I checked under the couch.
Contents: a tissue, a bottle cap, a pointless pencil, a finger splint.
I searched the attic.
Contents: Bins of clothes, light bulbs, holiday decorations.
I looked under the beds, in the cupboards, in the garage, in the basement (shiver.)
Contents: stuff.
Objects of significant value? Diddly.
But I just know there is a Big Score here somewhere.
An old brooch, tablecloth or lamp that I can bring to Antiques Roadshow.
A winning lottery ticket that I forgot to scratch and sniff.
A gold necklace worth 486 times what I paid for it ten years ago.
Sigh. I'm just not as lucky as those people who visit a yard sale and pay $1.25 for a copy of The Declaration of Independence- that turns out to be an original, calligraphied copy of The Declaration of Independence.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Martin Kober is that lucky. In fact, he may be the recipient of the greatest acts of regifting from the Renaissance to Modern Times.
Seems that more than a century ago, Kober's parents received a wedding gift from the sister-in-law of his great-great-grandfather; a painting that had been gifted to her from a German baroness. The painting was displayed on a wall in Kober's boyhood home- until someone hit it with a tennis ball. Removed from the wall, it was wrapped and tucked under a couch, where it remained for 25 years.
Eventually, Kober's parents gifted the painting to him.
Now Kober is convinced that the painting may be a genuine Michelangelo, dating back to 1545.
Big Score.
Art historians initially scoffed at his assertions. "A Michaelangelo? Stuffed for centuries beneath a couch in Western New York? Pshaw!" (I made that quote up, so kindly don't google those words and expect them to be attributed to an art historian.)
Indeed, scholars who never saw the painting; scholars from Columbia University, the University at Buffalo, and New York University's Institute of Fine Arts agreed with the assertions of museum curators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan and Washington's National Museum: the painting was of low quality. It had little worth.
But an extensive scientific examination conducted in Rome suggests that the 470-year-old piece of spruce wood in Kober's possession may be one of the few surviving Michelangelo oil paintings created on a panel made of wood. In fact, it could be one of the greatest finds of the century.
Research using dendrochronology, a scientific method that dates objects by counting tree rings, has determined that the wood panel was painted in the 1550s. X-ray fluorescence, infrared reflectography and radiography analysis used to clean the painting and peer through paint layers; eventually revealed layers of a painting not visible to the naked eye- an under drawing.
Brief Digression: I'd really like to get my hands on one of those IR reflectography devices, so I could peer into my boys and diagnose sports injuries without having to pay co-pays. Kindly let me know if you have access to one.
Back to the under drawing. Turns out that the color preparation, palette, precision, infinitesimal brush strokes and changes viewed in detail could only have been produced by Michelangelo, or someone in his inner circle. Likewise, the many modifications made by the artist, and evidence of an unfinished section in the painting prove that it cannot be a copy of another painting, because patrons in the Renaissance would never have paid for a copy-in-progress.
Add to that the 470-year-old fingerprint found on the wood panel that matches another fingerprint found in a Pauline Chapel fresco painted by Michelangelo between 1538 and 1540. And the wax seals, receipts and thank-you notes tracing the painting back to a gift from Michelangelo to Roman noblewoman Vittoria Colonna.
Super Big Score.
Contents: a tissue, a bottle cap, a pointless pencil, a finger splint.
I searched the attic.
Contents: Bins of clothes, light bulbs, holiday decorations.
I looked under the beds, in the cupboards, in the garage, in the basement (shiver.)
Contents: stuff.
Objects of significant value? Diddly.
But I just know there is a Big Score here somewhere.
An old brooch, tablecloth or lamp that I can bring to Antiques Roadshow.
A winning lottery ticket that I forgot to scratch and sniff.
A gold necklace worth 486 times what I paid for it ten years ago.
Sigh. I'm just not as lucky as those people who visit a yard sale and pay $1.25 for a copy of The Declaration of Independence- that turns out to be an original, calligraphied copy of The Declaration of Independence.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Martin Kober is that lucky. In fact, he may be the recipient of the greatest acts of regifting from the Renaissance to Modern Times.
Seems that more than a century ago, Kober's parents received a wedding gift from the sister-in-law of his great-great-grandfather; a painting that had been gifted to her from a German baroness. The painting was displayed on a wall in Kober's boyhood home- until someone hit it with a tennis ball. Removed from the wall, it was wrapped and tucked under a couch, where it remained for 25 years.
Eventually, Kober's parents gifted the painting to him.
Now Kober is convinced that the painting may be a genuine Michelangelo, dating back to 1545.
Big Score.
Art historians initially scoffed at his assertions. "A Michaelangelo? Stuffed for centuries beneath a couch in Western New York? Pshaw!" (I made that quote up, so kindly don't google those words and expect them to be attributed to an art historian.)
Indeed, scholars who never saw the painting; scholars from Columbia University, the University at Buffalo, and New York University's Institute of Fine Arts agreed with the assertions of museum curators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan and Washington's National Museum: the painting was of low quality. It had little worth.
But an extensive scientific examination conducted in Rome suggests that the 470-year-old piece of spruce wood in Kober's possession may be one of the few surviving Michelangelo oil paintings created on a panel made of wood. In fact, it could be one of the greatest finds of the century.
Research using dendrochronology, a scientific method that dates objects by counting tree rings, has determined that the wood panel was painted in the 1550s. X-ray fluorescence, infrared reflectography and radiography analysis used to clean the painting and peer through paint layers; eventually revealed layers of a painting not visible to the naked eye- an under drawing.
Brief Digression: I'd really like to get my hands on one of those IR reflectography devices, so I could peer into my boys and diagnose sports injuries without having to pay co-pays. Kindly let me know if you have access to one.
Back to the under drawing. Turns out that the color preparation, palette, precision, infinitesimal brush strokes and changes viewed in detail could only have been produced by Michelangelo, or someone in his inner circle. Likewise, the many modifications made by the artist, and evidence of an unfinished section in the painting prove that it cannot be a copy of another painting, because patrons in the Renaissance would never have paid for a copy-in-progress.
Add to that the 470-year-old fingerprint found on the wood panel that matches another fingerprint found in a Pauline Chapel fresco painted by Michelangelo between 1538 and 1540. And the wax seals, receipts and thank-you notes tracing the painting back to a gift from Michelangelo to Roman noblewoman Vittoria Colonna.
Super Big Score.
Imagine. A painting of an anguished
Mary holding the body of Jesus was transported across centuries- from a
Master's hands to a Noblewoman's, from a Lady-in-Waiting to a retired
pilot.
The pilot believes he owns a
Michaelangelo, but almost every expert he turns to tells him he's nuts.
Persevering in his quest to find someone who will listen,
Kober discovers Antonio Forcellino, an Italian art restorer and historian.
Author of "La Pieta Perduta," or "The Lost Pieta,"
Forcellino flies across the Atlantic to view the painting. Skeptical, at first,
he later describes the painting as "...more beautiful than the versions
hanging in Rome and Florence.... I'm absolutely convinced that is a
Michelangelo painting."
SCORE of a Lifetime.
I don't know any Roman Noblewomen, German Baronesses or Ladies-in-Waiting.
My kids' masterpieces hang all over the walls of my home.
Their messterpieces are tucked beneath every sofa and chair.
Time will tell if I'll ever find a masterpiece among all the messterpieces.
In the meantime, I'll place significant value on both, and chide myself whenever I wish I could swap all of them for that Michaelangelo.
QUING Hereby Decrees. Forget the experts. Believe in the Master!
I don't know any Roman Noblewomen, German Baronesses or Ladies-in-Waiting.
My kids' masterpieces hang all over the walls of my home.
Their messterpieces are tucked beneath every sofa and chair.
Time will tell if I'll ever find a masterpiece among all the messterpieces.
In the meantime, I'll place significant value on both, and chide myself whenever I wish I could swap all of them for that Michaelangelo.
QUING Hereby Decrees. Forget the experts. Believe in the Master!
No comments:
Post a Comment