Art Collections Research Articles

Vīrabhadra, the Dreadful Destroyer of Sacrifice

When Śiva is not invited to the great sacrifice organised by Dakṣa, his bride Satī’s father, he emanates from himself the terrible Vīrabhadra, who completely destroys the sacrificial arena. The remote origins of this mythical story, which is extensively narrated especially in the Purāṇas, lie in some myths concerning Rudra, Śiva’s Vedic-Brahmanic precursor. The cult of Vīrabhadra spread throughout South India during the Vijayanagara empire, mainly thanks to the Śivaite sect of the Vīraśaivas. The long-lasting diffusion of his cult is also demonstrated by the wide production of metal plaques depicting this god. A few years ago the art collectors Paola and Giuseppe Berger donated a conspicuous collection of these plaques to the Veneranda Accademia Ambrosiana of Milan; they are currently on display in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. Many of these plaques are possibly attributable to the 18th and 19th centuries and their exact provenance cannot be defined at the present stage of studies, but most of them presumably come from Karnataka. They show an almost constant basic iconography, but also a wide range of different artistic languages. Here we propose a general analysis of this repertoire, and a more detailed description of some of the specimens.

Research on Influencing Factors and Strategies of Art Collection Investment Decision

The realm of art collection holds an irreplaceable position in the long-standing cultural heritage, showcasing the taste and status of the holders from ancient nobility to modern high-net-worth individuals. However, with the development of economic globalization, art collection is not merely a symbol of identity, but also a hot investment target sought after by numerous investors. In recent years, the market value of the global art industry has rapidly climbed, making art gradually an essential component of diversified investment portfolios for investors. The development of the art market has sparked widespread attention from various sectors, prompting scholars and companies to explore, through scientific methods and data analysis, how to maximize the investment returns of art collection. However, art differs significantly from other investment tools in the financial market, involving not only the intrinsic value judgment of the art itself but also complex market environments and individual judgment and psychological expectations of investors. Its unpredictability and unique value assessment system make art collection investment more challenging and research-worthy compared to other types of investments.

Nature portrayed in images in Dutch Brazil: Tracing the sources of the plant woodcuts in the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae (1648).

By the mid-seventeenth century, images of natural elements that originated in Dutch Brazil circulated in Europe. These were often included in art collections (the Libri Picturati) and natural history treatises (the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae and the India Utriesque re Naturale et Medica, 1658). The plant woodcut images in these books constituted (icono) type specimens and played a significant role in disseminating scientific botanical knowledge. We present a systematic analysis of their origins by cross-referencing the visual and textual sources related to Dutch Brazil. To do so, we used our previous botanical identifications of the portrayed plants, published sources, and digital archival material. The plant woodcuts accounted for 529 images, which corresponded to 426 taxa. We created a PDF booklet to visualize the (dis-) similarities of the woodcuts with the Libri Picturati and other visual sources. Substantial differences in the visual-making methodology exist between the two treatises (1648, 1658). In the first book, most of the images were available from Dutch Brazil and carved into the woodcuts, while most of these woodcuts were reused in the second one. The Indigenous Tupi-based plant names accompanying the images were crucial when arranging the sources, and portraying as much botanical information as possible was commonly the goal. Freshly picked, living plants, dried branches, fruits, and seeds were used to represent the megadiverse Brazilian flora, even when these belonged to species originating from other regions. Despite not being recognized for their contribution, Indigenous Brazilians and enslaved Africans were essential in the visual knowledge-making processes that later resulted in these natural history collections. As several sources remain lost and many histories yet untold, further archival studies and collaborative projects are pertinent to reveal the missing pieces of this conundrum.

Beyond numbers: visual and textual diversity in the online art database

ABSTRACT This study investigates visual and textual diversity in the online art database with Nationalmuseum as a case study. It combines quantitative and qualitative methods to characterize different types of representations and analyse how such variations can be connected to different circumstances for digitization. As shown, database records have varied over time and they mirror institutional attitudes and priorities. Artworks which have been activated by being on display, recently acceded, or undergone conservation are typically rich in visual and textual information. As this study shows there is a need to look at digitization beyond numbers as the processes of representing art collections online are steered by different cultural factors. It is evident that the already esteemed, popular, activated artworks in the museum are also more extensively represented online. In effect, digitization does not seem to broaden the access to the visual heritage but rather amplify existing biases in the analogue systems.

New Evidence of Traditional Japanese Dyeing Techniques: A Spectroscopic Investigation

The Japanese textile tradition is renowned for its intricate designs achieved through a variety of dyeing techniques, including kasuri, shibori, and paste-resist dyeing. These techniques are often combined within a single textile, resulting in exceptionally elaborate creations. Our paper delves into the technical aspects and complexities of these methods, highlighting the dynamic interplay between tradition and innovation in Japanese textile production. Our scientific endeavour focused on some textiles dating between the 19th and 20th centuries and belonging to the Montgomery Collection of Japanese folk art. Employing non-invasive techniques such as visible reflectance spectroscopy and ER-FTIR spectroscopy, we uncovered key insights into the materials and methods utilized in the creation of these textiles. Our analysis revealed a diverse array of pigments and dyes, including plant-derived, inorganic, and synthetic variants. These findings illuminate the cultural syncretism between traditional Japanese practices and the adoption of new materials from the West, underscoring the dynamic nature of textile production in Japan. Furthermore, ER-FTIR spectroscopy elucidated the predominant use of cotton as the primary fibre in the textiles, aligning with historical records of Japan’s role as a major producer of cotton yarn. Analysis of white areas within the textiles revealed evidence of resist-paste dyeing techniques, particularly tsutsugaki and katazome, through the absence of dye penetration and the characteristic appearance of white lines. Confirmation of indigo dyeing techniques (aizome) was achieved through ER-FTIR spectroscopy, providing reliable identification of indigo and Prussian blue in various shades of blue present in the textiles. Additionally, the detection of Western-derived dyeing method (utsushi-yūzen) and free-hand painting (kaki-e), offers insights into the diversity of dyeing practices employed by Japanese artisans. The presence of proteinaceous materials and synthetic dyes observed in some textiles has implications for conservation practices, suggesting the need for tailored approaches to ensure the preservation of these culturally significant artifacts. Overall, these scientific results shed new light on the materials, techniques, and cultural contexts underlying Japanese textile production, advancing our understanding of this rich artistic heritage and informing future research endeavours in textile science and conservation.

Implementing Linked Art in a Multi-Modal Database for Cross-Collection Discovery

Yale University has implemented a knowledge graph based discovery system that brings together the various art, natural history, archival, conservation and bibliographic collections using Linked Open Usable Data standards such as Linked Art and IIIF. This system comprises more than 41 million records, which would expand to more than 2 billion RDF triples, and is thus at a similar scale to Europeana. This paper presents the lessons learned from the five year effort around the usability of linked data structures across the organization, the technologies needed to make use of the knowledge in a performant way, and the appropriate design paradigms for front end applications which make the graph easily and intuitively accessible to researchers and the public, including the necessity of consistency in data modeling, that records are an essential concept to maintain through multi-modal systems, and the use of hypertext and web caches to maintain the separation between systems.

The rise of Porto artist collectives and the birth of democratic collaboration over fifteen years of daily art practice

ABSTRACT This article documents and analyses a phenomenon of collectivisation involving approximately forty artist collectives that emerged in Porto, Portugal between the late 1990s and 2013, with a particular focus on how horizontal collectivism led in turn to new models of citizenship and participatory democracy. I present an overview of historical precedents concerning certain aspects of this phenomenon, especially in relation to Portugal’s relatively recent (1974) end to forty-eight years of dictatorial rule. Artists came to play an important role in developing and spreading the democratic values that were subsequently enshrined in the Portuguese constitution of 1976. Recently, the Covid-19 pandemic came to prove that the revolution’s legacy is still alive, and the constitutional principles are still orienting the Portuguese artists. Today’s growing neoliberalisation of democracy raises the question of how the Portuguese constitution remains the main guarantor of the citizen’s most fundamental right to participatory democracy and to be more active citizens.

Reframing Fashion in the Exhibition Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse

The exhibition Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse (2022) reexamined the British fashion designer’s oeuvre by contextualizing select Alexander McQueen designs within art history. Juxtaposing permanent collection works that spanned media, eras, and cultures with McQueen’s fashions, curators explored the cyclical nature of inspiration against the backdrop of appropriation in art history. As evidenced in his powerful collections, McQueen’s artistic process ranged from thoughtful research and examination to Eurocentric revisions that were both critical of and at times complicit in the legacies of colonialism. This analysis of McQueen’s artistic intent and process initially sought to uncover new frameworks for understanding the designer; however, the thematic conversations between encyclopedic objects also yielded new and unexpected insights for the museum’s non-dress and textile art collections. Investigating McQueen’s fashion collections through a broader art-historical lens enabled significant and mutually beneficial dialogues between both dress and non-dress art historians.

A Study on the Issues of Connoisseurship and Collection Seals Jointly Included in Two Tang Dynasty Calligraphy and Painting Documents - Focusing on the Examination of “Shu Shu Fu” and “Li Dai Ming Hua Ji”

The Dou brothers’ Shu Shu Fu (Ode to the Depictions of Calligraphy) and Zhang Yanyuan’s Li Dai Ming Hua Ji (Record of Famous Painters of the past) are the only two documents dating back to the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) and earlier periods with detailed descriptions of calligraphy and painting connoisseurship and collection seals, which provide essential references for research in calligraphy and painting connoisseurship, fine art history, and connoisseurship and collection history for later generations, thus possessing an irreplaceable historical value. The section “Yin Yan” (Connoisseurship and Collection Seals) of the “Shu Shu Fu” contains a collection of 18 seals dating back to the Tang Dynasty and earlier periods. Among these, 17 were referenced in the article “Xu Gu Jin Gong Si Yin Ji” (The Record of Ancient and Modern Public and Private Seals) from the “Li Dai Ming Hua Ji”, which conducted extensive research on these specific seals. Based on this comprehensive study, the total number of seals mentioned in the article was expanded to 51. In terms of structural pattern and seal documentation, the two books exhibit an apparent hereditary relationship as well as notable differences. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a comparative analysis of their styles, writing purposes, editing and compiling ideas, seal order, emphasis on content, etc., in order to unveil the process of knowledge generation pertaining connoisseurship and collection seal records during the Tang dynasty. Additionally, the paper will also compare and collate the seals recorded in both books, and verify relevant historical materials.

Understanding the Guanxi Culture in Chinese Art Market: Okada Kosho and Shanghai Art World in the Late-nineteenth Century

Shanghai art market had developed a strong international trade system since China was forced to have her gate ajar in the late-nineteenth century. In 1873, a Nagasaki doctor Okada Kosho (1821-1903) travelled to Shanghai and Suzhou. Thanks to the development of stochastic models for the analysis of social networks in contemporary statistics, the structure of Okada’s guanxi (social connections) in Shanghai and Suzhou in the late nineteenth century can be represented by the model, which illustrated that Okada was connected with a few “bridges”, including the Japanese artist Yasuda Rozan, Japanese Consulate Shinagawa Tadamichi, an official dispatched at the end of 1860s to Shanghai, Kumashiro Encho, and the prominent art collector of the Guoyun Chamber, and Gu Cheng, all of whom helped Okada Kosho to explore the Shanghai and Suzhou art world. Through the bridging ties spanned by these individuals, Okada interacted closely with a particular cluster of Chinese artists, art collectors and art dealers. This proved that the Chinese art community heavily relied on social connections of the “bridges” in advertising itself and spreading its reputation. This paper first outlines the Shanghai art market in the late nineteenth century based on Okada Kosho’ s Diaries of Shanghai and Suzhou (1890). It then argues for the opportunity and limitation of building guanxi in the context of the Chinese art market. Finally, it suggests research approaches based on viewing the late-nineteenth-century Shanghai art market in this new way.

A new business model in the fine arts realm based on NFT certificates and pearl codes

The potential of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) is highly anticipated, particularly in the realm of visual arts. However, current applications within fine arts often involve trivial processes, such as creating digital versions of artworks or replicas of masterpieces as NFT images, and selling only these NFTs. To unlock the full potential of NFTs, more innovative models are needed. This paper introduces a novel model that establishes a permanent link between an NFT and a physical craft object. This linkage is utilized to orchestrate the trade workflow, ensuring a sustained connection between real and digital artifacts. A distinguishing feature is that they can be sold together or seperately and later reunited with a buyer. The NFT serves as a multifunctional certificate, tracing, and communication token.Through a comprehensive analysis, this paper explores diverse scenarios that may arise in the relationship between the physical object and its digital twin. It presents a systematic and formal description of the proposed model and its various cases, marking a pioneering effort in the field. Noteworthy advantages include the ability to detect plagiarism and fraud. By strategically incorporating stakeholder roles, the model preserves the anonymity of art collectors while extracting valuable information about the ownership of physical artworks. The primary objective is to enhance security in the art trade and foster new business opportunities for stakeholders. As a proof-of-concept, the model was implemented in a real-world scenario on a leading NFT marketplace platform.

Foreign travellers in Milan and their interests

Abstract This article reviews the presence and movements of foreign travellers in Milan in the mid-nineteenth century, focusing on the cultural context of art collecting. Perceptions of the Milan region abroad are examined through a number of guides and illustrated digests aimed at foreign visitors and produced by local publishers such as Giovanni Pietro Giegler, Ferdinando Artaria, Bettalli and Vallardi. Along with the main landmarks, the importance of private palaces and their art galleries has also been researched. Among them are locations associated with some established names (the Archinto, Litta, Borromeo and Trivulzio families), as well as new entries such as the Poldi Pezzoli family. The sections of guidebooks devoted to the city’s antiquarian market were particularly significant within these publications, a study of which helps us to understand the unexpected dynamics of some emerging antique dealers’ careers. Emphasis is placed on case-studies, notably the important and remarkable example of Alfonso Reichmann, whose family owned a famous hotel at Porta Romana. Reichmann successfully engaged in the domestic and international art trade, dealing with foreign museums as well as with Italian institutions and collectors, including Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli.

137Cs Gamma Radiation Effect on Fungal Strains on an Artwork by Candido Portinari

Gamma radiation is an effective technique for the conservation of art collections, reducing microbial loads and can be obtained by the emission of a radioactive isotope, such as Cesium 137. A Portinari’s artwork (National Museum, Brazil) was analysed, and the fungi contained therein were isolated and treated with gamma radiation for decontamination. Radiation doses used were 16, 19 and 22kGy. Results indicated 11 genera and 17 species of fungi isolated. Penicillium and Cladosporium were isolated from air, the artwork, and its support. The genera Penicillium, Cladosporium, Nigrospora and Curvularia showed high resistance to radiation (16kGy) being the most resistant species Cladosporium, with no growth just under 22kGy. The results outlined indicate that the rates of DNA damage and repair were critical, depending on chronic or acute doses. The biochemical mechanism acting on fungal cells under irradiation was basically the inactivation of specific enzymes and, probably, DNA damage, particularly stimulating double-strand breaks.

FOCUSING A CITY BRANDING STRATEGY ON A LUMINARY: A CASE STUDY OF TREBINJE AND JOVAN DUČIĆ

<p class="ABSTRACT">Trebinje is a city with a rich cultural and historical heritage associated with influential historical figures who have played a role in its physical construction and contributed to its identity. Legends about these people are a part of the city’s rich intangible cultural heritage and they can provide a solid basis for city branding.</p> <p class="ABSTRACT">This paper examines the possibilities of using a renowned person – more specifically, the poet, diplomat, art collector and patron Jovan Dučić – for branding Trebinje. The focus of the study is the tangible and intangible heritage associated with Jovan Dučić and covering all the crucial aspects of focusing the city branding strategy on a luminary.</p>

The fragility of cultural philanthropy: why private art museums close

ABSTRACT Recently, considerable attention has been devoted to the rise of private art museums in the field of museum and cultural studies. One question which has figured prominently is if these museums are able to stand the test of time. Systematic empirical studies of this issue are so far scarce. On the basis of a new database of private museum closures worldwide, this paper explores why private museums close. By studying such closures, this article aims to advance our understanding of private museum sustainability and longevity. On the basis of statistical data and qualitative content analysis, we also examine what happens to the displayed art collections after such institutions close. Our main findings are that private museum closures are multifaceted, complex events frequently involving financial issues. Moreover, we conclude that because of their funding models and reliance on a sole founder, they are inherently fragile organizations. Indeed, we find that the median number of years private museums have been open before closing is no more than 10.

To receive and to give something back – director’s perspectives on public – private collaborations in Norwegian art museums

ABSTRACT The rapid growth of private museums, contemporary art, and the emergence of private collectors has changed public museums’ room for action and placed heightened pressure on museum directors worldwide. In recent years, Norway has witnessed a surge in extensive collaboration between publicly funded museums and private collectors. Based on qualitative interviews with eleven museum directors, this paper examines how they navigate and address criticism, challenges, and demands when collaborating with private actors, with a particular emphasis on private art collectors. Additionally, the study aims to uncover the opportunities that emerge from such collaborations. Findings reveal that public – private collaborations are seen as an inevitable solution for the future, driven by factors such as limited purchasing budgets, rising costs, and concerns about diminishing public support due to reliance on oil revenues. Despite facing challenges such as external criticism and collector demands, directors maintain an optimistic outlook regarding more public – private collaborations and advocate the opportunities they bring.

Designing exhibitions of Chinese art in Soviet Art Museums: from collectible to problematic method

The object of research is Chinese fine art presented in Soviet museums, museum practice and scientific discourse that has developed around the study of Chinese art in the USSR. The subject of the research is the specifics of designing exhibitions of Chinese art in Soviet art museums and the issues of its historical transformation. The analysis of a number of exhibition events held in Soviet museums and dedicated to Chinese fine art is proposed. During the consideration of the topic, such issues as the factors that influenced the methods of Soviet scientists in planning Chinese expositions, the degree of their effectiveness in relation to communication between the Soviet viewer and works of Chinese fine art are traced. This material is used to reconstruct the process of transformation of Soviet art critics' approaches to presentation and communication in the field of Chinese art. The comparative historical method is used to allow a comparative analysis of the Early Soviet and late Soviet periods in order to comprehend the issues of the evolution of scientific knowledge about Chinese art, approaches to its research, museum presentation and communication in this area. A descriptive method of analyzing exhibitions and collections of Chinese fine art in Soviet museums is used. For the first time, the nature of Soviet museum studies of Chinese fine art is generalized, the approaches of Soviet researchers to presentation and communication in the field of fine art in China are revealed, and their historical transformation is traced. The main conclusions of the study are as follows. The nature of the evolution of Soviet researchers' approaches to presentation and communication in the field of Chinese fine art in USSR museums is determined by the movement towards the development of deep scientific ideas, which in the late Soviet period provide a reliable basis for the effective implementation of certain approaches to exposition planning, the complication of exhibition events, the movement of Soviet museological theory from an ideologized view of exposition material as a means education of a citizen of a new formation, to the perception of an independent artistic idea of exposition works. Since the second half of the 1980s, new principles of artistic communication between the viewer and works of fine art have been formed in the USSR: an independent artistic idea of exposition works is brought to the fore, which provides favorable conditions for the Soviet viewer to perceive traditional Chinese aesthetics as a separate phenomenon of ancient and original Chinese culture.

A painting authentication method based on multi-scale spatial-spectral feature fusion and convolutional neural network

The scientific authentication of paintings holds significant importance within the realm of art collection. Employing convolutional neural networks for the classification of authentic and counterfeit painting images based on color images is a viable but suboptimal choice. This study investigates the potential for authenticating paintings by incorporating high-spectral images alongside high-resolution spatial images. High-resolution and high-spectral images of genuine and counterfeit paintings were acquired using a push-broom digital scanning system. The processing methods presented in this approach for the acquired images are: 1) The study utilized the circular local binary pattern (LBP) and principal component analysis (PCA) to extract surface texture and spectral data from Chinese character images in paintings, encompassing both spatial and spectral dimensions. 2) The technique utilizing non-subsampling Shearlet transform (NSST) and pulse-coupled neural network (PCNN) was employed to integrate the spatial and spectral characteristics of the images into a pseudo-color image, producing a dataset of feature data for genuine and counterfeit paintings. 3) The experiments aimed to achieve the authenticity of artworks using EfficientNet v2-s, the hyperparameters of which were fine-tuned accordingly. The experimental findings demonstrate that this approach attained a 90.8 % accuracy on the test dataset, representing a 3.5 % enhancement over the existing top-performing three-dimensional convolutional neural network (3D-CNN).

Curating Community behind Barbed Wire: Canadian Prisoner of War Art from the Second World War

Though often under-represented in the official and national narratives and in Canadian military historiography more broadly, the intimate and personal lived experiences of Canadian prisoners of war (POW) during the Second World War can be found in archives, photography collections, and collections of war art. In an attempt to see past the mythologised versions of POWs that appear in Hollywood films, best-selling monographs, and other forms of popular culture, it is through bits of ephemera—including wartime log books and the drawings carefully kept and sent home to loved ones along with handwritten letters—that the stories of non-combatant men and women who spent their war as POWs, can be told. Together, Canadian POWs created and curated community and fostered unconventional family ties, sometimes called “emotional communities”, through the collection and accumulation of drawings, illustrations, paintings, and other examples of war art on the pages of their wartime log books while living behind barbed wire. This article uncovers some of these stories, buried in the thousands of boxes in the George Metcalf Archival Collection—the textual archives—at the Canadian War Museum (CWM) in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Is There a Timeless Truth for Good Arrangement of Paintings in Art Galleries and Museums? An Experimental Investigation of the Barnes Collection

The Barnes Foundation is a traditional art collection and it is one of a kind as for the assorted hanging of the paintings. The sophisticated wall compositions by Albert Barnes were created as a tool for art education, and they have not been altered since 1951. Today, we are interested whether Barnes’ taste withstood the test of time. We asked participants in an online study to create their own hangings on five of the original gallery walls, and also tested whether beholders are able to identify a missing painting from a selection of suitable alternatives. Results show that Barnes’ motifs are reproduced by a significant number of participants and that experts produce more Barnes-like displays than naive participants. We conclude that Albert Barnes based his choices at least to some degree on universally valid visual aspects that are still understood today, especially by people trained in the visual domain.