Painters’ Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyck

Fascinating exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the paintings owned by eight well known artists.

The show was inspired by the recent bequest from Lucien Freud of a Corot’s “Italian Woman” to the gallery. The artists featured with Freud, Matisse, Degas, Leighton, Watts, Lawrence, Reynolds and Van Dyck. I liked the fact the narrative of the show was told in reverse chronology so you saw works by the earlier artists in the collections of the later ones.

It discussed how some artists collected out of admiration for other artists and others  to seek inspiration themselves. Matisse owned a Cezanne of Three bathers which he referred back to in his work and it was great to see a large sculpture inspired by it.

Degas got two rooms, one for his collecting of contemporary work and one for old masters. It was interesting to see that at the sale of his collection the National Gallery bought thirteen pictures including works by Ingres and Delacroix.

Reynolds collected works to use in his talks at the Royal Academy which includes the National Gallery’s copy of the Michelangelo Leda and the Swan. Lawrence was both collecting himself and advising others at a time when the art market was flooded due to the French Revolution. Those he aside includes Angerstein and Beaumont whose collections formed the foundation of the National Gallery collection.

I hadn’t known that Van Dyck was a connoisseur of 16th Italian art and owned a number of Titians including the great Vendramin family. A lovely reminder of Venice between my two trips!

Closes on 4 September 2016.

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