ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

Another Rediscovered da Vinci?

ArtfixDaily / December 7th, 2011

A group of art historians, organized by UC San Diego Professor Maurizio Seracini, believe that a lost da Vinci masterpiece is hidden behind a 16th-century fresco created by Giorgio Vasari in the Palazzo Vecchio. They've been given permission to drill...

Significant Acquisitions for Getty Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

ArtfixDaily / December 5th, 2011

Earlier this year, the Getty Center acquired a significant work by renowned French painter, Édouard Manet. This week, it will go on view. The oil painting, entitled “Portrait of Madame Brunet,” is characteristic of Manet’s early Realist style and dates from the period when he created his two ...

Newly Discovered Velazquez, Goya Headline Old Master Sales in London

ArtfixDaily / November 30th, 2011

A previously unknown Velazquez portrait is the center of the Old Master Paintings auction to be held on December 7 at Bonhams in London. The bust-length portrait of an unknown sitter is expected to sell for 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 pounds. The painting was one of a group acquired from the estate of ...

George Catlin Indian Portfolio Sparks International Bidding Battle

ArtfixDaily / November 28th, 2011

In a German auction, George Catlin’s “North American Indian Portfolio” almost doubled its starting price of 45,000 euros with a final result of 87,600 euros including commission, leaving several competitive bidders from the U.S. empty-handed. The heated bidding skirmish for the rare period ...

Suspects Claim FBI Art Crimes Chief 'Ordered' Museum Theft

Telegraph / November 27th, 2011

Seven people on trial for stealing works by Monet, Sisley and Brueghel from a French museum say that the crime was instigated by Robert K. Wittman, the FBI's well-known art detective. The 2007 heist from Nice's Musée des Beaux Arts yielded the gun-toting thieves four paintings valued at upwards of 22 million euros...

Corot Conman Gets His Comeuppance

NY Daily News / November 22nd, 2011

A career swindler, Thomas Doyle of Manhattan, was sentenced to six years in prison for his latest art crime, a convoluted fraud scheme involving a work by Corot. Doyle purchased the work for $775,000, but convinced an investor that its price was...

Stolen Art Returns Home after 60 Years

ArtfixDaily / November 21st, 2011

A painting stolen from Berlin in the chaotic aftermath of WWII, and subsequently sold to the Indiana University Art Museum, is finally on its way back to Germany after years of investigation. The return of two other looted German art works, both by Expressionist painter Karl Schmitt-Rottluff, ...

L.S. Lowry Painting Commands $8.8 Million; Records for Works on Paper

Bloomberg / November 20th, 2011

L.S. Lowry's "Piccadilly Circus, London," from 1960, recently sold for £5.6 million ($8.8 million) in London at Christie's. Works on paper by Lowry and Henry Moore (at left) set auction records at Bonhams...

Pushkin Museum Accused of Exhibiting Fake Modigliani

The Art Newspaper / November 16th, 2011

The State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow is being accused of displaying a fake Modigliani in their current exhibition "Paris School; 1905-32." The painting in question is a supposed portrait of Marevna, the Russian-born cubist painter who was associated with Amedeo Modigliani's ...

Two Dozen Sculptures from Cleveland Museum of Art at Auction

Cleveland Plain Dealer / November 8th, 2011

The Cleveland Museum of Art is offering a carefully-considered selection of 24 sculptures from its collections at a Christie's sale in New York on Nov. 22. Mostly 19th-century reproductions of Renaissance-era pieces, the sculptures were deemed by curators as non-essential to the museum's ...

$40.4 Million Klimt, Museum's Monet Boost Sotheby's Auction

ArtfixDaily / November 2nd, 2011

A Gustav Klimt landscape painting that was stolen by the Nazis from its Jewish owner brought $40.4 million at Sotheby’s near-$200 million Impressionist and modern art sale in New York on Wednesday evening.

Record Price for Max Ernst in Spotty Christie's Sale

Reuters / November 1st, 2011

Top lots languished in Christie's auction of Impressionist and modern art on Tuesday evening in New York even while several works notably soared above estimates. Max Ernst's "The Stolen Mirror" quadrupled its low estimate to bring...

New York Gallery Sued Over Nazi-looted Modigliani Painting

ArtfixDaily / November 1st, 2011

A New York City art gallery refuses to return a portrait by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) that a French man claims was his grandfather's until Nazis confiscated it during World War II.

Art Forgers Receive Light Sentence in German Court

Bloomberg / October 29th, 2011

Wolfgang Beltracchi, 60, received six years in prison for his role in a massive art forgery ring in Germany that netted him in excess of 10 million euros ($14 million) for 14 fake artworks. Falsely attributed to...

Hedge Funders Use Art Collections to Secure Loans

Bloomberg / October 18th, 2011

With borrowing costs at record lows and prices for top-tier artworks soaring at auction, private banks are increasingly doling out loans to ultra-rich clients who use their art collections as collateral. Picassos and Pollock...

£26.7m Guardi Painting Barred from Export

Guardian / October 17th, 2011

The U.K.'s arts minister has placed a temporary export ban on a monumental 18th-century painting by Francesco Guardi to allow time for a buyer to come up with enough money to keep the work in Britain. Formerly in the collection of the Guinness family, of brewing fame, the painting has been ...

New Charges Against Art Dealer Guy Wildenstein

Le Point / October 13th, 2011

The French government is investigating Guy Wildenstein, the New York and Paris-based scion of the family of art dealers, over allegations that he hid billions of euros in offshore trusts from Ireland to the Cayman Islands.

Stolen Jules Breton Painting Returns to France After a Century

ArtfixDaily / October 12th, 2011

In a ceremony at the French Embassy in Washington, a Jules Breton painting, which was stolen from the Chartreuse Museum in Douai, France, by a German soldier in 1918, will be repatriated. New York’s Daphne Alazraki Fine Art Gallery assisted...

Suspect Says He Tossed Stolen Modern Masterpieces in Trash

Los Angeles Times / October 9th, 2011

Paintings by Picasso, Braque, Modigliani, Matisse and Leger stolen from the Paris Museum of Modern Art in May 2010, and valued at about $134 million, may have been hastily dropped in a garbage bin and destroyed...

Frans Hals Spotlighted in Elizabeth Taylor Estate, Toledo Museum

Toledo Blade / October 5th, 2011

Unbeknownst to her, late actress Elizabeth Taylor owned an old master. The same artist, Frans Hals, is also an important recent acquisition for the Toledo Museum of Art. Christie's, which is handling Taylor's estate, discovered...