Art · Museums · Pop Culture

In November Sotheby’s and Christie’s Will Put Major Private and Museum Collections Under the Hammer

Sotheby’s will offer for sale the collection of the Ertegun family, founders of the record label Atlantic Records. The principal lot is Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait of 1940, estimated at $40 million. Also on offer will be works from the collection of the billionaire Leonard Lauder, founder of

Listings · Moscow · Coming Up · Art · Museums

Regular feature: where to go — exhibitions worth visiting in Moscow this week

📌 Closing soon: “Alexander Deyneka. A Hymn to Life” at the Tretyakov Gallery, until 26 October 📌 Closing soon: “Ilya Mashkov. Avant-Garde. Kitsch. Classic” at the Tretyakov Gallery, until 26 October 📌 Closing soon: the exhibition of non-figurative painting and graphic art “Dialogues Without Words” at the Belyaevo Gallery, until 26

A blue tunic, black trousers with red stripes, white gloves and gold tassels displayed in a museum case.

Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies · Museums

Franz Ferdinand's Uniform and Other Assassination Relics in Vienna and Konopiště Castle

The uniform in which Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed, the bullet that killed him, the bullet hole in the glass, and the car in which he was travelling. Exhibits of the Museum of Military History in Vienna. His wife's dress and the bullet that killed her are displayed

Clay figurine of a woman with raised arms on a swing between two tall posts with red patterns, each topped with a dove.

NB! · Archaeology · Faith · Museums · Ethnography

Clay figurine of a woman on a swing from a household shrine of the Late Minoan period

A clay female figurine with a swing, from a household shrine of the Late Minoan period. The uprights of the swing are decorated with a red pattern and surmounted by doves perched upon them. Enigmatic artefacts of bygone ages, whose true meaning one can only guess at

Art · Museums · Science · Saint Petersburg

AI Declares Caravaggio a Painting Long Thought to Be a Copy

There are three versions of the painting "The Lute Player". One is kept in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. The second belongs to the collection of the Wildenstein family, the well-known French art dealers. The third was until recently considered a copy. In 1969 specialists from Sotheby&

Archaeology · Art · Museums · Observations · Paris

I made a point of going up to the famous Seated Scribe to photograph his eyes: lined with kohl, with pale blue, seemingly glass pupils that are in fact made of quartz, magnesite and an alloy of copper and arsenic

The sculpture is believed to have been created between the Fourth (2543-2436 BC) and Fifth (2435-2306 BC) Dynasties, but the name we give the scribe is conventional, merely one of the versions; the owner of the tomb in which the sculpture was found in 1850 has so far

Art · Museums · Observations · Mores · Paris

Paul Poiret's wire turban and the turn-of-the-century fashion for fearing electricity

Incredible, but this feathered ornament by Paul Poiret is in fact made of the finest metal wire. The curator of the Poiret retrospective at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs said that for the whole team this extraordinary headdress came as a discovery. But I recalled the amusing fashion of the

Listings · Moscow · Coming Up · Art · Museums

Exhibitions of Plastov, Filatov and Korovin, art of Kazakhstan and the Thaw in October

A regular round-up of current exhibitions in Moscow: where to go. The final week of the exhibition “Arkady Plastov. Graphic Works. 1930s” at the Open Club gallery: until 14 October 7 October: opening of the exhibition “Masterpieces of Kazakhstan Art” at the New Tretyakov Gallery: until 23 November The

Museums · Observations · Society

The Pushkin Museum is closing its branches in Kaliningrad and Vladikavkaz

After 26 Years, the Urals Branch of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Yekaterinburg Has Closed. The management of the Pushkin Museum had earlier announced the closure of the Baltic Branch in Kaliningrad and the North Caucasus Branch in Vladikavkaz. The decision is connected with a revision of

London · Monarchies · Museums · Society

During his recent state visit to Britain, Donald Trump intended to present King Charles with a gift symbolising American-British military cooperation

The Trump administration approached the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kansas, on the matter. Among other things, the institution's collection holds a sword presented to Eisenhower in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. The library, however, declined to hand over this or any other original

Archive · Art · Museums · Heritage

Manet's “Winter Garden”, bought for Berlin in 1896 and later stored in a salt mine

American soldiers with Édouard Manet's "In the Conservatory", removed from Berlin and kept with other masterpieces in a salt mine at Merkers-Kieselbach in Germany. In the end the painting stayed in Germany, and it is now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. The portrait of Manet&

Art · Museums · Heritage · Society

WJRO report says up to 100,000 works from Jewish families may be held in US museums

Up to 100,000 Works of Art Confiscated by the Nazis May Be in US Museums. A great many works of art seized and stolen by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945 have still not been returned to their rightful owners and their heirs. According to a new report by