In 1973, for reasons still not clear to me, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York undertook a sweeping reassessment of many of its holdings, resulting in the downgrading of 300 old master paintings from attribution to the master to attribution to “workshop of”, “circle of” or “follower of”, removing them from the canon of those masters’ works and significantly depleting the value of the museum’s collection.

Some of those pieces have been again reassessed, both in the light of continued scholarship and as the result of subsequent cleanings and restorations. Last year the Met cleaned and restored Velázquez’s Portrait of a Man, and in the process restored it to it’s original attribution — originating from the master’s hand an not that of a subordinate. This was particularly significant as the painting is likely a self-portrait (see my post, Velázquez (Self?) Portrait Rediscovered).

This process has been repeated with a painting that was once, and is now again, one of the museum’s most important paintings by the Spanish master, who is sometimes labeled the greatest of all painters.

The full-length portrait of Philip IV of Spain is one of three the court commissioned from Velázquez after he became court painter. The painting had suffered over the years from numerous applications of varnish and misguided repainting, and was in a condition that made definitive attribution difficult.

The New York Times has a nice set of interactives on their feature, The Restoration of a Velázquez, that allows you to move a slider across the images, comparing the before and after restoration state of the painting (click between the “Restoration” and “Two Paintings Compared” tabs at the top of the feature).

I don’t know how long the NYT feature will be available before it disappears behind a registration wall. The painting’s listing on the Met’s site has both a larger version and a Zoomable feature, and still bears the “This information may change as the result of ongoing research.” tag.

We can assume (or hope) that Velázquez hasn’t indulged in flattering his subject here. The young Philip, pale, droopy eyed and red lipped, looks more like the dweeb you sat next to in chemistry than the ruler of one of the great empires of the world. But his appearance is consistent throughout paintings by Velázquez and others, and the master’s hand, revealed on the removal years of accumulated abuse, holds a steady mirror to nature.

(Image above, images of the interactive from NYT on the left, images from the Met on the right)

Whatever the actual reception of the movie itself, I think it’s always good when a new popularly released move brings renewed attention to the works of Shakespeare, which had much more in common with the characteristics of contemporary popular entertainment than your high school English class might have led you to believe.

The latest adaptation from the Bard’s cupboard of timeless tales, the 2010 version of The Tempest, features Helen Mirren as a female version of Prospero, and Felicity Jones as her sheltered daughter, Miranda.

Victorian painter John William Waterhouse, who, like his friends in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, often took scenes from Shakespeare for his subjects, apparently painted three different interpretations of Miranda.

One was painted in 1875, early in his career (images above, top). It shows a contemplative Miranda gazing out over a calm sea.

The other two, smaller and larger versions of essentially the same image, were both painted by Waterhouse in in 1916, the year before his death. They show Miranda as witness to the storm and shipwreck which which the play’s actions begin. The later and larger of these (image above, top) is probably the most familiar.

More Tempest trivia: one of the most interesting, if loose, adaptations from The Tempest was the spectacular (for its time) 1956 science fiction classic, Forbidden Planet (more here). The film, aside from the connection to The Tempest, was notable for a number of reasons: the “monster from the id” and the subterranean alien power station were rendered and animated by veteran Disney artist Joshua Meador; the action was filmed largely on a soundstage backed with an enormous painted cyclorama of the alien landscape; and the movie and its production design were credited by Gene Roddenberry as a primary influence on the creation of his television show Star Trek; it also featured Leslie Neilson as the dramatic lead and introduced Robbie the Robot, one of the most iconic and influential designs for a cinematic robot; but I digress… back to Waterhouse’s 19th Century interpretation of Shakespeare’s 17th Century play.

Scenes from The Tempest were also interpreted by other artists, notably Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais, William Maw Egley, William Hamilton, earlier by Swiss-born Henry Fuseli, and even earlier by Angelica Kauffmann and George Romney.

(See my posts on John Everett Millais, Henry Fuseli and John William Waterhouse.)