Private Art Collections

This paper critically analyses the impact MONA has had on what Franklin (2018) refers to as 'art tourism' in Tasmania. Through a brief history and present-day analysis of its programmes and operations, the research intends to prove how the institution's co- operation and critical role within Tasmanian creative and cultural industries form part of the raison d'être of a modern museum (NEMO 2017). Through quantitative and qualitative analysis, this paper studies the services the museum provides, how they are distributed, and received by its audiences.

In 1878, the founder of the Christian Museum in Esztergom, Hungary, Prince Primate and Archbishop János Simor (1813–1891) purchased an entire picture collection from the heirs of a private Roman collector, Canon Raffaele Bertinelli (1802–1878). This "galleria di classici sacri" consisted almost exclusively of Italian Renaissance paintings with religious subjects. The sixty paintings now form the core of the Italian collection in the Christian Museum and are well known to scholars of Italian art.
However, Bertinelli and the history of his gallery remain unknown to art historians. The present book, which is based primarily on archival research and 19th-century publications, provides a biography of the collector, and emphasizes his artistic interests and commissions. A discussion of the picture gallery follows, and it treats the formation of the collection as well as its later history. It establishes with greater precision than heretofore its original contents and defines the concept that guided the collector’s acquisitions.

Az esztergomi Keresztény Múzeum alapítója, Simor János hercegprímás és érsek (1813–1891) egy teljes magánképtárat vásárolt meg a római műgyűjtő, Raffaele Bertinelli kanonok (1802–1878) örököseitől 1878-ban. Bertinelli festménygyűjteménye szinte kizárólag vallásos témájú itáliai reneszánsz festményekből állt. A hatvan mű ma a Keresztény Múzeum itáliai gyűjteményének törzsanyagát képezi, és jól ismert az itáliai festészet kutatói számára. Ennek ellenére Bertinelli személye és képtárának története sokáig teljesen ismeretlen maradt. A kötet első része, mely levéltári kutatásokon és 19. századi kiadványokon alapul, rekonstruálja a gyűjtő életrajzát, különös tekintettel művészeti érdeklődésére és műpártolására. Ezt a képtár tárgyalása követi, amely részletesen bemutatja a gyűjtemény kialakulását és későbbi történetét, pontosabban meghatározza az eredeti összetételét és meghatározza a gyűjtő vásárlásainak fő szempontjait. A kiadványt a műgyűjtemény leltárainak és listáinak átirata, forrásgyűjtemény, illetve a festmények katalógusa és teljes oldalas színes reprodukciója egészíti ki. Az új kutatási eredmények az angol nyelvű összefoglalóban is olvashatók. A kötet a Reneszánsz Év 2008 alkalmából készült.

The Arenberg lineage belongs to the high nobility, whose estates, interests and familial connections have traditionally extended across borders. Through their prominent military role in European conflicts, the Arenbergs derived power, prowess and prestige. Their princely and ducal standing was equally reflected in the highly superior quality of their art collection, as they commissioned works from contemporaries such as Rubens, Van Dyck, and later Watteau. In the nineteenth century, the Duke of Arenberg’s newly established gallery in his palace in Brussels was renowned for its Flemish and Dutch masters, such as Brueghel and Jordaens, Rembrandt and Vermeer, and was explicitly recommended as a private museum in travel guides of the time: Vaut le voyage! This exceptional collection is also indicative of the practice of collecting art and promoting artists which has long been an integral part of the culture of nobility.

(Also published in Dutch and French)

ABSTRACT
Money laundering - autonomous offense. Material object of the offense: archeological goods and amounts of money subject to a recycling process. Material element of the objective side. Alternative ways of committing the offense through acquiring and illegal placing, on the legal antiquities market, as well as changing and transferring through sales, goods previously stolen from archeological sites, while knowing they were the product of qualified theft of goods pertaining to  the national cultural heritage, unauthorized for export.
Subjective side, difference from concealment. Changing or transferring cultural goods, while kowing they are the product of certain offenses, with the purpose of concealing the illicit nature of these goods through forgery and attributing a false origin, as pertaining to private collections - or with the purpose of helping the author of the offense from which the goods originated to evade prosecution, judgement or execution of the sentence; acquiring, holding or using goods by another person beside the active subject of the offense from which the goods originate, while knowing they are the product of crime.
The civil side. Oligation of the defendant to pay the civil damages consisting of the expenses made by the Romanian State as compensation for the repatriation of the artifacts that were stolen, acquired and illegally transferred on the antiquities market. Special confiscation of the product of the crime: archeological artifacts - bronze tables of Roman laws and a lot of Koson gold coins - stolen from sites and recycled as pieces of private collections; money resulted from the valorisation of the stolen artifacts. Ne bis in idem? Decision to end the criminal trial – given by the judicial control court, based on the wrong ascertainment of the inexistance of the special prescription institution of criminal liability. Instruments of international judicial cooperation: European Evidence Warrant (EEW), UNIDROIT Convention. Content analysis of the legal document Lex municipalis Troesmensium. (Alba Iulia Court of Appeal, Criminal Section, decision no. 333/11.06.2020, pronounced in the file no. 1335/97/2017*).
Keywords: money laundering, autonomous offense; material object, archeological goods, amounts of money; false origin, private collections pieces; ne bis in idem, civil damages, special confiscation, Lex municipalis Troesmensium, special prescription, facta praeterita,  instruments of international judicial cooperation, EPPO.

In 2011, a monograph long anticipated by art historians with an expertise in Old Russian and Byzantine art was published by Ljudmila Pekarska. The main subject of the monograph – the history of a hoard of jewellery found in Kiev in 1906, and as luck would have it is today divided between the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The author, however, did not limit her study to the analysis of objects from this hoard. She used an extensive amount of comparative materials from collections in many Western, Ukrainian, and Russian museums. L. Pekarska focuses mainly on the cloisonné enamels, an impressive example of exquisite medieval luxury. Welcoming
the publication of this book, and being interested in the research, as well as its author, I do not envy the hard work that it would take for a person to write a scholarly review on this publication. The book contains so many specific features, so many politicized statements, so many altered facts that an unprepared reader, and even a professional, will not always be able to understand these “sleights of hand”. For this reason, I chose only three pages from the book of Ljudmila Pekarska that discuss a collection of cloisonné enamels of Alexandr Zvenigorodsky and its fate
(now almost the entire collection is kept in the Metropolitan Museum of Art). I hope that my article will help the reader in understanding the nuances of L. Pekarska’s book and, besides that, off ers the reader more detailed information about the unique collection of Zvenigorodsky and the reasons it is now in Western museums. In this article, the author includes biographical facts about Alexander Zvenigorodsky; it shines a light on the history of Zvenigorodsky’s ownership of the cloisonné enamels, and criminal origin of the collection taken from Georgian monasteries.
Also included is information on the publication of the collection by its owner – the famous book issued in three languages
in 200 copies each: in Russian, in German, and in French. The book has long since become a rare example of the highest quality of printing and refi ned luxury. A considerable attention is paid to the fate of the collection after the death of its owner; the reason it was secretly sold to John Pierpont Morgan; a negative role in this sale of the infamous collector Michail Botkin. A seemingly private matter about Zvenigorodsky’s collection of enamels has raised numerous problems of ethical, methodological, and, in some degree, even cultural and political nature.

Ryškiausiais XIX a. vidurio grafų Tiškevičių giminės atstovais galima vadinti brolius Konstantiną (Konstanty Tyszkiewicz, 1806−1868) ir Eustachijų (Eustachy Tyszkiewicz, 1814−1873) – istorikus, rašytojus, kolekcininkus, profesionaliosios Lietuvos archeologijos ir muziejininkystės pradininkus. Tačiau šį kartą − ne apie žymiuosius brolius, o apie jų tėvą − grafą PIJŲ TIŠKEVIČIŲ (Pius Tyszkiewicz, 1756−1858) ir apie Vilniaus paveikslų galerijoje saugomą Jono RUSTEMO (Jan Rustem, 1762−1835) tapytą jo portretą. / The most distinctive members of the 19th-century Tyszkiewicz family are possibly the brothers Konstanty (1806–1868) and Eustachy (1814–1873), historians, writers, collectors, and pioneers of professional Lithuanian archaeology and museology. However, this time the article revolves not around the famous brothers but about their father, Count PIUS TYSZKIEWICZ (1756–1858), and his portrait by Jan RUSTEM (1762–1835), which is now held in the Vilnius Picture Gallery.

Die Bedürfnisse der Inventarisierung, Dokumentation und Archivierung von Kunstwerken privater Sammlungen unterscheiden sich nicht wesentlich von den Aufgabenbereichen der Sammlungsverwaltung eines Museums. Die meisten kleineren privaten Sammlungen sind jedoch von der Aufgabenvielfalt eines Museums weit entfernt; die Eigentümer der Privatsammlungen besitzen dennoch die Verpflichtung, das Gesammelte zu inventarisieren und zu dokumentieren. So unterschiedlich die Sammler, so unterschiedlich die Sammlungen und deren Verwaltung. Dies bedeutet, dass sich diesen unterschiellichen Ausrichtungen auch die Anforderungen an die digitale Sammlungsverwaltung anzupassen haben. Die Herausforderung liegt demnach darin, die umfangreichen Vorgaben der Dokumentation und der digitalen Sammlungsverwaltung individuell auf die eigenen Bedürfnisse zu übertragen. Datenfeldkataloge mit flexiblen Datenfeldern, deren Daten dennoch zentral verwaltet werden, dienen dazu, Daten von Sammlungsgegenständen unterschiedlichster Art konsistent und kompatibel zu nationalen und internationalen, inhaltlichen und technischen Standards zu verwalten. Wie dies geschehen kann, davon handelt dieser Beitrag.

In 1964–1966 the part of Puni-Boguslavskaya archive was donated to
the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. The earliest letters from this archive relating to the first years of emigration (I. Puni and his wife arrived in Berlin in October 1920, and moved to France in 1923), allow us to recreate a social network ties with representatives of the European art world (from L. Moholy-Nagy to A. Salmon); correspondence with relatives reveals a number of previously unknown biographical aspects. A significant part of the archive is the correspondence block of Boguslavskaya, who restored relations with many old friends after visiting the USSR in 1959. Documents from the archive is the rarest material of great value both for art historians  and for researchers of life, personal and professional
relations of representatives of Russian artistic emigration.

Dzieła Samuela Hirszenberga były popularne wśród żydowskich mieszczan już z końcem XIX wieku. Seweryn Gottlieb wspominał, że w domu jego rodziców w Krakowie znajdowały się Jeszybot oraz Uriel Akosta i Spinoza, jako heliograwiurowe  ryciny.  Do organizowanej Wystawy pamiątkowej z okazji 25-lecia śmierci błp. Samuela Hirszenberga w 1933 roku zgłoszono ponad 300 dzieł artysty. Z powodu rozproszenia zbiorów podczas drugiej wojny światowej oraz braku dokumentacji bardzo trudno dzisiaj opisać zasoby dzieł sztuki należące do kolekcjonerów, którzy zginęli w czasie Zagłady, a później na skutek polityki powojennej zostali zapomniani. Najbliższy krąg przyjaciół Samuela Hirszenberga stanowili pracujący w wolnych zawodach żydowscy intelektualiści: Wilhelm Feldman, Seweryn Gottlieb, Józef Liebeskind i Bernard Steinberg. Wszyscy oni posiadali dzieła artysty.

in: Journal for Art Market Studies, Vol 2, No 1 (2018)

The structural development of commercial galleries and, more generally, of commercially used spaces for the presentation of art works as a historical architectural challenge in the first place should become an integral part of our perception. When the magazine Die Kunst spoke of “Art Dealer Palaces” in 1913, a prime example was Munich. This article will aim at reconstructing a multi-layered image through historical sources, in particular contemporary articles and reviews from architecture magazines or art journals. In fact, buildings and interiors of art dealers were passionately discussed during this period, and in some cases were even regarded as highly controversial. Several case studies will illustrate the extent to which the individual elements of presentation – wall, floor, ceiling, light, furniture, artworks and their frames were subject to a thorough revision in 1900, and the extent to which the interior design of commercially used exhibition spaces not only matched the staging concepts of museums and the Secessions, but were in fact closely linked to the idea of the museum reform movement and even established a modern private exhibition practice. While the article captures trends and peculiarities that in turn may allow conclusions to be drawn for the history of exhibition strategy in general, there is a need for more in-depth research of this neglected subject.

Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1929-64, who claimed, "it is now considered to be modern", although he did not quote any references. 4 Paul Post, curator of the Zeughaus in Berlin, mentions Grancsay's report in his article of 1938, adding a personal note that he never received an answer from Grancsay concerning why he deemed it a forgery. 5 After Grancsay's statement, however, in historiography the Possenti Saddle was regarded as a fake product. 6 In spite of this, according to the museum's latest opinion in 2012, it dates from c. 1450. 7 Apart from regarding it as a forgery, Grancsay also claimed that the Possenti Saddle was confused with a similar one, which differs from it in certain details (Fig. 2). 8 According to him, this other saddle was once in the Possenti Collection, then in the collection of Marchese D… in Milan, and thereafter in the Aicholz Collection in Vienna. 9 Paul Post also

On the basis of a comprehensive archival research of the records of the
Commission for Gathering and Protection of Cultural Monuments and
Antiquities (Komisija za sakupljanje i očuvanje kulturnih spomenika i starina – KOMZA) kept in the archival holdings of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of Croatia in the Croatian State Archives and in the Old Records Collections of the Central Archives for Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the author presents the circumstances of the formation and operation of KOMZA and considers the extent of its authority and the specificity of its role.

Report of Božidar Murgić on the implementation of the legal provision on the prohibition of removal and exporting ancient artistic, cultural, historical and natural monuments from the territory of the Independent, written in July 1941, reveales what fate the most significant Jewish private art collections in Zagreb (collections of Artur Marić, Milan Marić, Žiga Herzog, Julije Konig, Hinko Lederer) faced during the regime of the Independent State of Croatia, and helps to reconstruct their arrival to the Museum of Arts and Crafts.

During the long nineteenth century Belgium was home to a remarkably large number of private art and antiques collections. Many of those were visited by an interested local and international public and were popular topics in contemporary travel literature. Based on an in-depth examination of historical travel guides and travelogues, this contribution aims to further our understanding of the nineteenth-century private collector. Which information did this group of sources provide about the character of Belgium’s foremost artistic centers Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent as places of private collecting, and about the individual practices of local collectors on a micro-level? How did the description of the collectors, of their number, focus and motivations, as well as of the function and importance of their collections evolve over the course of the century? In answering these questions, this contribution aspires to shed light on how the specific role of the private collector was assessed within the urban art and antiquarian circles in nineteenth-century Belgium.

Published November 2015 in:
Revue "CRITICA D'ARTE N. 55-56"
Ottava serie - Anno LXXV
N. 55-56 Luglio-dicembre 2013

Editoriale
F. G.

Iconologia e stile, un rapporto da indagare.
La traccia offerta dal pergamo pisano di Guglielmo
Gigetta Dalli Regoli

Fra ritratto e devozione. Immagini della Maddalena
nella prima metà del Cinquecento
Maddalena Bellavitis

Risarcimenti per alcune opere del Bandinelli
al Bargello, a Santa Croce e all’Annunziata
Piero Pacini

La complessità di una cultura criptica
nell’arazzo della serie de La Vita dell’Uomo
Matilde Stefanini

Le Stagioni di Cecco Bravo
Anna Rosa Calderoni Masetti

Firenze capitale della fotografia.
Una nuova iconografia urbana e architettonica. 1839-1870
Giovanni Fanelli

Un quadro sconosciuto firmato “G. Fattori”
e la collezione romana del conte Gregorio Stroganoff
Vardui Kalpakcian

Ombre sulla capitale: Firenze 1865-1870
Carlo Cresti

Note in margine ad alcuni contributi
al progetto Nuovi Uffizi (2006)
Adolfo Natalini

Biblioteca
a cura di M. Teresa Leoni Zanobini

Dal Polo Reale di Torino al circuito delle Residenze Sabaude
Paolo San Martino

Nadezhda Evseevna Dobychina, whose name
is strongly associated with the Art Bureau, which
operated in St. Petersburg (Petrograd) from 1911
to 1919, possessed a significant collection of works
of art by her contemporaries. The central part
of the collection consisted of the works of the artists
of the “World of Art” (“Mir Iskusstva”) circle, as well
as the associations “Blue Rose” and “Union of Russian
Artists”. From the lists of the collection preserved
in the Dobychina’s archive, made at the initiative
of representatives of the Soviet state in 1919, 1924
and 1930, one can trace how the collection developed
in the first post-revolutionary decade. Nadezhda
Dobychina gave preference to figurative art, in her
property there were practically no abstract works,
and the leftist trends of the avant-garde were also not
represented. Most of the works kept by Dobychina
were graphics (watercolors, pencil drawings and
charcoal sketches), however, it should be noted
that a block of bright paintings, perfectly combined
in style and color, stood out in her collection (“Dawn”
by D.S. Stelletsky, “Heat” by M.S. Sariyan, “Portrait
of Dobychina” by N.I.Altman and others). The collection
changed over time, but its central part remained
unchanged despite all the vicissitudes of the owner’s
eventful life.

The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) was founded by Australian collector David Walsh in Hobart, Tasmania, in 2011. The intuitive arrangement of art and objects from different cultures and periods creates a modern day Wunderkammer effect that is visually spectacular and seen to be unique to MONA. Walsh challenges the sanctity of the established art museum by reorganizing presentation models and injecting an element of inquisitiveness to exhibition displays that have much to do with the prevailing culture of curiosities and the notion of time and the changing world. Although it is often described as having an immediate context in contemporary curating, I would argue, by contrast, that much of its concerns can be traced back to the recent works of French curator and museum director, Jean-Hubert Martin; his innovative arrangement of old and new art and non-art objects alongside contemporary art makes them relevant and innovative for a contemporary audience to engage with them, to arouse their curiosity, and to allow them to make sense of a changing world. Nevertheless, MONA is a museum that offers an alternative way of seeing by positioning art in a theatrical non-white cube space that emphasises a sensory and visual didacticism above all else; one that creates Martin’s museum of enchantments and curiosity by way of unconventional comparisons and juxtapositions.