The Burlington Magazine

The Burlington Magazine http://burlington.org.uk/
Over a century of leading research as the world’s longest running art-h

Organising auctions has always been a creative act. Harry Phillips (1766–1839) – the founder of the auction house Philli...
01/08/2025

Organising auctions has always been a creative act. Harry Phillips (1766–1839) – the founder of the auction house Phillips – was a wily entrepreneur in the art world of Regency London. New research on his career published this month, based on annotated auction catalogues, demonstrates how he especially promoted the market for decorative arts and secured such prestigious clients as the Prince of Wales and William Beckford. Magnificent examples of ceramics and furniture that Phillips sold are now in the Royal Collection and the Wallace Collection, London.

In the late seventeenth century the grandest of all households would have their furnishings and upholstery enriched thanks to the skills of a fringemaker. The most accomplished of all such craftsmen working in Restoration Britain was the Frenchman Peter Dufresnoy (1646–1715). A careful reassessment of his life and rare surviving works, presented here for the first time, clarifies our understanding of his extraordinary skills and the patronage he enjoyed. He worked for the Duke of Lauderdale (Ham House), the Earl of Exeter (Burghley House) and Dowager Queen Catherine of Braganza.

Reviews this month cover catalogues of French silver acquired by the richest men in the world of their day – John Paul Getty and Calouste Gulbenkian. Other books include a catalogue of the pre-1700 stained glass in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, as well as new studies of Gothic ivories, the Ponte Vecchio, Pierre Subleyras, Asian books and twentieth-century housing. Among the rich array of exhibitions discussed are shows on Foggini, Marisol and Paula Rego. We also present assessments of new and very different and ambitious museum building projects – the redevelopment of the Frick Collection, New York, and the opening of the V&A East Storehouse, London.

Discover the full list of content: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202508?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=August+25+issue+promo
August's Editorial: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/front-matter/studying-the-decorative-arts?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=August+25+issue+promo+editorial
This month's free review: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/exhibition-review/city-of-others-asian-artistsin-paris-1920s1940s?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=August+25+issue+promo+free+rev

In inviting visitors to consider historic decorative arts through the lens of contemporary art and popular culture, this...
30/07/2025

In inviting visitors to consider historic decorative arts through the lens of contemporary art and popular culture, this exhibition is similar in intent to ‘Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of the French Decorative Arts’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021. Yet beyond the celebration of aesthetic resonances between objects of different periods, ‘Monstrous Beauty’ aims to look beneath the superficial allure of materials imported from Asia in the Early Modern period, such as porcelain, lacquer and mirrored glass, and to question whether European engagement with them – here labelled chinoiserie – instigated and perpetuated negative stereotypes of Asian women.

‘Monstrous Beauty’ is set in the Robert Lehman Pavilion of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, a legendarily challenging space for exhibitions because its centralised plan does not lend itself to creating distinct sections; hence the need for lucid signage, especially in an exhibition such as this one, which encompasses over two hundred objects and a range of complex themes. An exceptional array of decorative arts, paintings, drawings and prints from the Met’s permanent collection are on display, together with impressive loans and equally remarkable examples of Asian contemporary art.

Read Kee Il Choi Jr.’s review of the show, exhibiting until the 17th of August 2025, in our July issue: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo

Image: ‘Woman with a pipe’. c.1760–80. Reverse-painted crown glass, 52.1 by 39.7 cm. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

The suggestion by Elise Effmann Clifford that a portrait of a lady at Parham House, Sussex, depicts Frances Walsingham i...
28/07/2025

The suggestion by Elise Effmann Clifford that a portrait of a lady at Parham House, Sussex, depicts Frances Walsingham is here confirmed by technical examination and comparison with a related portrait of Walsingham in San Francisco. The Parham portrait appears to have been reworked twice: first, by its original artist, who might be tentatively identified as Robert Peake the Elder, and later by another hand, perhaps that of William Segar, whose changes may have been prompted by the death of Walsingham’s first husband, Sir Philip Sidney.

Read Bianca Arthur-Hull, Elise Effmann Clifford, Elizabeth Goldring and Sakeenah Teal Montanaro’s article ‘Putting a name to a face: “Portrait of a lady” at Parham House’ in our July issue: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo

Images:

‘Portrait of a lady’, here identified as Frances Walsingham, Lady Sidney, and here attributed to Robert Peake the Elder, with a slightly later campaign by another artist (William Segar?). c.1584–85?. Oil on panel, 92.5 by 75.6 cm. (Parham House, West Sussex; photograph Courtauld Institute of Art, London).

‘Frances Walsingham, Lady Sidney’, attributed to Robert Peake the Elder. c.1586–90. Oil on panel, 85 by 73.9 cm. (Fine Arts Museum San Francisco).

Since 1949 the Musée Goya in Castres has maintained a close and fruitful relationship with the Musée du Louvre, Paris, w...
26/07/2025

Since 1949 the Musée Goya in Castres has maintained a close and fruitful relationship with the Musée du Louvre, Paris, which regularly enriches the smaller museum’s collection with long-term loans. ⁠
⁠
Following the Musée Goya’s reopening on 15th April 2023, this institutional partnership took on renewed strength under the direction of Joëlle Arches. For the period of the ongoing refurbishment of the Spanish and Portuguese galleries at the Louvre, four exceptional works have been lent to the Musée Goya: including Juan de Espinosa’s ‘Still life with grapes, flowers and shells’ (before 1645) and Baltazar Gomes Figueira’s ‘Still life with fish, crab, shrimp, onions and oranges’ (1645). Rather than presenting these works in a separate temporary exhibition, Arches, together with Cécile Berthiaume, the Musée Goya’s head of collections and documentation, decided to integrate them into the permanent galleries, in a small room dedicated to still lifes, an area of the collection that previously lacked representation by major Spanish painters. ⁠
⁠
Read Elsa Espin’s review of the display, showing until the 21st of September 2025, in our July issue: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo
⁠
Image: ‘Still life with Figs’, by Luis Egidio Meléndez. c.1760. Oil on canvas, 37 by 49 cm. (Musée du Louvre, Paris; exh. Musée Goya, Castres; Bridgeman Images).

In the autumn of 2023 an early Netherlandish ‘Salvator Mundi’ was reassessed at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, having ...
25/07/2025

In the autumn of 2023 an early Netherlandish ‘Salvator Mundi’ was reassessed at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, having lain for decades in storage. Conservation treatment and technical analysis confirmed that it was made by a member of the workshop of the renowned Antwerp based painter Joos van Cleve (1485–1540/41) and therefore an important example of the studio’s output of small devotional works. The painting can now be identified with certainty as the oldest Northern European work in the gallery’s collection.

Read Lucy West and Nicole Ryder’s shorter notice ‘A “Salvator Mundi” at Dulwich reconsidered’ in our July issue: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo

Image: IRR of ‘Salvator Mundi’, by the workshop of Joos van Cleve. c.1512–40/41. Oil on oak panel, 27 by 21 cm. (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London).

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852), vanquisher of Napoleon and twice Prime Minister of the United King...
23/07/2025

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852), vanquisher of Napoleon and twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is a renowned figure in British military and political history, famous also for associations culinary and sartorial. The collection of paintings at his London residence, Apsley House, which has been open to the public since 1853, has similarly long been celebrated, especially since the property and much of its contents were gifted to the nation in 1947. The story of how the ‘iron duke’ captured the baggage train of Joseph Bonaparte, with its dozens of old-master paintings looted from the Spanish royal collection, after the Battle of Vitoria in 1813, and the subsequent gift of these paintings to Wellington by the restored king of Spain, will be familiar to many. It is the tale of his Dutch seventeenth-century paintings, which formed the majority of his acquisitions, that is told in this small exhibition and its accompanying catalogue.

Read Robert Wenley’s review of the show, exhibiting until the 21st of December 2025, in our July issue: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo

Image: ‘Dissolute Household’, by Jan Steen. c.1663. Oil on canvas, 80.5 by 89 cm. (Apsley House, London).

An entry in the 1516 inventory of Margaret of Austria’s paintings describes a diptych by Jan van Eyck depicting the Virg...
21/07/2025

An entry in the 1516 inventory of Margaret of Austria’s paintings describes a diptych by Jan van Eyck depicting the Virgin and Duke Philip the Good. An analysis of this entry and the tracing of this diptych in Margaret’s subsequent inventories and in the collection of King Philip II of Spain suggest that the left wing may be identified with Van Eyck’s ‘Virgin in the church’ (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). Copies after this panel support this hypothesis and offer a possible reconstruction of the lost donor wing. This would make the Berlin ‘Virgin’ one of Van Eyck’s rare surviving ducal commissions. ⁠
⁠
Read Emma Capron’s article ‘Jan van Eyck’s diptych for Philip the Good’ in our July issue: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo
⁠
Image: ‘Virgin in the church’, by Jan van Eyck. c.1432–41. Oil on oak panel, 31 by 14 cm. (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin).

‘The German Paintings before 1800’ departs from the National Gallery’s norms – and indeed from the majority of modern sc...
19/07/2025

‘The German Paintings before 1800’ departs from the National Gallery’s norms – and indeed from the majority of modern scholarly catalogues – because of the breadth of its timeframe. It covers nearly four centuries of artistic production in the German-speaking regions. Eighty-three works are included in sixty-nine entries, most of which are concerned with works produced in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century; only sixteen are dedicated to paintings made around 1600 or later. The holdings of pre-1800 German paintings in the National Gallery are smaller and less well known than those of Netherlandish and Italian works from the same period. It is, nevertheless, a substantial collection, possibly the most important in the English-speaking world besides the one of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It comprises paintings by such artists as Albrecht Altdorfer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Johann Liss, and the Master of the St Bartholomew altarpiece, as well as three key works by Hans Holbein the Younger.

Read Stephan Kemperdick’s review of the publication in our July issue: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo
⁠
Image: ‘Ambassadors’, by Hans Holbein the Younger. 1533. Oil on panel, 207 by 209.5 cm. (National Gallery, London).

A careful analysis of genealogical and documentary evidence confirms the identification of two sitters in a pair of port...
17/07/2025

A careful analysis of genealogical and documentary evidence confirms the identification of two sitters in a pair of portraits by Frans Hals in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. They are the only pendant portraits of sitters from Amsterdam by the Haarlem-based artist and this research resolves the question of whether Hals and Rembrandt worked side by side in the workshop of Hendrick Uylenburgh. ⁠
⁠
Read Jonathan Bikker’s article ‘Frans Hals’s portraits of Jan van de Poll and Duijfje van Gerwen: new identifications’ in our July issue: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo
⁠
Image: ‘Jan van de Poll’, by Frans Hals. c.1637. Oil on canvas, 79.5 by 66.5 cm. (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).

A richly illustrated early sixteenth-century manuscript of German prayers now in the British Library, London, is here id...
15/07/2025

A richly illustrated early sixteenth-century manuscript of German prayers now in the British Library, London, is here identified as having been made for the use of Sibylla von Freyberg, the daughter of a wealthy merchant family from Augsburg. The choice of the prayers and images included testify to her special devotion to the Virgin and allow insights into the attachment she felt to her hometown, her family and her membership of the Confraternity of Our Dear Lady. ⁠
⁠
Read Clarck Drieshen’s article ‘Sibylla von Freyberg’s prayer book’ in our July issue: ⁠https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo
⁠
Image: ‘Arms of Ludwig von Freyberg and Sibylla Gossenbrot’, from the prayer book of Sibylla von Freyberg. Augsburg. Early 16th century. Gold and pigments on parchment, 14.5 by 11.5 cm. (British Library, London, Add MS 24153, fol.1v).

The Amsterdam painter Dirck Dircksz. Santvoort (1609–80), who was active only for a period of about ten years, focused h...
13/07/2025

The Amsterdam painter Dirck Dircksz. Santvoort (1609–80), who was active only for a period of about ten years, focused his creative efforts mainly on portraying children. However, in the early years of his career, up to the mid-1630s, he painted several compositions addressing biblical themes, testifying to his familiarity with Rembrandt’s Leiden and early Amsterdam works.⁠
⁠
Eric Jan Sluijter published three paintings that appeared on the art market in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in a 2015 monograph; he noted that they ‘are rare subjects in this period and cannot be found among followers of Rembrandt until much later’, and observed that they ‘seem to be part of a larger Passion series’. His supposition can now be confirmed with the addition of another painting to the series: a ‘Flagellation of Christ’, now in the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb. ⁠
⁠
Read Ivan Ferenčak’s shorter notice ‘A “Flagellation of Christ” in Zagreb from Dirck Santvoort’s Passion series’ in our July issue: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo
⁠
Image: ‘Flagellation of Christ’, by Dirck Dircksz. Santvoort. c.1635. Oil on panel, 54.3 by 41 cm. (Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters, Zagreb).

‘Picturing Nature: The Stuart Collection of 18th- and 19th- Century British Landscapes and Beyond’ at the Museum of Fine...
12/07/2025

‘Picturing Nature: The Stuart Collection of 18th- and 19th- Century British Landscapes and Beyond’ at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) celebrated a surprising and notable achievement: the formation, in only the past ten years, of a rich, comprehensive collection of British landscape drawings in an American museum that was hitherto virtually unknown for its collections of British art. ⁠
⁠
Given the speed with which the collection was assembled, one might worry that some of the landscapes could be merely representative examples of famous names. Yet there are excellent examples of the work of most of the artists from the period, thoughtfully selected, and the principal figures among them are represented by multiple works that show different aspects of their practices. ⁠
⁠
Read John Marciari’s review of the show, exhibited until the 6th of July 2025, in our July issue: https://www.burlington.org.uk/archive/back-issues/202507?utm_source=FB&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=July+25+issue+promo

Image: ‘Rochester Castle from the River Medway’, by Thomas Girtin. c.1791–92. Watercolour and graphite on paper, 27.5 by 49.5 cm. (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston).

Address

14-16 Duke's Road
London
WC1H9SZ

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 1pm
2pm - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 1pm
2pm - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 1pm
2pm - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 1pm
2pm - 5pm
Friday 9am - 1pm
2pm - 5pm

Telephone

+442073881228

Website

http://twitter.com/BurlingtonMag

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Burlington Magazine posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category