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Stories from Christian Thorsberg

For centuries, the sketch on the left has been identified as Anne Boleyn, while the identity of the woman on the right has been unknown.

Did Facial Recognition Find a Lost Portrait of Anne Boleyn? Scholars Debate Whether A.I. Solved or Merely Muddled an Art History Mystery

Accused of treason, the second wife of Henry VIII lost her head. Now, some researchers argue that she also lost her face among dozens of potentially mislabeled portraits in a royal art collection

The Critics Corner, Ernie Barnes, 2007, will be on display when the museum opens. 

The Creator of ‘Star Wars’ Loves Art That Tells a Story. Peek at the Collection of George Lucas’ New Museum Before It Opens This Fall

Adventure, comics, childhood, love and everyday life are among the dozens of themes that will guide the curation of the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles

The new statue was installed overnight in Waterloo Place.

Attributed to Banksy, a New Statue of a Suited Man, Blinded by a Flag and Walking Off a Ledge, Appeared in Central London

The artwork was installed under the cloak of night this week, less than two months after a journalism investigation into Banksy’s true identity was published

A marble bust of Alexander the Great depicted as the sun god Helios

Alexander the Great’s (Marble) Head Turned Up in New York. U.S. Officials Say It Was Stolen—and Just Sent It Back to Italy

As part of a longstanding effort to help Italy track down its missing treasures, the U.S. returned hundreds of ancient archaeological finds this week

The duo sold this forgery of an artwork by Native American and Black artist Richard Mayhew for $160,000.

A Father and Daughter Forged More Than 200 Artworks by Warhol, Banksy, Picasso and Others—and Sold Them for $2 Million

The New Jersey residents, who face up to 20 years in prison, commissioned an artist in Poland to create the fakes. They got special penalties for forging paintings by Native American artists

Girls Watering Flowers (The Freia Frieze IV), Edvard Munch, 1922, will be on display at the Munch Museum beginning in May. 

Stained by Nicotine and Cocoa Powder, These Edvard Munch Paintings Hung in a Chocolate Factory Cafeteria for a Century. Now, They’re Going on Public Display for the First Time

Three decades after “The Scream,” the Norwegian artist painted scenes of daily life for the Freia chocolate factory. The artworks will be on display in his namesake museum in Oslo this spring

A photograph taken in 1926 depicting paintings by Peter Paul Rubens that likely burned in a fire in 1945

Fires in Berlin Destroyed Hundreds of Paintings During World War II. Now, a Museum Will Publish Photo Archives of the Lost Artworks Online

A proactive effort to document the collection of the Gemäldegalerie will pay off a century later as negatives of lost paintings by Rubens and Caravaggio are digitized and published online

The new Smart Cinema theater collects biometric data to track in-the-moment reactions to on-screen action.

Why Do We Love Movies? This New ‘Smart’ Movie Theater Tracks Viewers’ Brain Waves and Heart Rates to Find Out

Researchers at the University of Bristol are studying the appeal of the cinema-watching experience by turning one theater into a biometric laboratory

Yasuyuki Aono kept track of bloom dates for Yamazakura cherry trees in Kyoto.

In Japan, a New Steward for 1,200 Years of Cherry Blossom Data Has Been Found, Sustaining a Climate Change Research Project

Climate scientist Yasuyuki Aono, who died last summer, learned to read ancient Japanese script to compile records on peak bloom dating back to the ninth century C.E.

Gansevoort Street, Willem de Kooning, circa 1949

Willem de Kooning Didn’t Get His Big Break Until His 40s. See the Stunning Abstract Paintings That First Captivated Audiences

Artworks that showcase the painter’s early foray into Abstract Expressionism are now on view at the Princeton University Art Museum

Finland snagged the top spot in this year's World Happiness Report, an annual survey of wellbeing in more than 140 countries.

Finland Is Named the Happiest Country in the World for the Ninth Year in a Row

The World Happiness Report is an annual ranking of wellbeing around the globe. This year’s report spotlighted the consequences of social media use

Outside the Colosseum's southern wall, newly constructed marble slabs indicate where tall columns once supported two arcades.

At the Colosseum, New Marble Slabs Mark Where Towering Columns Stood Thousands of Years Ago

Crowds once mingled below two tall arcades supported by 164-foot-tall columns. But due to earthquakes and unstable foundations, these architectural elements collapsed long ago

The frieze takes inspiration from the Bayeux Tapestry, an 11th-century artwork depicting of the Norman conquest of England.

David Hockney Used an iPad to Create This Sprawling 295-Foot-Long Frieze Inspired by the 11th-Century Bayeux Tapestry

The artwork, which depicts the changing seasons in Normandy, is the centerpiece of “A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts About Painting,” a new exhibition in London

David Gilmour's famed guitar was also auctioned in 2019, when it sold for just under $4 million.

This Iconic Pink Floyd Instrument Just Became the Most Expensive Guitar Ever Sold at Auction

David Gilmour’s 1969 Fender Stratocaster, used on “The Dark Side of the Moon” and other famous albums, sold for a record $14.55 million

Prayers partially cover diagrams from On the Sphere and the Cylinder, a treatise written by Archimedes.

Historians Say They’ve Discovered a Long-Lost Page From the Archimedes Palimpsest, a Treasure Trove of Rare Ancient Mathematical Treatises

Three leaves had been missing for more than a century. Researchers found one of them when they decided on a whim to check the archives of a French museum

One of the plaster casts on display in the new exhibition

Haunting Casts Preserving Pompeii Victims’ Final Moments 2,000 Years Ago Go on Display in a Solemn New Exhibition

Since 1863, archaeologists have made more than 100 plaster casts, which show how victims died after Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E. A new exhibition displays 22 of the best-preserved examples

This Late Bronze Age spearhead mold was found in 2007 in a garden in the Czech Republic.

A Czech Man Used This Stone in His Barn’s Foundations. It Turned Out to Be a Rare Bronze Age Spearhead Mold

The rectangular object dates to around 1350 B.C.E. and was likely created by members of the Central European Urnfield culture

The illustration depicts the scribe Ramose and a jackal figure that may represent the god Wepwawet.

The Egyptians Used an Ancient Version of Wite-Out to Correct Their Mistakes on This Papyrus Scroll 3,300 Years Ago

An ancient artist applied a white substance to an illustration of a jackal, slimming down its appearance, according to researchers at the Fitzwilliam Museum in England

The mural was unveiled in a suburb of San Salvador last month.

This Massive Mural Made From 100,000 Bottle Caps Is One Artist’s Reinterpretation of ‘The Mona Lisa’

Óscar Olivares, who is known for working with recycled materials, completed the 43-foot-tall artwork in Zacamil, El Salvador, in February

A 2,000-year-old inscription by Cikai Korran

This Traveler From India Graffitied His Name on Five Ancient Tombs in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings 2,000 Years Ago

Researchers have discovered 30 inscriptions written in Indian languages, which provide new evidence that visitors from India spent time in Egypt between the first and third centuries C.E.

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