Last year's robbery of $102 million in crown jewels from the Louvre is set to be adapted into a film directed by Romain Gavras , whose most recent film „Sacrifice" starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Evans will be released on Netflix later this year. (Le Monde)
A fabled but long-lost Leonora Carrington, painting, Villa Pilar 1940, has surfaced and is heading to the Freud Museum in London for an exhibition about the artist's time at a psychiatric hospital outside Santander, Spain. (Artnet News)
Florentina Holzinger followed up her headline-grabbing Venice pavilion exhibition with a set of bloody, endurance-testing New Testament–themed performances in Austria over the course of a single day, titled Whitsun Play. (Monopol)
King Louis XVI's gilded 18th-century bed at the Château de Versailles, incinerated by French Revolutionaries, has been painstakingly reproduced after years of research, thanks to clues from rare surviving royal textiles and written descriptions from the period. (Le Journal des Arts)
A Caravaggio painting of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini—depicted before he became pope—recently purchased by the Italian state for about $34.5 million, is on display in Rome's Senate building through June 21, where it can be seen for free, before heading to the Palazzo Barberini collection. (Artribune)
The Getty Center has revealed more details about its yearlong closure beginning in March 2027 for renovations that include upgrading the entry and tram system, creating a new garden café, and building a more sustainable infrastructure.
(Los Angeles Times)
The marble-inlay floor of the Romanesque-Gothic Siena Cathedral will be uncovered for a longer period this year and is the subject of a new international contemporary art competition.
(Artribune)
A new book by Matthew Campbell, The Man Who Stole the Gods, tells the story of British dealer Douglas Latchford, who was accused of trafficking looted artifacts from Cambodia on a global scale before his death.
(Hyperallergic)
A legend encouraging visitors to grind their heel on the testicles of a bull depicted in a 19th-century mosaic near Milan's Duomo has worn a crater into the pink tesserae, which is now being carefully restored.
(The Guardian)
ROYAL SPRING CLEANING. A small number of colonial artifacts owned by the Dutch royal family may have been acquired illegally, according to a report by DPAA new report commissioned by the Netherlands' Foundation for the Royal Private Collections to investigate roughly 1,000 objects in the royal collection found that a gold amulet necklace and historical weapons, all from Indonesia, are among the items of questionable provenance. The findings were welcomed, and negotiations for the return of contested items to their countries of origin are expected to begin soon. "Careful handling of colonial collection objects within the royal collections is of essential importance," said Queen Máxima, who also serves as chair of the foundation.
Leonora Carrington, Villa Pilar (1940) Photo by Nathan Keay
