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ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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 | Amazing Million-dollar Discovery; Declaration of Independence copy found at flea market
Philly.com - August 31st, 2009 23:28
A Philadelphia financial analyst was browsing an Adamstown, Pennsylvania, antique market when he spotted a painting he liked for its frame. He invested $4 in it. When he took the frame off, an original edition of the Declaration of Independence was hidden underneath, in a clean and well-preserved state. Sotheby's authenticated the discovery as one of 24 known to exist of the July 4, 1776, document. This major find is scheduled to be auctioned June 4, 2010, with an estimate of $800,000 to ...Read more | |
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 | Woes at Ritchie's: Canada's biggest auction house is struggling within
Toronto Star - September 1st, 2009 05:44
When Sotheby's dropped Ritchie's as an auction partner this summer, the talk was that the ailing auction house would soon close. But the saga continues. Stephen Ranger, the firm's expert on Persian rugs, eventually its president and, this summer, on the losing side of a power struggle that has rocked the Canadian auction scene, hasn't given up. Ranger had been attempting to buy control of Ritchies from majority owner Ira Hopmeyer, talks that largely foundered because of an ...Read more | |
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 | Chinese Stamp Rarity; Philatelic flub may bring auction record
Reuters - August 31st, 2009 23:09
Hong Kong - More than 1,500 lots of rare Asian stamps with an estimated value of over $HK12 million ($1.55 million) will be auctioned by Zurich Asia, Sept. 18-19. The star lot is the 1897 Three Cents Red Revenue stamp, showing the value overprinted to one dollar with tiny Chinese characters. One of 32 recorded copies of the original 50 stamps, this stamp may set a world record price for a single Chinese stamp at auction,Read more | |
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 | Art Market Comeback?; Fall sales will confirm or deny recovery
Luxist - September 1st, 2009 05:08
The Art Price Global Index suggests that the art market started to turn at the middle of the year, but it's going to take the autumn art season to confirm whether this is a false positive or the start of a new trend. Art prices increased by 4.97 percent at the end of the second quarter, according to the index. This comes after the index fell a total of 30 percent from the start of 2008.Read more | |
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 | Old Style Syria Made New; Historic preservation versus the bottom line
CS Monitor - August 31st, 2009 06:00
Damascus is rediscovering its architectural gems, but hasty restoration puts history at risk. Layers of civilization are slowly peeled back to reveal such historic treasures as colonnaded Roman roads and late-Ottoman era houses, three of which are being restored as a boutique hotel for $20 million. "We think of the revitalization of cultural assets in order to use them as a catalyst for development," says Ali Esmail, CEO of Aga Khan Cultural Services in Syria.
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 | Naked Man Wins; Art Of Photography Show judged by Charlotte Cotton
NPR 1 - August 31st, 2009 15:56
Charlotte Cotton (shown here), head curator of the photography department at the Los Angeles County Museum, was the sole judge of the Art of Photography Show held in San Diego last weekend. She chose an image of a 53-year-old naked man, hunched on a child's chair, for first place. The work beat out 15,000 worldwide entries. The photographer, Benoit Paille, did not ask his subject to strip, he says, but the man had just lost his mother and felt compelled to pose that way. Paille won $2,000.Read more | |
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 | 17th c. Hidden Pig: Restorer finds painted-over swine with connections
Chicago Tribune - August 31st, 2009 23:59
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Chicago art conservator Barry Bauman discovered a hidden image of a butchered pig in a 17th century Dutch painting from the collection of Michigan's Calvin College. While he cleaned "Barn Interior" by Egbert van der Poel (1621-1664), the scene of a woman and two children brightened and also revealed the gruesome picture of the piggy strung upside down from a ladder. A patron may have had the piggy painted over. The ...Read more | |
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