New perspectives on familiar masterpieces and fascinating discoveries feature in the September issue of The Burlington Magazine, which has a strong Italian flavour.
Why did Leonardo da Vinci create his magnificent ‘Burlington House Cartoon’ (National Gallery, London)? Per Rumberg offers a persuasive proposal. And why did Parmigianino place a column so prominently in the background of his splendid ‘Madonna of the long neck’ (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)? Mary Vaccaro provides a compelling explanation.
We also publish previously unknown portraits by sixteenth-century women painters. Two by the Bolognese artist Lavinia Fontana dating from the early 1580s are in a Neapolitan private collection; they were discovered by Antonio Ernesto Denunzio and expand our understanding of the learned patrons for whom Fontana worked. Another portrait from the 1550s in the Museo d’arte della città di Ravenna by the family of the Cremonese artist Sofonisba Anguissola is discussed for the first time by Emanuele Lugli.
Exhibitions and openings covered in the September issue include the Federico Barocci show in Urbino and the Museo Internazionale del Tappeto Antico in Brescia. Meanwhile, Venetian art features strongly amid book reviews, where Tom Nichols considers Bonifacio de’Pitati’s paintings, Stéphane Loire assesses the extent of the frescos in the city’s palazzi, Dora Thornton discusses the international taste for Venetian cristallino and Deborah Howard writes on the Villa Barbaro.
Finally, moving away from such sunlit idylls, Sarah Whitfield praises Richard Dorment’s new investigative book on the very murky business of authenticating the works of Andy Warhol.
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