Sue’s Reviews > The Boston Raphael > Status Update
Sue
is on page 185 of 335
In 1966 a group of Dutch art historians convened in an attempt to settle the many questions of attribution of paintings to Rembrandt. But while they significantly reduced the number of misattributions, there were many that were never firmly settled..the number of genuine works waxing and waning over the years. Finally, more than fifty years later...the project has come to a halt in an admission of the impossible.
— Aug 03, 2015 04:03PM
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Sue
is finished
Interesting not only as a picture of what happened during the tenure of Perry Rathbone at the MFA, but also for all the history of American museums in general, the inner workings of museum management at that time when a shift from art to business mode was under way. Also glimpses of the less than glorious side of the art "trade," the politics and maneuvering going on. Lots to read about.
— Aug 03, 2015 07:43PM
Sue
is on page 178 of 335
Art dealers can be very wily in such a debate, observed Nicholas Penny... Perhaps Sabin had an old bone to pick with Shearman... Whatever, he enjoyed playing his challenge to the hilt. On a chance encounter at a London bookshop with the chief editor of the Burlington Magazine, Benedict Nicolson, Sabin agreed to a wager: he bet that the painting was a fake, while Nicolson wagered that it was authentic.
— Aug 03, 2015 02:58PM
Sue
is on page 110 of 335
after a some what pedantic opening set up of both Rathbone' s life and the state of American museums, the story is really heating up now as we enter more deeply into the inner workings of the museum world. the courting of donors is fascinating.
— Aug 02, 2015 04:58PM
Sue
is on page 103 of 335
In a 1960 article for Canadian Art, "On Collecting," Rathbone wrote of the "supreme obligation of the office which beyond question endows the director with lasting satisfaction: collecting, making acquisitions." This was the challenge that made the more arduous burdens of the job worthwhile.... Furthermore, he understood that his legacy to posterity would depend on great acquisitions more than anything else.
— Aug 02, 2015 03:00PM
Sue
is on page 71 of 335
The job Rathbone was taking was on an entirely different scale from the one he had left behind.... Boston had the only major museum in the country entirely dependent on private donations.... In the mid-1950s there was no admission charge, and...only fifteen hundred members, nearly half of whom paid less than five dollars a year for the privilege.
— Aug 01, 2015 05:40PM
Sue
is on page 68 of 335
In the mid-1960s the Boston Museum of Fine Arts approached its 100th birthday.... In 1965 Rathbone began the monumental task before him, to "lay pipe" for 1970. A centennial, as some wise person told him as he entered the planning stages, is a fate worse than death. By the time it was over, he would come to understand the full weight of those words.
— Aug 01, 2015 03:32PM
Sue
is on page 63 of 335
Now he was about to enter the wilderness without a map. For it was not only the social and urban landscapes that were changing but the American museum as well. The problems Rathbone faced were in large part those of the monster he and his colleagues had helped to create - a much larger and diverse audience, with much higher expectations, a public hungry for blockbuster exhibitions and ambitious building programs.
— Aug 01, 2015 02:46PM
