AND the Bizarre Burns Night Offering Oscar for 2009 goes to… the National Trust for Scotland!
The NTS proudly announced yesterday that it had tracked down a "fragment" of the black silk wedding dress worn by Jean Armour when she married the bard in 1788.
An accompanying photograph of said fragment shows a piece of black fabric, shaped some
thing like a pair of Victorian underdrawers, with rounded ends cut with a pair of pinking shears.
"It will be the first time since 1896 that the public will have the opportunity to view the fragment," the NTS says.
It won't be on show until 2010, however, when the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum is completed in Alloway – too late for Homecoming 2009 and Burns's 250th. At least we will have time to get over the shock.
Records show Burns bought 15 yards of black silk from silk merchant John McIndoe of Glasgow to give to Jean for her wedding dress at an estimated cost of £7. Black was a sign of affluence and white weddings weren't yet the norm.
Given to a Dr John Dougall, it was shown at the Burns exhibition in Glasgow in 1896, then auctioned off in 1907 to an American buyer. Burns' descendant Alan Archibald recently bought it in a San Francisco auction and has offered it for display. "Our family cherish the fragment as it's a precious reminder of the private life of a very public figure," he says.
Wood you believe it?POP art is beginning to take on a different meaning. The City Art Centre announces a "flurry of excitement" (only 25 days to go) over The Drawn Blank Series – an exhibition of Bob Dylan's colour paintings from the road, which was first revealed in this newspaper. "His style fits comfortably in a line of descent, extending from the Impressionists to Matisse, Picasso and Warhol," says an effusive release. What? Not Van Gogh?
Meanwhile, from 27 January, The Dome on George Street promises a four-day exhibition of art by Rolling Stones legend Ronnie Wood. It includes "stunning paintings" from a 30-year music career, including pictures of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts, as well as Paul McCartney, Jack Nicholson and Rod Stewart.
Pictures of animals and a number of self-portraits will showcase Wood's more private side.
Last July it was reported that Wood, then 61, had left his wife and four children for an 18-year-old Russian cocktail waitress. Ekaterina Ivanova claimed among other things to have become his painting muse, posing for him at his Irish home.
Bob Dylan is also the subject of the Proud Central gallery's exhibition in London – this time in photographs of the young singer by Jerry Schatzberg.
Proud is to follow that with a show marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Buddy Holly. Buddy Holly: The Making of an American Legend opens on 29 January.
A portrait by AuntieA GRAINY, artificially aged portrait of actor Colin Firth goes on sale at Bonhams this month. It was painted for his appearance as Mr Darcy in the BBC's classic adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, a book first published in 1813.
The painting features in the fourth episode, when Elizabeth Bennet, played by Jennifer Ehle, visits his Pemberley estate and feasts her eyes lovingly on his stately visage. Estimated at £5,000-7,000, the portrait, being sold for charity, is accompanied by a signed letter by Firth, in which he says the work enshrines "crude painterly Botox".
"Looking at him now I would say he has weathered better than most of us. In fact, he is the only character you can meet in person who looks precisely as he did the day he was filmed," the actor says.
Inquiries about the painting's provenance met with a mystified response. In a departure from usual auction-house practise, nobody claims to know who actually painted it, beyond "school of BBC".
"It's not attributed to anyone in particular," says a Bonhams spokeswoman, "but I think we can assume that it was a very talented member of the BBC production team."
Firth adds, in his letter: "The result may not be a masterpiece, but he now has his moment in the popular imagination as a figment within a figment of a well-known literary figment."
