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Ellen Prokop is the Associate Head of Research at the Frick Art Reference Library. For more information, see her biography.
May 2, 2014
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).
April 17, 2014
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.
January 8, 2014
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.
June 21, 2013
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).
April 4, 2013
A painting of St. Ursula originally attributed to Jusepe de Ribera (1591–1652) is more likely a work by another Caravaggesque master, the French artist known as Valentin de Boulogne (1591–1632).
February 20, 2013
In late January 2013, the representatives of fourteen photoarchives based in Europe and the United States met for two days to discuss future plans for their collections.
November 19, 2012
The theme of this extensive fresco cycle—which is comprised of more than 300 scenes—is human life as regulated by the heavens.
June 22, 2012
The Photoarchive allows researchers to trace the history of a work of art. The image of St. Lawrence by Niccolò di Buonaccorso of Siena, recovered from a later overpainting, offers an instructive example of this crucial aspect of our collection.
May 3, 2012
In 1932 Juliana Force, the director of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, commissioned Thomas Hart Benton (1889–1975) to create a series of eight murals for the library of the museum. While six panels from this series survive, two ceiling panels are unlocated. It is feared that they have been destroyed.
November 16, 2011
This detailed sketch, based on George Wheeler’s topographical drawing of 1667, documents the appearance of the Parthenon just a few years before Venetian forces shelled the Acropolis during the Republic’s struggle to take the city from the Ottomans in 1687.
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