by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Feb 25, 2022 |
Armed conflict comes with multiple casualties, the most upsetting of which is the loss of human lives. However, the loss of cultural heritage is also significant. As history has shown on multiple occasions in recent years, notably in the case of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001, invading forces often destroy cultural heritage as a precursor of violence to come and as an intimidation tactic against local populations. Moreover, museums and other cultural institutions are subject to looting and theft during wartime. The Museum of Baghdad suffered such a fate in 2003, when it was ransacked for 36 hours, resulting in the loss of over 15,000 treasures. Thanks to recovery efforts spearheaded by law enforcement and U.S. forces, many of these objects have been tracked down and returned. But the situation remains precarious for Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s attack this week.
Motherland statue at the World War II Museum in Kyiv.
Photo Credits: REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko (taken by drone).
In the days leading up to Russia’s invasion, many art directors worried about the protection of Ukrainian museums and their collections. In particular, museum professionals expressed concerns over the potential destruction of arts institutions as air raids began, especially those in regions at high risk of attack. Institutions such as the Museum of Freedom, the National Art Museum of Ukraine, and The National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War are all located in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, which is vulnerable to attack and currently the site of clashes with the civilian population. Representatives of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War expressed concern not just about being a casualty of the incursion, but anticipated that the notable Motherland monument outside the building was a possible target. Museum directors also fear that items in their collections promoting democracy and critically portraying the 2014 Russian conflict may face targeted destruction by Russian troops.
Before reaching Kyiv, museums near Russian entry points into Ukraine, including Odessa and Kharkiv, were victims of military attacks. For instance, the Museum of the Kharkiv School of Photography was bombarded throughout the day on February 24. While most of its collection has been kept safe in Germany while the museum has been under renovations, remaining items are still vulnerable to damage, destruction, and theft.
Map of the reported fighting on February 24 in Ukraine, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odessa.
Photo Credit: The New York Times
Many museums in the country have been left with limited options to protect their works. In anticipation of a possible invasion, Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture issued guidelines for the protection and evacuation of museum collections. However, there has not been much discussion of, or planning for, the protection of cultural heritage in the event of an invasion. Even when fully prepared, the evacuation of these collections is difficult. Packaging, crating, and shipping large collections is a costly endeavor that is not always included in museum budgets, particularly if public funds for the arts and culture sector have been depleted (such as COVID-19 recovery efforts). While some museums choose to send their most prized works abroad for protection, these works are still vulnerable to air attacks. Once Russian troops arrived in Ukraine on Thursday, on-the-ground evacuations were precluded because roads were blocked by fleeing civilians.
As a result, many museums were left to enact safety measures within the buildings themselves. Odessa Fine Arts Museum Director Aleksandra Kovalchuk stated that the museum staff was doing what it could to protect its collection of more than 10,000 objects. This included storing works in the basement and installing extra security measures, such as barbed wire barriers. Similarly, the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War worked to move its most important works to a safe location.
Other museums, like the Museum of Freedom, started the process in advance of the conflict. Unfortunately, as a state museum, it needed prior approval from the government to physically remove any works from the premises. Museum Director Ihor Poshyvailo stated that the institution was forced to place important works in storage with museum staff members, who have taken turns guarding the collection. This may be a temporary measure, as Poshyvailo and other staff members could be recruited after President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called on all able-bodied men under 60 in the country to fight.
Protestors in Odessa holding Ukrainian flag
Photo Credit: Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP via Getty Images
In addition to protecting the works in museum collections, some directors dedicated their efforts to raising international awareness about the risks to people, cities, and cultural heritage in Ukraine. The Director of the Mystetskyi Arsenal National Art and Culture Museum Complex in Kyiv, Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, released an appeal for solidarity to the museum’s international partners. While Ostrovka-Liuta has since been evacuated to a bomb shelter, in her letter she called attention to the fact that “We should be preparing now the Book Arsenal to be held in May, exhibitions, and cross-sectoral projects — instead our team focuses the efforts to ensure the safety of our staff, our families, as well as to guard our collection, museum objects (paintings, graphics, fine art), including the artworks by Malevych, Yermylov, Bohomazov, Petrytskyi, Zaretskyi, etc., works of modern art, archaeological finds, and the Old Arsenal building, which is a historical and architectural monument of national importance.”
Ukraine’s struggles follow a long history of cultural heritage being damaged during conflict. Perhaps the best known and largest scale of looting and destruction took place during WWII. Countless items were forcibly taken from their owners and are still missing today, although there have been massive efforts to recover them since the end of the war. The Monuments Men were a group of 345 service members that significantly contributed to this effort. Between 1943 and 1951, the Monuments Men sought to track down and recover works that were stolen during the war. The service members of this group were able to recover over 5 million lost or stolen cultural objects.
Since WWII, many other countries have faced similar loss and destruction to their cultural heritage. Notably, the conflicts in Syria and Iraq over the past decades have left an insurmountable number of cultural heritage objects and sites destroyed, damaged, and looted. Today, scholars are still piecing together the extent of the cultural heritage that has been lost. Neither is Ukraine a stranger to this kind of destruction. During the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine lost dozens of cultural and artistic collections. The Donetsk Regional Museum of Local HIstory was hit by anti-tank missiles a total of 15 times, destroying around 30% of their collection. Similarly, during the Maidan revolution, the National Art Museum of Ukraine was at the center of a battle between riot police and insurgents, leading to museum staff taking refuge in the building for many days in an effort to protect the works inside.
Monuments Men transporting a sculpture by Michelangelo, July 9, 1945. Photo credit: Thomas Carr Howe papers, Archives of American Art
Countries continue to fall victim to war, but measures have been established to safeguard art and culture. Primarily in response to the destruction and looting in war zones like parts of Syria and Iraq, there was an urgent need for such protective measures. In October 2019, the U.S. Army Reserve and the Smithsonian joined together to create a modern-day Monuments Men program, in honor of the WWII group. Together, these groups will train service members on how to respond to threats against and preserve cultural heritage. The destruction of cultural heritage has so often been collateral damage in these conflicts, but the creation of the modern Monuments Men program suggests a future in which preservation will be proactively considered and protected.
We hope that the conflict in Ukraine is resolved peacefully and that its people and rich cultural heritage are protected during this tumultuous period.
by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Feb 18, 2022 |
Authenticating artwork can be a complex endeavor at the best of times. Because the value of artwork – both aesthetic and monetary – is subjective, it relies on a complex process involving authentication. In layman’s terms, authentication is ascertaining whether a work is original and can be attributed to a certain artist. However, when an authentication is questioned, this inevitably leads to disputes. There is no shortage of cases involving inauthentic artworks created by forgers (such as Wolfgang Beltracchi and Pei Shen Qian in the infamous Knoedler Gallery scandal), but a rather unique situation arises when artists themselves disavow their work. Can it still be considered authentic in such circumstances? Who is the rightful person to determine the authorship of a work – the themselves, a seller, a buyer, or an expert?
Standing Male Nude, by Lucian Freud
Photograph Courtesy of Thierry Navarro
Lucian Freud’s Standing Male Nude – A Case Study in Authentication and Disavowal
In the case of Lucian Freud, one of the leading English artists of the 20th century, his own denial of a painting was not considered conclusive enough to classify the work as inauthentic. In the mid 1990s, the painting, Standing Male Nude, was purchased by a Swiss art collector. The collector recalls that a few days later, he was contacted by Freud who wanted to repurchase Standing Male Nude, offering him double what he had paid. Upon the collector’s rejection of this offer, the artist became furious and said that unless the collector sold him the work, he would deny having painted it and leave the collector unable to sell. The Freud estate subsequently refused to authenticate the painting, and the collector’s piece languished in limbo for decades.
However, this past November, a team of art experts found definitive evidence confirming what the artist had denied: the painting was, in fact, an original Freud. Scientific tests involved taking pigment samples and using infrared imaging to compare Standing Male Nude with other authentic works by the artist. The work was found to have “an absence of negative indicators for [Freud’s] authorship” by a leading British expert, Dr. Nicholas Eastaugh. These findings were supported by groundbreaking AI technology used by Dr. Carina Popovici at Swiss company Art Recognition. As a result of their own research into the work’s provenance, the collector and private investigator Thierry Navarro believe that the painting was a self-portrait and that Freud was embarrassed by the nude of himself. Although the figure in the portrait is viewed from behind, the facial features appear to match photographs of Freud. Prior to the collector’s acquisition, the painting had hung in a Geneva flat used by fellow artist Francis Bacon at a time when the city served as a “bubble” for the gay community. This helps explain why Freud was so intent on recovering the work.
By creating an authenticity question, the painting’s marketability and resale value was sharply limited. Only works with certificates of authenticity or similar guarantees by living artists will fetch high prices on the legitimate market. Freud’s paintings are worth millions – a lifesize nude of his muse Sue Tilley sold in 2015 for £35.8 million at Christie’s. Previously, another portrait of Sue sold in 2008 for $33.6 million, setting a record at the time for any living artist.
Essentially, authentication can “make or break” the worth of a painting because its attribution is critical. As more and more people view art as an investment and separate asset class, authenticity goes to the core of how the art market operates. But this is not a new phenomenon.
Hahn v. Duveen: The Authentication Case that Rocked the Art World
In 1920, legal disputes concerning art gained worldwide attention when the owner of a painting, believed to be by Leonardo Da Vinci, sued an art dealer who questioned the authenticity of the subject artwork. Dealer Joseph Duveen was one of the world’s best known and successful dealers. Although Duveen had never seen the painting or examined it in person before rendering his opinion, he reasoned that the painting in dispute could not be authentic because the genuine version of the work was in the Louvre. His statement made the painting worthless and unsellable due to the dealer’s sway over other collectors. This case, Hahn v. Duveen, was described as “the world’s most celebrated case of art litigation – a hearsay case with a picture as defendant.” In particular, Duveen was sued for libel; a legal claim that requires the substance of a statement to be false and made with malice.
Clipping from The Illustrated London News of La Belle Ferronière, July 18, 1931 from a Duveen Brothers scrapbook
The court’s opinion criticized the art market and the authentication process: “[a]n expert is no better than his knowledge. His opinion is taken or rejected because he knows or does not know more than one who has not studied a particular subject. . . . Because a man claims to be an expert, that does not make him one.” Hahn v. Duveen, 234 N.Y.S. 185, 190 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1929). Nonetheless, the hold of connoisseurs like Duveen is not so easily dispelled. The market relies heavily on subjectivity when assigning value to works. What makes one artist more valuable than another is not a straightforward matter, and courts in New York (the heart of the global art market) have consistently declined to regulate how the market operates, arguing that it is a matter for participants and experts to decide, as they have the required specialized knowledge. Whether this “hands off” approach is appropriate or not is a question for another day, but it is worth noting that the parties in Hahn v. Duveen settled out of court without a firm attribution in place. Decades later though, Duveen was vindicated when the work sold as a “copy” for $1.5 million in 2011 (likely due to the work’s fame as a result of the litigation).
The situation becomes even more complicated when the person refuting the authenticity of a work is the artist, and not merely someone who “studied a particular work.” How does authentication come into play at such a time?
Authentication as a Three-Legged Stool
In the art market, authentication is often compared to a three-legged stool, which relies on three prongs: forensics, provenance, and connoisseurship. (1) Forensics relies on ever-developing technology to run a myriad of scientific tests on the work. These tests determine certain physical attributes of the painting that can lead to a conclusion supporting its authenticity. However, forgers are also aware of the tests that are run on these works and are able to avoid detection by employing creative methods, such as artificially aging works or using the same pigments as the original artists. (2) Provenance looks at historical evidence tracing the ownership of the work. Ideally, the history of the work can be traced back to the artist without any gaps. (3) The final prong relies on connoisseurs who use their expertise and judgment to determine whether they believe that a work is authentic. This type of evaluation, also known as stylistic analysis, relies on the expert’s “eye” to recognize the artist’s unique style, including the subject matter, brushwork, choice of colors, and composition.
Authentication is established by balancing these three prongs. However, courts, as compared to the art market, tend to weigh these prongs differently. Court prefers the more concrete prongs of forensics and provenance research, whereas the market tends to rely upon connoisseurship. This may cause tension as a court can determine that a work is authentic by weighing the persuasiveness of expert credentials and testimony, but this will not necessarily be reflected in the market. In Greenberg Gallery, Inc. v. Bauman, 817 F.Supp. 167 (D.D.C. 1993), the court sided with plaintiff’s expert Linda Silverman in holding that a mobile sculpture, titled Rio Nero, was an authentic work by Calder, even though Klaus Perls, a renowned Calder expert, identified it as a copy. The court noted that as a trier of fact, it relied on a preponderance of the evidence. However, the art market operates in a very different manner and Perls’ opinion was seen as definitive. The mobile remained unsold for years.
A Lack of Definitive Answers: The Pollock Dilemma
Given that none of these three prongs provide conclusive results, each analysis may lead to contradicting conclusions. As a result,
Jackson Pollock painting. in his studio
Photo by Martha Holmes/The LIFE Premium Collection/Getty Images
many experts may disagree on the attribution of a work. For example, in 2013, the three prongs left the authenticity of a Jackson Pollock unclear. The work in question, a painting titled Red, Black & Silver, was allegedly created by Pollock for his lover Ruth Kligman. The artist’s widow, Lee Krasner, and the Pollock-Krasner Authentication Board disputed the claim. After Kligman’s death, her estate attempted to sell the work at auction in 2012, but it was withdrawn by Phillips so that further research could be performed.
The forensic evidence suggested that the work was done by Pollock. Scientific analysis found a polar bear hair embedded in the painting, which suggested that the painting was authentic since Pollock had a polar bear rug in his studio in 1956, and he was known to lay the paintings on the floor. But the provenance was less cer
tain. While a clear chain of ownership was identified, there was no historical documentation to verify this claim. Lastly, connoisseur Francis V. O’Connor stated that the work does not look like a Pollock. He opines that even if the work was made on Pollock’s estate, it wasn’t necessarily by Pollock’s hand. In this case, as in many others, the three prongs of the ‘three-legged stool’ analysis have resulted in an inconclusive determination as to the authenticity of a work. As a result, this work remains in limbo.
Protecting Expert Opinions: A Legal or Market Concern?
The lack of certainty in the authentication process has led many art experts to hesitate when offering opinions about authenticity. In many instances, art experts have provided their opinions, and their opinions have subsequently been proven wrong. When an art owner is harmed by the opinion of an expert, that owner may decide to sue. This has led many art experts to be hesitant to provide their opinions for fear of facing litigation. As a result, there are fewer connoisseurs providing opinions, thus resulting in a decline in the quality of connoisseurship.
Legal actions taken against authentication boards and experts affect the art market. In Thorne v. Alexander & Louise Calder Foundation, 70 A.D.3d 88 (1st Dept. 2009), the plaintiff sued the Calder Foundation because it declined to authenticate two theatrical stage sets and related materials designed by the artist. The court found that there was no legal basis to compel the foundation to issue an authenticity opinion, even though it would impact the sale price. The Andy Warhol Foundation has also faced its share of lawsuits, with Simon Wheelan v. The Andy Warhol Foundation, 2009 WL 1457177 (SDNY 2009) alleging that the foundation strategically refused to authenticate certain works to drive up the value of others and monopolize the market. While this case was ultimately withdrawn, it calls into question how experts are regulated to ensure good faith when issuing opinions.
Experts can face liability for incorrect opinions, even those given in good faith, under the theory of tort negligence, in addition to legal costs associated with defending themselves. A flurry of lawsuits culminated with Keith Haring Foundation disbanding its Authentication Committee in 2012. As a result, authenticators are not providing opinions, which is negatively affecting the art market. In response, a bill was introduced in the New York State Legislature in the spring of 2014. This bill, which would amend the New York Arts and Cultural Affairs Law, would protect art authenticators from “frivo
lous or malicious suits brought by art owners.” Authenticators are defined as individuals and entities “recognized in the visual arts community as having expertise regarding the artist” when rendering an opinion. A modified version of the bill was passed in 2015, but it remains to be seen whether this will provide a robust shield for art experts issuing authenticity opinions.
Moral Rights Legislation – a Shield or a Sword for Artists?
In many instances, artists are victims of the art market’s subjectivity when determining authenticity. For example, in Herstand Co. v. Gallery, 211 A.D.2d 77, (N.Y. App. Div. 1995), Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, a Polish-French modern artist known as Balthus, declared and signed that a drawing was not authentic. Despite Balthus’ confirmation, the court ruled in favor of the gallery selling the artwork, choosing to believe an expert’s testimony of authenticity over the artist’s own actions.
However, visual artists possess legal rights that can protect them and their works. Most countries have a moral rights system allowing an artist to protect their personal and reputational rights, in addition to their economic rights (such as copyright). For example, many countries grant artists the right to not have a work falsely attributed to them and to protect their honor and reputation with respect to their works.
In the United States, some of these rights have been codified in the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA). VARA is more limited than international art law, or the moral rights of other countries, such as France. Under VARA, an artist’s rights are limited to their lifetime and cannot be assigned or transferred. But VARA grants artists two overarching rights with respect to their authorship. First, artists have a right of attribution, so that an artist is recognized for works they create and are not associated with those that they did not create. Second, artists have a right of integrity to protect their reputation, such that they can disavow works that have been damaged, altered, or mutilated.
However, as seen in the case of Freud’s rejection of Standing Male Nude, artists can also create uncertainty and manipulate the authentication of their works for their own personal reasons.
Cowboys Milking, 1990, Cady Noland
Another artist, Cady Noland, disowned her work, rather than rejecting it outright. This occurred with two different works that were damaged or not properly stored and preserved. Her 1990 silkscreen on aluminum, Cowboys Milking, went up for auction at Sotheby’s but upon Noland’s inspection, she noticed that the corners of the aluminum were damaged. Similarly, Janssen Gallery stored Noland’s sculpture, Log Cabin (1990), improperly and the gallery restored the work without Noland’s consent. In each instance, Noland disowned the work, arguing that if the work were to be auctioned off with her name attached, it would prejudice her honor and reputation. Noland’s rejection of two sculptures spurred lawsuits from the owners, who were no longer able to sell the works for their full value.
Elyn Zimmerman, known for her large scale art sculpture installations, also rejected two projects from her list of works. In one instance, the work was not installed consistent with her design, and the contractor left a large hole in the sculpture. Zimmerman said that the work was past salvaging, and so decided not to put her name on the piece. Both Zimmerman and Noland exemplify ways in which some artists rely upon their reputational rights to remove any unwanted attributions.
Other artists simply reject any association with works so that they can assert control over their oeuvre.
Richard Prince is well-known today for his appropriations of advertisements and other popular images. However, before he gained acclaim in the 1980s, he had explored a variety of different mediums including paintings, drawings, collages, and etchings. In a 1988 interview with Flash Art magazine, Prince said he destroyed 500 of his early works. Prince said that he ripped up the works that he did not like from the mid to late 1970s and put them in garbage bags. However, several works from that period were already sold and were beyond his reach. Prince has claimed that these works no longer represent him as an artist. Over the years, Prince has taken several steps to disavow his early work and re-create his oeuvre beginning in the 1980s. On Prince’s website, his biography omits any exhibitions of his work before 1980, creating the public impression that his career began in that year. He also relied upon the copyright to his art, refusing any reproductions of these early works to be printed in books or catalogues. When a museum exhibited his early work, he refused to participate or grant the museum any rights for images or reproduction. Generally, major museums have followed Prince’s example; both the Guggenheim and Whitney Museums have only acknowledged and exhibited works from or after 1980 in their retrospectives of Prince.
Gerhard Richter in his studio with his paintings on the wall, February 1962.
Copyright and Photo by: Gerhard Richter 2020 Courtesy of the artist and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Gerhard Richter, a German artist whose works have sold for record prices, remains in strict control of his catalogue raisonné to this day. Over the years, Richter has become an artist known for revising and editing his oeuvre. He has removed works from catalogues and rejected paintings from his early West German period. During this period, between 1962 and 1968, Richter went through a stylistic evolution in which he experimented with a figurative style. These realistic paintings varied greatly from his later abstract and photo-realist paintings. Richter’s revisions of the historical catalogues has sparked controversy. As the artist and creator of the paintings, he has a right to define his own body of work. Yet, using this right to modify these historical catalogues can create disputes and distrust in their historical accuracy, and rejecting works offhand can manipulate the market and the resale of works disowned by the artist.
Another famous artist, Pablo Picasso, famously said “I often paint fakes.” This statement questions the art market and the authentication of works but also causes problems for buyers. This was also reflected when Picasso rejected a painting later confirmed to be his original work. When he was handed a photograph of Erotic Scene (La Douceur), he said it was not his work, but just a “bad joke by friends”. The painting, gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1982, sat in storage for several decades. In 2010, the Met prepared for a Picasso show and was faced with authenticity issues concerning the work. The museum ultimately confirmed that the painting was authentic despite Picasso’s statement.
Pest Control Logo
Photo from Pest Control website
As the art market has developed and the complexity of authentication leads to legal controversy and disruption, living contemporary artists have taken authentication into their own hands. Banksy has put a system in place that allows him to be the only authority on the authenticity of his work. This control is in part a by-product of his anonymity. In 2008, Banksy established Pest Control to serve as the sole authenticator of his works. Any Banksy sold after 2009 will be accompanied by a certificate of authenticity (COA) issued by Pest Control and they will retroactively issue COAs for any pre-2008 works they deem authentic. Establishing a third-party authenticator like Pest Control protects the artist’s rights, but it can also influence the market. As seen above, the artist does not always have the final say in the authentication of their works. Pest Control, however, has allowed Banksy to do so. In 2008, five works came up for auction at Lyon & Turnbull in London, and Banksy refused to authenticate them. Pest Control rejected the works’ authenticity and encouraged buyers to boycott the sale. As a result, none of the works were sold. Pest Control has given Banksy access to the art market, allowing him to control what is included in his body of work and sell his work without interference from, or reliance upon, the uncertainty of the three authentication prongs.
As exemplified by Noland, Zimmerman, Prince, Richter, and Picasso, artists have moral rights, and some artists exercise them once their art is on the market. Some artists rely on these rights to protect their work and reputation, others use them to subvert the art market, while others simply wish to remove or disassociate themselves from works they feel are inferior or not representative of their artistic vision and image. While the protection of authors’ rights is important, some question whether artists are abusing their power without considering the larger effects on the market. On the other hand, it may be argued that as the creators of artistic works, artists are in the best position to determine what should or should not be included in their body of work. While this may cause consternation for collectors seeking to resell artworks, there may be limited recourse.
Conclusion
Authentication and attribution is a tricky business. Even after centuries of the art market operating in more or less the same way – responding to supply and demand as well as subjective appraisal – there is still no magic formula to establish whether a work is authentic. Forensic and scientific analysis, combined with a work’s provenance, may provide evidence in support of authentication, but in the absence of a clear link to the artist, collectors risk works being called into question at a later date. Even if an artist is alive at the time the work is sold, there is no guarantee that he or she will wish to remain associated with it. This is why artists and collectors, no matter how new or experienced, should consult with reputable legal counsel to be aware of their rights and risks when engaging in art transactions.
by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Feb 13, 2022 |
In honor of Valentine’s Day, the latest blog post in our Provenance Series centers on the stories of famous lovers and the art inspired by them.
Most people are familiar with playwright William Shakespeare’s famed star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet. This pair from Verona has been immortalized in music, films, subsequent works of literature, and countless works of art. However, there are other ill-fated romantic couples that deserve to share the artistic spotlight.
Dante and Betrice by Henry Holiday
Dante Alighieri, widely credited as the father of modern Italian language, wrote his magnum opus in the 13th century after falling in love with a woman known as Beatrice. Dante admired her from a distance, having only met with Beatrice twice, the first time when they were both nine years old. These interactions moved him so profoundly that Beatrice is widely credited as Dante’s muse even though she was married to another man. Beatrice first appears in Dante’s autobiographical text La Vita Nuova, where she is portrayed as a courtly lady. Beatrice died in 1290. Dante then composed a three-volume narrative poem describing the author’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, where he is eventually reunited with his lady love. This work, The Divine Comedy, is considered one of the great masterpieces of world literature and it was deeply inspired by Dante’s feelings for Beatrice. Indeed, Beatrice serves as the epitome of grace and beauty. She guides the pilgrim Dante into heaven, where his worldly love is transformed into divine love.
Paolo and Francesca da Rimini by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
While Dante and Beatrice meet a happy end in the spiritual realm, other couples in The Divine Comedy are not so fortunate. Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini were real-life contemporaries of Dante who make an appearance in Canto V of the Inferno. Francesca was the wife of Paolo’s brother, who killed them both in a rage after he discovered their secret union. As adulterous lovers, the pair is bonded together for eternity in a fiery whirlwind, symbolizing their uncontrollable lust. But it seems that Dante empathized with Paolo and Francesca’s plight; he wrote that they fell in love while reading medieval romances, particularly those depicting Lancelot and Guinevere (another doomed duo). Upon hearing this, Dante is overcome with pity and weeps for their fate. Despite only occupying 69 lines in Dante’s epic poem, this depiction influenced subsequent generations of artists, particularly the Romantics in the 19th century.
The Kiss, by Auguste Rodin
The poet’s own idealized yet bittersweet love was a favorite subject of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose father was a Dantean scholar and who was in fact named after the Florentine poet. Rossetti used Elizabeth “Lizzie” Siddal and Jane Morris as models for Beatrice. In a case of life imitating art, Rossetti’s relationships with Siddal and Morris both ended unhappily. Rossetti painted Beata Beatrix after Siddal’s tragic death from an overdose of laudanum in 1862. The painting has various renditions, all placing the titular Beatrice (with Siddal’s characteristic red hair) in a beam of light, symbolizing her spiritual transfiguration. Later, Auguste Rodin’s famous 1880s sculpture “The Kiss” was originally titled “Francesca da Rimini.” The original pose was reportedly so passionate that it was censored at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair due to fears that it would incite “lewd behavior.” Rodin was eventually persuaded to change the monumental marble’s name. Yet Paolo and Francesca still appear in the bronze work “The Gates of Hell,” directly inspired by Dante’s Inferno.
Even 700 years after his death, Dante’s work remains highly prized. In 2017, three “tome-raiders” stole over £2 million worth of antiquarian books (over 160 items) from a London warehouse. The stolen property included a rare 1569 edition of The Divine Comedy. The thieves managed to evade the security system by entering the warehouse from above. They bored holes into the reinforced glass skylights and lowered themselves 40 feet on ropes, similar to the film Mission Impossible. The criminals likely received inside information on the location of the valuable books, leading to the heist. The international rare book market is worth approximately $500 million a year. Unfortunately, that means that thieves target valuable manuscripts for the illicit trade. Unfortunately, book theft has been on the rise. However, because of the notoriety of the stolen works, here the thieves’ options were to issue a ransom demand or attempt to sell the goods on the black market for a fraction of the price (5-10%). Fortunately, the books were recovered in Romania in 2020 before they were offered for sale. The crime was linked to various organized crime families with “a history of complex and large-scale high value thefts.”
“Laila and Majnun in School”, Folio 129 from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Nizami of Ganja. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Moving further east, the tale of Layla and Majnun served as inspiration for artists. While the story originated in Arabic, it passed into Persian, Turkish, and Indian languages, denoting its popularity. In the 7th century, Bedouin Qays ibn al-Mulawwah fell in love with Layla bint Sa’d. These feelings were reciprocated, although the intensity of Qays’ obsessive passion expressed through poetry won him the epithet Majnun (meaning “possessed” or “mad”). Layla’s family, concerned about this outrageous public conduct, married her to another man. Upon hearing the news, Majnun exiled himself to the desert and adopted an ascetic lifestyle. Layla eventually became ill and died – some say of heartbreak. Majnun was later found dead in the wilderness near her grave, after carving three verses of poetry nearby proclaiming his undying love for Layla.
This tale has been told and re-told countless times because its themes of love and loss are universal. Majnun predated Dante by over half a millennium, but both poets were changed by their love, seeking to transcend physical bonds and attain a perfect, spiritual love. One of the most recognized versions of Layla and Majnun comes from a narrative poem composed in 1188 by Persian Nizavi Ganjavi. The story made it as far as Azerbaijan. There it became the Middle East’s first opera in 1908 thanks to renowned composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov. A scene from the poem was even depicted on the reverse of commemorative coins minted in 1996 for the 500th anniversary of Fuzûlî’s life, who originally adapted the story into Azerbaijani in the 16th century.
Layla and Majnun continue to fascinate people. In 2007-2008, Harvard University Art Museums hosted an exhibition on the representations of Majnun in Persian, Turkish, and Indian painting. Several manuscripts have been reproduced online, allowing viewers to immerse themselves more fully in the colorful world of these tragic lovers. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum of Art have a series of Iranian wall paintings depicting the couple, as well as illuminated folios showing how they fell in love at first sight. The Cleveland Museum of Art also has a painting of the lovers meeting in the wilderness, as does the British Museum. Depictions of Layla and Majnun are so esteemed that modern fakes have been created to dupe potential buyers.
An authentic illustration at Harvard, “Illustrated Manuscript of Layla and Majnun,” has an interesting past. It is an illustrated copy of Hamdi’s version of Laila and Majnun, penned in 1499. This Turkish work was styled after the work of Jami, the famed Persian poet. The copy at Harvard is not dated, but notes on the manuscript indicate that it was copied in or around 1579, and that the copy may have been intended for the grand vizier at that time. However, subsequent owners are a mystery, and the work bears the square and oval seals of other owners. The manuscript contains 123 folios containing text and seven illustrations. The last folio likely contained a colophon (a printer’s mark), but unfortunately it is lost— the book continues a replacement folio. In addition, the lacquer binding on the book is also not original; it probably belonged to a Qajar manuscript of the late 18th century from Iran. Interesting, the inner sides of the book covers have been reversed to serve as outside covers.
The volume was eventually found its way to France. It likely was sold in Paris by Jean Soustiel in the 1970s to Edwin Binney, 3rd, and it was eventually bequeathed to Harvard University Art Museum in 1985.
Provenance: [Jean Soustiel, Paris, possibly May 1975], sold; to Edwin Binney, 3rd, by 1977, bequest; to Harvard University Art Museum, 1985.
We hope you have enjoyed this foray into works of art inspired by love and passion.
