LONDON - Sam Fogg, one of the world’s leading dealers in medieval art, will present Art of the Middle Ages at the Alexander Gallery, 942 Madison Avenue, New York, from Thursday 18 October to Friday 2 November 2007. The exhibition, the first in this field to be staged by Fogg in the USA, comprises precious objects, sculpture, stained glass, manuscripts and paintings for sale at prices ranging from $10,000 up to $5,000,000. It coincides with another major exhibition, Collecting Treasures of the Past, VI being held by Anthony Blumka and Florian Eitle-Böhler, of the Munich-based gallery Julius Böhler, at Blumka Gallery, 209 East 72^nd Street, New York.

One of the treasures offered by Sam Fogg is a highly important and newly-discovered Anglo-Saxon casket dating from around 800 AD. No comparable object has survived. Constructed of oak and covered with gilded copper and silver, the front panel shows Christ triumphant with the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The other panels are decorated with interlacing plants and animals. This extraordinary object was probably preserved in the treasury of Moissac Abbey in France. However, the style and construction of the casket suggest it was the work of an Anglo-Saxon artist.

Another royal piece, this time from France, is an exquisite painting of The Flight into Egypt by Jean Bourdichon (1457-1521), the leading artist of the early Renaissance, from a Book of Hours made for King Louis XII of France, c.1500. The book was broken up and its miniatures sold separately at least 300 years ago. Of the 16 that survive this is the last to remain in private hands.

The exhibition will also include two wonderful German pieces from Nuremberg, one of which is a mother-of-pearl tabernacle, monogrammed and dated 1499. It was intricately carved by a highly skilled artist in this most lovely but also very intractable material. The second Nuremberg piece is a panel painted by Hans Süss von Kulmbach (1485-1522), the best pupil of and successor to Albrecht Dürer. It depicts the patron saints of stonemasons, builders and sculptors, Saint Claudius, Saint Castorius and Saint Simplicius, and is an extraordinary portrayal of the men who built cathedrals. Dated 1510, the panel was recently discovered to have come from Kulmbach’s finest work, the altarpiece of Saint Anne in the Church of Sankt Lorenz in Nuremberg.

Running concurrently with Sam Fogg’s exhibition is Collecting Treasures of the Past, VI at Blumka Gallery featuring some 55 rare Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque works of art. Highlights include a late 15^th century Flemish travelling altar, the central panel of which depicts the Madonna being crowned by two angels while holding the Christ Child and flanked by two angels kneeling at her side; a Romanesque candlestick with beasts and a rock crystal knop of a type rarely available, while a crisp and intricately chased lion aquamanile c. 1400 is similar to a griffin of the same period in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. From the collection of Fritz Philips, Eindhoven, the exhibition will show an unusually large and complete Limoges reliquary châsse, c. 1190-1200.

Art from the Middle Ages has been collected for at least 200 years but currently there is a perception that if it is not locked away in a church or monastery, it has found its home in a museum long ago. Nothing could be further from the truth. After many decades of relative neglect there is a wealth of material of the highest quality to be discovered. Medieval art has recently undergone a vigorous re-evaluation of what is considered excellent and what is not and some of its keystones have begun to loosen. For example, the pre-eminence of Italian painting over that of Northern Europe is being questioned, and once highly-prized objects such as stained glass or monumental stone sculpture that until recently had been considered peripheral are now being appreciated again. As a result, there is now a revival of interest both from museums and a new generation of private collectors.

Sam Fogg is the pre-eminent London specialist in this field while the Blumka Gallery and Julius Böhler Kunsthandlung, both founded in the 19^th century, are also leading firms in the field of European works of art. The two important exhibitions, Fogg’s Art of the Middle Ages and Blumka’s Collecting Treasures of the Past, VI present a splendid opportunity for museums and collectors to acquire major pieces in New York this autumn.

ART OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Presented by Sam Fogg at
Alexander Gallery, 942 Madison Avenue, NYC

COLLECTING TREASURES OF THE PAST, VI at
Blumka Gallery, 209 East 72^nd Street, NYC