The sale of a rare copy of the US Constitution has been halted by Sotheby’s just hours before it was due in auction. Sotheby’s have cited “strong institutional interest” as their motivation for postponing the sale, saying that they wish to “provide interested institutional parties with additional time to pursue fundraising efforts”.
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Two police officers forced entry into a Soho gallery after reports of an unconscious woman inside had “not been moving for the last two hours,” only to realise it was in fact an art installation made of packing tape and foam filler.
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East Midland archaeologists were “gobsmacked” to unearth another trove of finds at the site of a Roman villa complex in Rutland. Two years after it was first discovered beneath a farmer’s field, the site has revealed a lavish barn conversion with a sophisticated Roman-style bath suite and mosaic.
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Visitors to Notre-Dame in Paris could be in for a “shock” when it reopens in 2024, promised the site’s restoration leader Jean-Louis Georgelin. Since the devastating fire, the cathedral has undergone an intensive €846 million (£727 million) renovation using some innovative – and controversial – conservation techniques.
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The family of Swedish abstract artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) have criticized a digital drop of NFTs based on the artist’s series Paintings for the Temple (1906-1915). The NFTs were produced by Stolpe Publishing, Acute Art and Pharrell Williams’ company GODA (Gallery of Digital Assets), not by the Hilma af Klint Foundation who owns the original paintings.
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Following a spate of recent attacks targeting artworks in museums across the globe by the activist group Just Stop Oil, 92 museum leaders have signed a statement addressing the issue. The co-signers said that they “have been deeply shaken” by the activists’ actions and emphasised the fragility of the artworks involved.
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Paul Allen’s (1953-2018) spectacular collection has achieved an unprecedented $1.6 billion (£1.34 million) over two sales at Christie’s, becoming the most valuable private collection of all time. The first sale alone of 60 works fetched £1.5 billion (£1.26 billion) – the highest total ever recorded at a single auction. Allen’s estate will donate all proceeds from the landmark sales to philanthropic causes.
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Italian archaeologists have unearthed a trove of 24 remarkably well-preserved ancient bronze statues near a luxurious thermal bath in Tuscany. “It is a discovery that will rewrite history,” marvelled Jacopo Tabolli the lead excavator and professor at the Università di Stranieri di Siena.
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In 1921, Dutch art historian and Rembrandt expert Abraham Bredius purchased an oil sketch of The Raising of the Cross, which he believed to be by Dutch Golden Age artist Rembrandt. The sketch entered the collection of the Bredius Museum in The Hague, but art experts have never taken the attribution to Rembrandt seriously, considering the work to be a mere copy, or a “crude imitation”, of a painting by the Dutch master.
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Pressure is mounting on the British Museum to return the celebrated Parthenon marbles to Greece as a convincing life-size replica made by a robot goes on display in London. Over the years, the British and Greek governments have hotly disputed the ownership of the marbles, which were removed by the British from Athens between 1801 and 1805.
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