Baron Hans Heini Thyssen Bornemisza de Kaszon, who died in Spain aged 81, was one of Europe’s richest men and owner of a vast, eclectic art collection that grew from about 400 Old Masters to ~600 Old Masters and 900 modern works. He inherited from his father Heinrich Thyssen and pursued aggressive buying, financing, and loans to support access to his collection, often arguing governments should fund public access; his collection and the Villa Favorita on Lake Lugano played central roles in his life.
The Winter Egg, one of a limited number of imperial Faberge eggs, sold at Christie’s for $9,579,500 to an unidentified private collector, setting a world record for a Faberge work. The sale was part of a larger auction of works from Carl Faberge and the Forbes collection, with the Forbes material totaling $5,927,476.
The article reports an incident in Moscow where thieves stole a unique antique violin from a car belonging to a Moscow Philharmonic musician; the instrument, an 18th-century Italian viola, is valued at 4.5 million rubles and was reportedly borrowed from a state collection. It also references a prior December incident involving violist Mikhail Bereznitsky and an instrument by the same maker Santa Serafino from 1733, with total damages around 450,000 rubles.
The article from NEWSru.com states that customs officers in Pskov seized a violin bearing a label indicating it was made by Antonio Stradivari in 1727 from a Latvian citizen. The seizure occurred on April 3 at the Skangali border checkpoint, after the instrument was presented by a passenger on train 37 Санкт-Петербург - Рига. The owners' name was not disclosed, and the violin is to undergo art expert examination in Saint Petersburg.
The Národní galerie in Prague is returning another part of the Waldes collection to the heirs of industrialist Jindřich Waldes. The collection, built between the two world wars, includes thousands of works by Czech artists, with many pieces by František Kupka; the heirs are set to receive a further portion of about five hundred graphics and drawings.
Harlem: A New Renaissance discusses the rebirth of Harlem as a vibrant, mixed-race cultural hub led by institutions like the Studio Museum in Harlem and The Project, along with Columbia University and local artists; it mentions artists such as nari Ward, Janine Antoni, Marcel Odenbach, Lowery Sims, Bruce Ferguson, and Kira Lynn Harris in the context of community development and opportunities.