Lipari, here I come

A paean to the archeological treasures of Lipari in the Times:

IT IS the fate of most provincial museums to see the choicest artefacts in their area of interest creamed off by one of the great national institutions. Yet on the island of Lipari in the Aeolian Islands is a museum which would be notable in London or Rome but is, quite simply, staggering in a town of some 10,000 people an hour’s run by fast catamaran from the Italian mainland. Not only are its archaeological collections unique, the vast majority of the artefacts were discovered in or around the island. . .

The highlight of the museum, perhaps, is Lipari’s extraordinary collection of miniature theatrical masks taken from the tombs. Brilliantly displayed, some seemingly hanging in mid-air, they are eerie in the extreme. . .

The entire acropolis is, in effect, one vast museum, for excavations of the Roman and Greek towns have been left uncovered and an archaeological park constructed for a number of the immense terracotta sarcophagi.

More (in Italian) at lipari.com.

Looted Dürer drawings once again in limbo

Polish officials say that legal documents compiled in a new book bolster their ownership claim of drawings by Renaissance master Albrecht Durer that were looted by the Nazis during World War II.

The 27 drawings were stolen from the Ossolinski Institute in present-day Lviv, Ukraine, which was once part of Poland, and sold on the international art market after the war ended.

They are now owned by major museums and collections in the United States and Europe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo.

From the Guardian. The state of the question as of 2002 is recapitulated in this paper. The Ossolinski Institute website is here. As far as I can tell, Georg Lubomirski died in 1955 shortly after selling off the drawings.

Summers' thoughtcrime

Blank Slate zealotry is alive and well, as the recent Lawrence Summers flap demonstrates. So much for the claims that Steven Pinker was attacking a straw man!

There is a good (ongoing) collection of Summers-related posts at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Reconstructed Beethoven

Part of a previously unknown piano concerto by Beethoven will be performed for the first time in Rotterdam. The 1789 adagio was found as a rough outline in the British Museum then formed into an eight-minute piece.

Dutch pianist Ronald Brautigam will play the piece in a Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra concert on 1 February.

From the BBC.

Hunterian Museum reopening

An extensive anatomical collection of human and animal specimens will be unveiled to the public when the Hunterian Museum reopens in modern new surroundings at the Royal College of Surgeons in London next week.

After being closed for two years for refurbishment, the collection of more than 3500 specimens, which originally belonged to the 18th century surgeon and anatomist John Hunter, will be formally opened by Princess Anne. . .

Regarded as the founder of scientific surgery, Hunter created a unique collection of almost 14 000 specimens spanning physiology, pathology, and natural history in his mission to investigate all organic life. Many items were acquired by body snatchers, although others were donated by families because of Hunter’s efforts to make post mortem examinations acceptable.

After Hunter died in 1793, the museum was bought by the government and given to the custody of the Royal College of Surgeons. More than two thirds of it was destroyed in the second world war, and the remainder was first opened to the public in 1994.

Full story here; the Royal College of Surgeons' museum website is here.

The Emperor's new psychiatrist

A FORMER taxi driver who posed as an eminent psychiatrist, making more than £1.5 million treating patients and helping hundreds of asylum-seekers to remain in Britain, was jailed for ten years yesterday.

In one of the biggest frauds of its kind uncovered, Barian Baluchi, 43, convinced judges, lawyers, doctors, charities and government departments that he was an eminent psychiatrist and respected professor.

And what does that tell you about said judges, lawyers, doctors, charities and government departments? Full story here.

Lottery grants announced

THE Cutty Sark tea clipper and an archive that includes letters by Jane Austen and Lord Byron are beneficiaries of a £78 million spending spree by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The awards, to six causes, represent the second-largest outlay of lottery money by the fund to date.

Critics questioned the value of the largest award, £17.7 million, to the National Library of Scotland to buy the John Murray archive. . .

The Cutty Sark, the only surviving tea clipper, was promised £12.9 million to prevent decay that could have closed her within two years. . . The Cutty Sark Trust now needs to find an additional £12 million. . .

Other grants include £15 million to found the Riverside Museum, a development in Glasgow that will incorporate the Museum of Transport. The museum, which will be part of an £800 million project to regenerate Glasgow Harbour, will tell the story of industry on the rivers Clyde and Kelvin.

The Great North Museum in Newcastle will receive £9.1 million for premises to house the collections from the Hancock Museum, the Shefton Museum and the Museum of Antiquities. The new building will house exhibits including the largest collection of artefacts from Hadrian’s Wall.

Full story here. The grants are all well and good, but why did the same Lottery panjandrums find the Macclesfield Psalter unworthy even at a veritable bargain price?

Bodleian, below the salt

Talk about remote storage (which is where the books I want always seem to be):

The Bodleian Library is to bury some of its valuable books beneath the Cheshire countryside.

The Oxford University library will move the books into a storage facility known as DeepStore in a saltmine 500ft underground to make room for more-frequently consulted items in its ever-expanding collection until a large new depository is built.

From the Times of London.

Mona Lisa to Italy?

Don't know if this will come to pass, especially with all the recent concern about the panel's stability; I certainly wouldn't bet on it:

MUSEUM curators yesterday announced plans to take Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, to Italy to celebrate the painting’s 500th anniversary.

The move would be only the third time the painting has left France, where it hangs in the Louvre in Paris. Officials hope to display the work at the Pitti museum in Florence, along with 64 certified copies.

The Mona Lisa first left France in 1963 when it went to the United States and again in 1974 when it travelled to Tokyo in Japan.

And not to any of the other Tokyos, if there are any. Full article here. The painting was quite well-travelled in its time, as Leonardo took it with him on all his peregrinations from Florence on.

Too many people driving to the Railway Museum

I guess public transportation isn't an option.

PLANS to construct an overflow car park at the Locomotion: National Railway Museum won't solve the problem, say residents.

People living in the Victoria Street and Station Street, Shildon, have been plagued by visitors to the museum parking outside their homes due to a shortage of car parking spaces at the attraction.

Full story here.

Thief caught at British Museum

Just in from the BBC:

A man tried to open a display case and steal artefacts from the British Museum on Wednesday. . .

Police said a 40-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of attempted theft and going equipped to steal. . .

A museum spokeswoman said: "A man was spotted by an alert gallery attendant acting suspiciously so they approached him and noticed he seemed to have some wire and pliers in his hand and was seemingly trying to get into one of the cases. "The gallery contains lots of different objects. There is some jewellery, Roman cameos, glass vessels and some larger sculptures."

The Greek and Roman galleries were reinstalled pretty recently, so one would think the display cases would be more theft-resistant than the ones recently emptied at the V&A. I don't know if much can be made of the alarms not being automatically triggered, as the guard might have caught the thief before he really got to work.

UPDATE: More from the Times of London:

Shortly before closing time all exits were sealed, the doors locked and visitors told that they could not leave. Police were called and bewildered members of the public were informed that staff had caught a thief and were searching for possible accomplices. . .

Some 20 minutes after the doors were closed, police arrived and a man was taken away for questioning. The attempted theft had occurred in the Greek and Roman space on the first floor where the display cases include glasswork, jewellery and cameos. A guard noticed a man using pliers to prise open one of the display cabinets and tackled him. The gallery was immediately cordoned off. . .

Two months ago a thief walked out of the British Museum with a collection of about 15 ancient Chinese jewels. Two years ago an Ancient Greek statue worth about £50,000 was also stolen.

Museums not sharing the wealth

Today's news from the BBC:

Too many works of art and historical artefacts are hidden from public view, the government has said.

Arts minister Estelle Morris says major museums in England should allow smaller galleries to exhibit undisplayed items.

She said there was a growing appetite for "serious" culture in the country and called for the "cultural centre of gravity" to move away from London.

At least part of the imbalance is due to the taboo about deaccessioning in the UK. Yet much of the scattering of the riches seen in the US must also be credited to past megacollectors such as Kress and Mellon, who deliberately left large chunks of their collections (admittedly, the lesser works) to smaller regional museums across the country.

There are good reasons not to embrace decentralization blindly, however, and to be cautious about claims that all the big museums are sitting on vast hidden treasure troves:

A spokeswoman for the British Museum told BBC News there were a number of reasons for keeping artefacts in storage. "The museum has seven million objects in its collection, of which 75,000 are on display," she said. "Of the others, one million are flints which are of interest to archaeologists and would not be interesting to display. Others are paintings or drawings which can not be displayed for conservation reasons. And there are objects which are part of study collections which are available to view with an appointment. But everything that is worth seeing is available to the public."

That "worth seeing" is more than a bit misleading; in fact, pretty much everything in public museums is available to the public -- the main restrictions being on a small number of extremely fragile items, which would soon be destroyed if access were not strictly rationed.

Tank museum to expand

Backers of a military museum in line for a £15m redevelopment have been awarded a £8.5m lottery grant.

The money will go towards building a new display hall and preserving the hundreds of vehicles at the Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset. . .

The museum currently has 160 tanks on show but the rest are stored outside.

From the BBC. The Tank Museum website is here.

Dresden

Recommended reading: Theodore Dalrymple's City Journal essay, The Specters Haunting Dresden.

Noble savage myth takes another hit Down Under

Mankind has been rough on the environment for a long, long time; here's one more illustration that you don't need an industrial civilization to wreck an ecosystem:

SETTLERS who came to Australia 50,000 years ago and set fires that burned off natural flora and fauna may have triggered a cataclysmic weather change that turned the continent's interior into the dry desert it is today, United States and Australian researchers say.

Their study, reported in the latest issue of the journal, Geology, supports arguments that early settlers literally changed the landscape of the continent with fire. . .

Fossil evidence shows birds and marsupials that once lived in Australia's interior would have browsed on trees, shrubs and grasses rather than the desert scrub environment that is there today. . .

People are also blamed for killing off 85 per cent of Australia's huge animals, including an ostrich-sized bird, 19 species of marsupials, a 7.5m lizard and a Volkswagen-sized tortoise.

Some experts have suggested climate change caused by burning killed off these species, rather than direct hunting by humans.

Full article here; press release here. Spotted via Tim Blair, who has a few appropriately snarky remarks about those who blindly idealize aboriginal culture.

Philip Johnson obit

Philip Johnson, at once the elder statesman and the enfant terrible of American architecture, died yesterday at the Glass House, the celebrated estate he built for himself in New Canaan, Conn., said David Whitney, his companion of 45 years. He was 98 years old.

From the NY Times.

UPDATE: Hard to say anything about such a figure that hasn't been said better elsewhere. Some of his buildings are great, others appalling (remember his plan for Washington Square? Bobst Library turned out bad enough . . .), while many others leave me wondering how they will be seen by generations to come.

AND now a provocative essay by Mark Stevens, which takes a closer look at Johnson's embrace of Naziism and its implications for his postwar career:

He never became a fascist architect. But he was probably one of those artists - among them many Communists - whose philosophical sensibilities were gutted by the experience of the 30's and World War II. . .

Perhaps as a consequence, his imagination developed no particular center. Nothing was intractable or non-negotiable. He was remarkably free. He could toy, sometimes beautifully, with history. He liked a splash. He was a playful cynic, cultivating success even as he winked at its vulgarity. If someone should complain, well, the problem lay not in the artist but in the fallen world.

Philip Johnson now seems like an emblematic figure partly because he appears to have been happily, marvelously, provocatively, disturbingly hollow. It is an underlying fear of Western culture, one that has lasted since World War II, that there is no larger or ennobling content to mine. Mr. Johnson's main flaws as an artist - his tastes for razzle-dazzle and overweening scale - are equally the weaknesses of American secular culture. His main strengths - his openness to change, playfulness and urbane rejection of the Miss Grundys of the world - are equally it strengths.

Gladiators: the professional wrestlers of antiquity?

I've been meaning to comment on this story for some time, but I haven't been able to put down a snow shovel long enough to get around to it until now (yes, it's snowing again -- and Providence is still letting everyone park on the only-partially-plowed streets):

GLADIATORS' combat had become a martial art [This really should be amended to "sporting martial art" -- D.] by the beginning of the first millennium, according to a controversial theory based on reconstructing the fighters' tactics from Roman artefacts and medieval fight books.

To amuse the crowds around the arena the gladiators would display broad fighting skills rather than fight for their lives, argues archaeologist Steve Tuck of the University of Miami. "Gladiatorial combat is seen as being related to killing and shedding blood," he says. "But I think that what we are seeing is an entertaining martial art that was spectator-oriented."

From New Scientist.

I have only read the online version of the article, but that is enough to raise some serious doubts. It's certainly possible that Christian (and non-Christian) opponents of the traditional circus entertainments might have exaggerated their brutality, yet the records are incontrovertible regarding the wholesale slaughter of wild animals and the savage execution of captives and criminals (not to mention the unsparing nature of ancient sports such as boxing and pankration). Would spectators accustomed to such bloody fare really have been content to watch an armed version of professional wrestling? And what about the archeological evidence, such as the gladiator graveyard at Ephesus noted here (excerpt: "The scientists found that nine out of 10 gladiators were killed by a stab through the shoulder blades")?

Then there are the methodological problems with the central argument. The late medieval fighting manuals are great and long-neglected resources, but there is no justification for presuming that their conventions of combat were at all applicable over a thousand years before [NB: Techniques, yes; conventions, no]. Furthermore, anyone familiar with those manuals should appreciate how much they tell us that we could never have read from the stylized depictions of combat in contemporary artworks -- yet the latter is about all we have for the gladiators.

There is quite a bit that remains to be discovered by bringing combat arts knowledge to the study of the past (for example, anyone familiar with the footwork drills for arnis will immediately see what's going on in the Highland sword dance -- something the Scots have long forgotten). But the temptation to read too much into ambiguous imagery must be resisted.

From the manuals and art, Tuck infers that there were often three critical moments in the course of a gladiatorial bout. The first was initial contact, with both gladiators, fully armed, moving forwards and going for a body shot. The second was when one gladiator is wounded and seeks to distance himself from his opponent. In the third both gladiators drop their shields, seemingly undamaged, before grappling with each other, he says.

None of this makes much sense, I fear. Why three phases of a single bout, rather than images showing differing types of combat? Why presume infliction of wounds before progressing to unarmed grappling? This thesis does not deserve the attention it has received.

ADDENDUM: Yet another writeup now at Discovery News.

Cancer cluster at the National Gallery of Australia?

Article here. Hat tip to Tim Blair.

Statue in the stream

Last week’s heavy rainfall in Athens has led to the discovery of a Roman marble statue which had been apparently dumped in a streambed in the southern suburbs, an archaeologist said yesterday. . .

Yiorgos Steinhauer, head of the Culture Ministry’s local antiquities department . . . said the statue could have been recently discovered by builders during construction work, and dumped in the streambed for fear archaeologists might stop the works if alerted to the find.

Full story here.

Battle of (ancient) Britain

Scientists have discovered startling evidence that suggests different species of early humans may have fought to settle within our shores almost half a million years ago.

They have found that two different groups - one wielding hand-axes, the other using Stone Age Stanley knives to slash and kill - could have been rivals for control of ancient Britain.

'The evidence is only tantalising, but it is intriguing,' said palaeontologist Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, London. 'Certainly it suggests Britain may well have been multicultural 400,000 years ago.'

From the Guardian. Note that "multicultural" in this context means not monocultural, that the documented slashing and killing is of animal prey, and that the interpretation of differing tools as indicative of differing species is largely speculation.

Van Rijn arrested in Switzerland

Michel van Rijn, the Dutch dealer and art smuggler turned police informant, has been arrested in Basel. Van Rijn was detained by Swiss police on 22 January upon arrival in Switzerland. He has now been transferred to Geneva. . .

Speaking to The Art Newspaper, a spokesman for the Swiss police said "Mr Van Rijn has been arrested for alleged blackmail."

From the Art Newspaper. Just a short notice so far -- haven't been able to learn much more. Nothing on van Rijn's website, though I'm sure he will wax voluble there once he is able.

Who gets the best art?

Tyler Cowen notes, apropos of the CostCo Picasso story:

For mysterious reasons unbeknownst to this cultural economist, the best artworks are rationed out to regular and longstanding buyers.

The reason for this is quite simple. Every buyer wants to be first in line, but who will the typical dealer approach first? The buyer who can be counted on to pay the price -- preferably with a minimum of fuss. Buyers who turn down too many items or who get too aggressive about trying to beat down the price will find themselves off the shortlist. It's not so much a matter of "longstanding" as of "regular": in a market where the best pieces are hard to get, yet vulnerable to devaluation if shopped around, dealers aren't going to take chances on buyers who are unknown quantities.

So how to get on the shortlist? Be open with dealers; let them know up front that you are a serious buyer in for the long term (this is important), and that you want the best and are willing to pay the price. A leap of faith? To some extent, for many dealers will take ruthless advantage of a freespending newcomer (and note that some fields of collecting are far more ruthless than others). But unless you are willing to put in the time to become a dealer yourself, your chances of putting together a top collection in any but the most obscure subspecialties are slim indeed without dealer assistance.

Here's something that took me years to learn: despite the emphasis usually laid on diligent study and training your eye, people skills are just as important in collecting -- and if developed enough, can be just about all you need. If you can figure out who to trust and how far, who has the knowledge and who doesn't, you will be able to sidestep most of the pitfalls enthusiastically charged into by those who insist on learning everything for themselves.

While I'm at it, I should belatedly comment on another Tyler Cowen post, on CostCo entering the art biz. CostCo has reaped a great deal of free publicity by offering a rather small selection of minor artworks, so I'd hardly aver that this portends a major change in how art is sold. CostCo's markup is minimal because the artworks are a loss leader. Standard gallery markups aren't so much a matter of the "attached aura", but rather what is required to cover overhead. Note too, that the appellation "museum quality" is just about meaningless (of the quality sold in museum gift shops?), and that while the artists may be big names, these "limited edition" prints are no rarities (think upscale Franklin Mint) -- which is why they can be relatively easily commodified in a way that most gallery art cannot.

UPDATE: After giving it some thought, I really must take issue with the following:

Here is rule number one of art buying: if you can just walk up cold and buy it, don't.

That may apply for living artists in high demand, but they constitute a pretty thin slice of the art market pie. When it comes to older art, go to a major art fair (Maastricht, for example) and you'll see the best of the best -- the sort of stuff museums buy, and which you can too if you have the means. Top dealers save special pieces for such shows; the last thing they would want is a reputation for exhibiting stale merchandise.

Finally, keep in mind that stale need not be a bad buy in the long term. Some works have been bouncing around the market because of real faults, whether of quality or condition or attribution. Others may simply be out of fashion, or just overexposed ("if no one else has bought it, there must be something wrong with it").

This is one area where dealers and collectors can work together quite profitably. Experienced dealers are often good judges of what is currently undervalued, but since few can afford to pursue a large-scale long-term buy and hold strategy, most end up concentrating on the short term -- making sales, and leaving the potential long-term gains to their collector customers.

Red Army Surplus

Russia is to sell thousands of Second World War tanks, machineguns and cannons in an attempt to raise funds and remind the world of its pivotal role in defeating Hitler.

The Kremlin hopes that they will be bought by museums and enthusiasts as interest in vintage weaponry peaks during the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, a landmark that will be celebrated with great fanfare in Russia.

I wonder how many will be purchased, or indeed able to be purchased, within Russia itself.

The hardware has been stored in warehouses even though most of it was decommissioned decades ago.

The company is tempting collectors with a selection of weapons that includes Maksim machineguns, 76mm ZiS-3 field guns, PPSH sub-machineguns and T-34 tanks. . .

For the more ambitious there are T-54 tanks, built in the immediate post-war period and used to defeat the Hungarian uprising in 1956, and even Soviet-era submarines. . .

While it has not yet published a price list, it is likely to sell rifles and pistols for a few hundred pounds each. Tanks in good working order are expected to cost upwards of £10,000. . .

The company is also selling German and Allied equipment captured during the war or received as part of the Lend Lease programme.

From the Telegraph. Nothing on the Rosoboronexport website, so far.

Macclesfield Psalter to the Fitzwilliam

The Fitzwilliam has raised the £1.7m to match the Getty's purchase price, with just two weeks to spare.Article at the BBC (usual caveats about the claimed kinship with the Gorleston Psalter and the positing of an otherwise unknown scriptorium in Gorleston itself).

AND if you think I'm dwelling too much on press coverage errors, here's an intelligent discussion by way of counterweight.

The storm continues

The snowfall may be over, but the comment spam is unabating -- accelerating, in fact. Since our server move at the end of October, we've screened out over 10,000 spam comments. Unbelievable.

Allerton Castle damaged by fire

Firefighters are to spend a second day at the scene of a blaze at a North Yorkshire stately home which has been almost destroyed by fire.

At its height more than 100 firemen tackled the fire at Allerton Castle, near Knaresborough, which started in the early hours of Saturday.

The roof and first floor collapsed and fire crews continued to extingush the blaze 12 hours after it started.

From the BBC.

MORE at the Telegraph:

The stately home believed to have inspired the nursery rhyme The Grand Old Duke of York and which is one of the most important Gothic revival buildings in the country was severely damaged by fire yesterday.

The Castle website is downplaying the damage, though that may be from the viewpoint of using the house's facilities for receptions and other events, rather than that of historic preservation.

Coyotes in (urban) Rhode Island

While looking over the Providence Journal website for storm news, I ran across an ongoing reader-feedback page devoted to coyote spottings. A number of respondents were going on about how we shouldn't complain about their presence, seeing that we are the interlopers -- rather overlooking the fact that coyotes are recent arrivals from out West, not documented in the state until 1969.