EDITORIAL

Time to brush up the tactile values

A visit to a great art fair such as TEFAF is a reminder of some fundamental but undervalued aspects of art history.

ARCHITECTURE

Save these houses

A new report highlights the threats to one of Europe's least-known legacies of historic buidlings: the country houses of Silesia.

Market Review

A spectacular early American punch bowl with an extraordinary history got the New York auction season off to an intoxicating start.

Drawing Collectors

Characterised by an intimate atmosphere, Salon du Dessin is unrivalled as the key annual event for the drawings world. Isabel Andrews selects some of the highlights on show.

Collectors' Focus

New research and keen interest from the Chinese is invigorating a market dwindling in scale at auction, writes Richard Garnier.

Around the Galleries

Asia week in New York, BADA in London and Art Paris – it’s a busy month for collectors.

Purity in Porcelain

Based in Hong Kong, Richard Kan is a collector of coins, cars and cameras. However, as he tells Susan Moore, his central interest is Chinese porcelain in its purest, monochrome forms. Portrait by Michael Coyne.

Vasari & the Medici

Research on a rare Italian 16th-century tapestry in the Acton Collection at Villa La Pietra in Florence provides new evidence about the magnificent interiors designed by Giorgio Vasari for Cosimo i de’ Medici at Palazzo Vecchio in the 1550s, as Helen Spande explains.

The Work of Mark

Paul Hetherington unveils a remarkable discovery: an unknown Byzantine silver processional cross of the 10th or 11th centuries, inscribed by its maker, Mark, a monk.

Berenson’s Michelangelo 

One of Bernard Berenson’s central concerns was the attribution of drawings by Michelangelo. In the first instalment of a two-part article, Carmen C. Bambach analyses Berenson’s methods, with a particular focus on the drawings for the Sistine ceiling and tomb of Julius II.

Ideal Forms

Brancusi often said that ‘only fools …could say my works are abstract’, yet that is how they are usually described. Eric Shanes reveals the philosophy that underlay the sculptor’s true intentions.

Maastricht Beckons

Susan Moore makes a selection of the treasures that will be brought to tefaf this year by some 260 exhibitors from all over the world. Among the new initiatives is a section devoted to works of art on paper, ranging from medieval manuscripts to modern photographs

Art’s Ambassador

Michael Hall meets Willem Baron van Dedem, president of the board of the European Fine Art Fair, and owner of one of the finest private collections of 17th-century Dutch paintings. Portrait by Derry Moore.

Treasures from TEFAF

Maastricht offers museum directors, curators and trustees the opportunity to add to their collections and tefaf has seen many once-in-a-lifetime purchases. Annie Blinkhorn and Adélia Sabatini select some of the most memorable recent acquisitions.

Island of Art

Princess Bona Borromeo talks to Susan Moore about the recent restoration of her family’s great art collection and the redisplay of the baroque picture gallery in the Borromeo palace on Isola Bella. Photographs by Daniel Kennedy.

The Enigmas of Arshile Gorky

David Anfam applauds a compelling reappraisal of Gorky’s art that defies the biographical clichés surrounding the painter and his tragic death.

By George...

An anniversary exhibition in Giorgione’s home town throws fresh light on a mysterious artist, writes Andrew Hopkins.

Horace Walpole at Home

The beguiling character of the collection at Strawberry Hill is beautifully evoked in this exhibition, writes Hugh Belsey.

A Flea Cut in Quarters

Boldini’s dazzing skills and enormous popularity raise many intriguing questions, writes Timothy Standring.

A King's Obsession

Selma Schwartz celebrates a masterly catalogue of the French porcelain in the Royal Collection.

Monument in Print

This magnificent dictionary of British sculptors supersedes Rupert Gunnis’s standard work simply by the sheer volume of information that it presents, writes John Kenworthy-Browne.