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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New York’s Everson Museum is selling its only Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) painting to fund efforts to diversify the collection. Painted in 1946, ‘Red Composition’ is expected to fetch between $12 million and $18 million (£9 million – £13.5 million) at Christie’s upcoming 20th Century Art auction in New York.
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On Monday, the Danish court prohibited two watchmakers from destroying a painting to make a collection of luxury watches. Altering the artwork and reintroducing it for sale in the public domain without the permission of the artist, Tal R, was held to have violated Danish copyright law. Continue reading
According to an announcement made by the owner, the infamous Salvator Mundi painting will no longer feature in the upcoming Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Louvre in Paris. This follows reports that the museum’s Curators were unable to agree whether it was painted by Leonardo or his workshop.
The Commission for Looted Art in Europe announced in a press release yesterday (21 March 2019) that a painting attributed to 17th century painter Jan van der Heyden has been returned to the heirs of the Jewish family from whom it was confiscated by the Nazis in 1941; Continue reading
A painting by a Scottish artist described as a “pivotal” work of modern British art was passed off as a child’s artwork for decades in order to deter thieves.
A closely-guarded family secret, ‘1932 (profile: Venetian red)’ by Ben Nicholson (1894-1982) hung in the living room of an Edinburgh home for 64 years. It was given as a wedding present to Elisabeth and Harold Swan in 1951 by Elisabeth’s father, Jim Ede. A friend of the artist, Ede was a young curator at the Tate Gallery before he went on to create Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge University’s gallery of modern art. Continue reading
Two paintings by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh stolen from an Amsterdam museum over a decade ago have been recovered in seaside town in Italy.
‘Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church’ (1884) and ‘View of the Sea at Scheveningen’ (1882) are collectively valued at £77 million. They are examples of Van Gogh’s early work with the Scheveningen piece one of just two Dutch seascapes ever made by the artist. In December 2002, thieves used a ladder to climb to the roof of the Van Gogh Museum and broke in undetected by cameras. Octave ‘The Monkey’ Durham and his accomplice Henk Bieslijn removed the works from the walls of the main exhibition hall in minutes and escaped the scene by sliding down a rope. The notorious heist made the FBI’s list of “top 10” art crimes and baffled experts because security guards had been on patrol at the time of the raid. In 2004 the art thieves were convicted of theft after police discovered their DNA at the scene of the crime but the artworks were never found. Continue reading
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