[Vwoolf] What do you think these are?

Jeremy Hawthorn jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no
Tue Sep 30 02:08:41 EDT 2014


Virginia Woolf had access to the opinions of leading experts in the 
field of painting, and was very far from uninformed herself about art 
and art history. Nevertheless, it is surely worth remembering that what 
today's experts see in the picture in question, and what Woolf did, are 
not necessarily the same . . .

Jeremy H

Den 30.09.2014 07:30, skrev annemarie bantzinger:
>
> Dear all, dear Julie,
> When I first saw the image my feeling was the tube and the discs were 
> some kind of game. This seems to be a general feeling reading the 
> comments.
>
> Allow me to pass on some knowledge from a Dutch painting expert - 
> altho he really would like to see a larger image -.
>  It seems to him
>  " the 'telescope' is more likely to be a tube or case filled with 
> circular discs ment for some kind of game,  two of which are already 
> shaken out, A telescope with its protective covers seems unlikely to 
> me. The very first telescopes were only in existance for a year when 
> the painting was done.
> Oddly enough there is a small hole in the first disc of the case and I 
> cant see any holes in the discs on the table. You might think of a 
> telescope but the young man is holding the tube in such a way that it 
> seems like he wants to roll something out of it, it is not the way to 
> hold a telescope. May be you can find a game from the period, a game 
> with or without the holes in the discs. I think they started out 
> without a hole and during restauration ( there almost arent any 17th 
> century paintings without it) something was added or painted away. 
> E.g. the restaurer might have thought it was a telescope and made 
> a suggestion  of a lens on the disc or the holes in the discs on the 
> table are painted away.
> It happens often that art historians trying to interpret a painting 
> are misled by old restaurations and/or later over painting. I would 
> find it interesting to research whether the first black circle in 
> front of the white circle of the tube is a later addition, in that 
> case one can rule it being a telescope".
> end of quote.
> I hope this all helps Julie. Good luck!
> AnneMarie

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