Under the layer of varnish a new work of Rubens
ARTinvestment.RU   06 июля 2020

Portrait of a lady, previously considered the work of the artist, will be exhibited at Sotheby's auction

According to the head of the Department of old masters Sotheby's the Andrew Fletcher, reattribute work occurred during its purification from the layers of old varnish, covered colorful painting surface.

meanwhile, "portrait of a lady" has an exhibition history. According to experts of the auction house, the picture under the authorship of Rubens were shown in the exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1902, but then the authorship of the work "forgot". More than a hundred years of work spent in the same family collection until 2017, the collector's heirs decided to sell the painting at auction at Sotheby's. Then it was sold to an anonymous collector for £78 thousand as the work of an unknown artist of the circle of Rubens.

Now, after the authorship of the portrait was established, the estimate is £2,5–3,5 million

Commenting on the process of working on this painting, Fletcher said: "It was quite dirty, covered with a hundred years of dirt and old varnish"; but when the work was cleaned, it became obvious that it is a wonderful work of Rubens. Fletcher also added that additional infrared study helped to reconstruct the course of the author's thoughts while working on the portrait: "the contour of her dresses shows that he first portrayed the lady turning in one direction, and then... he changed the turn of her shoulders and the silhouette of the dress"; in addition, in infrared light "... you can see a lot of small changes in the image position of the fingers and hands."

As expected, "the Portrait of a lady" will be the top-лотом Sotheby's evening sale on July 29, 2020 — first evening offline-аукциона, held in London after quarantine.

the Material was prepared by Maria Kuznetsova, AI

Source: uk.news.yahoo.com