The Fortune Teller (La Tour)
| The Fortune Teller | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Georges de La Tour |
| Year | c. 1630 |
| Type | Oil painting |
| Dimensions | 101.9 cm × 123.5 cm (40+1⁄8 in × 48+5⁄8 in) |
| Location | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City |
The Fortune Teller is an
The painting catches a moment in which a young man of some wealth is having his
The modern discovery of the painting is said to be traced to a French prisoner of war who viewed La Tour's works in a monograph and found a likeness with a painting hung in a relative's castle. A knowledgeable priest identified it as a La Tour work and informed the Louvre, which entered negotiations to buy the painting. The art dealer
Accusations of forgery
La Tour was hardly known until the beginning of the 20th century, but became extremely highly regarded from the 1920s onwards. A large number of the paintings now attributed to La Tour have surfaced from obscurity, like the Metropolitan work, since he became well-known, and have become valuable. Many were in collections with a provenance going back to the 19th century or beyond, but others first appeared in the hands of dealers, and some have always been the subject of suspicion.
The English art historian Christopher Wright published The Art of the Forger in 1984, a book whose central claim is that the Metropolitan Fortune Teller, along with other works attributed to La Tour, is actually a forgery of the 1920s by the artist and restorer Emile Delobre (1873–1956). Wright says that the central girl's dress parodies De la Tour's mother in "The Newborn" (Rennes), suggesting a satire more typical of 20th-century than 17th-century humour. The painting is related to a work called The Cheat, which exists in two different versions: one in the Louvre[3] and one in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas. The Cheat shows a group playing cards, where a young dandy is being cheated, and shares the interest in costume of The Fortune Teller. After lengthy analysis of X-ray photographs, details of the costume, and stylistic comparisons with other works, Wright concludes that of the three, only the Fort Worth Cheat is genuine.[4]
Among his evidence is a claim that the word "MERDE" (French for "shit") could be seen in the lace collar of the young woman second from left. Anthony Blunt and others denied this, but in a letter of 1981 to The Burlington Magazine rebutting Wright's claims, two members of the Metropolitan curatorial staff accepted that the word was there, regarding it as the work of a recent restorer, and it was then removed in 1982.[5][6] Among those who joined Wright in his concerns were Diana de Marly, [7] Benedict Nicolson, editor of the Burlington Magazine, and Brian Sewell.[8]
On tour
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Met began a skylight replacement project that resulted in gallery closures; in response the museum loaned major works from the European collection, including 'The Fortune Teller', to the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art in an exhibition titled ‘European Masterpieces’.[9] [10]
See also
Notes
- ^ As quoted in Hagan et al., 74
- ^ Wright, 49
- ^ Wright, 85
- ^ Wright, chapter 6 compares the two Cheats
- ^ Wright, 67–68
- ^ John M. Brealey and Pieter Meyers "The Fortune Teller" by Georges de La Tour, 'The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 123, No. 940 (Jul., 1981), pp. 422–29 JSTOR
- ^ Diana de Marly, "A Note on the Metropolitan 'Fortune Teller'", The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 112, No. 807 (Jun., 1970), pp. 388–391 JSTOR
- ^ Wright passim, see index
- ^ Saines, Chris (28 August 2020). "Masterpieces From The MET, New York Now In Brisbane". Qagoma. Retrieved 28 August 2020.
- ^ Kenney, Nancy (28 August 2020). "Brisbane lands mammoth European loan exhibition from the Met". Art Newspaper. Retrieved 27 August 2021.
References
- Hagan, R.-M., Galbraith, I., & Hagen, R. (1995). What great paintings say: old masters in detail. Köln: Taschen.
- Pariset, Francois Georges (March 1961). "A Newly Discovered La Tour: The Fortune Teller." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series. 19(7), 198–205.
- Wright, Christopher. The Art of the Forger, 1984, Gordon Fraser, London. ISBN 0-86092-081-X