Theft of Bronze Age gold artefacts from UK museum sparks fresh concerns about lack of government investment in sector by Joe Ware #TheArtNewspaper
“The theft of a Bronze Age gold torc and bracelet from a UK institution has sparked calls for greater government investment in the museum sector.
Police are yet to make arrests and are appealing for information to track down two thieves who broke into the Ely Museum, Cambridgeshire, on 7 May and escaped on electric scooters.
With gold prices hitting a record high in recent months experts are worried that the precious artefacts, worth £220,000 in their current form, might be melted down for their scrap metal value.”
Huge Soviet-era monument taken down in Kyiv as Ukraine continues 'derussification' #TheArtNewspaper
“A Soviet-era monument believed to glorify Ukraine’s ties to Russia is being dismantled on orders of the Kyiv city government in the latest stage of derussification following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kyiv’s Department of Territorial Control announced the start of the monument’s removal in a Facebook post on 30 April, stressing its massive size: “The sculptural composition is large, consists of about 20 elements weighing between 6,000kg and 7,000kg each. Due to the complexity of the design, dismantling may take a few days.””
"Getty Museum restitutes ancient bronze head to Turkey" by Elena Goukassian #TheArtNewspaper
"Los Angeles’s J. Paul Getty Museum will return an ancient bronze sculpture of a young man’s head to Turkey after an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office revealed that it had been looted in the 1960s.
Head From a Statue of a Youth (1st century BC-1st century AD), a bronze head with curly hair and light stubble on the chin, is believed to have been created as a separate cast from the rest of a now-lost life-size body that has never been identified. Researchers know the figure was once whole, because the neck has “evidence of ancient joins on the interior along the break”, according to a press release
, and the eyes—now mere holes in the metal—were “once inlaid with an unknown material”."