NEW YORK — Friday’s rainy gray skies added to the old-world mood at the International Fine Art & Antiques Dealers fair, October 19-25. It’s always had a heavy British feel — silver tea caddies, equestrian paintings, big mahogany desks, Thomas Chippendale furniture — but dealers sprinkled a crop of eclectic curiosities throughout the 65 booths this year, broadening the appeal beyond the usual connoisseurs.

To be sure, it’s still easy enough to stumble over the gilded foot of a Louis XIV chair or George II settee. But there’s no shortage of unique finds, like an 18th-century Russian rifle sized for a young boy at Peter Finer, a brass telescope built for J.P. Morgan’s yacht at Hyland Granby Antiques, and cravat pins shaped like cigar-smoking pirate skulls at A La Vieille Russie.

And the fair appears to be gaining traction with buyers outside its typical market. Several traditional antique and artifact dealers noticed an increase in attendance among contemporary art collectors. Take Chicago’s Douglas Dawson, a gallery that deals ethnographic arts, especially African ceramics. “Most of our collectors are contemporary art collectors,” says co-director Wally Bowling. “Everyone’s seen Picasso’s or Matisse’s studio with African arts in it. It’s quite common today to see someone have a great modern painting, fabulous deco furniture, and a great artifact.”

Dawson gallery, which also exhibits at fairs like Art Miami and Expo Chicago, had a pre-Columbian checkered textile from Peru — “a bit like Sean Scully,” Bowling noted — and a number of earthen figures and ceramics on view.

The sentiment was similar at Daniel Crouch Rare Books, which specializes in 15th- to 19th-century maps and atlases. “The market for decorative prints is disastrous right now because people’s homes are more minimalist,” said owner Daniel Crouch. “But cartography seems to be doing okay.”

He pointed to a map of the western hemisphere by missionary to China Ferdinand Verbiest. Crouch had the ornate Eastern print, originally done in 1674, framed in sleek, modern etched metal.

But not everyone is changing with the tide. England’s Thomas Coulborn & Sons, which had a dozen Chippendale chairs and two Regency-era urns among its offerings, is participating in IFAAD for only its second year. When asked if he felt like he was responding to developments in the market, director Jonathan Coulborn said, “We mostly work with existing clients — we sell antiques.”

Depending on whom you ask, Jerusalem has been conquered between 20 to 40 times, and in each case, a new homesteader has managed to bury whatever the last group left behind. In a particularly old homestead like Silwan, a district in East Jerusalem that has been occupied in various forms since the 4th millenium BCE, the resulting strata can be divided into at least this many layers of artifacts and debris, each left by a different human conqueror over the range of 50 to 500 years.

Since it was first excavated in the mid-19th century, Silwan has become an ideal place to observe the extent to which archaeology and conflict are connected. Whereas biblical sources would describe Silwan as the place David first conquered when he established his capital, in the present day, the neighborhood is populated predominantly by Palestinians. It has, at the same time, been a perennial target of settler groups looking to “Judaise” parts of East Jerusalem that were placed under Israeli control following the Six Day War in 1967. Critics believe that since the mid-1990s, the Ir David Foundation (also known by the Hebrew acronym “Elad”) has been underwriting excavations in the area with the intent of developing the archaeological record of one group — the Hebrew one — at the exclusion of all others. After the announcement last month that Tel Aviv University (TAU) would take part in an excavation in Silwan, funded indirectly by Elad, many left-leaning archaeologists and skeptical observers have stepped forward in protest.

Off and on since 1997, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority has tasked Elad with the “guardianship and maintenance” of Silwan’s archaeologically rich City of David National Park. For a private organization, it wields an unusual amount of authority over a public entity, directing tours and charging admission, inviting soldiers on religiously minded “heritage tours,” and compelling guides to interpret ambiguous artifacts along biblical lines.

A 2006 report by Ir Amim, a left-wing advocacy group focussed on Jerusalem, described one instance in which Dr. Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist working at a dig funded by Elad, claimed to have found the pipe that David’s warriors traveled through when they conquered the city. This was despite the fact that many scholars — including Ronny Reich, an archaeologist at Haifa University who worked at the same site — were skeptical that David or Solomon had ever been there. On another occasion,Reich uncovered a Byzantine water pit and was instructed by Elad to present it as the cistern of Malkijah, the pit Jeremiah was thrown into by the son of Zedekiah, the king of Judah, according to the Old Testament. For weeks, the attribution was listed on the website and echoed by tour guides, even though Reich himself said that it was “nonsense.”

Excavators who work in Silwan largely describe themselves as beyond the reach of partisan politics, but given Elad’s extensive involvement in archaeological activity there, this can be hard to prove. Founded in 1986, the group’s stated goal has been to “strengthen the Jewish connection to Jerusalem and renew Jewish settlement in the City of David.” Ir Amim has linked the group to an array of coercive methods settler groups have employed to move space in Silwan from Palestinian to Israeli hands, including forced evictions, forged deeds, and the now-null Absentees Property Law, which allowed Israeli settlers to occupy land and buildings that had been depopulated in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

A Google search of the group’s founder, David Be’eri, leads to multiple stories about the day he passed through Silwan in a silver four-door sedan and was confronted by Palestinian youths throwing stones. He struck two of them with his car and drove off, later claiming he had felt he was in danger and was trying to flee. Though both boys avoided serious injury, the incident was broadcast on Al Jazeera as well as Israeli television, and in numerous clips on YouTube.

It's hard to imagine how an organization whose leader is best known for running over Palestinian children with his car could invite itself into archaeology, a field in which professionals pride themselves in being almost tediously objective. In recent years, however, Elad has managed to do just that, funding public education projects in Silwan that would make viewers believe that politics was not their concern.

“I think Baeri’s great achievement is to de-politicize,” Meron Rapoport, a journalist who authored the Ir Amim report, told ARTINFO. “When Elad started its activities in 1990, some years ago, they had this image of being extremist settlers who wanted to disturb life in East Jerusalem. What I think David Be’eri did in the late 1990s and from there on is to make Elad not political, to continue what they do in Silwan, but at the same time not to appear political, as if this is a scientific, touristic project, and not a political project.”

Because of the drama of archaeology in Jerusalem, in addition to the sizable funds it provides for research areas like Silwan, researchers like Reich have frequently found themselves forced to answer difficult questions about cooperating with Elad. Israel Finkelstein, a professor of archaeology at TAU who is involved in the work at Silwan and is described among colleagues as “center-left,” gave a notably guarded answer when I asked him if he had qualms about doing archaeological work in which Elad was involved. “I have always kept distance from politics, so I am not going to answer this question,” he wrote in an email. “My only interest is to better understand archaeology and history. In order to make things clear, let me add that: 1) the Tel Aviv University dig will be carried out as a joint venture with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA); no other body will be involved in the dig; 2) Tel Aviv University and its Institute of Archaeology work according to law.” 

That TAU would be working in coordination with the Israel Antiquities Authority, which will transfer funds from Elad to the university, is hardly disputed (and in fact has already been widely covered). Eliding this, Finkelstein was less than eager to comment on whether Elad might be harnessing the presence of archaeologists in Silwan to evict Palestinian residents and allow Jewish settlers to move in. Rafael Greenberg, another professor of archaeology at TAU who has stood out for his opposition to the university’s involvement in Silwan, regularly expressed concerns about Elad’s involvement to his colleague Ronny Reich, who, recently, has become the head of the IAA’s archaeological council. “Whenever I told them he was being used by the settlers,” he told ARTINFO, “He’d say, ‘No, I’m using them.’” 

Speaking over the phone last week, Greenberg repeated his feelings about Elad’s presence in the area, as well as the public relations concerns of TAU’s involvement. Part of what made him want to speak reporters, as it turned out, was how unconvincing he thought TAU’s message will be to Palestinian Silwanis, whose anxieties about losing their home might overlap with anxieties about being evicted from history. “No amount of spin or declarative sentences saying ‘we’re not being part of it,’ is going to change that, unless they actively dissociate themselves from that project,” he said. “It has to be a completely new concept, in order to carry out an excavation that is not associated with the settlers, with the Israeli view of history.”

Whereas the university might profess to doing unglamorous and uncontroversial work to better understand the exceedingly complicated history of Jerusalem, Greenberg said that for Elad, TAU’s involvement will be a “huge feather in their cap” that will further distance their brand from the stigma of settler politics. In reality, Greenberg said, “everything is happening in a political context.”

“I’ve come to the realization that archaeology is not about the past but how the past has formed the present, and what parts of the past we’re taking to the future,” he told ARTINFO. “Archaeologists are in the business of creating collective memories.”

SINGAPORE –Kraemer Gallery is celebrating ‘The Final 100 Days of the Year of the Dragon’ with a showcase of rare 18^th century French furniture reflecting Asian influences at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

These “chinoiseries” are richly decorated with dragons, and Chinese visitors will further appreciate most of the pieces are displayed “on the water” through the hotel lobby, a wink to this being the year of the water dragon.

“France was fascinated by China. Louis XV was a contemporary of the Qianlong Emperor, and they had a very good bilateral trade relationship,” explains Mikael Kraemer of the Parisian gallery, adding pieces such as those on display are extremely rare as very few were made with dragons.

The oldest piece in the exhibition is a pair of Louis XIV pots in blue Chinese porcelain that dates back to the first decade of the 18th Century. Adorning each of these are two dragons, slightly splayed in an S-shape, and they are resting on a broad circular-moulded base with rocaille flowers, leaves and shell-like motifs surrounding the deep blue porcelain vessel.

Among the rarer pieces on display – and one of the largest in size – is an exceptional Louis XV pedestal clock (circa 1754) decorated with dragons and made by two of the leading artisans of the time: Jean-Pierre Latz, King Louis XV’s exclusive cabinetmaker; and Michel Stollenwerck, a master clockmaker.

The clock includes elaborate decorations in marquetry with two winged dragon-chimeras at its base flanking flowering branches, while the clock is topped with a figure of the god Apollo kneeling in front of a vanquished dragon.

The showcase also includes an exquisite Louis XV dark, golden and polychromatic lacquer commode (circa 1745). This piece features elaborate decorations in gilded bronze mounts as well as a pierced asymmetrical cartouche-shaped apron that provides the finishing touch. Using imported Chinese lacquered screen panels, the commode bears the mark of its master craftsman, Bernard II Van Risen Burgh.

Founded in Paris in 1875, the Kraemer Gallery is the city’s oldest specialising in French 18th century furniture and decorative arts, and boasts one of the s largest privately-owned collections of such pieces.

Famous (and infamous) remains were unearthed, looted artifacts were returned (or not), a rich archeological site faces its imminent doom, and plenty of people freaked out about the potential doom promised by the Mayan calendar. The year in archeology was an eventful one; and with researchers increasingly intent on tracking down lost sites, as museums face serious scrutiny for where their ancient artifacts originated, it seems clear that the value of historical preservation and the tenuousness of its ownership and its fragility in our industrialized world will continue to be significant issues in the coming years. Here are five of our favorite stories from the year in archeology:

The Last of the Machu Picchu Artifacts are Returned by Yale


This November, following decades of contention, Yale University repatriated the last of the Machu Picchu artifacts controversially taken by Hiram Bingham III (the “discoverer” of the Pre-Columbian citadel’s site) on expeditions between 1911 and 1915. The returns were sparked by a 2008 lawsuit resolved in 2010, in which Peru sued Yale for the artifacts (originally intended to be loaned to the university for 18 months of study, and including human remains, art, ceramics, silver, and jewelry). The final shipment, which came with no fanfare or ceremony, was a quiet end to a nearly 100-year struggle. 

Famous Skeletons Unearthed: The Bones of Richard III & the Mona Lisa


This was a prolific year for the discovery of famous skeletons lost in anonymous sepulchers. Richard III, whose reign and defeat from 1483 to 1485 were made infamous by Shakespeare, was found this September buried under a parking lot in Leicester in the UK (it had once been the site of the Church of Grey Friars). While the DNA has yet to be tested, it looks like archeologists will crown this pile of bones — “rudely stamp’d” by scoliosis in the spine and displaying a defeating battle wound — king. Then there was the skeleton of Lisa Gherardini, believed to be the woman who posed for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” disinterred in Florence from the rubble of the Franciscan convent of Saint Ursula. DNA tests are planned, and while there are debates as to whether the “Mona Lisa” was indeed a portrait of one woman or even a woman at all, the face of the figure whose mysterious visage has entranced art historians and the public for ages may finally be reconstructed.

Turkey Revs Up its Battle for Stolen Art


Fueled by its rising economy and political profile, Turkey is taking on major museums around the world demanding returns of art and artifacts it claims were looted. The “art war” has intensified from last year’s success in getting the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to return its 1,800-year-old “Weary Herakles” marble torso, and the Pergamon to return a 3,000-year-old sphinx (Turkey would still also like the Pergamon altar back, but that is much less likely), with Turkey’s cultural leaders threatening to revoke excavation permissions and stop lending art to institutions who do not comply. (The threat of bad PR is also implied.) Confronting institutions like the J. Paul Getty Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, Turkey has already reclaimed numerous objects. The “Orpheus Mosaic” was recently returned by the Dallas Museum of Art, and other current quests include over 1,500 tiles at the Louvre, and 18 pieces at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was hit with a criminal complaint by Turkey this summer. This has led to criticism of Turkey’s own role in art theft, having famously let the Parthenon marbles go to London (after having used the monument for munitions storage, leading to an explosion that caused major damage).

The Looming Destruction of Mes Aynak


An over 2,000-year-old Buddhist city in Afghanistan that has survived its country’s years of wars and turmoil is set to be destroyed this December 25. The reason is a massive copper deposit valued at some $100 billion that China Metallurgical Group Corporation plans to harvest with an open-pit mine, which would totally obliterate the remains of temples, homes, and monolithic statues in the process. Filmmaker Brent Huffman has been documenting Mes Aynak’s final days, and archeologists are continuing to work at the site up to the deadline; recent discoveries include a monk’s skeleton, Bronze Age pots, and jewelry, but full excavation would require decades more of digging. With the 2001 detonation of the monumental Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban (for religious reasons) still fresh in the mind, the loss of yet another site of such significance to Buddhist history would be a brutal blow. Unless a last-minute miracle saves Mes Aynak, the fragments and film will be all that is left.

Mayan Calendar Apocalypse Madness


Was 2012 to be mankind’s last? Some thought the Mayans predicted it so, and a flurry of archeological examinations have punctuated the months leading up to December 21, the supposed day to end all days. This is thanks to the Long Count calendar, a Mayan measure of time that runs for 13 cycles adding up to 5,125 years, which started on our August 11, 3114 BCE, and ends this winter solstice (the Mayans were adept at keeping time by the stars, and had several distinct types of complex time measurers correlating to astral phenomenon). The Long Count is meant to turn over and start again, much like our 12-month year, but some find the prospect of restarting at “Day Zero” terribly ominous. Pseudo-science aside, this year saw an intense interest in Mayan archeology and the fascinating and complicated numerology of their culture. Extraordinary finds — including a 1,300-year-old carving on a staircase, the longest Mayan text ever found in Guatemala, which references the 2012 end date, as well as a Mayan warrior queen’s tomb and the oldest Mayan calendar yet discovered — received international attention, when in an ordinary year they might have been overlooked.

SINGAPORE — An intricately beaded table cloth, an ornate wedding bed, and blingtastic gold jewelry are among the precious artefacts heading to Korea next month as part of a travelling exhibition of Peranakan art and culture from Singapore. 

Running from March 19 to May 19 at Seoul’s National Museum of Korea, the show, titled “The Peranakan World: Cross-Cultural Art of Singapore and the Straits,” will feature 230 artefacts on loan from Singapore’s Peranakan Museum and private collectors. These range from costumes and jewelry to ceramics and portraits.

The Peranakans, or the Straits Chinese, are descended from Chinese immigrants who settled in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore in the 15th and 16th century. They have a distinctive fusion culture influenced by their Chinese origins as well as the traditions and aesthetics of the Malays. 

This can be seen in their language, clothes, artforms and cuisine, a world to which South Korean visitors will be introduced in the exhibition. 

The objects are drawn from the “golden age” of Peranakan culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. Highlights include a beadwork tablecloth which is made up of over one million glass beads and the largest known example of Peranakan beadwork in the world.

There is also a rare lace kebaya— a traditional blouse-skirt combination worn by Peranakan women, or nonyas— featuring auspicious Chinese motifs of dragons and peonies appliquéd on fine netting and a trim of broderie anglaise. 

In addition to the show, there will be special workshops on Peranakan cuisine, beading, and fashion held at the Korean museum on March 4 and 5 to give visitors a more hands-on experience. 

This effort marks the first time Singapore is presenting Peranakan culture and art to East Asia. In 2010, the Peranakan Museum also presented a special exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.

“The Peranakan World: Cross-Cultural Art of Singapore and the Straits” will run at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul from March 19 to May 19.

MONTREAL — The re-discovery of Manchu Picchu in 1911 did more than just expose the ruins of this ancient royal estate, floating, seemingly, on a lonely, cloudy mountain peak. It simultaneously created a national symbol that is today associated the world over with both Peru and the splendor of Andean indigenous civilizations.

No surprise then that the sumptuous, broad-ranging exhibition “Peru: Kingdoms of the Sun and the Moon,” organized by and on view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, starts with a panoramic picture of the great Inca ruins. Hiram Bingham took this picture, around 1911, when he and his team of Yale archaeologists stumbled across the site. He followed up the visit with excavations between 1912 and 1915, quietly hauling off much treasure.

Bingham’s vintage print is just one of over 370 objects in this exhibition on loan from 50 or so collections in Peru, and elsewhere. It is a big, beautiful show, wildly expansive in vision, detailed in investigation (witness the 384-page catalog with gold trimmed pages), a Wunderkammer of artifacts, vintage photographs, religious iconography, gold and silver ornaments, textiles, and, to cap it off, a solid display of colonial era paintings, including several rare, perfectly lovely representations of angels. 

Fortunately, museum visitors with an interest in ancient civilizations won’t have to go to Montreal to see this show, which will be touring to Seattle this October and hopefully to other United States venues in the following year. There is even some hope that it will tour back to Peru, specifically a space in Lima. But there are some advantages to seeing it here, chiefly the generous, inviting installation which allows objects to breathe yet at the same time connects them in a way that tells a compelling, integrated story.

In the end, that is what you want in a museum show, right, or at least I do: to tell me a good story. The story is not too difficult to follow: the show traces the evolution of Peruvian cultural identity over the past 3,000 years. Does it lack focus, a little, does it jump about in time and in medium, absolutely, but I can forgive all of these things because the narrative is so compelling. Then there’s that other crucial element.

Outstanding objects are also what you want in a museum show besides a compelling story. Luckily there are dozens of them here, such as a Mochica forehead ornament with feline head and octopus tentacles ending in tiny catfish heads made of gold and shells, on loan from the Museo de la Nacion in Lima. Repatriated in 2006, it is being exhibited here for the first time since its return to Peru. It is spectacular, of course, gleaming under bright spotlights. Seeing this piece alone is probably worth the price of admission.

Further highlights include important objects in gold, silver and turquoise from the Royal Tombs of Sipan, unearthed in 1987 and considered to be the most significant archaeological find in Peru since the rediscovery of Machu Picchu: I can remember reading about these excavations in the pages of National Geographic. One terrific piece to look out for is the gold and turquoise ear disc depicting a warrior.

Most of the great archaeological objects are in the first few rooms, which are devoted in part to illustrating ways in which archaeology helped rewrite the national history, beginning with the discovery of Machu Picchu. In addition to the great Inca Empire, Peru was home to many, earlier, equally splendid civilizations such as the Mochica, Lambayeque and Chimu to the north and the Paracas and Nazca to the south.

Beyond outstanding individual objects, one of the things I really like about this show is the attention paid to representations of myths, rituals and symbols, in particular  to the way they are recycled and transformed through history. The “Black Christ,” a staple of colonial religious iconography, is for instance a hybrid of Catholic imagery of the Crucifixion of Christ and the “Lord of Earthquakes,” an Andean animistic deity.

Not everyone will be admiring of the modern pictures here, though, for Peruvians like the exhibition curator, Victor Pimentel, Curator of Pre-Columbian Art at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, they elicit a tremendous pride. For him they represent a “revalorization” of once maligned indigenous symbols in service of a new, shared national identity. A culture looking back, while looking forward, is the message that shines brightly through this marvelously enlightening show.

“Peru: Kingdoms of the Sun and the Moon” is at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, through  June 16th.

To see works from the exhibition, click on the slideshow.

ARTINFO explores some of the hightpoints of TEFAF Maastricht with Michel Witmer, a member of the TEFAF Board of Trustees and a fair Ambassador. TEFAF, in its 26th year, features 260 exhibitors, all subjected to the fair's ground-breaking vetting system. Among the highlights from this year's fair: 15 drawings - rarely seen masterpieces - by Vincent van Gogh, presented in a special exhibition by the Van Gogh Museum, a Joan Mitchell masterpiece at Jacques de la Béraudière Gallery and A Winter Landscape with Farmhouse and Skaters by Dutch painter Jan van Goyen.           

Life and death in the ill-fated Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum is at the heart of a new exhibition at the British Museum. 

For the first time in 40 years, more than 450 objects from the preserved cities are going on display in London, many of which haven't been seen outside Italy.

Pompeii and Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples in southern Italy were buried by the catastrophic volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. As both cities were unprepared for the event, the daily life of its citizens were preserved until they were discovered nearly 1700 years later.

The exhibition has been curated by Dr. Paul Roberts, who also acts as Senior Curator of Roman Archaeology at the British Museum. He told Reuters "When we look at Pompeii and Herculaneum what we see are real people, ordinary cities. They weren't Rome, they weren't Alexandria, that's why they're so important to us, because when they were buried,  Pompeii and Herculaneum preserved for us what life was like in two ordinary cities. They're quite different between themselves.  Pompeii was a much bigger city, Herculaneum was a sea side resort if you like."

The exhibition is split into different areas of daily life, from the high street, to the living room, garden, and kitchen and contains tools and belongings of that time. "They were things that people commissioned, bought, loved, enjoyed, used, handled," said Dr Roberts, "They were things that belonged in their homes and by looking at their possessions, we can look at the people behind the possessions."

Because of their geographical locations around Mount Vesuvius, both cities were buried in differing ways leading to artifacts being preserved or destroyed in different ways.

"Herculaneum was buried under a phenomenally hot avalanche of volcanic material, 400 degrees Centigrade - four times the heat of a boiling kettle" explained Dr Roberts, "and what that did was to carbonise wood, so wooden furniture and even food was turned into charcoal, turned into carbon and we just don't get that in  Pompeii, we only get that in Herculaneum so the seven pieces of furniture we have in Herculaneum are amongst the most special things we have."

The exhibition displays Herculaneum with a loaf of bread perfectly preserved in carbon, as well as furniture and finally a woman whose remains have been preserved.

However, the thing that makes Pompeii so famous are the casts of people, which were almost overlooked when they began excavating the site. Dr Roberts said "when they discovered a hole in the ash, they dug down and there were usually bones at the bottom of it, so they understood they were dealing with people. Then in the 1860's a man called Giuseppe Fiorelli thought I'll pour plaster of Paris down the holes and he did so and let the plaster set and when they dug the ash away there were the bodies, of people from Pompeii, people in the moment of their deaths and that's one of the things that's so moving about  Pompeii."

"Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum" runs at the British Museum from 28 March to 29 September.

A Roman gold ring that might have inspired JRR Tolkien’s fantasy novels “The Hobbit” (1937) and his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (1954) is the star exhibit of a new show opening on April 2 at the former aristocratic house The Vyne in Basingstoke, England. According to the Guardian, the hefty piece of jewellery — which could only fit a gloved thumb — is likely to have been excavated by a farmer ploughing on the ancient Roman site of Silchester, at the end of the 18th century.

The 12-gram solid gold ring bears the motif of a head wearing a diadem and is engraved with the Latin inscription: “Senicianus live well in God.” Although the details of the transaction are unknown, it is assumed that the farmer sold his find to the Chute family at The Vyne, where it has been kept ever since. This could have remained a relatively banal archaeological anecdote, but a few decades later a tablet inscribed with a curse linked to the ring was found at Lydney, Gloucestershire, on a Roman site known as “Dwarf’s Hill.”

In the tablet's text, a Roman man called Silvianus stated that his ring was stolen and he asked the god Nodens to punish the culprit, Senicianus. “Among those who bear the name of Senicianus to none grant health until he bring back the ring to the temple of Nodens,” reads the inscription. Tolkien, a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, knew of the story of the cursed ring. In 1929, the archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who connected the two pieces, had called him in to get some advice on the god’s unusual name.

Whether or not this was the trigger for the author’s popular books is still up in the air, but it sheds a new light on their origins — until now thought to include mainly literary sources, including Norse and Germanic mythology. 

For the past five years the Brooklyn Flea markets in Williamsburg and Fort Greene have been a staple for antique, tchotchke and art shopping on spring and summer weekends. Blouin ARTINFO's Vanessa Yurkevich spoke to art vendors in Williamsburg about their business and the do's and don'ts of bargaining. 

SINGAPORE — One of the most significant movements in the Great Arts Reshuffle in May is the announcement that Angelita Teo will be the new director of the National Museum of Singapore. The outgoing head, Lee Chor Lin, is leaving to be the new chief executive officer of the new independent Singapore Arts Festival company.

Graduating with a degree in anthropology and specialising in archaeology, she started as an assistant curator at the Asian Civilisations Museum. Gradually she moved to the National Museum, ahead of its renovation and reopening in 2002. There, she worked till 2010, rising to be its deputy director, until she decided to leave to do a Masters degree in curatorship at the University of Melbourne.

She returned to Singapore in 2011, heading the Festivals & Precinct Development division in the National Heritage Board and working on projects such as the madly popular Night Festival, and the wide-ranging Singapore HeritageFest.

Ahead of Teo’s official start date for the new job on July 1, BLOUIN ARTINFO sits down with the spunky  museum veteran in Food For Thought cafe to get to know her better, and to find out what she sees her new role to be.

What’s your vision for the National Museum of Singapore?

We want to bring a lot more people through our doors through activities that will bring in new audiences. We want to be “top of mind” for people. For example, families who want to spend a meaningful weekend will automatically think, the National Museum is a good place to spend a few hours. We are trying to work towards being a place of pride for Singaporeans, for people to bring their families or overseas guests.

The National Museum is the oldest museum in Singapore, but it can be a lot more approachable and friendlier. Energetic. Less stand-offish. Right now it may come across as being too precious and a historical artefact.

What have you planned to change in the museum in the near future?

(Under Lee Chor Lin) there are activities lined up to the first quarter of next year. So in terms of programming, that’s fixed.

We are looking at updating some of the permanent galleries, most of which have not been changed since the museum’s opening in 2006. There have been changes here and there — and some artefacts needed to be rotated to “rest,” for conservation purposes — but the storyline and narrative haven’t been changed.

Where do you see the National Museum fitting into the local museum landscape? With the National Art Gallery (Naga) opening in 2015, will the National Museum be showing less art?

The National Museum will still be a platform for local artists, for those practising in the visual arts or performing arts and anything in between. I love working with filmmakers, too. Naga will be beautiful, since it’s housed in two beautiful heritage buildings. But in the National Museum, we have the rotunda space, which is unmatched — how many real domes do you have left in Singapore? So there is space for a lot of site-specific art.

You are still keeping the festival portfolio — the Night Festival and the Singapore HeritageFest — even when you ease into your new job. What can you tell us about the Night Festival this year?

It’s going to be larger, stretching from Raffles City to Plaza Singapura. It will take place on Aug 23, 24, 30 and 31. There will be a lot more private companies who will come on board to provide entertainment and programmes.

How do you envision you new life to be after the appointment?

I may end up living here! (laughs.) I bet back in the colonial times, the first museum director did have quarters here. I probably will find a little corner...

But honestly, I have a much larger team who can do a lot independently. I have about 50 staff members in the museum. I’m a very hands-on person, and I like to be involved from exhibition planning down to design.

Had you always wanted to work in museums?

No, I went to the University of British Columbia to study mass communication. I took an archaeology class and fell in love with it. I gave my mother a call and she said, “What’s left for you to dig in Singapore? Sentosa?” But they knew that if they let me do something I was interested in, I would have done it better.

What’s your favourite museum in the world?

In terms of the new ones, it’s the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart, Tasmania. Of course, the selection of antiquities and contemporary art is unique, but what really impressed me was the sense of pride it brought to the community. I bought the museum catalogue, a huge black book. At the airport, the customs officer saw it and said, “Oh so you were there.” The sense of pride was there. The museum brought so much pride to the people living there, and made Hobart an international destination.

What are your hobbies, outside of heritage and art?

I’m an outdoors person. I love my sports. I’m a golfer and travel every year to play. I like being out in nature, and I don’t take crowds very well. I remember in last year’s Night Festival, there were more than 100,000 people coming out every night. My colleague and I, we gave each other a pained look and said, “Oh my god, so many people.” But I’m very good at separating work from my personal life. (laughs) Just that given a choice on my holidays, I like to avoid crowds. 

WHAT:“Search for the Unicorn: An Exhibition in Honor of the Cloisters’ 75th Anniversary”

WHEN: May 15–August 18

WHERE: Romanesque Hall and Unicorn Tapestry Hall, The Cloisters, 99 Margaret Corbin Drive, Fort Tyron Park, New York

WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: For 75 years, the Cloisters — a branch of the Met dedicated to the art and architecture of medieval Europe, located in Fort Tyron Park on the Northern tip of Manhattan — has housed the world-famous, mysterious “Unicorn Tapestries,” a gift to the museum by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in 1938 and the core of the museum’s collection. Now, in celebration of the Cloisters’ 75th anniversary, the museum is taking a closer look at the legend of the unicorn through an exhibition dedicated to the mythical creature’s recurrence throughout art history. The show includes nearly 40 artworks culled from the Met’s collections along with those from other public institutions and private collections.

While the unicorn is recognized worldwide for its majestic horn and snowy-white coat, it is most associated with the religious art of Western Europe through the famed “Unicorn Tapestries.” The woven threads of the seven hanging textiles, which date to the end of the 15th century (thought to be made in Paris and Brussels), narrate the hunt of the unicorn, chased through the woods by dogs, and then captured and imprisoned by a maiden in a golden corral.

European imagery, including the Met tapestries, uses the unicorn as an allegory for Christ, love, marriage, and life, but it was also depicted by many other cultures as well. Often, these non-European depictions use less familiar symbolism. Some examples from other cultures include a 14th-century copy of the 10th-century Persian text of the “Shahnama” (“The Book of Kings”), which show Iskandar (Alexander the Great) killing the Ethiopian, unicorn-like creature from the land of Habash, much like a European knight might slay a dragon. An illustration dating to 1701, from “The Wonders of Creation and the Oddities of Existence” by Zakaria bin Muhammad bin Mahmud Abu Yahya Qazwini of India, features a stag-like animal with a long thorny horn atop its head.

Since less is known about the meaning of the unicorn in non-European imagery, “Search for the Unicorn” raises questions about the ongoing and engaging mystery of the creature that can be seen in art all over the world.

To see artworks from the exhibition, click the slide show here.

After 150 years abroad, Qing Dynasty bronze heads of a rabbit and rat were returned to China on Fri. 28 June. The sculptures were purchased by French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of Kering, a luxury fashion group that also owns Christie’s auction house, and gifted to the National Museum of China.

The sculptures are two of 12 Chinese zodiac animals that formerly adorned a water clock, built during the reign of Emperor Qianlong (1711-1799), in Beijing’s Old Summer Palace. All 12 statues were taken by Anglo-French troops who looted the palace during the Second Opium War in 1860.

Ai Weiwei created his work “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads” (2010) based on the Old Summer Palace heads. Ai’s 12 golden animal heads are now on show at ARKEN Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.

The original rabbit and rat heads eventually wound up in the collection of Yves Saint Laurent. After the fashion designer died in 2009, his partner Pierre Berge put them up for auction at Christie’s. Chinese bidder Cai Mingchao won with an offer of 17.92 million USD each, but refused to pay, saying the heads were already Chinese property.

Pinault subsequently bought the heads and promised to return them to the National Museum of China. “The gesture of our family is a demonstration of our friendship and respect towards your country,” he said in a statement.

The gesture also no doubt helps improve Christie’s reputation in China. It recently became the first foreign auction house to receive a license to operate independently in the People’s Republic of China.

The chief executive of Christie’s International, Steven P. Murphy, was also in Beijing for the handover of the heads. “As one of the leading proponents of the importance of cultural heritage, Christie’s is delighted to have played an instrumental part in ensuring their return,” he said.

In addition to the rabbit and rat heads, five others have already been recovered by China, including a Horse gifted to the state by Macau gambling magnate Stanley Ho in 2007. The pig, monkey, tiger and cow are on view at the Jiading Museum in Shanghai until Sun. 7 July (215 Bole Road, near Qinghe Road, Jiading district 嘉定区博乐路215号, 靠近清河路口, tel. 183-0189-0025, or 183-0189-0026).

The whereabouts of the five other bronzes remains unknown.

UNESCO estimates at least 17 million Chinese cultural relics are abroad, far more than those contained in the country's own museums. 

The four surviving copies of the Magna Carta are to be brought together for the first time in history.

The documents will be exhibited together in 2015 as part of a series of events celebrating the 800^th anniversary of their creation, the British Library announced today (July 15, 2013).

The Magna Carta or “Great Charter” was agreed in Surrey in 1215, outlining a basic set of rights for British citizens.

The British Library event will bring together its own two copies of the document, along with equivalents owned by Salisbury and Lincoln Cathedrals.

The library said it was a “once in a lifetime opportunity to see the documents side by side.”

The show’s curator Claire Breay told BLOUIN ARTINFO UK: “In preparation for the anniversary we had been meeting with representatives from the two cathedrals for a few years to discuss how we can collaborate.

“And the idea emerged of bringing the originals together to hold an event which would be momentous and kick-start the celebrations in a memorable way. Each of the three institutions has their own plans for what they are going to be doing later. We thought it was important to do something dramatic to bring it to people’s attention earlier in the year.”

The show is scheduled for “early 2015” with exact details to be confirmed nearer to the time. 

The charter was forced on to King John by feudal barons to limit his privileges. It decreed the idea that no one is above the law, including the king, and featured rules of fair trials, and limits on taxation. It is also believed to have inspired the US Constitution and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

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The Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York's Chelsea neighborhood gets a makeover. This summer, a new shrine room with nearly 130 objects replaces the previous shrine on loan from the Smithsonian Institution’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery since 2010.

As part of the “Gateway to Himalayan Art” exhibit, the shrine room – one of the most popular galleries in the museum – is where viewers can experience Tibetan art in its cultural context. The Rubin commissioned Tibetan carpenters to build an intricately carved wooden cabinet similar to those used in Tibetan homes, called Cho Sham, to house the various sculptures of Buddha, offering bowls, and vajras normally present during religious observances. 

Blouin ARTINFO spoke with curator Elena Pakhoutova to learn about the significance of the shrine room and its intricate spiritual artworks.

Archaeologists discover an ancient Mayan sculpture that may shed light on the mysterious civilization that once dominated Central America.

The frieze was found at a Mayan pyramid in the pre-Columbian archaeological site of Holmul, located in the department of Peten to the north of Guatemala City in June. The spectacular stucco sculpture, richly decorated with images of gods and Mayan rulers, is 26-feet long and six feet wide and was found in a 65-foot high Mayan pyramid dating back to the year 600 AD which was built over it in the 8th Century.

The ground-breaking portraiture that is almost 150 years old are part of an exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art - a retrospective of Julia Margaret Cameron, one of the greatest portraitists in the history of photography.

Cameron’s innovative style was informed by her interest in painting and by her social circle, which included artists and poets such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson and painters from the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

The show includes masterpieces from each of Cameron’s three major bodies of work and is on view at the Met through early January 2014.

Since joining Sotheby’s London 25 years ago to assess Chinese art, Howard-Sneyd has seen the house’s Asian art department develop from a quiet niche into a global powerhouse. Now the division’s vice chairman and executive vice president of Sotheby’s North America, he talked with Eileen Kinsella about the category’s complex, continuously shifting cluster of markets and the evolving tastes and demands of diverse collectors.

What changes have you observed in the Asian art market in 25 years?

I’ve seen a lot of growth, but also the ups and downs. There are usually sequential waves of collecting interest. I joined Sotheby’s when the Japanese bubble burst. Hong Kong collectors stepped in almost immediately after that, and their influence has remained constant. At times Taiwanese demand has been strong, but it’s more recently—in the past five to eight years— that mainland Chinese buyers have been widely collecting.

To what market effect?

Mainland Chinese buyers are a very important part of how the market has progressed, particularly in Chinese ceramics and works of art. But they don’t sweep up everything before them. There are plenty of global collectors who compete strongly in that area. The result is that people who have otherwise been able to buy for one price are now forced to pay a price reflecting greater interest. What has happened is that buyers have focused—though not quite sequentially—on different areas of art. As one area becomes more expensive, other areas seem less so.

What are some examples?

Prices for porcelains, imperial art, and jade moved up earlier, leaving classical Chinese furniture and ancient bronzes somewhat behind. Over the last year or so, we’ve seen greater interest in the latter areas. There has always been interest from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and the West in bronzes, but the Chinese mainlanders have become increasingly interested. Archaic bronzes have a profound cultural importance that is somewhat greater than other areas. This might be the season where we see a real jump.

What else has market strength this season?


We expect to offer our biggest and most important sale of Chinese classical paintings in New York to date. Interest in this field historically has been strong in New York, and the pieces that come to auction here are very strongly influenced by provenance.

How so?

It has to do with security of provenance and authenticity, which for mainland Chinese collectors—many of whom are new to the market—is a fraught issue. So an object with an established historical record has a greater chance of being genuine. One reason the New York market is strong is that pieces tend to come from established, old collections and therefore are particularly attractive to the current collecting public.

Have there been any other notable shifts?


At the last series of New York sales—for the first time in a while—I saw a lot of Japanese bidders, knocking everybody else out and bidding against each other.

What’s behind that return?

The Japanese economy seems to be in a better place; it could also represent a change in generations. But Japanese taste isn’t easy to define. They tend to have very specific interests: The tea ceremony, for instance, relies on a carefully designed mise-en-scène—there should always be a painting hanging or some object of beauty to be admired. It can be hard to predict, but if
a particular bowl fits into their aesthetic, it might be a source of competition. It’s more about individual objects as opposed to a particular field.

Do religious, specifically Buddhist, themes spark interest in Chinese buyers?

That is an example of where interest crosses over from one category to another. But it’s specifically through the window of Tibetan and Himalayan art or [works from] northern India. The influence of eastern Indian Pala art during the medieval period had significant impact on the development of the exported Buddha image, including an 18th-century Tibeto-Chinese Pala revival. Chinese buyers are still keenly interested in the acquisition of high-value Himalayan works that reflect the elegance and sophistication of the Pala period.

What is the state of the Indian and Southeast Asian markets?

They are still driven largely by great museums and private collections. It’s a much more measured market and more mature field. You’re less likely to see fireworks.

This article is published in the September 2013 issue of Art+Auction.

The comic book character Tintin was created in 1929 by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, also known as Herge, and has been translated into more than 50 languages.

Now fans have an opportunity to own a piece of rare comic book memorabilia as several items go under the hammer at Piasa auction house in Paris on December 1.

Expert Philippe Mellot says it's an exceptional collection, “it's a reunion of remarkable objects, books, and drawings. Drawings, like this one, that were unknown, unidentified, but have been re-discovered, are for the first time available to the public. You have books that are equally as exceptional, and above all in fine condition.”

One of those books,"The Secret of the Unicorn" was the inspiration for a Hollywood film.

Possibly the most notable item is a life-size, bronze sculpture of Tintin, estimated at around 180,000 euros, that's almost a quarter of a million U.S. dollars.

Herge's 24 titles about the journalist and adventurer have sold more than 200 million copies.

Art and history buffs alike will have plenty of gems to choose from at Neal Auction’s "Louisiana Purchase" sale this weekend in New Orleans, held over the course of three days (November 22 to 24). The auction features a wide range of works including rare 18^th-century American and British portraits, antiques, decorative arts and historical documents.

Among the highlights is a landscape painting by Charles Giroux, “View from Spanish Fort: Lake Ponchartrain near Bayou St. John,” (ca. 1870s) estimated at $30,000 to $50,000. Mexican born-painter José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza’s portrait “Major General James Wilkinson (1757-1825)” is estimated at $150,000 to $250,0000. And a Newcomb College art pottery high-glaze vase, 1902, carries an estimate of $20,000 to $30,0000.

Left: José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza’s portrait “Major General James Wilkinson (1757-1825)”
Right: Newcomb College art pottery high glaze vase (1902)