Category: visual

The grave, which holds the intact mummy of the brother of an important regional governor, includes a polychrome funerary mask and – in a first (so far) – all the customary burial goods.

“Many US museums have been closely monitoring the on-going destruction of heritage sites in Syria and Iraq. But few have had boots on the ground like the Penn Museum. The Philadelphia institution’s curators and researchers have been on the frontlines of the battle to safeguard cultural heritage in conflict zones. Now, they have organised an exhibition that seeks to illustrate just how high the stakes are.”

“‘All visitors are being inspected, which surely might cause inconvenience for the museum’s guests,’ the museum said in a statement … The Hermitage also said it had reached an agreement with Rosgvardia, the new National Guard created by President Vladimir Putin in 2016, to strengthen security at the museum.”

The historic structure on top of the site (known as the Edicule) has just been fixed up, but – as engineers discovered during the project – the ground on which it sits is very unstable, and fixing it will be very tricky.

“The 72cm high plasterwork of a naked, muscular man carrying a young woman bears the sculptor’s engraved signature and was a preparatory work for Rodin’s bronze sculpture I Am Beautiful [Je suis belle]. … It went unnoticed until the death of its owner in 2013, when it was spotted in a box in furniture storage in Biarritz.”

“Experts said the restoration uncovered newfound lucidity and profundity in the work, with figures that had previously been hidden now apparent and a ‘liveliness’ of action uncovered.” Says the director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, where the painting is back on display, “This is an extremely cinematographic painting, in fact, and has become such thanks to the cleaning,”

The Tate St. Ives, in an artists’ colony/resort town on the coast of Cornwall, has doubled its exhibition space and made room for a semi-permanent exhibition to accompany the temporary shows it concentrated on previously.

“Representative Rob Bishop, a Republican from Utah and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, are ramping up a campaign to strip away the president’s authority under the Antiquities Act to designate monuments. Mr. Bishop complains that it allows the federal government to “invade” and “seize” lands. But that’s not true. The act authorizes the president to protect only lands already “owned or controlled by the government of the United States,” not state or private land.”

The New York Times claims that one of the reasons for Met director and chief executive Thomas Campbell’s resignation is a “a yearslong erosion of respect for his authority and judgment within the Met,” partly due to “a close personal relationship between Mr. Campbell and a female staff member” in the digital media department.