Recent links of note:
“Versailles restores Royal Tennis Court—where French democracy was founded—to its former glory”
Sarah Belmont, The Art Newspaper
Tourists interested in the French Revolution or the sport of kings will be pleased to know that the Royal Tennis Court at Versailles has now been restored and is finally open to the public. Alas, visitors will not get to play jeu de paume in the footsteps of Louis XIV, but they will get to enjoy a small gallery devoted to the French Revolution in the former sports hall. The court, of course, is most famous for being the site of the “Tennis Court Oath” of June 20, 1789, when members of the Third Estate swore to draft the country’s first constitution. Jacques-Louis David immortalized the moment in an unfinished painting that has recently traveled to the Met for an exhibition reviewed in our April issue by Karen Wilkin.
“Painting credited to Rembrandt pupil confirmed as work of Dutch master himself”
Kate Connelly, The Guardian
This week, experts at Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie announced that a small oil painting once attributed to Govert Flinck is in fact a work by his master, Rembrandt. Landscape with Arched Bridge (1638) is one of only eight existing landscapes painted by the otherwise prolific Dutch painter. In preparation for “Landscapes in Dialogue,” a new exhibition pairing works by Rembrandt and David Hockney, the work was closely examined with technical photographs and underwent dendrochronological analysis. These studies, building on a major 1989 analysis performed by the Rembrandt Research Project, revealed that the painting predates the Rijksmuseum’s very similar Landscape with Stone Bridge (ca. 1638), of which the Gemäldegalerie’s work was formerly believed to have been a copy.
From the podcast:
“The New Criterion Poetry Prize.” A podcast on the April 2022 poetry issue and the New Criterion Poetry Prize, featuring poetry readings by Bruce Bond & Nicholas Pierce.
Dispatch:
“Pionnières,” by David Platzer. On “Pioneers: Artists in the Paris of the Roaring Twenties” at the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris.
