Art News. Vasari Codex

gavel restitution schedule Aug 7, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists

manhattan das office returns over 30 antiquities to spain italy and hungary

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office, led by Alvin Bragg and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit under Matthew Bogdanos, has repatriated over 30 antiquities to Spain, Italy, and Hungary. The returned objects include a 1st-century CE marble head of Alexander the Great as Helios, a 1675 Jesuit manuscript stolen during World War II, and several 6th-century Visigoth pendants trafficked by Robin Symes and sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1990. The items were seized from traffickers including Giacomo Medici, Giovanni Franco Becchina, Robin Symes, Robert Hecht, Eugene Alexander, and Edoardo Almagià, who is awaiting extradition from Italy.

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gavel restitution schedule Jul 25, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

king tutankhamen egyptian artifact auction grasshopper

An intricately carved ivory and wood grasshopper from the Age of Tutankhamun, known as the 'Guennol Grasshopper,' is set to be auctioned by Apollo Art Auctions in July with an estimate of £300,000–£500,000. Egyptian art historians, including German Egyptologist Christian Loeben, have raised concerns that the cosmetic vessel may have been stolen by British archaeologist Howard Carter, who discovered King Tutankhamen’s tomb and allegedly kept some items for his own collection. The auction house states there is no documented evidence linking the object to the tomb, and it has been cleared against the Art Loss Register, but experts like former Met director Thomas Hoving have long connected it to the pharaoh’s burial.

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gavel restitution schedule Jul 21, 2025 visibility 11 link 1 artist

antonio solario stolen painting returned

A British woman, Barbara de Dozsa, has voluntarily returned a stolen Renaissance painting by Antonio Solario to the Civic Museum of Belluno in Italy, more than 50 years after it was stolen in a 1973 heist. The work, a Madonna and Child, was purchased by her late ex-husband, Baron de Dozsa, shortly after the theft and later inherited by her. Although UK law allowed her to keep it legally, she was persuaded by art recovery specialist Christopher Marinello to return it on moral grounds, citing the painting's status on the Interpol database and the museum's role as a guardian of cultural heritage.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 17, 2025 visibility 14 link 3 artists

citizen kane rosebud sled auction

Heritage Auctions sold one of the last surviving Rosebud sleds from the 1941 film *Citizen Kane* for $14.75 million on July 16. The prop, made of pine hardwood with a red seat stenciled with “ROSEBUD,” came from the collection of director Joe Dante, who received it in 1984 from a crew member clearing out an old RKO Pictures lot. The sled was radiocarbon-dated to verify its authenticity. The sale makes it the most expensive Rosebud sled ever sold at auction and the second most valuable piece of movie memorabilia, after the ruby slippers from *The Wizard of Oz*.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 8, 2025 visibility 9 link 6 artists

hector guimard paris metro museum

A dedicated museum for French Art Nouveau architect Hector Guimard (1867–1942) will open in Paris at the Hôtel Mezzara, a building he designed in 1910. The project is led by the nonprofit Le Cercle Guimard, which secured a 50-year lease on the state-owned property after two decades of advocacy. The museum will be funded by Hector Guimard Diffusion, a company founded by collector Fabien Choné, and will house the Cercle archives and around 100 works from Choné's collection, including ceramics, Métro entrances, and cast iron pieces. A virtual reality experience recreating Guimard's 1901 Humbert de Romans concert hall is also planned.

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gavel restitution schedule Jul 1, 2025 visibility 13 link 5 artists

senegal ivory coast france repatriation

Senegal and Ivory Coast have formally requested the repatriation of thousands of artifacts from French museum collections, following a groundbreaking French government report published on November 23 that recommends returning colonial-era objects taken before 1960. Senegalese culture minister Abdou Latif Coulibaly announced plans to file a formal request for up to 10,000 Senegalese objects, while Ivorian authorities have submitted a list of about 100 masterpieces, with director Silvie Memel Kassi noting up to 4,000 Ivorian objects remain in Paris's Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac Museum and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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gavel restitution schedule Jul 1, 2025 visibility 9 link 2 artists

nigeria hopes the return of two looted artfacts will inspire the british museum to give the benin bronzes back

Two Benin Bronzes looted by British troops in 1897 have been returned to Nigeria by a British pensioner, Mark Walker, whose grandfather participated in the raid. The artifacts—a long-beaked bird and a monarch's bell—were handed over during a ceremony in Benin City in June 2014. Following the return, Nigerian officials, including Prince Edun Akenzua, renewed calls for the British Museum to repatriate its collection of some 800 Benin Bronzes, which remain on display in London.

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gavel restitution schedule Jul 1, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

cambridge university looted benin bronze

Cambridge University has removed a Benin bronze statue of a cockerel, known as an “okukor,” from display at Jesus College after students campaigned for its removal. The bronze was looted by British colonizers from what is now Nigeria in the 19th century, and students voted for the artwork to be returned to Nigeria. The college is now considering repatriation and has permanently removed the statue from its dining hall, with students proposing that a new commissioned piece replace it.

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article local schedule Jun 17, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

uovo seeking to build second large scale brooklyn facility

UOVO, a collector-founded art storage company, is seeking approval to build a second large-scale facility in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood. The proposed seven-story, 240,000-square-foot building at 74 Bogart Street would expand the company's footprint near its existing 150,000-square-foot Bushwick facility opened in 2020. Founded in 2013 by real estate developer Steven Guttman, UOVO operates 30 locations across the U.S. and stores collections for museums, galleries, and high-net-worth individuals, including artworks, wine collections, and fashion archives. Architecture firm S9 will oversee the design if the plan is approved by the city.

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article news schedule Jun 17, 2025 visibility 10 link 1 artist

ai art restoration conservation mit

MIT mechanical engineering student Alex Kachkine has developed a new AI technique that could dramatically speed up the restoration of aged or damaged paintings. The method uses a high-resolution scan of the artwork, an AI algorithm to identify cracks and missing patches, and a digitally printed polymer film—called a "digital mask"—that is overlaid onto the painting and sealed with varnish. The mask can be removed without trace using conservators' solvents. Kachkine tested the process on a 15th-century oil-on-panel painting by the Master of the Prado Adoration of the Magi, where the AI identified 5,612 damaged sections and the restoration took just 3.5 hours—66 times faster than conventional hand inpainting.

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article policy schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 11 link 2 artists

south korea president orders major arts investment

South Korea President Yoon Suk-yeol has announced a $3.7 billion fund to support film, TV, art, and cultural projects, along with plans to transform the historic presidential residence Cheong Wa Dae (Blue House) into a cultural complex modeled after France's Palace of Versailles. The initiative aims to boost the country's cultural sector ahead of major art events including Frieze Seoul, Kiaf fairs, and the Busan Biennale. President Yoon also directed that state-owned art collections, including 23,000 works from the late Samsung Group chair Lee Kun-hee, be made accessible through nationwide tours, and that government art purchases prioritize works by disabled and emerging artists.

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gavel restitution schedule May 29, 2025 visibility 13 link 1 artist

louvre to return 258 works from rothschild cabinet of curiosities

The Louvre Museum in Paris will return 258 works from the bequest of collector Adèle de Rothschild to the Fondation des Artistes after a 2019 cross-inventory revealed the objects were improperly inventoried in the Louvre's collection. Rothschild, who died in 1922, bequeathed her private mansion and its contents to the French government with the stipulation that her cabinet of curiosities remain intact, but the Louvre held works from the cabinet—including objets d'art and Islamic art—in violation of her wishes. The foundation's director, Laurence Maynier, described the surrender as a "just return," noting that the objects were all in storage and invisible to the public. Some 30 other objects will remain at the Louvre for five years to allow curators to find replacements, and the museum will receive 104 pieces from the foundation's inventory as compensation. The cabinet is set to reopen in September.

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trending_up market schedule May 21, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists

this qing dynasty painting could sell for nearly 19 million at auction

Sotheby's Hong Kong offered the Qing dynasty imperial painting *The Blue Goats* as a single-lot sale during its Asian Art Week. Commissioned by Emperor Qianlong in the late 1750s, the seven-by-six-foot hanging scroll was created by Italian Jesuit painter Giuseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining) and Chinese court artist Jin Tingbiao, blending Western and Eastern techniques. Despite a presale estimate of HK$60–150 million ($7.7–19.3 million), the work sold for HK$58.9 million ($7.6 million) after fees, below the low estimate. The painting depicts a pair of gorals in a rocky landscape and is inscribed with a poem by the emperor symbolizing his military conquests.

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gavel restitution schedule May 14, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

buddha gems sothebys controversy

Sotheby's has postponed the auction of the Piprahwa Gems of the Historical Buddha, a collection of over 300 ancient gemstones and metal sheets linked to the Buddha, after criticism from academics, Buddhist leaders, and India's Ministry of Culture. The gems, discovered in 1898 by colonial engineer William Claxton Peppé in Uttar Pradesh, India, were set to be sold by his descendants in Hong Kong on May 7, with bidding starting at HK$10 million ($1.3 million). The auction house stated it is now in discussions with the Indian government to find a resolution.

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trending_up market schedule May 13, 2025 visibility 14 link 3 artists

cryptopunks bored ape yacht club yuga labs digital art nonprofit

The Infinite Node Foundation, a new nonprofit focused on digital art conservation founded by venture capitalist Meyer 'Micky' Malka and Becky Kleiner, has acquired the full intellectual property rights to CryptoPunks from Yuga Labs. The purchase price is reported to be around $20 million. CryptoPunks, created in 2017 by Matt Hall and John Watkinson, is one of the earliest and most famous NFT collections, credited with sparking the 2021 NFT craze. Yuga Labs, the parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club, had bought the rights in 2022 for an undisclosed sum. The foundation's advisory board includes Web3 figures such as Yuga Labs co-founder Wylie Aronow and Art Blocks founder Erick Calderon.

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article news schedule May 13, 2025 visibility 13 link 4 artists

grand egyptian museum king tut treasures

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Giza has received another 163 artifacts from the tomb of King Tutankhamun, transferred from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo's Tahrir Square. This delivery includes the pharaoh's ceremonial chair, gilded footstool, canopic shrine, and jewelry, bringing the museum closer to staging the first-ever complete display of the boy king's treasures. The artifacts were transported with care and underwent condition reports at GEM's conservation labs. The final piece to arrive will be Tutankhamun's funerary mask, ahead of the museum's long-awaited grand opening on July 3.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 24, 2025 visibility 11 link 3 artists

ronen zien tel aviv museum of art

Ronen Zien, an artist born in the Arab city of Shefa Amr in northern Israel, presents a solo exhibition titled "Walking Into" at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The show features works that explore memory, time, and borders, including a life-size video piece where Zien walks into a faded family photograph from the 1990s. Using chroma key technology, he inserts himself into images from his childhood and historic photographs, such as a 19th-century print by Félix Bonfils. The exhibition draws on Zien's family history within the Druze community, which is divided by the Israel–Syria border, and includes works created in the six months before its February 2025 opening, amid ongoing war tensions.

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 18, 2025 visibility 15 link 4 artists

bayeux tapestry fragment rediscovered in germany

A long-lost fragment of the Bayeux Tapestry, the 11th-century embroidered chronicle of the Norman Conquest of England, has been rediscovered in the Schleswig-Holstein State Archives in Schleswig, Germany. The roughly one-inch linen piece belonged to the estate of archaeologist Karl Schlabow, who had been part of a Nazi-affiliated group that re-measured the tapestry in 1941. The fragment will be repatriated to France later this year, but first it will go on public display at the Museum of Archaeology at Gottorf Castle as part of the exhibition “Viking Twilight: Turning Point in the North” from April 16 through November 2.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 7, 2026 visibility 22 link 12 artists

Venice’s Chicest Invite This Week? A Pizza Party Where the Artists Chose the Ingredients

Diana Campbell, Chomwan Weeraworawit, and Paris-based art advisors Samy Ghiyati and Nicolas Nahab of NG Partners organized a pizza party called Pizzalo Mundo during the Venice Biennale. Each artist contributed an ingredient from home: Rirkrit Tiravanija brought a Penang coconut base, Precious Okoyomon added flowers, Daria Kim wild honey, Tarek Atoui za'atar on hummus, Miet Warlop artichoke hearts, Tori Wrånes self-grown potatoes, and Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka fig leaf oil with yuzu salt. The event drew a crowd of curators, directors, and collectors from institutions including Tate, Musée d'Orsay, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, MoMA, and Centre Pompidou.