1. Japan’s Love Hotels Feature in François Prost
Definitely need to stock this one at the Cabinet.
2. These paintings of Paris by a lesser known impressionist
By Norwegian painter Frits Thaulow (1847-1906).
3. Camille Claudel sculpture discovered in abandoned Paris apartment
Camille Claudel was the lover, co-worker and muse of sculptor Auguste Rodin. She was a sculptor in her own right and art critics of the era described her as “a revolt against nature: a woman genius.” Claudel ultimately became Rodin’s rival and their affair ended. Her sculptures were often very sexual and she struggled to get funding after her break with Rodin– some believe this was his doing. Other believe it was not Rodin, but her own brother who was jealous of her genius, and conspired with her mother, who never forgave her for her supposed immorality.
Certified by the French sculpture experts Cabinet Lacroix-Jeannest, it will be offere through the Orléans auction house Philocale on 16 February at an estimate of €1.5m to €2m.
The kneeling girl has Claudel’s features and the male figure reference’s Rodin’s Burghers of Calais, says Alexandre Lacroix, a Claudel specialist who suggests that the older woman may represent Claudel’s nemesis Rose Beuret, Rodin’s housekeeper and later his wife. Only three other bronzes of the whole work are known. The Musée Camille Claudel in Nogent-sur-Seine has one from same mould. Two larger casts are in the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée Rodin. (The Art Newspaper)
After 1905 Claudel appeared to be mentally ill, wandering around the streets dressed in beggars’ clothes. She destroyed many of her statues, disappeared for long periods of time, exhibited signs of paranoia and was diagnosed as having schizophrenia. She accused Rodin of stealing her ideas and of leading a conspiracy to kill her. After her father’s death, who had approved of her career choice and tried to support her financially, she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital at the initiative of her brother. Doctors tried to convince the family that she need not be in the institution, but still they kept her there for 30 years. Rodin’s friend, Mathias Morhardt, insisted that her brother was a “simpleton” who had “shut away” his sister of genius. She died in 1943 at the hospital and her remains were buried in its backyard cemetery.
In 1951, her brother Paul Claudel organized an exhibition at the Musée Rodin, which continues to display her sculptures. You can watch the Academy award-winning film Camille Claudel (1988) about her life, starring Isabelle Adjani as Claudel and Gérard Depardieu as Rodin.
The bronze was discovered by Philocale’s auctioneer and valuer Matthieu Semont while preparing an inventory for the inheritor of the apartment, but how it came to be there is a mystery. But the gap in provenance is unsurprising, Lacroix says, noting that Claudel’s re-emergence from obscurity has been relatively recent (we wrote a bit about her here).
See more images of the abandoned apartment where it was found here. Read the full article on The Art Newspaper here.
4. Really nice news: an anonymous donor gifts $3.54 M. to Milwaukee Art Museum to Make Admission Free for Kids
Found on Art News.
5. One Minute Park
Just when you think the internet is losing its creativity, a great little website like One Minute Park comes along, that allows you to visit parks from around the world for one minute each.
Need a break? Spend one minute in a park.
A lovely project by Elliott Cost, found via Swiss Miss.
6. A Simple, Down-to-Earth Christmas Card from the Great Depression (1933)
The Smithsonian sets the scene for this Christmas card sent in 1933, a few years into the Great Depression. Found on Open Culture.
7. A nostalgic look back at 90s movie making
8. This pretty Spanish mountain town will pay you to relocate there
The postcard-pretty town of Ponga is located in the heart of the Picos de Europa mountain range, surrounded by lush river valleys, and is offering £2461 to newcomers willing to relocate there.
Found on The Spaces.
9. The original Goldilocks was an old lady
“Goldilocks and the Three Bears” is a 19th-century English fairy tale of which three versions exist. The original version of the tale tells of an impudent old woman who enters the forest home of three anthropomorphic bachelor bears while they are away. She eats some of their porridge, sits down on one of their chairs, breaks it, and sleeps in one of their beds. When the bears return and discover her, she wakes up, jumps out of the window, and is never seen again.
Found on Wikipedia.
10. Dubbed “one of the worst fossil reconstructions in history,” the so-called “Magdeburg Unicorn” first appeared in 1663
Unearthed at Seweckenberge, a German steppe known to contain ice age fossils, the remains of a wooly rhinoceros — a prehistoric cold-climate megafauna that roamed throughout Asia and Europe as early as 500,000 years ago. Since the wooly rhino was not yet described by science, Prussian naturalist Otto von Guericke (1602–1686) drew the most logical conclusion, based on the evidence: obviously a unicorn. Around 1668, von Geuricke allegedly created the bone assemblage that today stands on display at the Museum of Natural History Magdeburg.
Read the full article on Hyperallergic.
11. 1,065 Unique Dog Names from the Middle Ages
The 15th-century manuscript that contains The Names of All Manner of Hounds was sold at auction at Sotheby’s in 2006 for £198,400.
Some favorites: Charlemayne, Mery, Elfin, Liȝtfote, Corage, Dygger, Frankeleyne, Olyuere, Offa, Ercules, Ector, Gille, Absolon, Belamy… and Hosewife?
Found on The Medievalists.
12. In 18th-century Naples, spaghetti was a popular street food eaten with bare hands and became a tourist spectacle
Article found on Gastro Obscura.