Jan Steen straddled too many fences for his own good. Making critics uncertain about where they stand is probably never a good idea. His reputation paid the price, but the fee is fortunately being reimbursed.
Museums and exhibitions
3 Cupid’s testes
In 1996 Schwartz waxed skeptical about the attribution of a sculpture to Michelangelo. Followed twenty-eight years later by an apology to the attributor.
2 The tale of the bear that turned into a bull
Delving into the sunken resources of the Schwartzlist, a column on the undying marriage of the market and modern art (next year is the 110th anniversary), followed by a cry of pain.
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424 The transparent connoisseur 8: An ill-judged attribution in Den Bosch
A Dutch museum features a fascinating painting of the art of painting itself, in the guise of a woman artist at the easel. The museum ignores overwhelming evidence for its origins in a collaboration between Jan Brueghel I and Frans Francken II and wrongheadedly gives it to Jan Brueghel II.
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416 The Vermeer exhibitions of 1935
The current Vermeer exhibition in the Rijksmuseum is the second one ever to be held there. The first took place in 1935. For the 114 days that the present exhibition is running, the Rijksmuseum is admitting 450,000 visitors, about 4,000 a day. Some people, like me, find it too crowded. The 1935 exhibition was on view for only 13 days, and drew 123,000 visitors, about nine and a half thousand a day. Another reason to be glad that I hadn’t been born yet.
415 Some stray observations
A sequence of fortunate circumstances put Schwartz and his Loekie into one artistically rich environment after another.Sheer non-committal enjoyment, giving birth to reactions he does not have to defend in the court of art-historical responsibility.
410 Ceci n’est pas une peinture
Schwartz thought that his love for art in museums was strong enough to assure his enjoyment of museums, even while acknowledging that they removed art from its original locations and contexts. Last month he took a shock to the system, in Venice. For Doeschka and Bernard.
409 “I’m certain Rembrandt loves me”
The exhibition at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow on which I have been working for five years with Mirjam Knotter of the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam. “Rembrandt seen through Jewish eyes,” has been postponed indefinitely. Still, I have to submit text for the Russian-language catalogue that was going to be printed. Here are fragments from the section “Jewish artists discover Rembrandt.”
406 TEFAF days
Braving danger and discomfort, Schwartz once more treated himself to a visit to the foremost fair for old master art, TEFAF. He shares thoughts and impressions.
402 Rembrandt’s self-non-portraits in armor
Schwartz weighs in on the discussion of the iconography of the splendid Rembrandt Standard bearer now bought by the Rijksmuseum and comments sourly on its price.
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