George's Blog

Congo copal is no longer available commercially (at least as it was available in commerce formerly), because the suppliers have long stopped trading due to strife in Africa since the last quarter of the 20th century. Trade of Congo copal was once controlled by the Belgian government, but as this region of Africa gained independence, and the demand for copal resins diminished during the last half of the 20th century, commerce of Congo copal has all but ceased.

There are many types of ...

Ackermann’s Superfine Water Colours were prepared and sold at Rudolph Ackermann’s shop, The Repository of Arts at 101 Strand in London and also sold through print and booksellers in Great Britain. He published a list of watercolor cakes that appeared in 1801 and was appended to A Treatise on Ackermann’s Superfine Water Colours. The list contained instructions on preparing watercolor cakes in the following colors:

Ackermann’s Yellow
Ackermann’s White
Antwerp Blue—Prussian ...

The sad news about the recent conviction of Odd Nerdrum for tax evasion made me think about the merchantability of paintings.

The 67 year old Norwegian-born artist was accused of failing to pay taxes on €1.8 million of taxable income from sales between 1998–2002, just before he became an Icelandic citizen.[1]

The court defined the crime as aggravated fiscal fraud because the artist “put significant work into hiding his assets, especially by placing a large quantity of money ...

The British Library has renovated the search functions for their Online Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. It is worthwhile investigating this vast collection of manuscripts. You can visit the Catalogue.

The Online Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts is a searchable database of some of the western illuminated manuscripts in the British Library. The Library holds one of the richest collections of medieval and renaissance manuscripts in the world, and aims to provide access to images ...

[INDENT]"The painters of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance used carefully set palettes and definite tone-relations. This is proved by the recurrence, again and again, of exactly the same tonalities and effects. Modern painters have, as a rule, avoided the use of set-palettes and tone-systems; preferring to depend on visual feeling or native genius. In so doing they have made a very great mistake, and some of them are now fully aware of this."[/INDENT]


This quote ...