Word: ginevra
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week that one was in the U.S. Washington's National Gallery of Art announced that it had acquired Leonardo's 15⅛-in. by 14½-in. oil portrait of Ginevra dei Benci, a 15th century nobleman's wife. The seller was Prince Franz Josef II, head of tiny (61 sq. mi.) Liechtenstein, tucked snugly between Austria and Switzerland. Price: an estimated $5,000,000, more than twice the previous record of $2,300,000, paid in 1961 for Rembrandt's Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer by Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum. And while...
...Rembrandts, Rubenses and other old masters have disappeared from the vaults of the royal castle at Vaduz only to reappear, with a minimum of publicity, on museum walls from Ottawa to London. Unquestionably the most valuable painting in the Prince's collection was the Leonardo Ginevra...
Maxwell Smart. Evidence that the lady is Ginevra is a scroll-like design, incorporating a juniper tree, that appears on the back of the painting, plus a juniper tree behind her head (ginevra means juniper in Italian dialect). Proof that it is by Leonardo lies in the handiwork itself. When the National Gallery began serious negotiations with the Prince, shortly after the deal with Simon had fallen through, Director John Walker sent Mario Modestini, a New York restorer, to examine the painting. "He went over it, literally, with a microscope for 2½ hours," reported the gallery's secretary...
Occasionally his sense of showmanship swept him overboard. Asked recently if the bust of a woman purported to be after Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra di Benci, which the Met bought at a Parke-Bernet auction for $225, was really a Leonardo, Rorimer winced, said, "If you never see it exhibited in the Met, you will know...
...risk an adverse verdict. When negotiations broke down, the prince's art dealer, Josef Farago, issued a categorical denial: "The prince would not dream of selling the Leonardo." As for the prince, he was, as one to the manner born, off hunting in Austria. Does this mean that Ginevra del Bend will never leave Liechtenstein? Said a Liechtensteinian noble last week: "Eventually some fool may offer $10 million, and then...