Collector Refuses To Give Up Stolen Madonna
A Renaissance-era Madonna & Child painting stolen from an Italian museum fifty years ago has recently been rediscovered in Britain. But the owner will not let it go. Antonio Solario was a sixteenth-century northern Italian painter. While moderately successful in … More…
Supreme Court Rules On Nazi-Looted Pissarro
The Supreme Court has, in just a few sentences, ruled in favor of a Holocaust survivor’s descendants in their efforts to regain their stolen Pissarro painting. Over a year ago, I wrote about how a court in California ruled against … More…
Christie’s London Impressionist & Modern Art
I thought the Art of the Surreal sale would be the big triumph at Christie’s last week. However, it seems like they ended up with a better week than anticipated, given the success of their Impressionist and Modern Art Day … More…
Christie’s London Art Of The Surreal
Every year, around the beginning of March, Christie’s hosts an Art of the Surreal sale at its London location. For as long as I’ve been covering these auctions, they have always been some of the greatest successes Christie’s experiences for … More…
AI Art: The New NFTs?
Trends come and go in the art world, and it can be somewhat difficult to predict which ones will stay around and which will fizzle out. Because of that, I’ve found it useful to have skepticism as my first initial … More…
Rijksmuseum Unveils Rare Vanitas Still-Life
Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has recently unveiled one of its latest acquisitions: a masterpiece by one of the most important female painters of the Dutch Golden Age, Maria van Oosterwijck. On Tuesday, March 4th, the Rijksmuseum put Vanitas Still Life by Maria … More…
Stolen Brueghel Recovered
A painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, one of Poland’s most wanted stolen paintings, has been recovered in the Netherlands after nearly fifty years. Arthur Brand, a specialist in stolen art (who I have mentioned before in relation to a … More…
Sotheby’s New York Contemporary Curated
On Wednesday, February 26th, Christie’s and Sotheby’s began three straight days of twentieth-century and contemporary art. While things have been going well thus far, the Contemporary Curated sale at Sotheby’s York Avenue location in New York was the one auction … More…
Elizabeth Street Garden Clings On With A New Lawsuit
The nonprofit organization that maintains the Elizabeth Street Garden in Manhattan has filed a lawsuit against New York City to prevent its land from being used for an apartment building. The continuing story of the Elizabeth Street Garden has been … More…
British Museum Makeover
Part of the British Museum will be completely redesigned, with the museum administration choosing architect Lina Ghotmeh’s designs this weekend. The building that houses the British Museum dates back to the early to mid-nineteenth century. It was designed by Sir … More…
Lost Claudel Sculpture Sold In Paris For €3.1 Million
A bronze sculpture by Camille Claudel thought to have been lost for over a century sold in Paris for €3.1 million. Recently, I feel like the art world has been reanalyzing the work of great female artists, especially those who, … More…
Cleveland Museum Agrees To Repatriate
The Cleveland Museum of Art is sending a Roman bronze statue back to Turkey after finally acknowledging the work was likely looted. In September 2023, I first wrote about how the Cleveland Museum of Art became the target of the … More…
Institutions Lean Into AI, Despite Artists’ Objections
The Getty Museum has acquired its very first AI-generated photograph for its collection. This comes despite both ethical and legal concerns about the production and curation of AI-generated works of art. Cristian en el Amor de Calle is an AI-generated … More…
Friedrich’s Soul Of Nature At The Met
On Saturday, February 8th, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opened a new exhibition focusing on the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. Despite Friedrich’s importance and widespread popularity, the exhibition, entitled The Soul of Nature, is the … More…
Sotheby’s NY Master Works On Paper
The results of Classic Week at the New York auction houses have been somewhat mixed. While the main Old Master and nineteenth-century paintings sales at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s were somewhat disappointing, the same cannot be said for the Sotheby’s … More…
Bonhams Skinner American Art
On Wednesday, March 12th, Bonham’s Skinner hosted one of their American art sales, primarily featuring paintings and sculptures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among the lots available were works by Thomas Hart Benton and Milton Avery. However, the auction … More…