Discoveries in Photoarchive

January 16, 2019

Image Grid List View
Drawing of a woman supported by small children with wings being crowned by two men.
Drawing Lost in Spanish Civil War
Screenshot of the landing page of NYARC's Web archiving program
Preserving the Digital Presence of New York City Galleries
Web archiving is the process of collecting web-based content with a web crawler and preserving the content in an archival format. The Frick Art Reference Library is currently involved in a project to capture and preserve the online-only content of New York City galleries.
Surrealist composite drawing of a figure with multiple crying eyes sharpening a blade
One Hundred Years at the Library: Surrealism in Print
As we continue celebrating the centennial of the Frick Art Reference Library, Stephen J. Bury, Andrew W. Mellon Chief Librarian, explores an unexpected strength of the library’s collections: materials on modern art. In this post, Stephen discusses a sample of the library’s exhibition catalogs from the Surrealist movement, which began in Paris in 1924, the same year the Frick Art Reference Library opened its first dedicated building.
Standing young male saint in a panel holding a cross and a book and facing left.
St. Lawrence Recovered

The Photoarchive allows researchers to trace the history of a work of art. The image of St. Lawrence by Niccolò di Buonaccorso of Siena, recovered from a later overpainting, offers an instructive example of this crucial aspect of our collection.

Collage of Rubens's "Venus at the Forge of Vulcan" and "An Old Woman with a Brazier"
Ars Longa: Photoarchive Retraces History of Separated Rubens Paintings
Ars Longa is a blog series exploring lost, altered, and destroyed works of art that are preserved in the records of the Frick's Photoarchive. In this post, the Photoarchive helps us uncover the complex history of a painting by the circle of Peter Paul Rubens, two separate panels of which today reside in two different museums.
Open spread of a book featuring a painting detail of a dress covered in vines, leaves, and flowers
Reading List: Spring Flowers and Gardens
Joey Vincennie, Reference Lead, rings in the spring with a recommended reading list from the Frick Art Reference Library focused on botany, scientific illustration, landscape architecture, and depictions of flowers and gardens in the visual arts through the ages.
A half-length painting of a young woman wearing a crown and holding an arrow and a standard.
A St. Ursula by Valentin de Boulogne?

A painting of St. Ursula originally attributed to Jusepe de Ribera (1591–1652) is more likely a work by another Caravaggesque master, the French artist known as Valentin de Boulogne (1591–1632).

Grayscale image of a painting of a man in a suit, looking to his left
Reading List: Black History Month
The Frick Art Reference Library offers its first Reading List in celebration of Black History Month. Explore eight free e-book titles dedicated to the life, work, and legacy of Black American artists.
Book stack next to a book cover entitled "A Hidden Love" featuring an artwork of a nude male figure
Reading List: Pride Month 2023
Happy Pride Month! To honor the history of Pride and of LGBTQ+ individuals in the arts, we have compiled a selection of books from the Frick Art Reference Library that highlights the work of queer artists and scholars.
Group portrait of four young brothers and their young sister seated around a table.
The Bannard Family Leaves Brooklyn

The Photoarchive recently received a gift of three reproductions of portraits of Brooklyn’s Bannard family, including a charming group portrait of the five Bannard children.