Displaying items by tag: silk

Of all the billionaires that come and go on the Forbes China Rich List, Liu Yiqian is certainly the one with the biggest appetite for art. Liu, who ranked No. 220 with a net worth of $ 1 billion, yesterday bought a 600-year-old imperial embroidered Tibetan tapestry at a Christie’s auction for $ 348 million Hong Kong dollars ($45 million), setting a record for any Chinese works of art sold by an international auction house.

For the art-savvy Liu, the magnificent piece is too important to miss. The silk tapestry, known as a thangka, is more than three meters tall and two meters wide.

In conjunction with the grand opening of the renovated American Wing, the Baltimore Museum of Art presents "Lessons Learned: American Schoolgirl Embroideries" on view through May 2015. The exhibition features more than 20 samplers and silk embroideries made by American girls who attended schools in Maryland and other states along the East Coast during the 18th and 19th centuries. From opulent to understated, the works provide a fascinating glimpse into early American life.

“The samplers and embroideries on view in 'Lessons Learned' were once displayed by families as showpieces to advertise their daughters’ accomplishments,” said Curator of Textiles Anita Jones. “In working with a needle and thread, these young women learned a skill, diligence, patience, and obedience.”

Sotheby’s has announced that it will be selling Jasper Johns’s "Flag" (1983) during the November 11 Contemporary Art Evening Auction in New York. This particular example of "Flag," which is relatively small at approximately 11 x 17 inches and done in encaustic on silk and collaged onto canvas, carries a price estimate of  $15 million to $20 million. (or about $1 million a square inch.) Before the sale, it will go on something of a grand tour, being showcased to collectors in Los Angeles, Hong Kong and London.

In 2010, Christie’s sold a larger version of a Johns flags, nearly 17 x 26 inches, which was also painted much early, circa 1960-1966, for a record price of $28.6 million.

Art collecting has always been an international affair. Works made in one place are often sought after by people living in another.

Many of the greatest American Pop artworks of the 1960s are in German collections. French Impressionism from the end of the 19th century is superbly represented in the United States.

And going back hundreds of years, collections in Japan began to swell with paintings made across the sea in China. A magnificent show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art chronicles the phenomenon.

"Chinese Paintings From Japanese Collections" is something of a coup. It features 35 scrolls, some consisting of multiple panels, from the Tokyo National Museum and other collections in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. Japanese museums are often reluctant to allow important works to leave the country, even for temporary exhibitions. But LACMA curator Stephen Little has managed a remarkable group of loans — including some that are just now making their premiere abroad.

A 16^th century religious tapestry that was stolen from a Spanish cathedral in 1979 and sold at auction three years ago was returned to Spain on Wednesday, April 17, 2013 by the United States customs service. Special agents from the Homeland Security Investigations division of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement seized the tapestry from the undisclosed Texas business that had purchased it for $369,000 in 2010.

The wool and silk tapestry, which depicts the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, was stolen from the Cathedral of Saint Vincent, Martyr of Roda de Isabena in northeastern Spain. After the work appeared in a Brussels art fair catalogue in 2010, Belgian, Spanish, and U.S. investigators pieced together that a Belgian gallery owner along with two partners from Milan and Paris had acquired the tapestry in 2008.

The tapestry was given to Madrid’s ambassador to Washington, Ramon Gil-Casares, on behalf of his nation at a ceremony at his residence.

Six 140-year-old Japanese silk paintings by Utagawa Kunitsuru have undergone major restoration thanks to Washington, D.C.-based conservator, Yoshi Nishio. The paintings, which measure about 6 feet tall and 21 ½ feet wide, were previously hung in the Decatur House, a historic home and functioning museum, which serves as the National Center for White House History. The Decatur House is located across Lafayette Square from the White House and was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1976.

The paintings are believed to have been created in 1873 during a time of rich cultural exchange between Japan and the United States. The leading theory suggests that President Ulysses S. Grant acquired the works when he visited Japan in 1879 as part of a world tour. Only one of the six paintings is signed and dated.

The works have hung in the Decatur House for over a century and years of smoke, sunlight, and moisture had left the paintings wrinkled and darkened. Nishio, who received the paintings last year, spent hours cleaning the works with water, solvents, cotton swabs, and bamboo brushes with sable bristles. He worked on particularly delicate portions of the paintings with a scalpel under magnification. The paintings also had to be immersed in water to separate them from the boards they had been glued to.      

The paintings, which feature a geisha, a robed samurai, white cranes, cherry blossoms, and a long-tailed rooster, are expected to return to the Decatur House in June 2013.