Free TimesSelect for .edu addresses

Story here. This will affect more than just students, faculty, and staff, though: many .edu institutions offer email addresses at their domains to alumni as well.

Colossal Squid catch

It is believed to be the first ever intact adult colossal squid to be landed.

And for now, this beast of the deep - all 495kg (1,090lb) of it - is safely frozen in a one-cubic-metre block of ice at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, in Wellington.

The squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) came into the institution this week after being caught last month by fishermen operating in Antarctic waters.

From the BBC. Initial report on the catch here.

Re-identifying a Jan Steen

In a brilliant piece of art historical detective work, two Dutch academics have solved the puzzle of Jan Steen’s 1655 painting The Burgomaster of Delft and His Daughter. The work does not depict a burgomaster, but the merchant who supplied grain for the artist’s brewery. We also now know about a bitter ­marital row which lay behind the apparently placid figures of the father and his daughter.

The story suggests that Steen and his friends did indeed live up to the description given by the artist’s early biographer, Arnold Houbraken, who wrote in 1721: “His paintings are like his life, and his life like his paintings.” Even today, in the Netherlands a chaotic home is called “a Jan Steen household”.

Read the full story in the Art Newspaper.

Illicit Gandharan artifacts turned over to Pakistan

US Ambassador Ryan C Crocker on Thursday handed over 38 Gandhara antiques, which were smuggled to US two years ago, to the Ministry of Culture. American Department of Customs has discovered these smuggled antiques.

From all I understand, this is but the tip of a very large iceberg. Full article here.

Your Seven Wonders?

What would be mine? I'll have to give it some thought.

Maybe it simply feeds modern society's obsession with lists and rankings, but more than 2,000 years after ancient Greeks identified the Seven Wonders of the World, millions of people around the globe are casting Internet ballots to update the list.

Whether motivated by nationalism, conservation, curiosity or sheer boredom, more than 4 million Chinese, Indians, Mexicans, Brazilians, Americans and others have cast 28 million votes, organizers say. They have generated 21 wonder finalists, including the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Acropolis in Athens, Jordan's ancient city of Petra and the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

From the Washington Post, with the leading nominees listed here. Vote for your choice here, or share them in the comments.

Some stolen Elgin watches returned

It was the question of the day Sunday: Were the 15 watches stolen from the Elgin Area Historical Society and Museum back in town?

The answer is yes, and no.

Acting on a tip, Elgin police recovered eight of the missing watches last fall from a Colorado man who traveled the country stealing from museums. The suspect eventually fled to Texas where he found himself in [a] short gun battle with police, and then killed himself.

Full article here.

Goudstikker paintings to auction on display

Thirty-two pieces of the so-called Goudstikker art collection have been placed on display at Christie’s in Amsterdam.

The paintings, to be displayed until 17 March are the first among the 202 pieces to be auctioned following their return to the Goudstikker heirs by the Dutch government in February 2006. . .

The pieces will be sold in London on July 5 and Amsterdam on November 14. According to Christie’s, it is a selection of “just a few among the most special items in the collection.”

The news comes just days after the Dutch government announced it had re-purchased five paintings from the Goudstikker collection.

In addition, the Goudstikker heirs decided to donate one painting to one Dutch museum. The family is also preparing a special exhibition, that will travel around the world, to enable the international public to see the collection by itself.

From the European Jewish Press, which also notes:

It was not certain in recent weeks whether or not the Goudstikker heirs could actually get hold of the paintings returned to them last year.

A disagreement erupted between them and the lawyers who represented them, with the lawyers demanding 12 million euros, instead of the 1,3 million the Marei von Saher, daughter-in-law of Goudstikker, offered.

One of her former lawyers, Roelof van Holthe tot Echten, threatened to confiscate all paintings until the disagreement had been settled. This made Von Saher and her daughters – granddaughters of Goudstikker – take their former lawyer to court, which decided that the Goudstikker heirs be allowed to sell some of the paintings, in order to settle the payment of their former lawyers.

Previous articles on the returned works here and here. The International Herald Tribune reported in more detail on the dispute over legal fees:

A lawyer's fee of €12 million (US$15.7 million) for negotiating the return of art stolen by the Nazis was too high, a court ruled Friday. . .

Goudstikker's daughter-in-law Marei von Saher and his granddaughters Charlene and Chantal von Saher, who live in Connecticut, refused, offering to pay an hourly rate instead.

The Hague District Court . . . awarded Van Holthe tot Echten at least €1.9 million (US$2.5 million), or €325 (US$425) per hour, but suggested that amount should be quadrupled to €7.6 million (US$10 million) to reflect the risk the lawyer took in working on the case for so long with uncertain prospects for payment. . .

The ruling opens the question of what the Goudstikker heirs will be left with in the end. Evidence cited in the ruling suggested another Dutch lawyer might seek up to 20 percent of the value of the collection, U.S. lawyers another 10 percent, and a U.S. art historian who helped research the case yet another 10 percent.

Christie's estimated the collection, which includes masterpieces by Jan Steen and Salomon van Ruysdael, is worth from US$79 million-US$110 million (€56 million-€84 million).

Hermitage theft prosecution update

The prosecutor for the state demanded that Nikolai Zavadsky, a defendant in the criminal case over the theft of artworks from the Hermitage museum, be sentenced to six years in a general regime penal settlement. . .

The prosecutor also urged the court to issue a statement instructing the Hermitage administration to eliminate the faults in museum security and storing of artworks.

From Itar/Tass. Zavadsky was the husband of the Hermitage curator who died suddenly after the missing items hit the news.

Diamond heist in Antwerp

A man stole $28 million worth of diamonds from an Antwerp bank where he had been a trusted customer for a year using a stolen Argentine passport, officials said Monday.

Prosecutors say the suspect broke into safety deposit boxes in an ABM Amro bank in the city’s diamond quarter last week. He made off with diamonds weighing 120,000 carats, police said.

The story continues:

In 2003, in the world’s largest safe-deposit box theft, thieves in Antwerp pried open 123 boxes, finding so much loot they could only carry away $100 million worth of diamonds, gold and jewelry.

Maybe I'm overlooking something, but it seems that these Antwerp banks entrusted with what must be billions in gemstones maintain lower safe deposit security than my ordinary American branch bank. I'm never left alone when I'm in the vault area, and though I'm no expert, the individual boxes look like they'd take some pretty heavy-duty hardware to open up.

Merovingian art at the Pushkin: WW2 trophies come out of the closet

The issue of "trophy art" has been a source of tension between Russia and Germany since World War II. But a new exhibition at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts called "Era of the Merovingians: Europe Without Borders" puts politics aside to showcase objects that have been in storage for more than six decades.

The exhibition, which opens to the public on Tuesday, features around 1,200 artifacts connected with the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled much of present-day France and Germany from the 5th to the 8th centuries. Most of the pieces on display were stored in a Berlin bunker during World War II and taken to the Soviet Union by the victorious Red Army in 1945.

From the Moscow Times. The BBC has some pictures of show highlights here.

Protesting a risky loan

And this isn't just money -- it's Leonardo's Annunciation in the Uffizi:

An Italian senator chained himself to a column near the gates of the Uffizi museum on Monday as many in the Italian art world protested the loan of Leonardo da Vinci's "Annunciation" for a show at Japan's National Museum in Tokyo.

Inside the museum, the 6.5 foot by 3 foot (nearly 2 meters by 1 meter) painting was being bundled into three protective crates filled with shock-absorbers and high-tech sensors to monitor humidity, temperatures and stress levels in preparation for departure Tuesday.

The 15th century masterpiece will be shown from March 20 through June 17 as part of "Italian Spring," a series of events promoting Italian culture and products. . .

Art historians and intellectuals from Florence, including filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli, have signed a petition asking Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli to cancel the loan. . .

The senator who chained himself, Paolo Amato, has said the loan exposes a priceless masterpiece to unnecessary risk and belittles its significance by using it in a commercial event.

From the International Herald Tribune.

This is a flagrant abuse of cultural resources. There are so few surviving paintings by Leonardo to start with, and this particular panel is of signal importance in understanding his early development as a painter. Even ordinary panel paintings of this size and fragility should travel only under pressing circumstances -- and in this case, there isn't even the pretense of a greater scholarly purpose to be served.

Missing links of the Arctic

Fossil animals found in Arctic Canada provide a snapshot of fish evolving into land animals . . .

US palaeontologists have published details of the fossil "missing links" in the prestigious journal Nature.

The 383 million-year-old specimens are described as crocodile-like animals with fins instead of limbs that probably lived in shallow water.

From the BBC.

Office towers to tower over the Tower?

Let's hope not:

Britain's 27 World Heritage Sites, including the Tower of London, are not formally protected by planning laws.

But the government is now proposing to put buffer zones around them, in an attempt to prevent the tower being put on a UN blacklist of endangered sites. . .

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell wants to change planning laws to give heritage sites similar development protections to those currently given to areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks. . .

Unesco, the UN's cultural organisation, has already warned that plans for skyscrapers near the Tower of London could put it on its "in danger" list.

From the BBC.