Museum Blog

  Luca della Robbia (Italian, 1399-1482), Madonna and Child, ca. 1450, tin-glazed terracotta (18½ x 15¾ in.). Photo credit: Sothebys.com.   There were a number of items in Sotheby’s January 28 sale that caught my attention because of their association with Hyde pieces. The first was Lot 2, Luca della Robbi’s terracotta relief, Madonna and…
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I’ve discovered a new form of engrossing pandemic-era online viewing. This week is my favorite week for January sales. Late in the month, various auction houses and dealers in New York host Masters Week. This year, despite a global pandemic, Sotheby’s outdid itself and watching the first of the sales today was, at times, edge-of-the-seat…
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Question: How do you know when a work of art is forged? Answer: You always have to be wary of a forgery, a work that was manufactured to deliberately fool an expert into thinking it is by a more famous artist and therefore more valuable than it really is. Making attributions and properly identifying a…
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Recently, I heard a segment on NCPR about the Trout Lake artist Jeff Davis, who is in Florida during the pandemic lockdown. More accustomed to working in oils, he has taken up watercolors once again, a much trickier medium to manipulate and control. My mind immediately went to a pair of watercolors in The Hyde’s collection…
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Before there was Tinder and the internet, there were artists and diplomats conveying images between potential suitors. There is nothing new in exchanging beguiling pictures. Detail: Bartholomaeus (Barthel/Bartel) Bruyn, the Elder, (German, 1493 – 1555), Portrait of a Lady, ca. 1535, oil on panel (23 1/2 × 29 in.). The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, New York,…
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This post is an experiment. Can our current use of online communications systems provide analogies for the way religious imagery worked on and for the viewer in the Middle Ages? While we’re at home, we can find any number of YouTube videos to watch that are intended to be educational and instructive. I have participated…
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Those of you who took an Art History survey course undoubtedly learnt the name of Giotto. Between 1303 and 1306, he decorated the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy with frescos that narrate the life of Christ. This artistic and architectural commission fulfilled the principal functions of religious art outlined in my previous posting. It provided a setting…
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For Christians, Sunday was Palm Sunday, the day they celebrate, and some even reenact, Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, when his supporters climbed the tress and strew his path with palm fronds. In the Middle Ages, when every church was perceived as a manifestation of the Heavenly Jerusalem, the church became a representation of the early…
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To be honest, I haven’t had time to chill out with a book since this all began for us in the North Country about three weeks ago. In the time before, I was dipping in and out of two books on Leonardo da Vinci (both available on Kindle): Walter Isaacson, Leonardo da Vinci. Martin Kemp and Guiseppe…
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