fabrisse: (Default)
fabrisse ([personal profile] fabrisse) wrote2008-09-30 11:48 am

There's a little more beauty in the world

I'm sickened by the economic crisis, but I take heart because someone has found a previously unknown Breughel.

It's by Pieter the Younger, and the piece was analyzed on what sounds like the Dutch equivalent of Antiques Roadshow. I can't wait to see a photograph of it.

[identity profile] snopes-faith.livejournal.com 2008-09-30 06:18 pm (UTC)(link)
wow, that's a great story! There was a similar thing on on our Antiques Roadshow back in 1987 whereby a painting turned out to be by the great, but troubled Victorian painter Richard Dadd (best known for "The Fairy Feller's Master-stroke"). The work on the show was apparently painted during his incareration in Bedlam following the murder of his father. It's one of those paintings where reproductions never capture the beauty of the colours somehow, but here it is:
http://www.leicestergalleries.com/art-and-antiques/detail/11795

I'm looking forward to seeing the lost Breughel too :)

[identity profile] fabrisse.livejournal.com 2008-09-30 08:02 pm (UTC)(link)
That's a watercolor? It's amazing. Thank you for the link.

The absolute best "Antiques Roadshow" story I know was on the US version. A woman hated this thing her husband had bought in a yard sale ten+ years earlier. He'd paid $.25 for it. They had an agreement that if it turned out to be nothing, she wouldn't have to have it in the living room any more.

Turns out, this carving is a whaling helmet used by the Inuits. It will have to be carbon dated, but is probably pre-Christian Era. There are only four in the world, and this is the most intact example they've ever seen.

It's win-win. The husband gets to be right that it's special (apparently the last one sold to a museum fetched upward of a million dollars), and the wife doesn't have to have it in her living room. *G*