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Art History

Authorities have returned the illegally transported artifacts to their home country of Italy.

Officials Seize 782 Ancient Artifacts Acquired Illicitly by Single Belgian Collector

The trove of treasures, including a funerary slab, amphorae and pottery dated to pre-Roman times, is worth an estimated $13 million

Bronzino, Eleonora di Toledo and Francesco de’ Medici, c. 1550

Florence’s Medici Family Used Portraits as Propaganda

A new exhibition at the Met reveals how the Italian banking dynasty drew on art to cement its power and legacy

Wassily Kandinsky, Curved Tips, 1927

Cool Finds

Rediscovered After 70 Years, Kandinsky Watercolor Sells for $1.3 Million

The modern art pioneer painted the work, which resurfaced in a private collection last month, in 1927

Organizers used state-of-the-art technology to create nearly life-size reproductions of Michelangelo's famed Sistine Chapel frescoes.

Immersive Experience Brings Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Frescoes to the U.S.

A touring exhibition now on view in San Antonio, Chicago and Charlotte immerses visitors in 34 of the artist’s famed paintings

In 1921, Ruth Middleton embroidered this cotton sack with a powerful family story.

History of Now

A Simple Cotton Sack Tells an Intergenerational Story of Separation Under Slavery

Historian Tiya Miles’ new book traces the lives of three Black women through an embroidered family heirloom known as “Ashley’s sack”

Queer artist Gilbert Baker preserved this 10- by 28-foot section of an original 1978 pride flag.

LGBTQ+ Pride

Long-Lost Fragment of First Rainbow Pride Flag Resurfaces After Four Decades

The brilliantly colored banner—now on view in San Francisco—flew on “Gay Freedom Day” in 1978

This 15th-century illuminated manuscript depicts a courtly gathering attended by a host of young men wearing the pointed shoes fashionable at the time.

Art Meets Science

This Fancy Footwear Craze Created a ‘Plague of Bunions’ in Medieval England

Elite Europeans who wore pointed shoes toed the line between fashion and fall risk, a new study suggests

The free silver movement—which fought to allow for unfettered silver coinage alongside the gold standard—reflected the divides of 1890s America.

The U.S. Government’s Failed Attempt to Forge Unity Through Currency

In the late 1890s, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving tried to bridge the divide between silver and gold with a series of educational paper certificates

Researchers Anthony Bourached and George Cann trained an algorithm to recreate "lost" works of art like this Modigliani portrait.

Art Meets Science

Did Modernist Master Modigliani Paint a New Portrait Over a Likeness of His Ex?

A.I. reconstruction reveals hidden image that may depict the Italian artist’s former girlfriend, Beatrice Hastings

Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait With Small Monkey, 1945, oil on masonite

‘Once-in-a-Lifetime’ Frida Kahlo Retrospective Debuts in Chicago Suburbs

The monumental exhibition features 26 of the Mexican painter’s works—a staggering 10 percent of her oeuvre

Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S.557, Wall-Mounted Tied Wire, Closed Center Twelve-Petaled Form Based on Nature), bronze wire, 38 x 38 x 12 in.

Smithsonian Voices

Documenting the Turning Point in the Fascinating Career of Sculptor Ruth Asawa

Smithsonian’s Liza Kirwin explores an early and important exhibition held at LA’s Ankrum Gallery in 1962

The team used bacteria to clean the tomb of Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Nemours (pictured here). Allegorical sculptures of Night and Day flank the marble sarcophagus.

Art Meets Science

Italian Art Restorers Used Bacteria to Clean Michelangelo Masterpieces

Researchers deployed microbes to remove stains and grime from the marble sculptures in Florence’s Medici Chapels

Anonymous, Enslaved Men Digging Trenches, c. 1850

Confronting the Netherlands’ Role in the Brutal History of Slavery

A Rijksmuseum exhibition explores the legacy of colonialism and misleading nature of the term “Dutch Golden Age”

A curator's archival research identified a previously unattributed marble skull as a lost masterpiece by Bernini.

Cool Finds

‘Lost’ Marble Skull Sculpted by Baroque Artist Bernini Found Hidden in Plain Sight

Pope Alexander VII commissioned the work, which sat unidentified in Dresden for decades, as a reminder of mortality

A close-up view of the Hartwell Memorial Window, a stained-glass panel likely designed by Agnes F. Northrop in 1917

Stunning Tiffany Stained Glass Debuts After 100 Years of Obscurity

The enormous, luminescent landscape spent nearly a century in Providence before its 2018 acquisition by the Art Institute of Chicago

Carle wrote and illustrated dozens of books over six decades.

Eric Carle, Author and Illustrator of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar,’ Dies at 91

The beloved story of a ravenous insect has sold 40 million copies and been translated into 60 languages

Controversial collector Stuart Pivar discovered the painting at an auction outside of Paris. The Van Gogh Museum reportedly plans to authenticate the work.

Is This Landscape a Long-Lost Vincent van Gogh Painting?

A controversial art collector claims that a depiction of wheat fields in Auvers is the work of the famed Impressionist

After Yolande of Anjou, wife of Francis I, duke of Brittany, died in 1440, her husband had her likeness painted over with a portrait of his second wife.

Cool Finds

Researchers Discover Hidden Portrait in 15th-Century Duchess’ Prayer Book

The duke of Brittany had his second spouse’s likeness painted over an image of his late first wife

One of the six recovered frescoes depicts a dancing cherub.

Six Stolen Frescoes Returned to Pompeii

Between the 1970s and 2012, looters stole elegant artworks from two villas neighboring the famed ancient settlement

Haring's refrigerator door served as a kind of "guest register" for the famous friends who visited his SoHo apartment in the 1980s.

Keith Haring’s Famous Friends, From Madonna to Andy Warhol, Left Their Mark on His Fridge Door

The contemporary artist’s graffiti-covered refrigerator panel recently sold at auction for $25,000

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