The City of Light shines with the fifth edition of Paris Tableau November 11 through 15, with some 25 noted dealers in Old Master paintings converging at the Palais Brongniart. Among the highlights this year is a symposium spotlighting Baroque paintings, a long-neglected collecting category. Art+Auction’s Angela M.H. Schuster caught up with Keith Christiansen, chair of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, who has teamed up with Anna Ottani Cavina, a professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, to lead the proceedings.How did Baroque art come to be overlooked for so long?In the case of the Met, the vast majority of paintings in the collection entered as bequests and thus reflect the tastes of their donors. In the 1870s, when many of these bequests were made, Baroque painting had fallen out of favor with American collectors, thanks in part to the influential writings of John Ruskin, and later, Bernard Berenson, for whom Baroque art constituted a “chapter of decline.”So the market has been soft as a result?The market for Baroque paintings has always been rather restricted. In part this has to do with the often religious subject matter, and also with the large scale of many works. It owes as well to their sheer theatricality and the antiquarian classicism that informs them. The market for Baroque works has actually contracted over the past 20 years—except for works by artists who are truly well known. Bernini and Caravaggio remain extremely popular. Why have you found yourself championing the genre? Despite Berenson’s commentary, the 17th century was one of the great ages of painting throughout Europe, and you can find everything from highly charged drama to hushed quiet, from bold execution to descriptive delicacy. Do you like still-life painting? It’s the great age for it. What about art and science? In the 17th century, the two intersected in remarkable ways. I’m thinking, for example, of a head study by Orazio Borgianni that the Met acquired a few years back. Never heard of him? Well, that’s all the more reason to dive in and learn. The real pleasure of collecting Old Masters is the process of getting to know these extraordinary artists. That said, potential purchasers should consider whether a work is a great work or merely interesting.A version of this article appears in the November 2015 issue of Art+Auction.
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