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NEW YORK, NY.- An ancient Roman marble relief panel with Dionysiac decoration that was recently discovered to once have been in the collection of French writer Émile Zola sold for $1,538,500 at Sotheby’s Antiquities auction today in New York. Six bidders competed for the piece which eventually sold to an anonymous telephone bidder. It was the highlight of the sale which totaled $5.8 million – well in excess of the $2.3/3.5 million estimate. Discussing the sale Richard Keresey and Florent Heintz of Sotheby’s Antiquities Department said: “We are thrilled with the $1.5 million achieved today

AMSTERDAM.- The Rijksmuseum has acquired two spectacular marriage coffers on stands made by the famous cabinet-maker André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732). They are decorated with so-called ‘Boulle’ Marquetry of tortoise shell and brass. These coffers were not made as useful items of furniture, but as works of art proclaiming the style of the court of Louis XIV at Versailles. Boulle probably supplied them in 1688 to a cousin of the Sun King, the Prince de Condé, who gave them as a wedding present to his daughter, Marie-Thérèse. The marriage coffers are the most expensive pieces of furniture ever bought by the Rijksmuseum. The marriage coffers are typical

STOCKHOLM.- Most people recognize the portrait from the annual Nobel Prize Ceremony in the Stockholm Concert Hall. The bronze bust of Alfred Nobel is in focus of the TV camera, surrounded by prize winners, royalties and members of the Swedish Academy. Yesterday, the day before this years Nobel Ceremony, Nationalmuseum in Stockholm managed to acquire an example of the well known bronze bust from the auction house Thomas Del Mar in London. The acquisition will now be included in the National Portrait Gallery at Gripsholms Castle, among with other famous

LONDON.- Agnew’s, one of London’s leading international art dealers, has appointed Sir Thomas Lighton as its new Chief Executive and is moving to a gallery in Mayfair in the heart of the capital’s art world. These important changes herald the beginning of a new era for the prestigious, long-established gallery which will see a gradual move towards greater involvement in 20th century and contemporary art, whilst continuing with its more traditional dealing in Old Master and British paintings, drawings and watercolors. Previously Tom Lighton was Managing Director of Waddington Galleries in London, which

NEW YORK, NY (AP).- Former Metropolitan Art Museum director Thomas Hoving has died at his home in New York City. Nancy Hoving says her husband died Thursday of cancer. He was 78. He was director of the museum from 1967 to 1977 and was known for championing blockbuster exhibits. Artifacts from King Tut’s tomb were the most popular exhibit in the museum’s history. They drew 8 million visitors. His tenure at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was characterized by his distinctive approach to expanding the Met’s collections. Rather than build more comprehensive

MAASTRICHT.- The jury, comprised of Enrico Lunghi, Dirk Snauwaert and Alexander van Grevenstein, has decided unanimously to award the BACA 2010 to Francis Alÿs (B – 1959). For over twenty years, he has lived in Mexico City, and recently also in Casablanca. The BACA, the Biennial Award for Contemporary Art, is intended as a tribute to an artist for his or her adventurous oeuvre and visible influence on other (younger) artists. Francis Alÿs meets these criteria in exemplary fashion, adding to them a personal world brimming with poetic accents and enormous involvement with his neighbours

ROME.- This drawing on a support made by gluing two sheets together, has often been called a “small cartoon”. However there is no evidence that this piece represents a preparatory phase of any work by Michelangelo or by artists connected to him. It is instead enlightening to think of this piece, without comparison in the corpus of Michelangelo’s drawings, as a meditation – continually recurring in the artist’s mind- on a maternity that is too painful for the mother to fully express her love for her son. It is no accident that the most

WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will recognize the influence of the “King of Rock n’ Roll,” Elvis Presley (1935–1977), on American life, history and culture with two exhibitions in 2010. “One Life: Echoes of Elvis” opens on Presley’s 75th birth anniversary and is a one-room exhibition devoted to the evolution and influence of Presley’s image after his death. The traveling exhibition, “Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer,” shows a young musician just about to rise to fame. One Life: Echoes of Elvis” explores the image and story of Presley

SYDNEY.- The Powerhouse Museum is bringing back the 80s with a spectacular exhibition opening on December 12 that will reveal the good and the bad about the decade vividly remembered for its over the top excess. The 80s are back will explore Australian life and popular culture in the 1980s, remembering the styles, trends and subcultures, and how they found expression in fashion, design, music, film and television. “The 1980s shaped a generation. Australia was prosperous and expressing its emerging identity with confidence through a variety of flourishing cultural forms,” said exhibition curator Peter Cox. “It was a fertile time for new

LONDON.- Combining superb Florentine pietre dure plaques with opulent gilt bronze mounts, elaborate marquetry and beautifully modeled figurative carving, this cabinet is a superb example of the magnificent cabinets produced in Paris in the mid-17th-century. Almost certainly given to Queen Hedvig Eleonora of Sweden, or indeed commissioned by her, it is one of only very few surviving cabinets executed at the Royal Gobelins workshops in Paris. It illustrates