Acquisitions of the Month: April 2022

A round-up of the best works of art that have recently entered public collections

Rubenshuis, Antwerp
Landscape with Nymphs and Satyrs (c. 1616–19), Paul Bril

Born in Antwerp in 1554, Bril moved to Rome in his early twenties, where he spent most of the rest of his career. Early Mannerist works, inspired by the Flemish painters Patinir and Brueghel, gave way in the early 17th century to classical landscapes, which would exert a profound influence upon Claude Lorrain. This Landscape with Nymphs and Satyrs is typical of his late style; the painting features prominently in Willem van Haecht’s Art Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest – perhaps the most famous example of the gallery painting genre, in which the eponymous Antwerp merchant stands surrounded by friends, admirers and his vast hoard of paintings and sculptures – alongside which it will now hang at the Rubenhuis. The Rubenhuis has also recently acquired a second-century marble trapezophoros – a support for a table-top – which was owned by Rubens between 1618–26.

Landscape with Nymphs and Satyrs (c. 1616–19), Paul Bril. © LUCID

Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Neue Galerie, New York
Self-portrait en face (1904), Käthe Kollwitz

These two New York institutions have banded together to buy an extraordinary self-portrait by Kathe Kollwitz. Completed in 1904, the lithograph is among the earliest completed by the artist as she began to shifted from painting to printmaking as the most appropriate vehicle for her excoriating social critiques. This rare impression was likely sold at Galerie Kornfield in Bern for $785,000 – an auction record for the artist.

Self-portrait en face (1904), Käthe Kollwitz

National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens, Tate Modern, London, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Guggenheim Museum, New York
Promised gift: 350 works from the collection of Dimitris Daskalopoulos

The Greek collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos announced plans on 13 April to donate 350 works of modern and contemporary art, by 142 artists, from his extensive collection to four institutions. Unusually, the MCA Chicago and the Guggenheim have agreed to joint ownership of all of the 100 works allocated to them, which include pieces by Sarah Lucas and Wangechi Mutu. Among the gifts to the Tate are pieces by David Hammonds, Paul McCarthy, Louise Bourgeois and Mona Hatoum, while EMST is to acquire a number of works by Greek artists, as well as pieces by the likes of Ana Mendieta and the Turkish-American artist Kutlug Ataman.

Current Disturbance, Mona Hatoum. Photo: Geoff Caddick/PA Wire, 2010

Hispanic Society Museum & Library, New York City
Allegorical Portrait of Goya (1860), Eugenio Lucas Velázquez

This terrifically grumpy portrait of Goya was painted three decades after the painter’s death by a Spanish disciple, Eugenio Lucas Velázquez. It is one of ten acquisitions recently announced by the Hispanic Society Museum & Library, which also include a set of charcoal drawings by Orozco.

Allegorical Portrait of Goya (1860), Eugenio Lucas Velázquez

Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge
No More Battlefields, Only Flowers (2021), Tiffanie Delune

Formerly known as the New Hall Art Collection, the Women’s Art Collection announced its new name at London Art Fair in April – where it also acquired a new work, from Ed Cross Fine Art, by the Lisbon-based artist Tiffanie Delune, painted with acrylics and watercolour pencil on paper in Delune’s typically luscious palette.

No More Battlefields, Only Flowers (2021), Tiffanie Delune