Archive for October 2009

Lost Leonardo

I saw the picture on the cover of this morning’s National Post and recognized it as the so-called Leonardo drawing, since this was first reported last year.

27 July 2008, The Times: Picture kept in a drawer ‘is £100m da Vinci’
28 July 2008, The Australian: Unknown Leonardo kept in drawer
22 August 2008, New York Times: A Portrait by Leonardo? Scholars and Skeptics Differ
29 August 2008, New York Times: Dealer Who Sold Portrait Joins Leonardo Debate

The ‘news’ today is that the fingerprint ‘proves’ it is by Leonardo. I’ve studied and copied Leonardo drawings for half of my life, and I’m inclined to agree.

For that matter, I once saw a sculpted terra-cotta angel-head at the ROM and I thought that was probably by Leonardo too.

The Last Days of Lehman Brothers (BBC 2009)

Hank Paulson (written by Craig Warner): “The West is fucked. We fucked it up. Oh, not just you and me [addressing John Mack, CEO of Morgan Stanley]. All of us. The West. It’s done, it’s over. You wanna call it a game? This is the game. You want your great-grandchildren speaking Chinese? The dollar is going to go. We had Rome, than Europe, than this. Us. This thing with cars and stereos and hoola hoops, and we screwed it all up. We ran through it all, this stuff. And we’ve come out on the other side where it’s …? I don’t know. Where is this place? Oh yeah. We have this one weekend, where maybe we can come up with something to hold it all together a little while longer.”

Ken Lewis, speaking with John Thain (wrtn by Craig Warner): “You see those pictures? They’re what I call real art. They would form the kind of exhibitions Bank of America might once have bankrolled. But now we find ourselves funding modern art as well. Art that can insult everything you and I have worked our whole lives to make sacred. Some of it to me looks like a road accident or a human being turned inside out. But those that matter, culturally I mean, like to stand back, arms folded, brows furrowed in just the right way, assessing the disturbed minds of psychopaths and getting from this a grim kind of satisfaction I freely admit remains unavailable to my own sensibilities. [Referring to the painting] The Judas Kiss. Exquisite isn’t it? But time has moved on Mr. Thain. The brand has to move on. The world is different now. We are currently financing an exhibition of paintings by Francis Bacon at the Tate Museum in London. Starts today. Do you know what his paintings look like?”

Thain: “I leave that sort of thing to my wife.”

Lewis: “Our name, Bank of America, is on that exhibition. History is happening Mr. Thain. Right here, this weekend. No one is going to blame you for keeping up with it.”

James Cromwell (l) plays Hank Paulson (r)

John Thain (l) played by Ben Daniels (r)

John Thain (l) and Ken Lewis (James Bolam) share a drink in fake life

John Thain (l) and Ken Lewis (r) shake hands in real life