Bernard Berenson: A life in the picture trade

Picture: Amazon

Rachel Cohen Bernard Berenson: A life in the picture trade Yale University Press 2013, £18.99 

This short study is one of the best books written about Bernard Berenson, an art historian and one of the most fascinating figures in the intellectual life of the twentieth century. Rachel Cohen's beautifully written book brings balance and good sense to a subject that has has too often been distorted by hucksters and sensationalists. Mind you, his life was pretty sensational. Cohen describes him as "dignified and erudite but also capricious and heedlessly romantic; his arrogance was matched by his self-contempt" (p. 4). He was a great connoisseur, but his reputation is tainted by his secret association with notorious art dealer Joseph Duveen. He was a great reader and writer, and an art collector in his own right (unfortunately his collection is withheld from the world, cocooned in Harvard's study centre that has colonised his Villa I Tatti outside Florence). He was in many ways a nineteenth century figure stranded in the wrong time, a conservative - even a reactionary - who lived through Italy's fascist years, spending part of the war in hiding. 

Cohen's study focuses on a few key themes: his Jewishness; his relationships with women; and his life in the picture trade. The book was written for Yale's Jewish Lives series, but Berenson's relationship to his Jewish heritage, whilst interesting, is not central to his life. Fortunately it's not central to this book either. His relationships with the women he was close to are much more interesting. Cohen discusses his sisters, his early patron Isabella Stewart Gardner, his wife Mary Costelloe, his librarian/companion Nicky Mariano, Edith Wharton, and  J.P. Morgan's librarian and amanuensis Bella da Costa Greene. See also the cover photo, above! Berenson is renowned as a great conversationalist and correspondent who drew many of the greatest intellectuals of the twentieth century into his orbit (his correspondence with Hugh Trevor-Roper has recently been published). This book's focus on his more intimate relationships gives a different window on the life of his mind, and there are some wonderful quotations from his letters to Mary Costelloe, whom he later married. But most interesting is Cohen's take on Berenson's notorious connections to the picture trade.

Cohen appreciates the tension between Berenson's "passion for painting and his desire for wealth and security" (p. 272). Berenson's secret arrangement with Duveen is notorious, and he stands accused of puffing pictures that Duveen was trying to sell, and altering attributions to promote sales and earn his 25% profit share. Cohen rightly redresses the balance of blame, highlighting cases where he resisted pressure and recognising his internal conflict. She is nuanced on the question of Berenson's culpability, and rightly highlights the double standards between posterity's judgment of Duveen and of Berenson: "Toward both Duveen and Berenson, people were, and continue to be, indulgent, competitive, exculpatory, and dismissive - but, whereas Duveen is seen as charming, Berenson is both adulated and condemned" (p. 207).

Berenson had a major blind spot, which is that he dealt in images rather than painting. Cohen notes that he worked from photographs and "sometimes seemed almost unaware of what might be restoration" (p. 221). It's a flaw that we associate particularly with our own times, when internet images are so readily available. But many earlier art historians, curators and collectors were ignorant about pictures as physical objects. Berenson was sometimes critical of Duveen's outrageous restorations, but he was still complicit - and this is a far worse crime than signing a few optimistic attributions. His attributions transferred some wealth illicitly from American millionaires to himself and his partners - wrong, but relatively trifling in historical perspective. More damaging was the disservice to scholarship, but that's something that can be set right over time. It's his collaboration with Duveen's wholesale scrubbing of the works that passed through his hands that is most damning and most unforgivable because it has robbed us all of part of our artistic patrimony. Cohen's discussion of this is strong (pp. 221-223), but she could have made more of this shameful practice.

There are a few places where the art history is off-key. Rodolphe Kann did not own "ten glorious Rembrandts" (p. 167; some of his 'Rembrandts' are dreadful daubs, although he did own the great Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer), and his Castagno was uncertainly attributed when Duveen was negotiating its sale, though it is now generally accepted (interestingly its current owner, the National Gallery in Washington considers it a Castagno, but the author of its own catalogue, Miklos Boskovits, disagrees). But this short, erudite and articulate study redresses the balance of Berenson scholarship. I found the short length and narrow focus to be advantageous in addressing the most interesting controversies about this most interesting man, but our understanding could be enriched further by more research on the context of twentieth century connoisseurship and the art market.

Berenson's life is fascinating, but because he was such a great exemplar of a certain kind of intellectual, because he was clubbable and connected and articulate, and because he was flawed and human, his role has tended to be exaggerated. He was one of many experts for hire, and Duveen was only one of many flamboyant art dealers. It's not a criticism of this book, but the literature on twentieth century art dealing and connoisseurship is rather one-sided. Berenson is especially interesting for the conflict between high-minded ideas and grubby dealings that he personified. Other experts were the same, except that they lacked the high-minded ideals. There is much more to be said about connoisseurship and the twentieth century picture trade. 

Marco Grasso has written a fine review for The New Criterion, with more background on Berenson.

How to write about auctions (& Old Master sales update)

Picture: Telegraph

Felix Salmon has written a superb post on how to write about art auctions. His Four Rules are:

• It isn't a market for masterpieces - auction turnover has always been skewed towards top lots, so the endlessly repeated claim that only masterpieces do well 'in the current market' is bunkum; 'twas ever thus. The top 20% of lots have consistently made up 90% of auction proceeds.
• Ignore auction records - markets are fickle and a new record for the latest hotshot doesn't mean much. This point is mainly relevant in contemporary sales. 
• Adjust for inflation. Inflation is a measure of the value of money. If you want to measure the changing value of art, rather than just the changing value of money, you've got to adjust for inflation.
• Make judgments. That's the most important point. Interesting sale reports make judgments about the aesthetic value of art as well as its market value. Many auction reports just regurgitate press releases and list numbers. The best add insight.  

I'd add two more rules:

• Adjust for premium. Estimates are given for the hammer price, to guide bidders. Results include premium, to show how much was actually paid for a lot. So a work that they claim sold for its low estimate might actually have achieved a hammer price nearly a third below the low estimate. The auction houses don't make it easy for buyers with their stepped premiums. They don't provide a simple calculator to help bidders - but I do! Try my Auction Premium Calculator.
• Be very, very cautious of generalising. Sample sizes are tiny and comparisons are inexact. Was that lot unsold because it's out of fashion, or because it's in poor condition? The art market deals in unique items sold in low volumes. Is a particular artist 'hot', or is it just that a few of his best works have changed hands this year? I'm especially wary of comparing the success of Sotheby's and Christie's. You're comparing a sample of two, where one or two lots or consignments make all the difference. And without knowing the terms they've negotiated with the sellers. there is no way of judging their commercial success as opposed simply to their relative turnover. 

Old Master Auction Update

There were some wonderful things in the recent Old Master auctions in London, but the results show the relative irrelevance of Old Masters to the art market. This week Sotheby's sold a Norman Rockwell for more than the entire Christie's Old Master Paintings day sale, evening sale and Old Master Prints sale combined. Bendor Grosvenor noted that you could buy the entire Christie's sale for half the price of Jeff Koons' Orange Dog.

Following my rule above, I've adjusted all of the estimates below (in parentheses) to include  the premium.

Most of the lots I thought cheap did well. The Van der Weyden copy made £962,500 (£242,500 - £362,500), the drawing from Raphael's circle made £7,500 (£1,000 - £1,500), the Rembrandt print £104,500 (£37,500 - £62,500) and the Menzel print made £27,500 (against an estimate of just £3,750 - £6,250 that tempted even the impecunious Grumpy). Excellent impressions of great prints by Rembrandt and Durer did well, but a rare and famous Schongauer The Tribulations of St Anthony failed to sell, perhaps because it had a large repair. 

There were some bargains in the Christie's drawings sale (Vasari for £6k, Federico Zuccaro for £3k). A copy of A Striding Soldier, a detail from Michelangelo's Battle of Cascina made £52,500 against an estimate of just £1,250 - £1,875. I thought at the viewing that the estimate must have been deliberately low to encourage the punters. It's a polished red chalk drawing, large and decorative in a nice frame. But I didn't expect it to do so well, and it didn't greatly appeal to me. I thought the draughtsman's skill fell short of his ambition, but perhaps I've been spoiled by seeing too many drawings by the greatest sixteenth century masters.

The Jan Brueghel that I thought poor value failed to sell. Most of the highly-estimated pictures sold within estimated range, many at the lower end. I thought the Heem good value at £1,314,500 (£1,762,500 - £2,882,500). It looked much better in real life than in reproduction. The Rembrandt and Studio that I wrote about made £2,546,500 (£2,322,500 - £3,442,500). Seems reasonable for a picture that's at least partly a Rembrandt, but is rather damaged as I discussed in my earlier post.

Picture: Sotheby's

The Rubens Hercules and Omphale that interested me sold for £398,500 (£242,500 - £362,500). I thought it would have done better, but its quality was conspicuously variable and parts were quite weak. This Rubens portrait, above, made £3,218,500 at Sotheby's, well above its estimate of £482,500 - £722,500. I thought it was good, but not that good! Rubens often amended other artists' drawings, and in this case he's painted over another artist's portrait. It looks a bit like a Velazquez from the X-ray, though obviously there's no way to be certain. I wonder how much of that three million quid is for the anecdote.

Picture: Bonhams

The great surprise to me was that the Fragonard sold for just £17,106,500. It's one of the best pictures I've seen at auction in recent years, and it's also historically important. I'm not a great fan of Fragnonard or of Rococo art, but I was bowled over by this. It would have been a better acquisition for the Getty than the tiny Rembrandt self-portrait and Canaletto that they bought recently, and it would be better to acquire this for the nation than the Van Dyck Self-Portrait (though ideally we'd buy both...). It's such a direct and accessible image I thought it would have appealed to a wider range of mega-rich collectors than the usual old master crowd. A lovely Prud'hon portrait that I thought rather highly estimated failed to sell at the same sale.

Admirable and abysmal presentation at the Ashmolean

The Shoemaker Pot (Picture: Ashmolean)

I don't know much about Greek vases, but I like them.  They are outside my main artistic interests, but I've enjoyed hours perusing collections from Malibu to Moscow.  I've recently read excellent popular books based on the collections in the Met, the Getty and the Berlin Antikensammlung, which have given me a bit more knowledge and helped develop my appreciation.  But whereas in galleries of European paintings I read the wall text so that I can heckle the attributions, I'm still reliant on the curators to help me make sense of Greek vases.  In the Ashmolean they've let me down. 

The Ashmolean has one of the best collections of Greek vases in the world - certainly the best in the UK after the British Museum.  The presentation is thematic rather than chronological, which is quite common in displays of ancient art.  That makes it harder to show the development of Greek art, but it can still be an effective heuristic - the Getty Villa does a great job of combining a predominantly thematic display with enough chronological exhibits to make sense of historical development.  But at the Ashmolean the presentation is crushingly banal.  Here is the text of the 'Women and Children' section:

Women in most city-states of ancient Greece had very few rights.  They were under the control and protection of their husband or a male relative for their entire lives and had no role in politics.  Most women spent their waking hours in the preparation of cloth: whether carding, spinning or weaving wool.  To be considered respectable, women would remain at home, only going out for festivals or to fetch water from a public well.  The only important public role for a woman was to be a priestess.  Marriages were arranged by parents and dowries were paid to the groom's family.  Marriage was usually for purposes of family alliance rather than love (although Eros, the god of love, figures large in wedding imagery).

The only point where this touches on art is a parenthetic reference to the god of love featuring in wedding imagery (who'd have guessed?).   The Ashmolean is a museum of archaeology as well as art, and I think it's completely legitimate to tell the wider story of ancient society.  But even as social history this is pretty thin and unnuanced.  In any case, it shouldn't have to be a choice between either social history or art; Greek vases are valuable both as records of ancient Greek society and as great works of art that have resonated through history.  Other museums manage successfully to convey both aspects. 

 

Some Greek vases are signed, occasionally by both potter and painter.  Others have been grouped together under conventional names.  Generations of scholarship have brought us closer to the individual creative minds of ancient Greece.  The Ashmolean has examples by some of the greatest vase painters, but you wouldn't know it from the captions because they don't name any artist on the exhibit labels.  That's right.  Pause and read that again.  They really don't even name the artists. 

There is lively debate about the role of the individual artist in ancient Greece, and some are sceptical of applying methods of connoisseurship developed in the context of renaissance European art to the study of ancient Greece.  I certainly agree that assigning authorship shouldn't be the sole purpose of scholarship; that would be arid indeed.  But individual styles are readily apparent, and the presence of signatures (rare even in early renaissance art) must indicate some contemporary recognition of artistic personality.  I simply cannot comprehend any rationale for expunging all reference to authorship. 

 

Objects are subsumed in thematic stories, with only minimal information about individual vases.  The caption next to one piece is "Man and boy making love.  The nature of Greek homosexual love is the subject of current academic debate."  That is possibly the worst caption I've ever read.  We can see that it's a man and boy making love.  And to be told that there is an academic debate without giving us any information whatsoever about that debate is tantamount to saying 'move along people, academics are talking about this - we'll get back to you when we've concluded the debate, and in the meantime there's a gift shop just downstairs...'. 

 

The contrast in the renaissance bronzes display is refreshing and reassuring.  Some are shown in the paintings galleries, with others grouped together in their own room.  The accompanying text is short and relevant.  If you  want to learn more, there are folders of information provided in the room.  These samizdat binders have none of the glossiness of the wall text for Greek vases, but the content is really useful.  Timothy Wilson, the Keeper responsible for these galleries, will be displaying the Michael Wellby gift of renaissance silver.  I can see why Wellby entrusted it to the Ashmolean, and I share his confidence that they'll do justice to his collection. 

 

I felt that I was being invited in to join a conversation about the renaissance bronzes.  The curators were sharing their knowledge and interest, giving anyone the chance to follow at least part of the way towards their expertise.  If they were dealing with a scene of Greek gay sex I suspect they'd hand out copies of Kenneth Dover's Greek Homosexuality and give you a quick update of the debate since then. 

I was actually angry when I first saw what they'd done with the display of Greek vases.  On sober reflection, I feel belittled.  It felt like the they were trying to flatter our preconceptions and then send us on our way.  They should have higher regard for their patrons, and we should be more critical and more demanding of our museums.  I'm not writing this from a position of any authority.  I'm just a museum visitor who'd like some help, and who appreciates curators sharing their expertise rather than fobbing me off with assurance that the important academics are debating stuff.  I'm sorry to be so grumpy about a museum I love so much, but this really won't do. 

A problematic drawing

Picture: Ashmolean

The most sensitive connoisseurs not only hold different views on this drawing; they espouse those views with utter certainty, and incredulity that disagreement is possible.  It's a drawing of Charity related to the fresco to the right of Pope Urban I in the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican (see image below), and it's either by Raphael, or a copy by a good artist from his immediate circle.  I saw it at the Ashmolean in Oxford on Saturday. 

 

The mount labels it "? Raphael", and the Ashmolean website lists it as copy after Raphael, but it is in a box with authentic Raphaels.  The 1956 (reprinted 1972) catalogue by the excellent Karl Parker states that "there can be no doubt at all that it is a copy" (no. 665, p. 352).  Parker was a perceptive scholar and is an excellent guide to Raphael, but he was abstemious in attribution.  In the catalogue of the 1983 Raphael drawings exhibition at the British Museum, J.A. Gere and Nicholas Turner conclude that it is a copy by Penni.

 

On the other hand, Paul Joannides states that the attribution "is controversial, but needlessly so, for its inventiveness, both of arrangement and drawing style, is quite beyond any of Raphael's pupils" (The Drawings of Raphael, University of California Press 1983 p. 124 - cat. 453 and plate 46).  Joannides is probably the most eminent scholar of Raphael drawings, and I have found him an indispensable guide.  But I think he's wrong on this one. 

 

The woman's face is picked out with shading that closely imitates Raphael's style, but lacks his subtlety.  The drapery over the legs is not well related to the rest of the drawing, which becomes particularly apparent when you view it upside down, to get a sense of the tonal relationships.  Gere and Turner are right to criticise inconsistency of touch, with excessively dark shadows.  The elbows in particular lack Raphael's ability to capture light and shade.  Even in the reproduction above you can see the dark lump marking the elbow of the suckling child on the left.

Joannides is impressed with the foreshortening.  I'm not.  The arm of the child on the right seems almost foreshortened in reverse.  The forearm is excessive large and prominent, although it recedes from the picture plane.  It's noteworthy that this is a divergence from the completed fresco (below), where it continues straight rather than twisting down.  The contrapposto of this figure is also more awkward in the drawing.
 

Condition was not discussed by the sources I cite above.  There is some wear, particularly in the standing child.  It is at least plausible that this is a Raphael re-worked by an assistant.  Indeed, the very quality of finish speaks against Raphael's authorship; it reads more as a highly polished work of art in its own right rather than a working study, and Raphael's drawings seem always to be working studies.  However, there is insufficient variety of style and handling to conclude that two artists of markedly different ability worked on this sheet, and I don't think there is sufficient evidence to attribute even tentatively to Raphael.   

 

It's easier to make the case against this being by Raphael than to make the positive case for another attribution.  The attribution to Giulio Romano has generally been dismissed, partly because the drawing is so close to Raphael, and Giulio was a more distinctive personality.  He continued to be a very prolific draughtsman after Raphael's death, but abandoned chalk medium - maybe because he couldn't meet Raphael's standard. To my eyes, the handling of the face in particular is close to Giulio.  It seems to me plausible to speculate that this was an example of Giulio following Raphael unusually closely, but that must remain mere speculation; there is no strong visual evidence for his authorship.  The attribution to Penni is perhaps more likely, but this drawing seems to me to good to be Penni's.  Parker's 'After Raphael' seems right.

New Titian?

Picture: Guardian

The Guardian reports on a Titian rediscovery at the NG, followed up at Art History News (which points out that it's actually rather old news anyway).  I haven't seen it yet, so I'll refrain from commenting on the attribution, but a couple of things struck me about the story.

 

First, there is nothing on the NG press page.  They have given this as an exclusive to Jonathan Jones, who got a meeting with the Director and then wrote a gushing article about it.  That kind of media favouritism is very bad form.  Art journalism is already far too incestuous and uncritical. 

 

Second, I rate Jonathan Jones as one of the best in the business, but he says some really stupid things.  I just cannot imagine what makes him insist on the superiority of the NG's Titian collection - it's not even relevant to the story.  On the other hand, I was impressed by the quality of the commentary by readers, who make some astutely critical points.

 

Finally I'm concerned by Nicholas Penny's reported dislike of the term 'attributed', which he considers 'scholarly waffle'.  Waffle is unwelcome, but there's nothing wrong with being scholarly.  And I think the term 'attributed' is indispensable.  It admits to a degree of uncertainty that is often unavoidable.  Better that the NG is open about areas of scholarly debate rather than tries to impose certainty where there is none.   

The Shaping of Art History

Photo: Amazon

I enjoyed Patricia Emison's book on the discipline of art history.  Her critical discussion of feminist art history is especially deft and I liked the comment that, "We cannot of course look at works of art with perfectly impersonal eyes, but we can try to make looking at art an exercise in being human rather than merely frail, mortal, cultured and gendered." (p. 75)  In such a short book on such a big topic it's inevitable that it sometimes has a provisional quality.  You can choose to see that as a limitation, but I  relished it as an invitation to further thinking - not so much a lecture as a chat in the pub.  There's an excellent short bibliography if you want to read more. 

 

Emison's discussion of connoisseurship provides balance and perspective in a debate noted for stridency.  She notes that taste in methodology is supplanting taste in art, and that the connoisseurs seeking to establish their status have been usurped by theorists invoking the status of fashionable thinkers.  It's now a canon of art historians rather than a canon of art history.  Her defence of breadth in an time of narrow specialism is welcome beyond just art history, and I thought many of the book's themes speak to wider debates about the academy.