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Solving art’s mysteries online
Can Art Detective’s crowd-sourced connoisseurship shed light on the history of mysterious paintings?
Contemporary art museums can’t avoid conflicts of interest – but we need to trust their directors
Commercial interests and public institutions are inextricably entangled
It’s time to talk about the ivory trade
Conservationists and connoisseurs needn’t be on opposing sides when discussing ivory
How paintings of the Obamas will shake up American portraiture
Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald have won the commissions to paint the former U.S. president and first lady
What’s behind Leonardo’s unique allure?
The news that Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ is to be auctioned at Christie’s has caused quite a stir. Why is his work so important to people?
Preserving Prussia’s royal palaces
Will a grant of €400 million euros bring the phenomenal Prussian royal collections to wider attention?
What can contemporary artists do for the ruins of Pompeii?
The sensitive juxtaposition of old and new could revive some of the site’s more neglected artefacts
Will the reform of Rome’s ruins be an improvement?
Will the new Colosseum archaeological park improve the upkeep of Rome’s most important ruins?
The art of anti-terrorism
Artists and urban planners are finding creative ways to brighten up the concrete blocks and barriers that pepper today’s urban spaces
‘Millicent Fawcett and Gillian Wearing are a winning combination’
The design for Millicent Fawcett’s statue breaks the mould, but Parliament Square is a problematic site
The Yeats Collection sale is only the latest sign of Ireland’s broken heritage export system
It’s time for leading cultural figures to work with the state to reform Irish heritage protection
Is sound art getting a fair hearing in museums?
Sound art often seems like video art’s poor relation in museums, but is its struggle for status starting to pay off?
‘Internationalism is Zeitz MOCAA’s defining ethos’
Zeitz MOCAA, South Africa’s new museum, is deliberately outward-looking
Bring back the Met’s art and antiquities squad
The closure of an entire unit, specialising in the policing of a complex but valuable part of our national economy, must be wrong
‘The river’s debris is my pleasure and obsession’
When treasures wash up on the banks of the River Thames, London’s mudlarkers are ready to find them
Bruegel goes digital
Could virtual tours of artworks change the way we experience art – and is this technological approach worth welcoming?
The paradoxical position of the Istanbul Biennial
Turkey has had a turbulent couple of years, but members of the country’s artistic community remain optimistic
How Hartwig Fischer plans to transform the British Museum
The museum has a glittering reputation, but ensuring its future success will require bold thinking and a significant overhaul
Aleppo: what remains?
The historic city has suffered major damage, but the worst unkindness we could offer it now is to write it off as ‘destroyed’
Why museums need their own ethics departments
Ethical questions about art arise on a seemingly weekly basis. It’s time for museums to invest in sustained, open-ended research
The traces of the Tudor palace at Greenwich are a truly remarkable find
Archaeological discoveries at Greenwich are rare – which makes finding the remains of the Tudor palace even more significant
The mysteries of collecting
They don’t make collectors like Francesco Federico Cerruti any more. Or do they?
How do you deal with an artist like Degas?
An exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum encourages us to approach the restlessly experimental artist with an open mind
A tribute to Linda Nochlin (1931–2017)
It is difficult to overstate the importance of Nochlin’s scholarship for subsequent generations of art historians