Latest Articles

Icons: What's In A (Certain) Name? A Big Boost In Price
A Matthias Steinl Ivory Is Identified, And Its Value Soars

January 21, 2012  •  The Wall Street Journal

Two years ago, Sotheby's offered a 10¼–inch-tall ivory depicting Pluto, god of the underworld, abducting the goddess Proserpina, with a presale estimate of $120,000 to $150,000. It fetched $1.2 million. Now the same 17th-century sculpture is for sale at a New York gallery—for $3.8 million.

How did this masterful piece -- notice the billowing drapery that swathes Proserpina, the muscles of Pluto, the intricate details throughout – gain so much value so quickly?

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Latin American Art: Derivative No More
A Cultural Conversation with Mari Carmen Ramirez

January 18, 2012  •  The Wall Street Journal

With her spiked, streaked hair and rapid-fire, exhortatory way of speaking, Mari Carmen Ramírez, the curator of Latin American art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, could easily have been a political agitator. And in her own way, she is. Ms. Ramírez wants to shake up the politics of art history, to prove that Latin American art, far from being derivative, has had its own identity, its own breakthroughs.

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The New Allure of Old Master Sculpture

January 2012  •  Art + Auction

Last summer, much of the art world was aflutter about a 17th-century bronze by Adriaen de Vries (1550-1626) that suddenly appeared on the market. Cast in the year the renowned Dutch Mannerist died, it had never been recorded in the literature. Christie's found the 43-inch-tall Mythological Figure Supporting the Globe during an evaluation of an Austrian castle: the sculpture had stood atop a fountain there for at least 300 years.

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Icons: In San Francisco, a Duped Lover's Stony Revenge
Bernini's Medusa

December 24, 2011  •  The Wall Street Journal

When in Rome, tourists regularly trek to see the Berninis. The artist's many sculptures, fountains and St. Peter's Basilica itself are woven into the city—rarely traveling, even if they can.

But now Rome has sent an example by this master, often compared to Michelangelo, to the San Francisco Museums of Fine Arts. "Medusa" shows Gian Lorenzo Bernini at his inventive, naturalistic best—and recalls a violent love affair that would have headlined any 17th-century tabloid.

He "did this piece for himself, and it's an exercise in bravura to show what he could do," says Bernini scholar Charles Scribner III. Calling it "cathartic," he adds, "I would title it, borrowing from Graham Greene, 'The End of the Affair.' "

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Crystal Bridges Museum: An Uneven View of American Art

December 13, 2011  •  The Wall Street Journal

Over the past decade, as she set about creating the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Northwest Arkansas, Alice Walton has annoyed, alarmed and antagonized not only the art world but much of the rest of the populace too. Her offense? Ms. Walton, the youngest child of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, had the audacity to use her wealth to bring American art to a corner of the U.S. that had little. This upset both those who did not see why such a backwater deserved great art and those who would rather have Wal-Mart pay its workers better, a confusion of apples and oranges if ever there was one. Besides, skeptics said, it's impossible to build a comprehensive, world-class collection so quickly—despite the $1.2 billion lavished on this effort.

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