Artist to face trial for 'flashing' at Louvre

She was arrested in January 2016 for indecent exposure after lying down naked in the Orsay Museum in front of Edouard Manet's similarly nude painting of the prostitute Olympia.

PARIS (AFP).- A woman performance artist who exposes herself in museums is to be prosecuted for exhibitionism after baring her genitals in front of the Mona Lisa in Paris, her lawyer said Thursday. Deborah de Robertis spread her bare legs before Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece on Sunday in the Louvre museum, shouting "Mona Lisa, my pussy, my copyright" as several dozen tourists looked on.

"The goal was not to exhibit my genitals," the 33-year-old told AFP, "but to copy a famous photograph by Valie Export" -- an Austrian performance artist known for her sexually provocative acts during the 1970s. "My message is to question the place of women artists in the history of art. That's why it's necessary to do my performances in museums," said Robertis, who has dual French and Luxembourg nationality.

Robertis was in custody for two days before appearing before a judge, who ordered her to face trial on October 18 on charges of sexual exhibitionism and assault -- for biting a museum guard's jacket during her arrest. "The legal approach to this affair is scandalous," Robertis's lawyer Marie Dose said. "It's not exhibitionism if there is no wish to assault someone sexually, which is completely contrary to the work of this performance artist."

Robertis went on trial in February but was acquitted when a judge determined that similar acts at the Decorative Arts Museum and the Museum of European Photography in Paris were artistic performances. Robertis performed a similar stunt before the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in April.

She was arrested in January 2016 for indecent exposure after lying down naked in the Orsay Museum in front of Edouard Manet's similarly nude painting of the prostitute Olympia. In May 2014 she exposed herself in front of Gustave Courbet's "The Origin of the World" painting, also at the Orsay, to mimic the close-up of a woman's genitals. The painting caused a sensation when it went on view in 1866.

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400 Viking objects stolen in Norway museum heist

Thieves were able to enter the museum on the seventh floor via scaffolding on the building's facade. Photo: Kari K. Årrestad. © University Museum.

OSLO (AFP).- Some 400 Viking objects were stolen from a Norwegian museum at some time over the weekend of August 11-13, the museum's director said Sunday, describing the loss as "immeasurable".

"If the stolen objects are not returned, this is by far the most terrible event in the 200 years of Norwegian museum history," the director of the University Museum of Bergen in southwestern Norway, Henrik von Achen, told AFP. The items, most of them small metal objects like jewelry, "do not have monetary value attached to them" and the value of the metal itself "is also quite small," he said. "Yet the great and immeasurable loss is connected to the cultural history value of the items, which exceeds the monetary value many times over," he added.

Thieves were able to enter the museum on the seventh floor via scaffolding on the building's facade. The stolen objects had been temporarily placed there ahead of a planned transfer to a more secure location on August 14. "The (security) measures were not sufficient, we should have had additional security elements in place," he acknowledged.

Norwegian police are investigating the case together with their international counterparts. Meanwhile, the museum was surveying all of the stolen objects and posting photos of them on social media sites so "that the items become well-known and hence more difficult to sell and easier to spot," von Achen said.

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Spanish police recover 3 stolen Francis Bacon paintings

The five paintings are estimated to be worth more than 25 million euros ($29 million).

MADRID (AFP).- Spanish police have recovered three of five paintings by British artist Francis Bacon that were stolen from a Madrid apartment in 2015, they said Thursday. "I can confirm that three paintings have been recovered," a police spokeswoman said. She said she could not give more details because of the ongoing investigation to find the remaining two artworks.

The five paintings are estimated to be worth more than 25 million euros ($29 million). They were stolen from the home of a friend of Bacon in central Madrid in July 2015 while he was away in London. The thieves also made off with a safe that contained a collection of coins and jewels. Spanish police have so far arrested 10 suspects linked to the theft.

In May 2016, with the help of a British firm that searches for stolen art, they arrested one of the suspected perpetrators, as well as five accomplices that allegedly helped hide the paintings. A Barcelona resident had sent the firm pictures of a Bacon painting to see if it appeared on the company's list of stolen artworks. Police analysed the photos and found clues that led them to another suspect who they believed carried out the robbery. This suspect then led police to an art dealer and his son who are suspected of hiding the stolen paintings. Police did not provide details on the stolen paintings but daily newspaper El Pais said they depicted the owner of the artworks, Bacon's friend.

The thieves tried to sell the paintings on two occasions, the newspaper added. Police recovered one painting several months ago and the other two just a few days ago, according to the newspaper. Bacon often visited Madrid, where he spent time studying old masters paintings in the Prado Museum, and died in the city in 1992, aged 82.

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New York charges three over $400K Damien Hirst forgery ring

He figures regularly on lists of Britain's wealthiest people, thanks partly to a 2008 auction at Sotheby's that saw him cut out gallery middlemen to sell 223 new pieces for 111 million pounds ($141 million at current exchange rates).

NEW YORK (AFP).- New York prosecutors unveiled charges Monday against three men accused of manufacturing and selling $400,000 in fake Damien Hirst prints to dozens of art buyers around the world. Vincent Lopreto, 52, appeared in court on Monday, 15 days after being released from prison for previously selling knock-off Hirst works online, prosecutors said.

Famed for his stuffed sharks, the 52-year-old Hirst has amassed a fortune as the most commercially successful member of the Young British Artist movement that dominated the British art scene in the 1990s.

Manhattan's district attorney Cyrus Vance also announced grand larceny and scheme to defraud charges against Arizona's Paul Motta, 50 and Marco Saverino, 34. The defendants faked paperwork to deceive buyers into believing the prints were genuine, stealing $400,000 from victims in New York and as far afield as Britain, Canada, Germany, South Africa, South Korea and Taiwan, prosecutors said.

Two sales were made to an undercover investigator posing as a buyer. Authorities confiscated tools allegedly used to create the forgeries from Lopreto's apartment in New Orleans, Louisiana, said Vance's office.

Hirst won the Turner Prize in 1995 and went on to attract a huge following that went well beyond the rarefied confines of conceptual art. He figures regularly on lists of Britain's wealthiest people, thanks partly to a 2008 auction at Sotheby's that saw him cut out gallery middlemen to sell 223 new pieces for 111 million pounds ($141 million at current exchange rates). Lopreto pleaded guilty in January 2014 to selling forged Hirst prints online.

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Bangladesh reinstalls controversial statue after outcry

A statue denounced by religious hardliners as "un-Islamic" is pictured on the grounds of the Supreme Court in Dhaka after it was reinstalled on May 28, 2017. Bangladesh on May 28 reinstalled a controversial statue deemed un-Islamic by religious hardliners on the grounds of the Supreme Court, just days after its removal had sparked angry protests by secular groups. AFP.

DHAKA (AFP).- Bangladesh on Sunday reinstalled a controversial statue deemed un-Islamic by religious hardliners on the grounds of the Supreme Court, just days after its removal had sparked angry protests by secular groups. The sculpture of a blindfolded, sari-clad woman holding scales had been in place for less than six months when authorities removed it early Friday under pressure from hardliners, who said it was based on the Greek goddess of justice.

Its removal from the front plaza of Bangladesh's top court triggered violent clashes between police and secular groups, who saw the move as further evidence of creeping Islamisation in the officially secular country. But the sculpture's creator Mrinal Haque, who had accused authorities of bowing to hardline groups, said he was asked to reinstall the statue at a different location on the court grounds.

"We have just placed the sculpture in front of the Annex Building of the Supreme Court," Haque told AFP on Sunday. "I wasn't given any clarification but was only ordered to relocate it," he said, adding the new location was at the back of the court where hardly anyone could see it. Opponents of the statue -- who have been demanding for months that it be destroyed and replaced with a Koran -- gathered outside the courthouse Sunday to protest against its return.

Several were arrested by police, Islamist groups said, drawing hundreds of protesters to Dhaka's main mosque to demand their release. "Police arrested nine of our peaceful activists. If they are not released immediately, we will call for a stronger countrywide movement," said Hasibul Islam, spokesman for the student-based Islamist party Islami Shasantantra Chhatra Andolan. The government risked "falling into danger" by trying to balance the interests of Islamist and secularist groups, he added. Islamist groupsheld months of mass protests demanding the statue be removed.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who leads the secular Awami League party, initially kept her distance from the affair. But she broke her silence last month to describe the statue as "ridiculous" after inviting top Islamist leaders to her residence. Analysts say Hasina's stand was intended to woo Islamists and conservative rural voters, before a general election expected next year. Bangladesh has seen increasing tensions between hardliners and secularists in recent years, with a number of atheist bloggers, religious minorities and foreigners murdered by extremists.

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United States returns stolen artifacts to Italy

A Greek bronze Herakles holding the horn of Achelous, dating to the 3rd or 4th century B.C., and valued at $12,500.

NEW YORK (AFP).- The United States on Thursday returned to Italy stolen artifacts worth at least $90,000, dating back as far as the 8th century BC but looted and trafficked overseas, officials said.

The items include a Sardinian bronze ox and Sardinian bronze warrior from the 8th century BC, a Greek bronze Heracles from the 3rd or 4th century BC and a 4th-century BC drinking cup depicting two goats butting heads. There was also a wine jug decorated with rams and panthers dated 650 BC, a 340 BC oil flask depicting a man holding a plate of fruit and a similar flask decorated with a man holding a lyre, dating back to 430 BC.

Six of the items were seized from a Manhattan gallery in April as part of an ongoing investigation into international antiquities trafficking. The seventh object was seized from a different gallery in another part of Midtown Manhattan, US officials said. The antiquities were stolen in the 1990s from burial sites and places of archaeological significance in Italy before they were smuggled overseas, one official said.

New York, America's cultural and financial capital, is a major hub in the international art market, packed with galleries and auction houses. "Art galleries, auction houses, academic institutions and collectors must be vigilant about recognizing and identifying signs of theft and trafficking," Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance said.

Italy's consul general in New York, Francesco Genuardi, welcomed the return of what he called "seven marvelous and valuable objects." The returned artifacts will go on display in museums.

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Junk sale diamond ring bought for £10 worth a fortune

A member of Sotheby's staff poses holding a 26.27 carat, cushion-shaped, white diamond, for sale at Sotheby's auction house in London on May 22, 2017. The large diamond is expected to fetch around 350,000 GBP (405,000 euro; 456,000 USD) at auction 30 years after its owner paid 10 GBP for it at a car boot sale, thinking it was a costume jewel. Justin TALLIS / AFP.

LONDON (AFP).- A diamond ring bought for next to nothing in a London junk sale is expected to fetch up to £350,000 ($455,000, 405,000 euros), Sotheby's auction house said Monday. The owner bought the 26-carat, white diamond ring for £10 in the 1980s and wore it while doing shopping and chores, thinking it was costume jewellery, Sotheby's said. "The owner would wear it out shopping, wear it day-to-day. It's a good-looking ring," said Jessica Wyndham, head of Sotheby's London jewellery department. "No one had any idea it had any intrinsic value at all. "The majority of us can't even begin to dream of owning a diamond that large."

The diamond is thought to have been cut in the 19th century, when the style was to cut to conserve the weight rather than to make it as sparkly as possible, hence its relatively dull brilliance. "It could trick people into thinking it's not a genuine stone," said Wyndham. She said the owner, who does not want to be named, brought the ring in after a jeweller told them it could be worth something. She said the owner was "incredibly excited. Anyone would be in this position: it's a life-changing amount of money. "This is a one-off windfall, an amazing find."

The ring will be auctioned on June 7 and is expected to fetch between £250,000 and £350,000. Sotheby's said the owner came forward in the past few months seeking a valuation. "Much to the owner's surprise, the ring turned out to be a genuine cushion-shaped diamond weighing 26.27 carats with an attractive colour grade of I and impressive clarity grade of VVS2," the auctioneers said. The clarity grade "Very, very slightly included 2" is the fourth-highest out of 11, while a colour grading of I means it is near colourless, on the scale from D to Z.

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