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"Victorious Youth," Greek, 300 - 100 B.C., J. Paul Getty Museum Despite a November Italian court decision that rejected a legal claim for the Getty Bronze (above) by prosecutors in Pesaro, Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli said today that he will continue his campaign to get the Getty Museum to relinquish its celebrated ancient Greek statue of a victorious … [Read more...] about Italy Continues to Pursue Getty Bronze

"Equivalent beauty and importance"? That's what the Met's agreement with Italy calls for, but I'm not sure that's what it got in exchange for its masterpiece by Euphronios. I posted photos of two of the three loans that just arrived from Italy here. Below is third one---a bell-krater from the Paestum region of southern Italy, 3rd quarter of the 4th century B.C., … [Read more...] about Mourning Sarpedon: Italy’s Three Consolation Loans Don’t Console

I spent an enjoyable afternoon last week wandering around the Brooklyn Museum with CultureDaughter and her visiting boyfriend, Lee, a mechanical engineering doctoral candidate and part-time artist, who specifically asked to see what Brooklyn had to offer. Imagine our surprise when we arrived at the museum's expansive Beaux-Arts Court, which should be lined with European … [Read more...] about Department of Missing Departments: Brooklyn’s European Paintings Vanish

Conceptual rendering from Zaha Hadid Architects for MSU's Broad Art Museum It's becoming a franchise, like the Guggenheim. The next Eli Broad-branded museum, which I mentioned at the end of this post, will be designed by Zaha Hadid, it was announced yesterday. The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum (not to be confused with Los Angeles' Broad Contemporary Art Museum) will be built … [Read more...] about And in Other Eli Broad News…

---Remember when I told you that the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum, opening next month at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, would have a gallery named for (then unannounced) collector/benefactors, who didn't mind that some other guy's name was on the building? Now those names are out: LACMA trustee Jane Nathanson and her husband Marc have forked over $10 million for … [Read more...] about LACMA and Met Updates: Contemporary Gallery Namers Named; Hirst Shark Gets New Roommate

I haven't gotten a copy myself yet, but it's rare to read a review of an art-market book that starts like this one. Richard Morrison, arts writer and chief music critic for the London Times writes: If you read no other book about art in your life, read the one that's gripped me like a thriller for the past two days. Just published by Aurum Press, it's called "The $12 Million … [Read more...] about An Early Rave for the “Stuffed Shark” Book

Planned East Entrance of New-York Historical Society Can someone whose first loyalties are to one museum of American art serve without conflict on the board of another? The New-York Historical Society apparently thinks so. Philip Boroff of Bloomberg reports that Alice Walton, founder and president of the planned Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR, has been named to the … [Read more...] about Kindred Spirits: Alice Walton and Linda Ferber

Enough posts about Philippe or taxes! (Or maybe we should write about Philippe's 2006 taxes.) No, let's get back to serious art history: We can now rest assured that the sitter for Leonardo's mysterious lady really is who we thought she was. Sylvia Westall of Reuters reports: Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine merchant, Francesco del Giocondo, has long been seen … [Read more...] about Mona Lisa Is Identified…and She Speaks!

Don't get too excited. The Tax Technical Corrections Act of 2007, signed into law by President Bush on Dec. 29, corrects (in Section 3) what was probably an unintended and absurd estate-tax burden for heirs of charitable fractional-gift donors, which was caused by sloppy drafting of the Pension Protection Act of 2006. The new law doesn't address the PPA's two other … [Read more...] about Partial Relief from 2006 Fractional-Gift Deal-Killers Enacted

Terracotta kylix (drinking cup), Greek, Attic, red-figure, ca. 515-510 B.C., Signed by Euxitheos as potter and Oltos as painter, Interior, running warrior, Exterior, obverse, assembly of gods on Mount Olympus; reverse, Dionysos mounting chariot among satyrs and maenads, 20½ inches diameter, Lent by the Republic of Italy Photo: Direzione Generale per i Beni Archaeologici, … [Read more...] about Pictures from a Restitution: What the Met Will Get

For your hot-button art coverage in today's (Sunday's) NY Times, skip the "Arts & Leisure" section. You need to go to "Week in Review." There you will find Rachel Donadio's What Awaits the Met, another Philippe-philic article that ends by taking some nasty and questionable swipes (via the intemperate Jed Perl) at both the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim. And on the … [Read more...] about NY Times on the Met Succession and the Broad Recision

Michael Govan Despite Eli Broad's recent bombshell, Michael Govan still hopes that key pieces from the collector's 2,000-work contemporary trove may eventually become the "backbone" of LACMA's permanent display. In a wide-ranging discussion with me late Wednesday (which got bumped from the blog because of "all Philippe, all the time"), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's … [Read more...] about Broad-sided: Michael Govan on the Elusive Eli

  It's down to the wire for the Metropolitan Museum's (actually, now Italy's) Euphronios krater. Sunday is the last day it will be on view in New York before it departs on its one-way flight to Italy. But fear not, all you students assigned to fill out worksheets (above) on Greek objects. This just in from the Met: The Ministero per I Beni Culturali e Ambientali … [Read more...] about Euphronios’ Last Day is Sunday; Italy to Substitute a Jug, Cup and Vase

Talk about being on the news! This Jan. 9 press release just came in from the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA: Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, today announced his plans to retire before the end of the year. The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute is fortunate to host de Montebello who will present the lecture "Museums, Why Should … [Read more...] about Clark Snares de Montebello…at Least for a Night

Before Jean Nouvel's Fab comes Kieran Timberlake Architects' Prefab (above) I took a lot of flak from skyscraper lovers over this post about the MoMA Monster---the 75-story stalagmite to be deposited by Jean Nouvel in the now vacant lot next to Mega-MoMA. Nicolai Ouroussoff of the NY Times can't say enough good things about it. I'm a native New Yorker: I too love skyscrapers. … [Read more...] about Slaying the MoMA Monster: Russell to the Rescue