Italy wants to renegotiate a deal to loan all of its Leonardo da Vinci paintings to France’s Louvre to mark 500 years since his death, Italian media reported on Saturday. Junior culture minister Lucia Bergonzoni of the far-right League told the Corriere della Sera that the terms of an agreement signed by previous culture minister Dario Franceschini were “unbelievable”. “Leonardo is Italian, he only died in France,” Bergonzoni said of the Renaissance polymath who was born in Italy in 1452 and died in France in 1519. “To give the Louvre all these paintings would put Italy on the margins of a major cultural event,” Bergonzoni said of the 2017 deal for the Italian state to loan all of its Da Vinci paintings to the 2019 Louvre exhibition. “We need to discuss everything again. Where museums’ autonomy is concerned, national interest cannot come second. The French cannot have everything,” she said. The Franco-Italian accord also provides for the Louvre — home to Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa — to loa

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco will open Gauguin: A Spiritual Journey, debuting at the de Young museum on November 17. The first exhibition at FAMSF dedicated to the work of Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) will explore two themes central to his career: the relationships that shaped his life and work, and his quest to understand spirituality, both his own and that of other cultures he encountered. Through an exceptional partnership with the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, more than sixty Gauguin works will be on view—ranging from oil paintings and works on paper to wood carvings and ceramics—alongside art of the Pacific Islands from the FAMSF collection. Combined, these works encompass distinctive phases of Gauguin’s career to show the development of his ideas, the scope of his oeuvre, and the inspiration he found in New Zealand, the Marquesas Islands, and Tahiti. “The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco have the largest reposito

An iconic swimming pool picture painted by British legend David Hockney sold for $90.3 million in New York on Thursday, setting a new auction record for a living artist, Christie’s said. “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” was snapped up after more than nine minutes of bidding, dominated by two rival telephone bidders. The previous record was held by Jeff Koons and his “Balloon Dog (Orange),” which sold for $58.4 million at Christie’s in 2013. It was standing room only in the packed sales room at Christie’s in New York, where a smattering of applause broke out when the sale concluded, the painting hammering for $80 million. The buyer’s premium took the final price to $90,312,500, the auction house announced. Christie’s had estimated the 1972 oil painting at $80 million and called the Hockney “one of the great ma

A pearl and diamond pendant owned by Marie Antoinette before she was beheaded during the French Revolution sold for $36 million at an auction on Wednesday, shattering its pre-sale estimate of up to $2 million. The Sotheby’s auction at an ultra-luxurious hotel on the banks of Lake Geneva saw feverish bidding for a 10-piece collection owned by the ill-fated queen, featuring jewels unseen in public for two centuries. The 10 items, which had been estimated to fetch a total of roughly $3 million, sold for a combined sum of nearly $43 million, Sotheby’s said. A diamond brooch pegged to go for roughly $80,000 (70,000 euros) sold for $1.75 million, excluding fees, one of several pieces that brought in more than 20 times its estimated worth. But the highlight was the pendant featuring an oval diamond and drop-shaped pearl, which Sotheby’s said went to an anonymous, private buyer, without giving further details. Sotheby’s also said the pendant set a new record