It was perhaps inevitable that the Tate’s press conference, held at Tate Britain on 9th September to launch its Report for 2009–10, was a low-key affair. Although the general mood – from the platform, at least – was positive, there can have been no one present who was unaware of the Government’s guillotine suspended above the arts in Britain. The Spending Review to be announced later this month (20th October) is, of course, the chief instrument of forthcoming cuts; but the general tightening of belts and the tailoring or abandonment of plans, already coming into effect, have coloured our view of ‘the art of the possible’. How the Tate rises to the challenge will be carefully scrutinised by many other museums and institutions.
A discussion of Velázquez’s portrait of Philip IV at Fraga in The Frick Collection, New York, which has been recently cleaned.
The provenance of Velázquez’s Christ after the flagellation (National Gallery, London), a painting acquired in 1859 in Madrid by John Savile Lumley, is examined through unpublished documents.
A look at the popularity of Piazza Barberini in Rome among Spanish artists in the eighteenth century.
A discussion of a copy by Agustín Esteve of Goya’s portrait of Godoy, sent to Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi in 1808, and now in Valencia.
A newspaper advertisement reveals that a snuffbox belonging to Goya was lost in 1793 on his way to the Prado.
A recent acquisition by Juan Muñoz at the Museo d’arte moderna Reina Sofía, Madrid.