it on view as much as possible,” said Christina O’Connell, The Huntington’s senior paintings conservator working on the painting and co-curator of the exhibition. “The original colors now appear hazy and dull, and many of the details are obscured.” According to O’Connell, there are also several areas where the paint is beginning to lift and flake, making the work vulnerable to paint loss and permanent damage; and the adhesion between the painting and its lining is separating, meaning it does not have adequate support for long-term display.
During three months of preliminary analysis—which was carried out by conservators in 2017, with results reviewed by curators—the painting was examined and documented using a range of imaging techniques that allow O’Connell and Melinda McCurdy, The Huntington’s associate curator for British art and co-curator of the exhibition, to see beyond the surface with wavelengths the human eye can’t see. Infrared reflectography rendered some paints transparent, making it possible to see preparatory lines or changes the artist made. Ultraviolet illumination made it possible to examine and document the previous layers of varnish and old overpaints. New images of the back of the painting were taken to document what appears to be an original stretcher (the wooden support to which the canvas is fastened) as well as old labels and inscriptions that tell more of the painting’s story. And, minute samples from the 2017 technical study and from previous analysis by experts were studied at high magnification (200-400x) with techniques including scanning electron microscopy with which conservators could scrutinize specific layers and pigments within the paint. Armed with information gathered from the 2017 analysis, the co-curators mapped out a course of action for treating the painting and developed a series of questions for which they are eager to find answers.
“One area we’d like to better understand is, what technical means did Gainsborough use to achieve his spectacular visual effects?” said McCurdy. “He was known for his lively brushwork and brilliant, multifaceted color. Did he develop special pigments, create new materials, pioneer new techniques? We know from earlier x-rays that The Blue Boy was painted on a used canvas, on which the artist had begun the portrait of a man,” she said. “What might new technologies tell us about this earlier abandoned portrait? Where does this lost painting fit into his career? How does it compare with other earlier portraits by Gainsborough?” As the conservation process continues, McCurdy also looks forward to discovering other evidence that may become visible beneath the surface paint, and what it might indicate about Gainsborough’s painting practice.
In fact, the undertaking, supported by a grant from the Bank of America Art Conservation Project, already has uncovered new information of interest to art historians. During preliminary analysis, conservators found an L-shaped tear more than 11 inches in length, which data suggest was made early in the painting’s history. The damage may have occurred during the 19th century when the painting was in the collection of the Duke of Westminster and exhibited frequently. Further technical evidence combined with archival research may help pinpoint a more precise date for this tear, and even reveal its probable cause.
“Project Blue Boy” Visitor Experience
For the first three to four months during the year-long exhibition, The Blue Boy will be on public view in a special satellite conservation studio set up in the west end of the Thornton Portrait Gallery, where O’Connell will work on the painting to continue examination and analysis, as well as begin paint stabilization, surface cleaning, and removal of non-original varnish and overpaint. It then will go off view for another three to four months while she performs structural work on the canvas and applies varnish with equipment that can’t be moved to the gallery space. Once structural work is complete, The Blue Boy will return to the gallery where visitors can witness the inpainting process until the close of the exhibition.
During the two periods when the painting is in the gallery, O’Connell will work in public view on regularly scheduled days and times. For the first in-gallery period, from Sept. 22 through January 2019 (estimated), visitors can watch the process each Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. to noon and from 2 to 4 p.m., and on the first Sunday of each month from 2 to 4 p.m. A similar schedule will be in place during the second in-gallery session, estimated to begin in summer 2019. Schedule updates will be posted on the web at huntington.org/projectblueboy.
When O’Connell is working in the gallery she might use any number of tools, the largest among them a Haag-Streit Hi-R NEO 900 surgical microscope that measures six feet in height. The state-of-the-art device has a long movable arm and optics that can magnify up to 25x to give the conservator a detailed view of the painting’s surface during the treatment stages, when special adhesives will be added to the areas of lifting paint. Many of the conservator’s hand tools will be showcased, giving visitors a chance to understand the precision inherent in the work.
“When the painting is not in the gallery, visitors will still have plenty to see,” said O’Connell. A display with multiple educational modules will tease out details relating to the project and illuminate the painting’s structure and materials, condition and treatment plans, and an explanation of the conservation profession. An interactive light box will show the latest digital x-rays of the work; one iPad will allow visitors to explore more deeply the conservation science involved, and another will provide historical background on the painting and artist. Actual conservation tools will be on display, and behind a low wall, the temporary conservation studio will be in plain view, equipped with all the necessary trappings—work tables, easel, conservation lights, and exhaust units, as well as a whiteboard where O’Connell will post updates on what is currently happening and the times when she’ll be available to answer visitor questions.
Also, specially trained docents will be stationed in the gallery throughout the run of the exhibition to illuminate the project and answer questions.
After the close of the exhibition, the painting will go back to the lab for final treatment and reframing. Finally, in early 2020, The Blue Boy will be rehung in its former spot at the west end of the portrait gallery and unveiled as a properly stabilized masterpiece with more of the vivid pigments and technical brilliance it radiated when it debuted at the Royal Academy some 250 years ago again visible to viewers.
The curators of “Project Blue Boy” plan to share their findings in lectures and publications after the completion of the project.
The Huntington's website will track the project as it unfolds at huntington.org/projectblueboy.
Related Programs
“Project Blue Boy” will be accompanied by an array of public programs, including scholarly lectures, curator tours, and family activities.
About The Blue Boy
Thomas Gainsborough was among the most prominent artists of his day. Though he preferred to paint landscapes, he made his career producing stylish portraits of the British gentry and aristocracy. Jonathan Buttall (1752–1805), the first owner of The Blue Boy, was once thought to have been the model for the painting, but the identity of the subject remains unconfirmed. The subject’s costume is significant. Instead of dressing the figure in the elegant finery worn by most sitters at the time, Gainsborough chose knee breeches and a slashed doublet with a lace collar–-a clear nod to the work of Anthony van Dyck, the 17th-century Flemish painter who had profoundly influenced British art.
The painting first appeared in public in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1770 as A Portrait of a Young Gentleman, where it received high acclaim, and by 1798 it was being called “The Blue Boy”–-a nickname that stuck.
Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) purchased The Blue Boy in 1921 for $728,000, the highest price ever paid for a painting at the time. By bringing a British treasure to the United States, Huntington imbued an already well-known image with even greater notoriety on both sides of the Atlantic. Before allowing the painting to be transferred to San Marino, art dealer Joseph Duveen orchestrated an international publicity campaign that rivaled those surrounding blockbuster movies today. In its journey from London to Los Angeles, The Blue Boy underwent a shift from portrait to icon, as the focus of a series of limited-engagement exhibitions engineered by Duveen. The image remains recognizable to this day, appearing in works of contemporary art and in vehicles of popular culture—from major motion pictures to velvet paintings.
But beyond its cultural significance, the painting is considered a masterpiece of artistic virtuosity. Gainsborough’s command of color and mastery of brushwork are on full display in the painting, and they are expected to become more apparent as a result of “Project Blue Boy” conservation work.

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​The “Old Masters,” an informal classification in art historical terms, ​generally refers to European artists dating from approximately the 1500s (the Renaissance) to the 1800s. They were fully trained artists who had become the Masters of their local artists’ guild. In reality, however, many paintings produced by followers of/ school of/ circle of, have also come to fit into today’s catch-all term. Many of the best-known painters of this geographically and historically broad area are considered Old Masters.
In advance of a key season of Old Masters auctions, we take a look at this revered category through the lens of portraiture. Our editors spoke with two leading specialists: David Weiss, Senior Vice President and Department Head of European Art & Old Masters at Freeman’s Auctions and Iain Gale, Specialist in Fine Paintings, Sculpture and Scottish Art at Lyon & Turnbull, on why they are optimistic about the market for Old Masters portraits, and how buyers should begin their hunt.

Starting a collection of Old Masters portraits can be as broad or as narrow as your means, since this category features artists from a wide range of styles, movements, and geographic locations, including the Renaissance (Gothic, Early, High, Venetian, Sienese, Northern, Spanish), Mannerism, Baroque, the Dutch Golden Age, Flemish and Baroque, Rococo, Neoclacissism, and Romanticism.
These schools include some of the most influential painters in Western art history: Titian, Jan Van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht Durer, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Artemisia Gentileschi, Diego Velazquez, Frans Hals, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, William Hogarth, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Francisco de Goya, William Blake, Eugene Delacroix, and more.
Iain Gale advises that anybody wishing to start a collection of Old Masters portraits avoid what he calls a “scattergun” approach. Instead, Gale recommends choosing one centerpiece around which to build a collection, so that works chosen in the future are more likely to reflect the optimal taste of the first. For a new collector with a budget of around £20,000 (~$25,000) to invest, for example, Gale would suggest looking for a work by a Classical painter like Allan Ramsay (1713 – 1784), or the Romantic Henry Raeburn (1756 – 1823).
David Weiss suggests that a good place to start is by looking to quality drawings by lesser known, but highly accomplished artists of the 17th and 18th centuries, as these “tend, on balance, to be more affordable than their equivalents rendered in oil.” He also suggests using a limited budget for an early engraving or etching.
In offering different approaches to collecting, Gale and Weiss agree on one thing: the market for portraits, Old Masters or otherwise, is a complex one. Ultimately, they note, the motivation of the buyer underscores the value of a work. Collectors may buy portraits for any reason, from “self-aggrandizement to a serious interest in painting,” says Gale. For some, there is concern around buying a portrait of an unknown sitter, somebody else’s ancestry.

Overlooked Old Masters

While painting from the English Tudor and Stuart periods has always held a high price, much of it, says Gale, still appears stuffy and dark after “years of accumulated dirt and nicotine.” However, he adds, closely inspecting a corner of a work can help to show a painting’s true colors.
David Weiss references top tier “school of” or “circle of” paintings, a suggestion he tempers with the caveat that, “this is not to say that landscapes, still lifes, and genre scenes which are direct copies of non-overlooked artist’s paintings deserve a great reception. It is to say that paintings of wonderful quality and skill, and those possessing aesthetic appeal, ought sometimes to sell for more money than they often do vis-à-vis their ‘name brand’ counterparts.”
Weiss says that this can be a particularly wise investment because “school of” or “circle of” paintings “of a major artist can, with the passage of time, be determined to be by the artist after whom the work was first thought to be only modeled.”

Self-Portraits in a Name-Driven Market

“The moment when a man comes to paint himself – he may do it only two or three times in a lifetime, perhaps never – has in the nature of things a special significance,” wrote Lawrence Gowing in his introduction to a 1962 exhibition of British self-portraits. According to Gale, there is no necessary correlation between value of a painting and whether it is a self-portrait because the value of a work can be determined by many factors.
“There is a good market for self-portraits, particularly those that can comfortably be given to the hand of a first or second tier painter, a strong case can be made that there is a correlation between a portrait’s value and the identity of a sitter. It is difficult to argue against a portrait of major historical or noble figure outselling a portrait of a lesser known sitter,” says Weiss, before posing a hypothetical question: “An exceptional self-portrait by a lesser known hand or by a follower or student of a well-known artist versus a self-portrait of only passing quality by an important artist? My money is with the former in the current name-driven art market.”
Unless a portrait serves a commemorative purpose, themes and narratives conveyed in a portrait may be subliminal. Such messaging and symbolism tends to include status, wealth, accomplishment, lineage, and power. However, Weiss says, these themes “are not always present in self-portraits, wherein many of the Old Masters sought to and succeeded in presenting themselves in a less grandiose light.”

Quality is Key

Although the market today is undeniably driven by “name brand” artists, as David Weiss puts it, one crucial factor transcends all others, and both specialists return to the question throughout their responses.
“In my experience, one need only look at some of the offerings in the secondary Old Master auction catalogues of major houses as recently as the 1990s. In many of those sales, the ‘manner of’ and ‘follower of’ paintings that clearly appear to be secondary in quality would either not sell in 2017, or may not even be accepted for consignment in 2017 due to the ever increasing emphasis on quality and on works that are by, or at least have an affiliation with the hand of, an important artist or school,” says Weiss.
Determining the value of a painting is a fine balance, the crucial element being an understanding of what motivates the buyer, says Gale. “It may be more visually appealing, and therefore of great value, if a work is by a good hand, even if it is by a minor artist.”



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“I think we are overdue and ready to bring back great female artists of the past,” the director of the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Eike Schmidt, tells The Art Newspaper. Inspired by a conversation with the US-based feminist collective the Guerrilla Girls, Schmidt has pledged to show more work by women. Florence’s little-known first female painter, the self-taught nun Suor Plautilla Nelli (1523-87), will be the subject of a display opening on International Women’s Day at the Uffizi (Plautilla Nelli: Convent Art and Devotion in the Footsteps of Savonarola, 8 March-4 June). The show anticipates a broadly chronological series of exhibitions drawing on the museum’s collection that “could easily go on for 20 years”, Schmidt says. 

Female artists who were successful in their own time have long languished in obscurity. After seeking—and failing to find—more information on Peeters when they visited the Prado in the 1960s, the US collectors Wilhelmina and Wallace Holladay founded the world’s only museum dedicated to art by women. The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, DC, now counts 42 artists from the 16th to the 19th centuries among its 5,000-strong collection. “We call them Old Mistresses,” says its director Susan Fisher Sterling, citing the pointed term introduced by feminist art historians in the 1970s. “By the 1900s, those early artists tend to fade away. It is like being an old mistress—you’re part of the scene one day and then you’re not.” 

Problem of supplyBut curators of older art hoping to redress the historic gender imbalance face a supply problem. The holdings of the Uffizi reflect the progressive ideals of its founding fathers, the grand dukes of Tuscany. Pickings are slimmer at other European institutions that inherited royal and elite collections and at US museums, which developed later. “What we have reflects a time when it was very hard for women to enter the professional sphere,” says Alejandro Vergara, the Prado’s senior curator of Flemish and northern European paintings, who organised the Peeters show. 

The Old Masters market lacks the volume to make targeted acquisitions of women’s art possible, says Katharine Baetjer, the European paintings curator who brought the Vigée Le Brun show to the Met. The department owns no more than 15 works by women, she says. The Met is, however, displaying a new Angelica Kauffmann portrait, donated in 2016 by the Milan-based dealer Carlo Orsi. 

“Quotas and statistics are not necessarily the way forward for women artists in the 1500 to 1900 period,” says Tabitha Barber, the Tate’s curator of British art, 1550-1750. “Our position is that women have always painted, and their contribution to art history needs to be recognised.” Since 2009, the Tate has acquired six works by earlier female artists, four of which are currently on view at Tate Britain. 

Crucially, almost half a century since the publication of Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, there is a “generation of scholars—female and male—that are finding quality in women artists”, Sterling says. The drive to expand the canon in academic research and museum exhibitions is also generating new discoveries.

“The good news is that since female artists of the past are understudied, you always find additional works that have not been known,” Schmidt says. The inventory of Plautilla Nelli’s works has swelled from three to at least 19 in the past decade. “People are starting to discuss what constitutes a Nelli, what constitutes Nelli’s school,” says Linda Falcone, the director of the Florence-based Advancing Women Artists Foundation, which paid for the restoration of seven works in the Uffizi show.

A rare late self-portrait by the Dutch Golden Age painter Judith Leyster sold at Christie’s in London for £485,000 (with fees, est £400,000-£600,000) last December after resurfacing on an English country estate. “Given the academic process of identifying paintings and tracking them down, it’s very possible that more works by her will be discovered,” says Christie’s Old Master specialist Alexis Ashot. Leyster’s entire oeuvre was unknown for centuries, until in 1893 a “Frans Hals” at the Louvre was revealed to contain her overpainted signature. “There may be other cases of women artists whose names we don’t even think of yet,” Ashot says.

Perhaps ironically, the re-emergence of “Old Mistresses” will rely on the traditional practice of Old Master connoisseurship. The dealer and broadcaster Bendor Grosvenor bought the Carlile portrait as a “sleeper” in a regional English auction in 2014 for £4,200 (hammer price), selling it to the Tate for £35,000. “It is sometimes the case that female artists, because they were obliged to operate outside the usual systems of patronage and study, painted in styles that [look] less like their peers,” Grosvenor says. “The painting of Joan Carlile was really quite easy to identify because she painted quite unlike anyone else at the time.”

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With the Knoedler trial still fresh in people’s minds and an Old Master forgery scandal linked to works attributed to Cranach and Hals among others recently uncovered, the question of how to reduce the number of fakes—of everything from Ming vases to post-war paintings—circulating on the market is more urgent than ever. At the annual art-crime symposium held in November at New York University, participants agreed that the culprit was the market’s notorious secrecy. But discussions revealed deep divisions about what should be done. Insurers, auction houses, dealers and other players each have their own interests to protect in a market where, as one participant remarked, the “level of greed... is so great”.

“Information is the currency of the art market,” said lawyer Steven Thomas, the head of the art law practice at the Los Angeles law firm Irell & Manella. He offered an example showing how information was withheld in trying to close a sale. When one of his clients learned that an Impressionist painting he was interested in had been restored so extensively it was no longer considered authentic, he confronted the dealer, a prominent New York gallerist. “Oh, you found out,” was the cavalier response. Such is the attitude in a market where the burden of due diligence as a practical matter may fall on the buyer. 

But even simple provenance research may be impossible when a dealer or an agent mediates on behalf of an anonymous seller. The Knoedler scandal, of course, highlighted the problem of non-disclosure writ large, with buyers handing over a total of nearly $70m for more than 30 paintings from the collection of a mysterious Mr X. As was revealed at trial, although some experts told the gallery they doubted the paintings’ authenticity, Knoedler did not pass on that information to the sellers. Further, Knoedler never actually knew Mr X’s identity. But the buyers assumed it did, having only been told by the gallery that the owner preferred the usual industry practice of anonymity. Had Knoedler disclosed these facts, the plaintiffs said, they never would have bought the paintings. When a potential purchaser presented gallery director Ann Freedman with a contract requiring her to state, among other things, that the gallery did not know anything putting the work’s authenticity into question, she refused: that just was not how the art market worked. ​
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​The Knoedler gallery sold this painting, purportedly by Jackson Pollock, to the collector Pierre Lagrange for $17m in 2007
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In this system, dealers are not the only ones who benefit by keeping silent. Judd Grossman, the chair of the New York County Lawyers’ Association Art Law Committee, spoke of a Jackson Pollock expert who admitted that he “sees forgeries all the time but doesn’t do anything about it”. After all, scholars have their own interests to protect; they may stay silent because they are afraid of being sued on an expanding array of grounds, from disparagement to professional negligence. Even if the authenticity of a work is called into question, a spooked seller may dump it without disclosing the compromising evidence. No one tells an owner his Franz Kline is faux. The result, the art consultant Martha Parrish told The Art Newspaper, is that “all the fakes are roaming around and coming to market again”. 

To regulate or not?So what is to be done? With art market participants unwilling to proffer critical information voluntarily, Christiane Fischer, the chief executive of AXA Art Americas, suggested that the government should require it: “It’s better for everyone if there’s more regulation.” But “when the government does it, it’s ham-handed,” objected Christopher Marinello, the chief executive of the Art Recovery Group, which maintains a database of stolen and fake art. He cited US regulations intended to curb the illegal slaughter of elephants by banning the sale of items with even a sliver of ivory. “It’s so over-regulated…that it’s difficult to sell and affects the value of the work,” he said. 

And who would enforce the regulations? Attorney Lawrence Kaye, the co-chair of the Art Law Group at Herrick, pointed out that there is no dedicated enforcement agency in the US and it “would be very hard to get a regulator” that could enforce laws around the world. That is if those laws can get passed at all. In New York, a proposal to encourage scholars to sound the alarm by protecting them from frivolous lawsuits has been stalled in the state legislature for nearly three years. 

Insurance companies could be a powerful force in keeping fakes out of the market, Marinello suggested. If buyers cannot get insurance, they might be more careful before they buy and sellers might be forced to step out of the shadows. “When you buy property, you have a survey done or you can’t get a mortgage. Banks control the market. Why don’t insurers refuse to insure unless you have good due diligence?” he asked. Ron Fiamma, the global head of private collections at AIG, which insures 52% of the people on ArtNews’ Top 200 Collectors List, had a simple answer. Insurers “don’t push for documents because it’s a competitive business,” he said. Companies like his would be at a disadvantage unless everyone did it. 

Some suggested that the market should police itself. But competing interests make self-regulation a mirage. There is no “cohesive alliance”, said Sherri Cohen, a director at Bonhams’ trusts and estates department, who noted that she sees art crime “daily”. Further muddying the waters, some of the most active buyers are also sellers. “Big collectors control the market, so they prefer to see it go on as business as usual,” noted one panellist. 

Risky businessGiven the impasse, Steven Thomas suggested an alternative. Attention should be focused not on due diligence but rather on who should bear the risk that a work is fake. He had no doubt it should be the sellers: they put the work on the market, get the money and control the information shared. 

Thomas notes that market is already regulated, just inadequately. He cites two New York statutes designed to protect buyers and reduce the number of questionable works in circulation. Under one, when a dealer or auctioneer writes on an invoice that a work is by a particular artist, the invoice serves as a four-year guaranty that it is by that artist. The other statute applies only to multiples, theoretically at greater risk of unauthorised duplication. If a multiple is proven to be a fake, the dealer must refund the purchase price with interest, and if the buyer proves the seller was deceptive, the seller has to pay the buyer’s legal fees—a protection, Thomas suggested, that could be extended to unique works as well.

At the very least, he says, the statute of limitations for each scenario is too short. Most owners do not discover they own a fake until they try to sell it – ­typically after more than four years. Contrary to the statutes’ purpose, the risk of loss is then shifted back to the buyer. Thomas supports amending both laws so that the statute of limitations begins not on the date the buyer purchased the work but on the date they discover (or should have discovered) that it is fake. 

Even this step to bring the law’s effect back in line with its intent might meet resistance. Auction houses and dealers would likely have strong objections to a revision or expansion of the statute of limitations, said Gregory Clarick, of Clarick Gueron Reisbaum, who represented some of the Knoedler plaintiffs in their claims against the gallery. In his experience, sellers think four years is long enough to be held liable. “They want that finality,” he said. Clarick believes the judgments supporting the Knoedler buyers’ claims of fraud are “the starting point to regulate the industry” because they “require honest and frank disclosure about works a dealer is selling”. Marinello, though, doubts that relying on the courts is a suitable answer. “Judges are on the same level as criminals when it comes to fine art,” he said. “They don’t know much.” 

Legislation against frivolous lawsuitsThe worth of a work of art hinges on its authenticity, so experts who render opinions are in everyone’s crosshairs. A proposal to protect them from frivolous lawsuits was introduced by Senator Betty Little and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal in New York in 2014.

Initially, the twin bills said that if a lawsuit against an authenticator was unsuccessful, the plaintiff must pay the defendant's legal fees. The costs can be steep: the Andy Warhol Foundation paid nearly $7m to defend itself in one lawsuit and later disbanded its authentication board. The bills do not protect any person or entity with a financial interest in the work of art—such as a dealer who represents an artist's estate.

It was hoped the prospect of paying the other side’s fees would discourage nuisance suits. However, in yet another instance of competing interests impeding change, the New York State Trial Lawyers Association lobbied for adjustments; as amended, the judge would decide whether the losing plaintiff has to pay. Even in its revised form, the law has not been passed. It will be reintroduced in early 2017, says Dean Nicyper, the lawyer spearheading the proposal. ​

Thanks to  LAURA GILBERT, BILL GLASS  

​“In the nineteenth century,” Brancusi declared, “the situation in sculpture was desperate. Rodin arrived and transformed everything.” In a way, Rodin was fortunate that initially he wasn’t part of the system. Rejected several times by the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Rodin was not trained according to the rigid academic standards of the time. Nonetheless, he never gave up and showed great confidence in his talent. In 1865, for example, his sculpture The Man with the Broken Nose (1865 and 1875) was initially rejected by the jury of the Salon, partly because the clay fissured and the sculpture cracked in the back of the head.
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​After a trip to Italy, the works of Michelangelo served as his main inspiration. Like the Renaissance masters, he studied human anatomy. In fact, his sculptures were so life-like in his sculptures that his first major work, The Age of Bronze (1876), caused a great controversy. Rodin was accused of cheating by making it from a live cast of his model. Rodin protested and put together an impressive dossier defending himself, but to no avail. In Rodin’s defense, his model, Auguste Neyt, recalled “I had to train myself to strike the pose. It was hardly an easy thing to do. Rodin did not want straining muscles; in fact, he loathed the academic ‘pose’… The master wanted ‘natural action taken from real life.” (http://www.musee-rodin.fr/en/resources/chronology-auguste-rodin)
Eventually, however, thanks to recommendations made by influential friends, the French government bought the sculpture in 1880 for the hefty sum of 2000 francs. Henceforth Rodin’s fame would continue to rise.
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The charge of the Salon could have been further from the truth. Rodin never worked from live casts. He asked his models, both male and female, to walk around freely in his studio. Often he would follow them around, making rapid sketches of their movements. When he spotted them in a particularly interesting pose or expression, he would try to capture it quickly, modeling in clay. For Rodin, as for Michelangelo, the body itself was expressive of emotion. He stated: “I have always endeavored to express the inner feelings by the mobility of the muscles.” It is said that Rodin’s wife, Rose Beuret, once stormed into his studio in a fit of rage and began screaming at him. She would have had plenty of reasons to be upset with Rodin since he notoriously cheated on her with his young models, most of whom were can-can dancers. Instead of responding in kind, however, Rodin quickly modeled her angry expression in clay, saying “Thank you, my dear. That was excellent.” Nothing was as inspirational for him as visible emotion, read in facial expressions and gestures.
Despite the religious allusions of The Gates of Hell, his chef d’oeuvre, Rodin brings emotion down to earth by materializing a passion that functions not only as a connection between the human and the divine, but also as an intimate and profound connection between earthly lovers. Perhaps no one else has described Rodin’s most sensual and moving sculpture, The Kiss, as eloquently as his friend, the art critic Gustave Geffroy:
“The man’s head is bent, that of the woman is lifted, and their mouths meet in a kiss that seals the intimate union of their two beings. Through the extraordinary magic of art, this kiss, which is scarcely indicated by the meeting of their lips, is clearly visible, not only in their meditative expressions, but still more in the shiver that runs equally through both bodies, from the nape of the neck to the soles of the feet, in every fiber of the man’s back, as it bends, straightens, grows still, where everything adores—bones, muscles, nerves, flesh—in his leg, which seems to twist slowly, as if moving to brush against his lover’s leg; and in the woman’s feet, which hardly touch the ground, uplifted with her whole being as she is swept away with ardor and grace.”
Rodin revealed human love and life as a process of mutual creation between women and men. Passion is not only a union with those we desire and adore, but also an elevation through shared feelings and sensuality which is always in process, never complete. His representations of the fragility of our mutual creation were as inchoate, vulnerable yet compelling as the material shapes that seemed to emerge only part-finished from the bronze or blocks of stone.

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​​More details have come to light regarding a suspected Old Mastery forgery scandal that may encompass some €200 million ($255 million) in fake canvases. It would appear that some of the world’s foremost experts on authentication have been taken in, casting doubt on connoisseurship and forensic analysis alike.
The most recent development ha Sotheby’s refunding the buyer from a 2011 sale of a purported Frans Hals portrait. The authenticity of that painting was called into question because it came from the same source as a Lucas Cranach the Elder Venus, after the latter was seized by French authorities earlier this year under suspicion it was fake. Little-known French collector-turned-dealer Giulano Ruffini, who was the original seller of both works, has brought to market a suspiciously high number of previously undocumented works attributed to Old Masters.
Related: String of Suspected Old Master Fakes May Reveal ‘Biggest Art Scandal in a Century’
The Hals refund is all the more concerning given how much press the painting received as a newly discovered treasure in the immediate past. In 2008, the Louvre launched a national campaign to buy the canvas for €5 million from Christie’s Paris, declaring it “un trésor national.” The Parisian museum wasn’t acting lightly: the painting had been authenticated after passing a battery of scientific tests conducted by France’s Centre for Research and Restoration. At the time, Burlington Magazine called the work “a very important addition to Hals’s oeuvre.”

​Though the Louvre’s efforts to secure the work were stymied by the 2008 financial crisis, the painting eventually passed into the hands of London dealer Mark Weiss for just €3 million. He then arranged for a $10 million private sale through Sotheby’s to an American collector—an almost 150 percent profit, the Art Market Monitor points out.
Nevertheless, it now seems clear the Hals painting’s total lack of provenance should have remained a red flag. This year, concerned by evidence against the Cranach, Sotheby’s turned to Orion Analytical, a Williamstown, Massachusetts-based company which investigates artworks and other cultural property, working with law enforcement to unveil forgeries. New tests found traces of synthetic 20th-century materials during its testing of the painting.
“Orion’s peer-reviewed analyses showed the presence of modern materials used in the painting in a way that meant that it could not have been painted in the 17th century,” said Sotheby’s in a statement.
Related: Plot Thickens In Dispute Over Seized Cranach Painting
According to the Art Newspaper, Weiss has yet to repay his 50 percent share of the sale’s proceeds, and is reportedly calling for additional technical analysis on the painting. To date, there is no evidence that Weiss or other dealers and auction houses now caught up in the fakes controversy had any reason to suspect the painting were not authentic.
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​In another case, the Knoedler forgery trial, some of the most damning testimony came from Orion’s founder, James Martin. Should a new Old Mastery forgery ring be as widespread as is now feared—a list of 25 suspect paintings  that originated with Ruffini is expected to be released—Martin’s forensic expertise will likely continue to factor as additional works are more closely examined.
Related: Conservator Found Rothko Painting in Knoedler Trial to Be a ‘Deliberate Fake’
And yet, the trained “eye” of the expert continues to carry considerable weight. “Technical examination is a good back-up, but the visual confrontation and identification of Old Masters, however difficult and subjective to taste at times, is still of the utmost importance in old-school connoisseurship,” art dealer Bob Haboldt told the Antiques Trade Gazette.
Long a contentious manner, however, the value and supposed infallibility of connoisseurship may now being called into question. Given that so many experts failed to recognize the Hals and Cranach forgeries, it would seem that “the system upon which the art market relies for determining authenticity is not working,”  wrote Bendor Grosvenor on his blog Art History News.
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​Like the Hals, the suspect Cranach has been tested and its materials post-date the artist by some 200 years. Additionally, the surface appears to have been artificially aged. Two other works from the now-dubious source of Ruffini, David with the Head of Goliath by Orazio Gentileschi, and a St. Jerome by Parmigianino, have been publicly identified as suspect. They were displayed, respectively, at London’s National Gallery and New York’sMetropolitan Museum of Art.
Many more are expected to come to light, and the scope of the forger’s activities, and whether they are ongoing, remains unknown. “Any such ability successfully to mimic the styles of Old Masters as varied as Cranach and Hals would be unprecedented in modern times,” Grosvenor opined in theFinancial Times. “Equally skillful is the ability to age these modern creations in such a way as to make them look centuries old.”
With the benefit of hindsight, however, it seems likely the forger’s work will be looked at with a more critical eye. “In the long term this will be treated like the van Meegeren case,” predicted Haboldt. Referring to the notorious 20th-century forger whose works are now held in little esteem, he noted that “afterwards everyone was convinced his imitations and inventions of Vermeer’s ‘early’ style were easily recognizable.”
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By Sarah Cascone

​The art world has been rocked by a haul of apparent forgeries by the ‘Moriarty of fakers’ that could cost investors £200 million.
The suspect Old Masters – said to be by artists including Frans Hals and Lucas Cranach – have been described as the ‘biggest scandal in a century’.
In one case, Sotheby’s has been forced to take back an £8.4 million ‘Frans Hals’ and The Mail on Sunday understands the auction house is now pursuing the London dealer who supplied the painting.
Experts are particularly concerned because the alleged fakes are so difficult to spot from the real thing.
Earlier this year, the Prince of Liechtenstein had a painting seized by French authorities amid suspicion that it was a forgery. And it is feared that up to 25 more ‘Old Masters’ will be revealed as possible fakes in the coming weeks after a judge launched an investigation.

​The paintings at risk could be worth up to £200 million.
Yesterday, internationally renowned art dealer Bob Haboldt said: ‘This is the biggest art scandal in a century. There has been nothing like this since the “early Vermeer” scandal of the 1940s [when doubt was cast on a number of pictures by the Dutch master].

‘It has put an entire generation of dealers on alert. The careful marketing of these highly sophisticated forgeries using primarily older materials has caught the market by surprise. The implications will be that buyers will insist on more guarantees, scientific and financial.’
The scandal is a matter of such embarrassment that few art figures are willing to speak openly, but one well-known dealer described the individual behind the copies as ‘the Moriarty of fakers’, because they are so brilliantly constructed.
The scandal began to take shape earlier this year when a painting by German Renaissance master Lucas Cranach and owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein was seized by authorities at an exhibition in the South of France. 
Venus, dated 1531, had been sold by the Colnaghi Gallery in London in 2013 to the prince for £6 million but is now understood to be under examination by experts at the Louvre to assess its authenticity.

​The suspect Old Masters have been described as the ‘biggest scandal in a century’. Pictured, David by 'Gentileschi' (left) and Venus by 'Cranach' (right)

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​The Cranach has been linked to a painting titled An Unknown Man, attributed to Dutch master Frans Hals, and a work called David With The Head Of Goliath, attributed to Italian master Orazio Gentileschi.
Both paintings were bought by London dealer Mark Weiss, with the Hals being sold on to a distinguished US collector. Sotheby’s took a cut for brokering the ‘private treaty’ sale.
However, when the collector, from Seattle, discovered the Hals painting was connected to the seized Cranach, he complained to Sotheby’s and their experts are understood to have subsequently decided it was a fake.
Sotheby’s were later forced to reimburse the collector and are said to be threatening legal action against Weiss to recover their losses.
Mr Haboldt said: ‘These three painters can be resold in the international market for millions and tens of millions. They are very hot names in the business and much sought-after. 
'The works are difficult to detect as forgeries but they lack any credible provenance and references in the numerous publications about these artists. The latter should have made the principal dealers suspicious

The willingness of Sotheby’s to accept the return of the portrait by Frans Hals and indemnify the buyer sets the stage for several more of these cases to come to light.‘But first, the international art world will have to wait for the results of the French investigation. Whispers in the trade have revealed a list of some 25 Old Masters produced by this particular forger’s workshop. I understand this list will be revealed soon.’
The Gentileschi is said to have been sold to a young US collector based in the UK, for an undisclosed amount, and was displayed at the National Gallery in London until recently. Haboldt said it is believed a ring of Italian forgers are behind the Old Masters and some of them have already been questioned by French authorities.
The common thread to these paintings is they passed through the hands of unknown French dealer Giulano Ruffini, who claims he has discovered a string of Old Masters.
Ruffini, 71, however, insists that he never presented any of the paintings as Old Masters. He said: ‘I am a collector, not an expert.’
Neither Mark Weiss nor Sotheby’s would comment, while Mr Ruffini’s lawyers could not be reached. The National Gallery said: ‘Gentileschi’s David With The Head Of Goliath has until recently been on temporary loan to the National Gallery from a private lender.
‘It was part of a small display of works by the artist that came to an end last week and it has now been returned to the owner. The gallery always undertakes due diligence research on a work coming on loan as well as a technical examination.’

By Adam Luck
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​When Velázquez exhibited his portrait of Juan de Pareja at the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon in 1650, the picture “gained such universal applause that in the opinion of all the painters of different nations, everything else seemed like painting, but this alone like truth.” I love Velázquez for this rare quality: the ability to transcend his medium, even while using it so sublimely. One doesn’t often encounter this ability, but we are fortunate in New York to have several examples of it. Among my very favorites is Repin’s portrait of the short story writer Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin.

There are many paintings that painstakingly record the details of their subject, missing nothing except what is most important, the life, the truth about the subject. To do this an artist needs to be able to select, to perceive what is important and what is not, and to record it accordingly—beautifully. Art is a thing of the mind, not of the hand. This is why I love this portrait so very much; it reflects the painter’s mind while embodying the soul of its subject.To a viewer who is unfamiliar with the work of the great Russian painter Ilia Repin (1844–1930), this probing portrait of Garshin may appear photographic, especially in a small black and white reproduction. I assure you, it is wonderfully painted. It is the rare type of canvas that loses its self-consciousness as a painting, while retaining the sensuality of the paint. Repin’s painterly technique does not obtrude upon the subject; the artist’s hand is evident, but not distracting. He is like a musician who allows you to experience the music first, though you are quite aware that the music cannot exist exclusive of the musician, or his notes. He tastefully does not draw attention to his technique, as Giovanni Boldini so often did to his detriment. The brush is used in service of the subject, beautifully descriptive and probing, capturing what is essential to the subject with an economy of means. Repin is not merely a mirror that reflects; he is an artist before nature, selecting and distilling the very essence of his subject. Garshin’s intense gaze, so compelling and so alive, is more than paint on canvas; it is the visual perception of another living soul. This is not the mindless visual description of a man. This painting retains the integrity of the individual. It is far beyond description; it is art.
Repin is a painter’s painter as well. Observe the play of brushstrokes that make up the books, papers, and desk. Repin loves his brush strokes, but he knows their place in a painting. When one sees a Repin, one sees a visual feast of strokes, texture, color, and design. This particular painting has a very straightforward design that is appropriate for its subject. Anyone familiar with Repin’s Zaporozhye Cossacks Writing a Mocking Letter to the Turkish Sultan (1880–81) is aware of the scale of Repin’s tremendous compositional abilities. Unfortunately, there are precious few paintings of his in this country. We are fortunate enough to have this remarkable portrait at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the gallery where it hangs, you will see many paintings, but in Repin alone will you see truth.

BY JAMES HARRINGTON
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​At Christie’s over the last few weeks, two experts in old master paintings and drawings quietly left the auction house.
Their departures followed a year of spotty sales, in which the values of works by old masters — a pantheon of European painters working before around 1800 — fell by 33 percent, according to the 2016 Tefaf Art Market Report.
At a time when contemporary art is all the rage among collectors, viewers and donors, many experts are questioning whether old master artwork — once the most coveted — can stay relevant at auction houses, galleries and museums.
Having struggled with shrinking inventory and elusive profits, auction houses appear to be devoting most of their attention and resources to contemporary art, the most popular area of their business.
“They want to be associated with the new and the now,” said Edward Dolman, chairman and chief executive of Phillips auction house, who spent much of his career at Christie’s chasing works by old masters but now focuses on contemporary art.
“We have no intention of selling old masters pictures or 18th-, 19th-century pictures, because these markets are now so small and dwindling,” he added. “The new client base at the auction houses — and the collecting tastes of those clients — have moved away from this veneration of the past.”
A shortage of old master treasures, fewer up-and-coming old master specialists and public attention on the highest-selling pictures (which are in the contemporary market) are partly responsible for the shift in emphasis.
The London dealer Guy Sainty, who has long specialized in old masters, said that he is mystified and frustrated. “I’ve been an art dealer for nearly 40 years, and I just don’t get it — I don’t understand where the collectors have gone, the people with knowledge,” he said. "There’s a sense somewhere that the American collector has simply lost interest in European culture.”
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​​The old masters category generally denotes the period after the Renaissance and mostly describes European artists — including Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Goya and El Greco — who were known for their highly detailed, realistic paintings and drawings, along with the floral still lifes of Flemishmasters like Jan Brueghel the Elder.
To be sure, there is still a public appetite for viewing old masters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s show “Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France,” for example, drew more than 165,000 visitors. The Getty and the Frick Collection, which focus on historic works, say attendance remains strong.
When prime masterworks do come up for auction, they perform well, as evidenced by the $58 million paid in July for Peter Paul Rubens’s “Lot and His Daughters” at Christie’s London’s old masters sale, the second-most expensive work ever sold at auction by the artist.
But masterpieces surface only rarely; private owners tend to hold onto them, as do museums. “It’s a real supply problem,” Mr. Dolman said.
An appreciation for old masters, experts say, also requires a deeper history of collecting and an educated eye. Christie’s, for example, trains its old master specialists for six to seven years, whereas its contemporary experts get three to four years. And new collectors tend to find contemporary art more accessible.

“People who buy into the old master field have more connoisseurship — maybe more passion,” said Christophe Van de Weghe, a Madison Avenue dealer specializing in blue-chip work by modern masters from Matisse to Basquiat.
Some attribute the increasing interest in contemporary art to the rising popularity of contemporary architecture. “People who come into the contemporary field like colors that go well with their couches,” Mr. Van de Weghe said.
“All these new buildings — with high ceilings, big windows,” he added, “they scream for contemporary art.”

​Old master curators are also increasingly hard to come by. In university art history programs in the United States, contemporary art is “by far, the most popular,” reports Richard Meyer, an art history professor at Stanford University, in his book “What Was Contemporary Art?”
“We’re losing a sense of the value of the past, including the value of past art,” Mr. Meyer said in an interview, “not just the aesthetic value, but the ways in which it can teach us about the cultures and the people who came before us.”

To fill curatorial positions, museums are having to look to Europe. The Getty, for example, recently hired Davide Gasparotto — the former director of the Galleria Estense in Modena, Italy — as its senior curator of paintings.
“You can’t find curators with the right training and knowledge of European art in American art graduate programs anymore,” Mr. Sainty said. “They want to do contemporary art.”

While acknowledging that the old masters market can be “very spiky,” Alexander Bell, the worldwide co-chairman of Sotheby’s old master paintings department, said: “We still very much believe in old masters,” adding that “we’ve all got to evolve in the way we present our material and engage with our clients.”

The art world is making adjustments, juxtaposing old masters alongside contemporary artists in exhibitions, galleries, art fairs and auction sales. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is planning a $600 million wing for contemporary and modern art; in March, it filled its temporary satellite, the Met Breuer, with unfinished works from the 15th century to the present, presenting Renaissance masters like Titian and Rembrandt alongside contemporary artists like Brice Marden and Kerry James Marshall.

Last year, the museum started an online series called “The Artist Project,” in which contemporary artists talk about historical works at the Met that inspired them — like John Currin on Ludovico Carracci’s 1582 oil on canvas, “The Lamentation.”
“When you hear contemporary artists talking with passion about the genius of old masters — that, we assume, will help open up the historical fields to new audiences,” Thomas P. Campbell, the director and chief executive of the Met, said, “to understand that all art was once contemporary.”

Similarly, the Art Institute of Chicago’s recent show of old master portrait prints explored how artists like van Dyck influenced contemporary artists like Chuck Close. “We brought printmaking into the present,” said James Rondeau, the museum’s president and director.
This mixing of genres has been prominently tested at Christie’s themed sales, which include works from many different time periods.

Perhaps they would rather put their resources into other, potentially more profitable departments,” said Nicholas Hall, the former co-chairman of old master paintings at Christie’s, who left in July, along with Benjamin Peronnet, Christie’s head of old master and 19th-century drawings.
While the Frick is eager to reach today’s audience, the museum is also wary of straying from its mission of showing classic European art and sculpture.

“A lot of museums are focused on a false dichotomy — if they get young people in through contemporary exhibitions they’ll stay and get interested in old masters,” said Ian Wardropper, the Frick’s director. “I just don’t believe it. The point is to try to reach them in an intelligent way on their own terms and make it interesting — and that’s not easy; we’re all struggling with that.”

In light of these developments, old masters have become a collecting opportunity. Printings and engravings can go for $4,000 to $5,000. While Orazio Gentileschi’s 17th-century “Danae” sold at Sotheby’s in January for $30.5 million, “that is less than a Christopher Wool and half the price of a Warhol,” Mr. Sainty said. “You can buy a really good Rembrandt for $40 to $50 million. That’s not a lot of money when you think about how many Rembrandts there are — and how many Jeff Koons.”
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