Sunday, 30 March 2014

Details 1191 The End of the Champagne Years

This Competition marks the end of an era. Anyone who won before this week's competition can count themselves lucky. The champagne has run out. The cellars of the Independent on Sunday can now only accommodate.....Prosecco. The man who is the answer to this week's competition, too, is perfectly in tune with a downgrading of the sensory pleasures, ironically enough. Though perhaps Jenny Gilbert is making a point for Alexander Lebedev, who is reportedly seeking to offload the loss-making paper(s). I am not entirely sure if the owner is Alexander Lebedev or his son, Evgeny, as I have access only to Wikipedia on these points, but the Telegraph indicates as follows:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/10576763/Independent-owner-Lebedev-looking-for-buyers.html

"Mr Lebedev has had to prop up years of losses at IPL, which made an operating loss of £17.5m in the year to September 2012, the most recent set of figures.
Last year, he warned that efforts to destroy his businesses in Russia meant he was not making enough money to sustain The Independent's losses. The former KGB spy said his banking and airline businesses had been ruined with only his potato farming operation remaining lucrative."

Sunday, 16 March 2014

Details 1187 - Another obscure print from the United States - Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

One can only say "I told you so" about these impossible print details. We have ended up at the logical consequence of Jenny Gilbert's policy: few, if any can find the details of such prints. The Christmas Competition was proof of this. This recent detail 1187 has achieved something which has not happened for 20 years - there were not three winners, only one correct answer. I hardly see how this will encourage anyone to take an interest in the Competition, or indeed, buy the paper.

A recent correspondent has noted that a very large number of details come from the Art Institute of Chicago and another that many come from the same reference book. It would be interesting to know if the said reference book contains this obscure Altdorfer print.

I think that J Knapman of Weybridge deserves all three bottles this week. (I think it's at least his/her tenth win in ten years or more, so s/he deserves it.)

Salome with the Head  of John the Baptist - Albrecht Altdorfer