Wanted: new architect for Frick (and its garden)
25 March
The Frick Collection in New York has started the process of choosing a new architect for its expansion and is hoping to reveal designs next year. The museum announced in 2015 that it will keep its courtyard garden after dropping a much-criticised expansion plan that would have built over the space.
Van Gogh masterpiece will stay at Yale
29 March
The US Supreme Court rejected an appeal over the ownership of Van Gogh’s $200m painting, The Night Café (1888), which is in the collection of Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. The decision ends a lengthy legal battle between the university and Pierre Konowaloff, who first contacted Yale in 2008, arguing that the work was stolen from his family during the Russian Revolution.
Egyptian statue sold by Northampton to leave UK
1 April
An ancient Egyptian statue of a scribe, Sekhemka (2400-2300BC), will leave the UK after no museums came forward to match the price it made at auction. Northampton sold the work, which had long been a star object in its local museum, to a buyer abroad for £15.8m at Christie’s in 2014; the UK government then twice deferred an export licence on the statue but the deadline for this has now expired.
Gang members jailed over UK museum thefts
6 April
Fourteen men in the so-called Rathkeale Rovers gang have been imprisoned for between 15 months and six years over the theft of £57m worth of objects from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Oriental Museum in Durham. It is believed that the objects have been smuggled to China, making their recovery unlikely.
Pinacothèque de Paris closes Singapore branch
11 April
The Singapore branch of the Pinacothèque de Paris, a for-profit museum in the French capital that closed earlier this year, is also shutting down—a year after it opened. A spokeswoman for the management company Art Heritage Singapore blamed weak visitor figures for the closure.
Is that a Caravaggio in your attic?
12 April
A painting found in an attic in the French city of Toulouse is a long-lost version of Judith Beheading Holofernes (1604-05) by Caravaggio, says the Parisian art dealer Eric Turquin, who revealed the canvas in the French capital. He estimates it to be worth €120m. Predictably, the experts are divided; specialists at the Louvre, who have been studying the painting, have not yet declared their position. The French government has put a 30-month export ban on the painting.
Hefty taxi bills land former Pompidou boss in hot water
15 April
Agnès Saal, the former managing director of the Centre Pompidou and the former director of France’s Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, has pleaded guilty to misuse of public funds. Saal spent tens of thousands of euros on taxis when she was at the two institutions. She was given a three-month suspended sentence and fines totalling €7,500 at two hearings in Créteil and Paris.