New! Asians painted with oil before Europeans

Oil paintings discovered in caves behind two ancient colossal Buddha statues in Afghanistan that were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 suggest Asians invented oil painting before Europeans.

    New experiments performed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility reveal the paintings were made of oil, hundreds of years before the technique emerged in Europe. The results are detailed in the peer-reviewed Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry.

    "This is the earliest clear example of oil paintings in the world, although drying oils were already used by ancient Romans and Egyptians, but only as medicines and cosmetics," said researcher Yoko Taniguchi.

    In many European history and art textbooks, oil painting is said to have started in the 15th century in Europe. The caves found behind the statues are decorated with paintings from the fifth to ninth centuries.

    Painted in the mid-seventh century, the murals show scenes with Buddhas in vermilion robes sitting cross-legged amid palm leaves and mythical creatures. The scientists discovered that 12 out of the 50 caves were painted with oil painting techniques, using perhaps walnut and poppy seed drying oils.

    The researchers relied on a combination of synchrotron techniques, including infrared micro-spectroscopy, micro X-ray fluorescence, micro X-ray absorption spectroscopy and micro X-ray diffraction.

    The results showed a high diversity of pigments as well as binders, and the scientists identified original ingredients and alteration compounds. Apart from oil-based paint layers, some of the layers were made of natural resins, proteins, gums and, in some cases, a resinous, varnish-like layer.

    The paintings are probably the work of artists who traveled on the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China, across Central Asia's desert to the West. However, there are very few studies about this region.

2008-04-25

Christy's says Freud's painting to fetch record price

British artist Lucian Freud's "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" will likely fetch the highest ever auction price for a work by a living artist, Christie's said Friday.

    The auction house estimates that the painting will fetch between 25 million U.S. dollars and 35 million dollars. That would top the current record, set in November by Jeff Koons’"Hanging Heart" sculpture, which sold for 23.6 million dollars. The life-size portrait of a grossly obese naked woman will be sold in New York on May 13.

    Pilar Ordovas, head of contemporary art at Christie's in London, said the painting is coveted because it is the first from a series of Freud's paintings from the 1990s to be available on the open market. Ordovas said the painting belongs to a series "considered by many to be among the best works he's ever produced."

    The 1995 painting depicts Freud's subject Sue Tilley lying asleep on a worn out sofa, Christie's said.

    Christie's unveiled the 5 feet by 7 feet work for public viewing Friday in London. It also will be shown April 14-15 in London, ahead of the sale in New York.

    Freud, 85, the grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, was introduced to the model, nicknamed "Big Sue," by the Australian performance artist Leigh Bowery, Christie's said.

    His work has a record of high prices. In November, Christie's sold his painting, "IB and Her Husband," for 19.3 million dollars.

Old Master painting ID'd as once belonging to Hitler

Britain's National Gallery revealed Thursday that an Old Master painting worth millions of dollars identified by an art historian once belonged to Adolf Hitler and was taken from Germany by an American journalist at the end of World War II .

    Birgit Schwartz, said she recognized "Cupid Complaining to Venus" by Lucas Cranach the Elder in a photograph of the Nazi leader's private gallery that is held in the Library of Congress in Washington. The gallery said it believed Schwartz's identification is correct.

    The painting was taken from Germany in 1945 by American war correspondent Patricia Lochridge Hartwell, who died in 1998, the gallery explained. A relative of Hartwell told the gallery she had been allowed to take it from a warehouse full of art that was controlled by U.S. forces at the end of the war.

    The National Gallery bought the painting in 1963 from a dealer in New York. The dealer said at the time that it was being sold by descendants of a buyer who purchased it at a German auction in 1909.

    The gallery said it was now trying to find out where the painting had been between 1909 and 1945, and when and where Hitler acquired it. It appealed for people with information about the work to contact the gallery.

    National Gallery spokesman Tom Almeroth-Williams said "at this stage there is no evidence that the painting was looted," but that the gallery was seeking more information.

    Painted about 1525, the oil-on-wood painting depicts a chubby Cupid complaining to Venus, goddess of love, that he has been stung by bees while eating honey. It is currently on display at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery in western England, as part of an exhibition about love.