Week in Review

I think I’ll try a new feature of listing some newsworthy items I didn’t get around to writing about during the week. The best source for a regular list of topical art and antiquities items is the Museum Security Network though. Here’s some items I didn’t get around to discussing this week:

• The Wimbledon Guardian reports a £200,000 statue was found chained to a fire escape.
• The Art Newspaper asks if Italia Nostra’s opposition to the repatriation of a statue of Venus to Libya is a bit hypocritical.
• A 600 pound bronze bear was stolen from an office in Arizona.
• Tom Flynn looks at a possible lawsuit over the “discovery” of a new Titian, and whether auction houses have dropped the ball.
• Russia claims to have lost a mind-boggling 160,000 objects from their collections in the 20th century.
• Internet Radio seems to have earned a temporary stay of execution.
• Lee Rosenbaum is very critical (perhaps unnecessarily) of a collaboration between the AAM and the State Department on cultural exchange.