antiquesandartireland.com

THERE are at least three works by Dunmanway born Thomas Hovenden (1840-1890) in the art collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.  Yet he is practically unknown in his native country.

An exhibition now on at the Hunt Museum in Limerick may go some way towards redressing this imbalance.  Organised by James Adam The French Connection focuses on Irish artists who worked in France in the late 19th century and early 20th century.  This is a show of 35 works by artists including  Nathaniel Hone, Sir John Lavery, William John Leech, Roderic O’Conor,  Walter Frederick Osborne and  two paintings, A Wayside Chat and The Story of the Hunt, by Thomas Hovenden.

Orphaned at the age of six during the Great Famine he went on to become a member of the Society of American Artists (1881), the Philadelphia Society of Artists (1883) and an Associate member of the National Academy of Design (1881). He succeeded Thomas Eakins as Professor of Painting and Drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1886-88) and his students included Alexander Calder and the leader of the Ashcan School, Robert Henri. Around the time of his untimely death in an accident academic painting went out of fashion and so he was soon to be forgotten.

A Van Gogh painting worth $50m, known as both Poppy Flowers and Vase And Flowers, was cut from its frame and stolen at the Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo on Saturday, August 21.  Measuring 30cm by 30cm(1ft by 1ft), and depicting yellow and red flowers it is believed to have been painted in 1887, three years before the death of Vincent Van Gogh.

The Mahmoud Khalil Museum was built in the 1930’s and holds works by Monet, Renoir and Degas.  The same Van Gogh was stolen from here in 1978, and recovered ten years later in Kuwait.

In May five paintings — worth up to $124 million — were stolen from the Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris (see post for May 20 on antiquesandartireland.com).

INTERPOL, the world’s largest international police organization with 188 member countries, has a database of missing art. The organization’s general secretariat also produces a CD-ROM – updated every two months in English, Spanish, French and Arabic – of all the missing items, and provides it to museums, antique dealers and collectors.

In July 2010 a stolen Caravaggio was recovered in Berlin. The ‘Taking of Christ’ or the ‘Kiss of Judas’ was snatched from the Ukraine’s Museum of Western European and Oriental Art in Odessa in July 2008. A joint German Ukrainian police operation resulted in three Ukrainians and one Russian national being detained in Berlin, just as the suspects were reportedly about to sell the stolen painting. More than 20 suspects were arrested and an alleged international art theft gang was broken up.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever, especially when it is sensitively restored.  The winning entry in the

Historic Houses Association (HHA) and Sotheby’s Restoration Award 2010 is Wilton House near Salisbury in Wiltshire.

Wilton’s winning project is its spectacular private Dining Room, which is the centerpiece of an extensive programme of exceptional restoration projects at the house in recent years.

The house stands on a 9th century nunnery founded by King Alfred. The Benedictine abbey and surrounding lands was surrendered at the time of the Dissolution of the monasteries to King Henry VIII, who gave them to William Herbert around 1542. Wilton House has remained in the Herbert family since this time and is the home of the Earl of Pembroke.

William Herbert, the 18th Earl of Pembroke, inherited the title and the Wilton estate in 2005. With the assistance of the Wilton House Trustees and interior designer David Mlinaric he initiated an extensive programme of restoration projects aimed at parts of the house that it was felt had lost their historical integrity or which had been neglected during previous structural repairs. Both traditional and modern methods of restoration have been used and, wherever possible, the work has been undertaken by estate and local craftsmen.

For many years the Dining Room was used as a games room and general storage room but in 2008 the 18th Earl commenced the major restoration efforts to return it to its former glory. The walls were painted in a dark blueish green to match an existing paint sample and the ceiling and paneling mouldings in a stone colour, which were subsequently part-gilded by Hare & Humphreys. Two new caryatids were created from those in the Library by Coade Ltd, to stand either side of the doorway. Antiqued-looking glass panels were set between the windows on the north wall, and new metal radiator covers were made. The furnishings underwent major conservation work – two giltwood torcheres, three tapestries, the table, two large Reynolds portraits. Two new chandeliers were also made by Coade Ltd and subsequently gilded by Lord Pemboke’s sister.