Nine portraits, the invention of presence, and who gets to be seen This November, the National Gallery in London will attempt something that has never been done before and, by the institution’s own assessment, will never be done again: it will gather in a single building all nine surviving independent portraits by Jan van Eyck. The paintings are scattered across five museums in four countries — London, Vienna, Berlin, Bruges, Sibiu — and several have not travelled in decades.

Art history loves a rivalry. Picasso and Matisse. Michelangelo and Raphael. The narrative flatters our appetite for drama and simplifies the messy business of influence into something resembling sport. Turner and Constable have long been conscripted into this tradition. The press of their day delighted in the opposition: fire and water, poetry and truth, the sublime and the pastoral. When Constable allegedly manoeuvred to give his painting greater prominence at the Royal Acad

Reviewed by Mariska Beekenkamp-Wladimiroff --- Vermeer remains, as Théophile Thoré-Bürger dubbed him in the nineteenth century, "The Sphinx of Delft": thirty-five or thirty-six surviving paintings, almost no documents, no letters, no drawings, and a biography that can be written on a single page. Every generation therefore gets the Vermeer it needs, and Andrew Graham-Dixon's contribution to this long tradition of reinvention is, whatever else may be said of it, formidable i

This is a Substack post written by Pancras Beekenkamp, with imput by Mariska Beekenkamp-Wladimiroff As Amsterdam marks its 750th anniversary, the city finds itself in a moment of profound introspection. Anniversaries are typically occasions for linear narrative - stories of humble beginnings, steady toil, and inevitable rise. The official histories will doubtless trace the arc from the first toll concession granted by Count Floris V in 1275 to the gleaming towers of the Zuida

After having gained quite a bit of traction on social media because of its great popularity in Boston, the exhibition Sargent and Fashion...

After a refurbishment that lasted 11 years (!) this long wait was definitely worth it as the stylish Flemish didn't disappoint in...

This exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London was housed in the side galleries of the museum, with some lovely paintings, drawings...

It was obviously time that this 'one of the three masters of the Dutch Golden Age' was honoured with a large international exhibition....

For those of you who joined our online tours with Venice guide Luisella Romeo will remember her incredible knowledge of the city and its...

Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (mix of classical and contemporary art around the theme of nature), 62 Rue des Archives 3rd...

While London boasts the world’s oldest underground train network (opened in 1863) and Boston built the first subway in the United States...

Should you be traveling to the States for the holidays, and want to splash out on shopping instead of seeing art... here are 5 things to...

Rents in NYC are high so few independent shops survive, but here I have listed a few who give you the feel of having been there for ever!...

Before Central Park was created, a community of predominantly African-Americans, many of whom owned property, lived in this area called ...

New York is an extremely expensive city, especially if you want to enjoy some of the incredible art on show. But it doesn't have to be...