THE National Gallery’s exhibition ‘Dürer’s Journeys’ (until February 27, 2022) finally opened last month. I have yet to see it, but some early visitors suggested it has been a little overstuffed. Anyone attracted by the principle that less is more, however, can put it to the test at a second Dürer show that opened on the same day.
‘Dürer and his Time’ (until December 12) is Agnews’ contribution to London Art Week (LAW; December 3–10) and it centres on the most important Old Master drawing to be discovered for decades. The 6½in by 6½in pen and-ink The Virgin and Child with a Flower on a Grassy Bench (Fig 1) was bought unframed in an American ‘yard’ or contents sale for $30 about five years ago by a Massachusetts couple, who then spotted and secured its frame.
No one was willing to give it much credence, assuming it to be fake or perhaps an engraving, until, led by a series of coincidences, Cliff Schorer, the entrepreneur and collector who is now a shareholder in Agnews, visited the couple. He has a well-deserved reputation for spotting sleepers, but was bowled over by this: ‘I have spent my life disbelieving things. Now, here I was out on the thinnest of limbs. But I was sure it was right.’
Denne historien er fra December 01, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra December 01, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
