Retiring this blog

 Update: I'm retiring this blog. Looking at copying some posts to my main blog...

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Klimt's Portrait of a Lady is residing in Piacenza

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A compelling headline in ArtNews today: Stolen Gustav Klimt Painting May Have Been Discovered in an Italian Gallery’s Wall . So, if you've dreamed of visiting Piacenza, Italy, but have held back because the prized Klimt was missing, your dreams may soon come true. A little history of the lady: 1916-17: Gustv Klimt paints his famous Portrait of a Lady. The oil on canvas painting measures 60 by 55 centimetres (24 in × 22 in). It depicts a portrait of a female figure, composed in an unusually lively expressionistic style. 1925: It was acquired by the Galleria Ricci-Oddi in Piacenza, Italy. 1996: X-ray analysis revealed that the portrait was an overpainted version of Klimt's lost work Portrait of a Young Lady (in hat and with scarf), which disappeared in 1917. The original portrait showed a woman with whom Klimt is believed to have had a love affair, but after she died suddenly, he painted over the work. February 22, 1997: The painting was reported stolen, shortly...
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Opera Garnier learnings

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I have been a fan of the Opera Garnier since I stumbled upon it early into my month in Paris in 2009. I was already blown away by the building when I looked up and first set eyes on Chagall's remarkable ceiling. I gushed at the time , and have since acquired a tremendous print of the ceiling (yet to be framed) and a book or two. Yet, despite learning that construction began in the 1860's, I never really thought about how that Chagall got there. Then, this morning, reading an old copy of a Sunday NY Times left over from a vacation (I buy a copy and read it front to back over a week, and unfinished sections set aside... one of which just surfaced), I had a major ah ha moment: "Among the theater's most famous fixtures are the chandelier and the painted ceiling that surrounds it ~ originally by Jules Eugène Lenepveu, then replaced in 1964 with a new sprawling work by Marc Chagall depicting scenes from operas by Mozart, Wagner and more." Behind the Curtain at...
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