THE ART NEWSPAPER Number 284, November 2016 37
Dallas. Research into an 18th-century Spanish por-
trait acquired recently by the Meadows Museum in
Dallas has led scholars to conclude that it is a work by
Francisco Bayeu y Subías (1734-95), the court painter
to Charles III and brother-in-law of fellow artist Fran-
cisco Goya. The painting of a child, which had been in
a private collection and exhibited just twice in the past
80 years, was long thought to be by Bayeu’s mentor,
Anton Raphael Mengs.
Nicole Atzbach, the curator of the Meadows
Museum, says the reattribution was made by the “go-to
people for Bayeu and Mengs”—Arturo Ansón Navarro
from the University of Zaragoza, who specialises in
Bayeu, and the Mengs expert Javier Jordán de Urríes,
from the Royal Palace of Aranjuez. “They both agreed
that it is without a doubt a work by Bayeu,” she says.
According to Atzbach, the previous attribution to
Mengs probably came about as a result of the close
working relationship between the two artists. (Mengs
brought Bayeu to Madrid to work with him on the
frescoes for the ceiling of the Royal Palace of Madrid.)
She adds that the portrait “broaches the Neo-Classical
style of Mengs to a certain extent so it was assumed
to be by him”.
Ansón Navarro also identified the sitter, María
Teresa del Castillo, from an inscription found on the
stretcher. An examination of 18th-century archives
revealed that she was the daughter of a marquis and
was probably around seven years old when the picture
was painted, between 1767 and 1770. She was not men-
tioned in later archives, which suggests that she did
not survive into adulthood. “Her father’s connection
to the king explains how he was able to gain access to
Bayeu,” Atzbach says.
The Meadows Museum’s acquisition is a particular
coup for the institution as there are very few portraits
by Bayeu outside Spain; it also complements works by
Goya in its collection. The museum bought the work
from the Spanish auction house Alcalá in a private
sale. It is in great condition, Atzbach says, adding that
Alcalá had it cleaned
to bring out more
of the sitter. The
Meadows then sent
it to conservators at
the nearby Kimbell
Art Museum “for
a light cleaning to
bring out details of
the curtain and the
windowscape”. E.S.SYDNEY: COURTESY OF THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE. VERSAILLES: © EPV/JEAN-MARC MANAI. GAUGUIN: JOHAN GELEYNS; © KMSKB. BAYEU: MEADOWS MUSEUM, DALLAS
37
REMEMBERING
FLORENCE:
Mud angels’ memories
mark the 50th
anniversary of the loodConservation
Pages 38-39Conservation
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FRANCERenault funds Versailles
restoration project...
Q The 17th-century Salon de la Paix at Versailles
is to undergo restoration work funded by
the French car maker Renault. Although the
room’s polychromed marble wall panels are
also in need of treatment, the project’s main
goal is to recover Charles Le Brun’s allegorical
ceiling painting, around 90% of which has been
obscured, in part by a heavy-handed 1950s
restoration. The work by Louis XIV’s favoured
painter depicts France ofering peace to her
enemies. C.B.C.FRANCE...and work starts at château that
made Louis XIV jealous
Q The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, a smaller-scale precursor to
the Château de Versailles, is in the process of restoration. Built
near Fontainebleau between 1658 and 1661 for Nicolas Fouquet,
inance minister to Louis XIV, it showed for the irst time the
combined talents of the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter
Charles Le Brun and the landscape gardener André Le Nôtre.
The king was so impressed that he hired all three for Versailles,
and jailed his minister for misappropriating public funds. The
€450,000 restoration of the château, inanced by the US
collector Alexis Gregory, has begun with work on the decorative
ceiling of Fouquet’s state room, the Chambre des Muses. C.B.C.Ceiling panels (1686)
by Charles Le BrunBELGIUMMuseum crowdfunds to
repair damaged Gauguin
Q The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
is crowdfunding to raise half of the €45,000
needed to restore a work by Paul Gauguin.
The non-proit Baillet Latour Foundation is
covering the remaining costs to repair damage
to the portrait of Suzanne Bambridge (1891),
painted by the French artist on his irst trip to
Tahiti. The damage occurred during a previous
restoration before the work was acquired by
the museum. As we went to press, more than
half of the €22,500 had been raised. E.S.Opera house roof gets
special soundcheck
Getty grant helps to modernise tap-test of Sydney’s tile-clad landmark
Child portrait revealed
to be work by Goya’s
brother-in-law
Francisco Bayeu y
Subías’s portrait of
María Teresa del
Castillo (1767-70)Paul Gauguin’s Portrait of
Suzanne Bambridge (1891)ARCHITECTURE
Sydney. One million brilliant white tiles
clad the 65m-tall precast concrete roof of
the 43-year-old Sydney Opera House—
Jørn Utzon’s Modernist tour de force
overlooking the Australian city’s harbour.
The glazed ceramic tiles need to be hand-
checked, or tapped, every five years by
specialist engineers, who abseil down the
roof “sails” looking for changes in their
sound or appearance. Now, thanks to
the combined eforts of the opera house,
the Getty Foundation, the University of
Sydney and the engineering and design
group Arup, this expensive, vertigo-
inducing process is a step closer to
becoming a thing of the past.
Researchers have added a micro-phone and sensors to the tile-tapping
hammers to improve the quality of
information gathered from these tap
tests. They are also looking to the field of
robotics to see if the inspection process
could become fully automated within
the next five years.
The study is part of the Getty Foun-
dation’s Keeping It Modern initiative,
which funds projects focused on con-
serving Modern buildings, many of
which incorporate materials with previ-
ously unknown ageing properties. The
Sydney Opera House, a Unesco World
Heritage Site, fits the bill because of its
extensive use of concrete.
Monitoring of the opera house, as
with any steel-reinforced concrete build-
ing, is essential to ensure that waterBuilt in 1973 to a design by the architect Jørn Utzon,
the Sydney Opera House is clad in ceramic tiles, which
must be checked every ive years for signs of damage