Discovered on the Isle of Man in 2018, a pair of ancient ornate brooches are now casting doubt on the long-held theory that only male Vikings ventured to the remote island. Like an early Christmas gift to the island, the brooches were put on display for the first time at the Manx National Heritage museum in Douglas earlier this month.
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Last Thursday, a carved wood and paper globe dating to the 1550s or 1560s sold at Hansons Auctioneers for £116,000 against a pre-sale estimate of £20,000-30,000, a huge sum considering the owner had purchased it recently for just £150.
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100 paintings, sculptures and artefacts hidden away in Italian storage facilities will be redistributed to less widely known state museums across the peninsula. “This project gives new life to works of art that are in fact not very visible,” explained Dario Franceschini, Italy’s culture minister.
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One of the few portraits by Rembrandt left in private hands is likely to be purchased by the Rijksmuseum with assistance from the Dutch government. The total price of the painting is €175 million ($198 million), with the Rembrandt Association contributing €15 million and the Rijksmuseum Fund providing €10 million. The Dutch Government is set to pay the remaining €150 million, although final approvement from parliament is yet to be granted.
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Young artist Aziz Hazara has been awarded the Future Generation Art Prize of US$100,000 (£76,000) for his video installation documenting the resilience of people in Afghanistan. Through his work Hazara draws attention to his hometown of Kabul, one of the many cities ravaged by war since US military intervention began after 2001.
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US billionaire Michael Steinhardt has surrendered his collection of antiquities worth US$70 million (£53 million), after a lengthy investigation found they had been looted or illegally smuggled into the country.
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Renowned American pop artist Jeff Koons faces an infringement lawsuit for allegedly copying a sculptural stage setting of a serpent wrapped around a rock designed by another artist, which Koons used for his series “Made in Heaven”.
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This year an Irish pub installation has been crowned winner of the coveted Turner Prize. By translating their activism into artwork, Belfast-based activist group Array Collective won the £25,000 prize.
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ERC-721, the specification for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has nabbed the number one spot of ArtReview’s Power 100, a list of the contemporary art world’s most influential figures. This is the first time a non-human entity has topped the ranking, representing a bold frontier for the market.
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An oil painting by the English Romantic landscape painter John Constable (1776-1837) sold in an auction in Cincinnati, Ohio, last year as a copy, making £40,000 against a pre-sale estimate of only $1,000-2,000. It has now been authenticated as being a genuine Constable. It will be sold in Sotheby’s Old Master Paintings December sale with an impressive estimate of £3-5 million.
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