Blogs

The Frick Art Reference Library Photoarchive recently received a $25,000 grant from the Kress Foundation to support the creation of a toolkit that will perform computer vision analysis on digitized art historical photo archives. This toolkit will be a groundbreaking application of technology that will transform the way photo archives are used.

The third and final entry in a series of three blog posts focusing on conservation "interventions" as recorded in the holdings of the Frick Art Reference Library Photoarchive is this mysterious devotional image in the church of San Martino in Velletri, Italy.

The second of a series of blog entries focusing on conservation “interventions” as recorded in the holdings of the Frick Art Reference Library Photoarchive is this problematic portrait of an engaging young woman, her son, and their serene spaniel attributed to Sir William Beechey (1753–1839).

The first in a series of blog entries focusing on conservation “interventions” as recorded in the holdings of the Frick Art Reference Library Photoarchive is this elegant portrait of Mrs. William Bedlow Crosby attributed to Eliab Metcalf (1785‒1834), which underwent substantial restoration before 1940.

The Photoarchive recently received a gift of three reproductions of portraits of Brooklyn’s Bannard family, including a charming group portrait of the five Bannard children.

In 1956, Thomas Hoving, the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, traveled to Sansepolcro, Italy, to study and photograph works by Piero della Francesca (ca. 1415–1492), including a recently discovered fresco in the church of Santa Chiara (formerly Sant’Agostino).

It's an interesting moment when a book dealer brings in something that neither the dealer nor you yourself quite know what it could possibly be. The item in question was an eight-page manuscript in ink, entitled Catalogue of an exhibition of paintings now exhibiting at the Lyceum Strand the whole painted by Mr Keyse. It looks like a maquette for a printed catalog, as the manuscript hand imitates typography. And it has “Kemish printer Borough” on its cover. Intriguingly, there is a date of 1827, crossed out in pencil and Nov 1797 inserted. There are 72 paintings of which seven are starred as for sale, mainly works not by Keyse. Painting No. 51 is described as “lately painted by Mr Keyse at the age of 78 years.” Keyse may have been born in 1721, which would give an approximate date of 1799 and probably before Keyse died on 8 February 1800; otherwise it would have said “painted by the late Mr Keyse.” Many of the paintings were auctioned by Peter Coxe, Burrell & Foster on Thursday, 4 August 1803, which would make a date of 1827 unlikely.