Displaying items by tag: catalog

The 18th-century cabinetmaker Nathaniel Gould left inkblots in his battered gray notebooks as he recorded the luxurious mahogany output of his workshop in Salem, Mass. His listings of clients and fees, found seven years ago in forgotten boxes at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, have enabled researchers to attribute his mostly unsigned antiques. Next weekend, about 20 of these pieces will go on view at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem in the exhibition “In Plain Sight: Discovering the Furniture of Nathaniel Gould.”

The show’s catalog blends tragic family lore with statistics. Gould’s clients lost their furniture in fires, their fortunes in bankruptcies and war and their family members in shipwrecks. Coffins for children were among his workshop’s frequent commissions.

When Christie's auctioned off Edgar Degas' “Danseuses” for nearly $11 million in 2009, the catalog noted that the masterpiece was being sold as part of a restitution agreement with the “heirs of Ludwig and Margret Kainer,” German Jews whose vast art collection was seized by the Nazis in the years leading up to World War II.

But now a dozen relatives of the Kainers are stepping forward to object. Not only did they fail to benefit from that sale, they say they were never even told about it, or any other auctions of works once owned by the couple, including pieces by Monet and Renoir.

The Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute’s Museum of Art in Utica, New York is sending a collection of Thomas Cole paintings on an 18-month tour to four major art museums. “The Voyage of Life,” a series of four allegorical paintings depicting the different stages of life including “Childhood,” “Youth,” “Manhood,” and “Old Age,” will go to the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, the Saint Louis Art Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Dickson Gallery & Gardens in Memphis, Tennessee. The works will remain at the MWPAI until March 2, 2014.

Cole, the English-born American artist who founded the Hudson River School, was commissioned to paint “The Voyage of Life” by banker Samuel Ward between 1839 and 1840. When Ward passed away, Cole argued with Ward’s heirs over who had custody of the art. Ultimately, the heirs won and Cole painted another version of “The Voyage of Life” for himself. Cole’s second rendition of the series resides in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The MWPAI is producing a catalog to tour with the collection, which will include essays and notes as well as never-before-published material and research about the paintings.