Sotheby's to offer rediscovered Frida Kahlo painting!!!!

Sotheby’s to offer Niña Con Collar on 22 November. Estimate: $1.5 / 2 million. Photo: Sotheby's.

NEW YORK, NY.- On 22 November Sotheby’s will offer a remarkable Frida Kahlo portrait, the whereabouts of which have been unknown for decades. The only record of Niña Con Collar has been a black-and-white photograph taken by the artist’s friend Lola Álvarez Bravo who documented her early works. That picture was used as the work’s catalogue raisonné entry and has been the only documentation of the painting until now. In the summer of 2016 the work surfaced when Sotheby’s was approached by a former personal assistant of Kahlo’s who had been given the work as a keepsake by Diego Rivera the year after Kahlo’s death in 1954. Niña Con Collar will be offered as part of the Latin America: Modern Art sale with an estimate of $1.5 / 2 million.

Axel Stein, Sotheby’s Head of Latin American Art, commented: “I have known Niña Con Collar since 1988 when I saw the black and white photograph in the newly published catalogue raisonné. I never imagined it would surface and turn out to be such a beautiful and warm painting.”

With the subject’s direct stare from under her spreading monobrow and the rigid symmetry of a frontal pose, Niña Con Collar immediately recalls some of the artist’s most celebrated paintings. Indeed, with those elements as well as her dress and jewelry, Niña con collar is nothing less than the seed of many self-portraits that Kahlo will produce thereafter in her signature style.

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Rome in shock as another historic landmark vandalised

A man takes a picture of the Elephant statue. ANDREAS SOLARO / AFP.

ROME (AFP).- Police in Rome are examining CC-TV footage in a bid to identify vandals who damaged one of the city's most famous pieces of public sculpture, Bernini's Elephant and Obelisk. The landmark work, tucked away in a little square near the Pantheon, features an elephant carrying the obelisk on its back and was first placed in the Piazza della Minerva in the 17th Century.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini oversaw the sculpture of the elephant, which had the tip of its left trunk broken off in the overnight incident. The elephant was commissioned by the then pope, Alexander VII, to support an obelisk from ancient Egypt that had only recently been excavated. The damage to the Bernini elephant comes after fans of Dutch football club Feyenoord caused outrage in February 2015 by damaging a fountain created by the sculptor that stands at the bottom of Rome's fabled Spanish Steps.

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Austria busts gang selling fake Picassos

Portrait photograph of Pablo Picasso, 1908.

VIENNA (AFP).- Austrian police said Monday that they have busted a gang allegedly trying to sell off forgeries of famous artists such as Pablo Picasso for millions of euros (dollars). The six men were arrested in a hotel room near Vienna airport as they tried to pass off five Picasso paintings for 50 million euros ($55 million), police said. The buyer was in fact a police officer in disguise. Police commandos arrested the five Austrians and one Slovenian "in case they were armed," a statement said.

Subsequent raids in homes and cars found 14 fakes complete with forged artists' signatures and counterfeit certificates of authenticity signed by Picasso's son. Police also recovered 66 other works purported to be by 40 famous artists including Claude Monet and Gustav Klimt at the home of the Slovenian suspect. The arrests took place earlier this year but were only announced on Monday. The men, now on bail, said they believed the works were genuine, police said.

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Pablo Picasso's widow may have hidden artworks from son, court told

Claude Picasso, son of late Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, waits before for the appeal trial of Pierre Le Guennec (not pictured), accused of receiving stolen goods after being found in possession of paintings by Picasso, at the court in Aix-en-Provence, southeastern France on October 31, 2016. Le Guennec, a former electrician, and his wife were convicted to two years suspended sentence for receiving stolen goods regarding some 271 artworks by Picasso which Le Guennec claims were given to him by Picasso and his wife Jacqueline when he carried out work on their villa in Mougins in the 1970's. BORIS HORVAT / AFP. by Andrea Palasciano

AIX-EN-PROVENCE (AFP).- A retired electrician who kept nearly 300 Pablo Picasso artworks in his garage for almost 40 years told a French appeal court Monday that the artist's widow may have wanted to hide the works from his family. "Mrs Jacqueline Picasso had problems with (her step-son) Claude (Ruiz) Picasso," Pierre Le Guennec said in a trembling voice, presenting a new version of events to the court in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence. Le Guennec, convicted last year along with his wife of possessing stolen goods, said that Picasso's widow had asked him to store between 15 and 17 garbage bags containing artworks after the artist died in April 1973.

The 77-year-old said that some time later Jacqueline Picasso retrieved the bags but gave him one of them, saying: "Keep this, it's for you." Le Guennec said "maybe" the widow was trying to prevent the works from an estate inventory, and said he did not tell the truth in the earlier trial out of "fear of being accused, along with madame, of stealing these bags." Le Guennec, who was the Picassos' handyman, had previously testified to being given the drawings while the artist was still alive, in 1971 or 1972.

The couple's lawyer Eric Dupond-Moretti said he had learned the new version of events only a few days ago. Le Guennec said Jacqueline gave him the 271 works -- 180 single pieces and a notebook containing 91 drawings -- as a gift recognising the couple's devotion. He described the works as "drawings, sketches, (and) crumpled paper". Uninterested in the haul, Le Guennec said he put the collection in his garage and rediscovered it in 2009.

'Staggering lie' Claude Ruiz-Picasso's lawyer Jean-Jacques Neuer angrily denounced Le Guennec's testimony as a "staggering lie", saying the case involved the "art market's darkest and most powerful" forces engaged in an "international stolen art laundering" scam. Prosecutor Christophe Raffin asked the court to uphold the couple's two-year suspended sentences meted out in March 2015. A verdict is due December 16. "I don't believe the version that (the drawings) were a gift," Raffin said. "I think it's a theft from an ageing Pablo Picasso and from Jacqueline, more than ever focused on her husband." Addressing the couple, Raffin said: "One could wonder whether what has been presented to us as the truth today is not another lie. Mr and Mrs Le Guennec, you have lied on several points."

The defendants face a maximum jail time of five years and a fine of 375,000 euros ($410,000), or half the value of the pieces, whichever figure is greater, if the conviction is upheld. The collection, whose value has not been assessed, includes drawings of women and horses, nine rare Cubist collages from the time Picasso was working with fellow French artist Georges Braque and a work from his "blue period". Other more intimate works include portraits of Picasso's mistress Fernande, drawings of his first wife Olga and a drawing of a horse for his children.

The works were created between 1900 and 1932. The authorities seized them after Le Guennec tried to get them authenticated in 2010, showing them to Ruiz-Picasso, who represents the artist's six heirs. The Picassos immediately pressed charges, and the works were handed over to Ruiz-Picasso. No works were signed Neuer has pointed out that none of the works in Le Guennec's possession were signed, an unusual occurrence for Picasso who always autographed his work -- whether he gave it away or sold it.

Another lawyer for Le Guennec, Charles-Etienne Gudin, however, has said there were only a dozen works of value and that the rest was "very mediocre," insisting that Picasso never tried to sell them. One of the few plaintiffs to have known Le Guennec when he was employed by the Picasso family, the artist's granddaughter Catherine Hutin-Blay, acknowledged during the trial that the electrician did have a special relationship with the artist. Prosecutor Laurent Robert said Le Guennec was a pawn who was manipulated by unscrupulous art dealers trying to obtain works initially stolen by Picasso's former chauffeur. The investigation did not formally identify a thief or thieves.

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Swiss billionaire fined $4 mn over undeclared artwork: reports

In one case detailed in Sunday's articles, he purchased a Giovanno Segantini painting, "Le due madri", for 1.4 million Swiss francs at a Christie's auction in Geneva in 2011, and quickly flew it to Britain, thus avoiding Swiss taxation.

GENEVA (AFP).- Swiss customs authorities have slapped a billionaire with a $4 million fine for failing to properly declare some 200 artworks imported into Switzerland, according to media reports confirmed by officials Sunday. Financier Urs Schwarzenbach has for years been bringing precious artworks by the likes of Yves Klein and Giovanno Segantini into Switzerland without declaring them to customs officials, or reporting their worth at far below their actual value, several Swiss media outlets reported. Suspecting the billionaire of importing artwork illegally, Swiss customs authorities opened an investigation in 2012. The probe concluded earlier this month that he had effectively dodged duties worth 10 million Swiss francs ($10 million, 9.2 million euros), which he was ordered to repay, along with a four million franc fine, the NZZ am Sonntag, Sonntagszeitung and Le Matin Dimanche weeklies reported. Swiss finance ministry spokesman Daniel Saameli confirmed the content of the reports to AFP.

According to the papers, Schwarzenbach has agreed to pay back the 10 million francs, but is contesting the fine. The 68-year-old's lawyers in London told the papers he denied any intentional wrongdoing, and wanted to present his side of the story to the district court in Zurich to clear his name. Schwarzenbach, who is based in Britain and is reportedly a good friend of Prince Charles, had brought at least 123 works of art into Switzerland without declaring them, with some ending up on the walls of his luxury Zurich Dolder Grand hotel, the papers said.

Fake receipts: In one case detailed in Sunday's articles, he purchased a Giovanno Segantini painting, "Le due madri", for 1.4 million Swiss francs at a Christie's auction in Geneva in 2011, and quickly flew it to Britain, thus avoiding Swiss taxation. But the painting reportedly reemerged in his luxurious Villa Meridiana in St. Moritz in the Swiss Alps, without him ever paying duties on it. Other artworks reportedly brought in under the radar include a painting by Russian geometric abstract artist Kazimir Malevich, valued at 16 million francs, and Yves Klein's MG41 (L'age d'or), the papers said. When he did declare artwork, Schwarzenbach, whose fortune was valued last year by Swiss financial magazine Bilanz at 1.25 billion Swiss francs, sometimes reportedly presented fake receipts for amounts far lower than what he had actually paid.

On June 16, 2012 he is alleged to have presented Gottardo Segantini's "Paysage alpin" to Swiss customs officials along with a receipt for just 10,000 francs. That is less than a tenth of the 105,000 euros he actually paid for the piece, the papers reported. In all, the case concerns more than 200 works of art, with a combined value of at least 130 million francs, they said.

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Two busts whose faces were hammered away by Isis members at Palmyra's Museum

A picture shows a part of two busts whose faces were hammered away by Isis members at Palmyra's Museum in Syria, as part of an exhibition called "Rising from Destruction Ebla, Nimrod, Palmyra" presented at the ancient Colosseum, on October 6, 2016 in Rome. ANDREAS SOLARO / AFP

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Dutch city of Hoorn celebrates as five stolen masterpieces return home

Musicians in period costumes perform as two employees carry a big box with paintings during a ceremony in which five paintings, stolen from the Westfries museum in Friesland, northwest of the Netherlands, return from Ukraine in Hoorn on October 7, 2016. Olaf KRAAK / ANP / AFP.
by Jan Hennop

HOORN (AFP).- The Dutch city of Hoorn erupted with joy Friday as it welcomed back five masterpieces recovered from a "criminal group" in Ukraine after being snatched from the town's museum in 2005. "After 4,320 days... yes we counted the days... they are back!" an emotional museum director Ad Geerdink told hundreds of citizens who gathered at the Westfries Museum as the 17th and 18th-century paintings were unloaded from a truck. "Our heritage has returned to the museum where they belong, back in the city where they belong," Geerdink said as the crowd cheered and clapped. The five paintings were among 24 Dutch Golden Age masterpieces and 70 pieces of silverware stolen from the museum in the northwest city on January 9, 2005. At the time of their disappearance, the 24 paintings were valued at a total of around 10 million euros ($11 million).

One of the recovered works, Isaak Ouwater's 1784 piece entitled "Nieuwstraat in Hoorn", valued at around 30,000 euros, was handed back by an unsuspecting Ukrainian art buyer in May. But details over how the painting came into his possession remain vague. The four other retrieved paintings, which were also found in Ukraine, are: "A Peasant Wedding" by Hendrick Boogaert, "Kitchen Scene" by Floris van Schooten, "Return of Jephta" and "Lady World" by Jacob Waben.

'Terrible condition' The museum has now launched a crowdfunding campaign to restore the five works, as spokeswoman Christa van Hees said they "have suffered a lot" in the past decade and "are in a terrible condition." Two of the paintings had been put back in frames, with lines clearly visible where they have been folded, an AFP reporter saw. The other canvases were still rolled up, but showed signs of cracks and paint was flaking off. "I can't say how long it will take, but the aim is to have all of the paintings hanging in the museum within half a year," Ronald de Jager, who is tasked with the restoration, told AFP.

After the theft there was an intensive police investigation, but it was not until mid-2015 that the museum heard five paintings might be in Ukraine. Two men claiming to represent a pro-Kiev group said they had found them in a villa in war-torn eastern Ukraine, where Kiev's forces were battling pro-Russian separatists. Art historian Arthur Brand, who played a major role in the paintings' return, said the men initially priced the works at 50 million euros and then wanted five million euros for them. "We were only prepared to give then 50,000 euros, which is a finders' fee," Brand told AFP. So the negotiations collapsed.

Details remain unclear about the next moves, but after intense behind-the-scenes work involving Brand and the Hoorn municipality, Ukraine announced in April it had recovered four of the paintings. It did not specify how the works were retrieved, saying only they had been "in the possession of criminal groups". "What's more important is that we at least have some of them back," the museum's ticket sales manager, Karin van Hoorn, told AFP. "When I saw them for the first time, a short while ago I was so overwhelmed I almost started crying." The search continues for the works still missing. "We are doing everything possible to get the other 19 paintings and our silverware back too," said Hoorn city council member Judith de Jong.

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