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March 2024

Vol. 166 | No. 1452

A Francis Bacon discovery

Editorial

The National Gallery

Two hundred years ago, in the spring of 1824, British enthusiasts for European painting had good reason to feel optimistic. In a House of Commons debate that took place on 2nd April the government was praised for agreeing to acquire for the nation thirty-eight paintings from the collection of the discerning banker John Julius Angerstein, in order to establish a new National Gallery in London.

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Book Review

Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris

Marie Laurencin (1883–1956), a model free spirit, danced among the sexually fluid circles of 1920s Paris. Noted for her lengthy affair with the poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), who often took her as his muse, she was also closely involved with the city’s lesbian artistic circles, including the literary salon of Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972). Laurencin was a profoundly original painter, with an instantly recognisable figurative style, but she was also an inventive designer and worked on many collaborative projects across illustration, fashion, ballet and the decorative arts.

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  • The Crucifixion [skull]

    A ‘crucifixion complex’: two newly discovered sketches attributed to Francis Bacon

    By Rebecca Daniels
  • Infra-red image of Pietà

    A rediscovered ‘Pietà’ by Andrea del Sarto

    By David Franklin
  •  Giants attacking Olympus

    The permanence of ephemera: a rediscovered fragment by Frans Floris

    By Maria Clelia Galassi
  • A goldsmith or sculptor carrying a basket of statues

    Johannes Lutma the Elder: goldsmith, designer, draughtsman

    By Reinier Baarsen
  • The five senses

    Giuseppe Antonio Ghedini’s drawings for ‘Il Ricciardetto’

    By Cecilia Vicentini
  • Recollection of the festival (Courage, Knowledge and Labour collaborate to establish the reign of Concord)

    Jean-Charles Cazin, 1881–83: naturalism and networking, regionalism and republicanism

    By Richard Thomson
  • A saint writing

    Ter Brugghen in Italy

    By John Gash