Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Docent Recruiting for fall

Hi Everyone,


We will be starting a new class of docents in mid-September, and I am holding a couple of Docent Information Sessions in August. I am hoping that you can please pass these dates on to your friends/family/colleagues/anyone you think might be interested in learning about the program. If you belong to any organizations (churches, cultural organizations, civic groups, book clubs, etc.) that you think would like to receive flyers about the docent program, please let me know and I’ll put them on the mailing list to receive information later this month. In these sessions I go over all the details of the program and answer questions, and then people have a few weeks to think it over before the program actually begins.


I am also hoping that I can have one active docent attend each of the sessions to answer questions and give your perspective on the program. Please let me know if this interests you and/or if you’re free. It’s very informal but gives prospective docents a chance to hear from you.

 

The dates are:

Thursday, August 12, 6:00 p.m.

Tuesday, August 17, 10:30 a.m.

Thursday, August 26, 6:00 p.m.

 

These will all be held at the museum.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Tara

 

 

Tara Young

Associate Curator of Education

 

TACOMA ART MUSEUM

1701 Pacific Avenue

Tacoma, WA 98402

253.272.4258 x 3016

 

 

Long Suspect, a Vermeer Is Vindicated by $30 Million Sale

Long Suspect, a Vermeer Is Vindicated by $30 Million
Sale
By CAROL VOGEL

Published: July 8, 2004


LONDON, July 7 — The first painting by the Dutch
master Johannes Vermeer to come to auction in more
than 80 years — and one that for decades has been
suspected of being fake — sold for $30 million
Wednesday night at Sotheby's here.

The overflowing salesroom burst into applause when
George Gordon, an expert in the Sotheby's old-master
paintings department, took the winning bid by
telephone. While the auction house is not saying who
the buyer was, it is believed to be Stephen A. Wynn,
the Las Vegas casino owner.

For years Mr. Wynn has collected trophy paintings by
the great masters: Rembrandt, Rubens, Cézanne, Renoir,
Picasso and Sargent.

Other possible buyers, experts say, could have been
the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. (Scott J.
Schaefer, its chief curator, was in the audience) and
Lord Thomson of Fleet, one of the richest men in
Canada.

Still, most experts in the room thought the buyer was
Mr. Wynn. If it was, he was one of seven determined
bidders. Robert Noortman, an old-master paintings
dealer based in Maastricht, the Netherlands, also
tried hard to buy the painting. He stopped bidding at
$25.7 million. Mr. Noortman, who was sitting in the
front row, said before the auction that he wanted to
buy it for his inventory.

"Whoever bought the picture outbid one of the most
experienced dealers in the business," said Rachel
Mauro, a Manhattan art dealer who was at the sale. "As
a Vermeer — and I happen to believe it really is a
Vermeer — the price isn't that crazy. If it did go to
Las Vegas, it would certainly look good there."

The sale price of the painting includes Sotheby's
commission: 20 percent of the first $100,000 and 12
percent of the rest.

"We were extremely pleased," said Alexander Bell, head
of Sotheby's old-master paintings department in
London. "It is unlikely that a painting by Vermeer
will ever come to the market again."

When Sotheby's first announced the sale in March,
auction house officials estimated it would bring $5.4
million, a price far lower than what a second-rate
Impressionist painting might fetch at auction.

They were obviously nervous. For decades the
authenticity of the painting, "Young Woman Seated at
the Virginal," has been in dispute. But after 10 years
of study and testing by a group of scholars, museum
curators, painting conservators, costume experts,
paint analysts and auction house experts, Sotheby's
said it was confident it was genuine.

Sotheby's promoted the auction vigorously with
advertising, hoping to attract collectors from around
the world. Vermeer's popularity has been fueled in
recent months by the best-selling novel "Girl With a
Pearl Earring" and the 2003 movie based on it.

The painting, which served as the cover image on the
old-master sales catalog this year, has an entry that
is 22 pages long and includes an extensive history as
well as pictures of color pigment tests.

The canvas is small — 10 by 8 inches — and dates from
around 1670. It shows an intimate scene of a young
woman seated at a virginal, a type of harpsichord,
with her eyes gazing directly at the viewer. It is the
last genre scene by this artist in private hands apart
from one owned by Queen Elizabeth II. The last Vermeer
to appear at auction was "The Little Street"
(1658-1660), which was included in a sale in Amsterdam
in 1921. It failed to sell and was later bought by a
collector who donated it to the Rijksmuseum in
Amsterdam.

While technical evidence had supported the theory that
"Young Woman Seated at the Virginal" was by Vermeer,
it was not until the process of cleaning the canvas
was completed about six months ago in the Netherlands
by Martin Bijl, the former head of painting
conservation at the Rijksmuseum, that the majority of
experts and scholars endorsed the painting.

Until now only 34 paintings have been fully accepted
as by Vermeer, who was not a prolific artist and who
died young, at 43, in 1675.

Nobody had disagreed with the attribution until Han
van Meegeren, a master forger, revealed a half-century
ago that between 1927 and 1943 he had sold fake
Vermeers to unsuspecting museums and collectors. The
art scholar A. B. de Vries then excluded this painting
from an important monograph.

For much of the 20th century the painting languished
in near obscurity. From the description in a
17th-century sales catalog, the painting once belonged
to Pieter van Ruijven, Vermeer's most important
patron. By the early 19th century, it was owned by
Wessel Ryers, a Dutch collector. By 1904 it was
documented as a Vermeer in the collection of Sir
Alfred Beit, a collector in Ireland, who also owned
the artist's famous "Lady Writing a Letter to Her
Maid." In 1960 the painting was sold to Baron Freddy
Rolin, a Belgian dealer, who died in 2001. It is his
family who sold the painting now.

Experts at Sotheby's compared it to two larger
Vermeers at the National Gallery in London, "A Lady
Standing at the Virginal" and another portrait of a
lady seated at a virginal, both also late paintings by
the artist.

The auction house and Baron Rolin also consulted Libby
Sheldon, who runs the paintings analysis unit at
University College in London. She analyzed the
pigments and was able to find corresponding ones used
by the artist in authenticated works.

Ms. Sheldon also studied the painting's canvas and
discovered that it matched the one used in "The
Lacemaker," which is in the Louvre. "The two are so
similar," Ms. Sheldon said, "they could have been cut
from the same bolt of cloth."

=====
Sanjeev Narang
email: ask-(/at/)-eConsultant.com
http://www.sanjeev.net



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Please RSVP for Dinner after Seattle Art Museum Visit on July 19th

Hello Fellow Docents + Friends

We are all going to see the "Van Gogh to Mondrian: Modern Art from the
Kröller-Müller Museum" at the Seattle Art Museum. You have already
RSVPed Tara for the guided tour visit.

This is to ask you if you'd like to join us for dinner after the guided tour.

Please RSVP to Sanjeev (reply to this email) if you are joining us for dinner.

Based on the head count, we may go to either a single place or to
multiple dining places very near the Seattle Art Musuem. We'll walk
it.

***

(Carpooling: For those interested in carpooling from the Tacoma Art
Museum to the SAM, please indicate that in the email too.)

***

Regards,
Sanjeev Narang

***

email: ask (at) eConsultant dot com
www.Sanjeev.net

OOPS...disregard that first posting

I screwed up! I asked for coverage on days I am not
scheduled! Sorry!
What I meant was, looking for coverage on Friday 8/13
and Friday 8/27 from 12:30 to 4:30. I can still work
on any weekend shift on Sat. or Sun. 8/14 or 8/15, or
8/21 and 8/22...anyone want to switch?
Thanks!
Sorry to be confusing!
Holly



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

schedule changes?

Hi everyone!
Hope you all had a great 4th of July!

I'm wondering if anyone would be available to cover my
8/6 and 8/20 Friday afternoon (12:30-4:30) shifts? I
would love to switch with a weekend person and could
cover a Saturday or Sunday shift on 8/14 or 15, or on
8/20 or 8/21... I just have some unusual work
conflicts that are interfering with my normal Friday
afternoon shifts in August. Thank you! Just send me
an email at: hollypennington@yahoo.com if you would
like to switch!

Holly



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

Sunday, July 04, 2004

Andy Goldsworthy Book + Catalog - Message from Jana

We haven't received any signed copies of Goldsworthy but we did get in more catalogs and the 2 books we had previously-- Stone and Wood -- in case you needed any of those. We only received 56 copies of the catalog and that's all we'll have to tide us over through September. Get one while they are here. Please let other docents know that too. You get 20% off exhibit catalogs, after all!

Jana

--
Regards,
Sanjeev Narang

***

email: ask (at) eConsultant dot com
www.Sanjeev.net