Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic ukiyo-e woodblock print, Under the Great Well of the Great Wave off Kanagawa, far surpassed its estimate of $500,000-700,000 in a sale at Christie’s New York last week, selling for $2.8 million. The sale marks a new high record for the print.
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A recent investigation has found that more than 1,000 objects in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York could have ties to alleged antique traffickers and looters. Many of the artefacts were acquired in the 1960s when museum staff often overlooked evidence of smuggling in an effort to source more major acquisitions than London and Paris.
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A New York court has dismissed a case over an artist’s right to “the world’s first NFT” (non-fungible token), which sold for $1.5 million (£1.2 million) at Sotheby’s in 2021. It represents the first legal case in the US to examine how blockchain technology affects the ownership of digital art.
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The government is in the process of making important changes to the 1996 Treasure Act which will means museums will have first refusal on a greater number of significant items found in the UK.
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Scholars have reunited the portrait of a 17th-century family by the Antwerp-based portrait painter Cornelis de Vos (1584-1651). Almost 200 years ago, the painting was torn apart leaving the father and son as a standalone painting in Denmark, whilst the side depicting the mother ended up in London.
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The National Portrait Gallery is fighting to keep a powerful masterpiece by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) in this country. In March 2022, the government placed a temporary export bar to stop the privately-owned painting from moving abroad, but it is due to be lifted.
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On 28 February, the Christie’s 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale offered Fidenza #724, a digital pigment print on paper which was sold accompanied by a NFT by the artist and software engineer Tyler Hobbs. Christie’s described the work as “channelling inspiration from art history and nature into innovative computer code.” The work exceeded its pre-sale estimate of £200,000-300,000, selling for £365,000. This sale is the latest in what seems to be a resurgence in the NFT and digital art market.
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An iconic “Balloon Dog” sculpture by Jeff Koons has been accidentally smashed to pieces in Miami. According to witnesses of the shocking mishap, the unnamed art collector said she “just wanted to disappear” after knocking the $42,000 (£35,000) piece off its stand.
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Over the past few months, there has been increasing tension in the art world over AI-generated images. In January of this year, for example, a class-action lawsuit was brought by three American artists, Kelly McKernan, Sarah Anderson and Karla Ortiz against three AI imagery generators. The artists said that they had not consented to having their copyrighted works of art included in a database used by the image generators, they had not been compensated, and their influence was not credited when AI images were made using their works.
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Tate Britain has announced that over the coming months it will be working on a complete rehang of their free displays, which is to be unveiled in May 2023. The new display will feature over 800 works by more than 350 artists, with a focus on female artists and works acquired since the millennium.
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Art Law & More 