French traffic police found a stolen Faberge egg worth $1.3 million while conducting a routine car search near the Swiss border. The egg, which is made of more than two pounds of pure gold, is covered in diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds. The work of art has been missing for four years.

The Faberge egg was stolen in 2009 from a Kuwaiti import-export firm based in Geneva but the work’s whereabouts were never determined. The officers, who recovered the egg from a suspicious looking BMW, immediately placed the two Belarusian men in the car under arrest. Another man who was driving behind the suspects was also arrested. When questioned by the police, the suspects claimed conflicting stories; one alleged that they had found the Faberge egg on the ground and another maintained that they had bought it for a low price at a flea market.

Officials believe that the three suspects were given the task of transporting and negotiating the sale of the artwork. They are currently in police custody and have been charged with handling stolen goods and possessing a weapon.

An unpublished sketchbook belonging to the Austrian painter Egon Schiele (1890-1918) has surfaced from a private collection. Dating back to 1906 when Schiele enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts where he was to meet his future mentor, Gustave Klimt (1862-1918), the sketchbook contains over 40 never-before-seen works by the artist. The images will be reproduced later this month in Egon Schiele: The Beginning, the first book to explore the expressionist’s early works.

Schiele was an important figurative painter of the 20^th century and many of his works are erotically charged and noted for their raw emotional intensity. Schiele’s early sketchbook includes a self-portrait and various landscapes that illustrate his early predilection for the expressive brush strokes and dramatic lines that are now readily associated with his work.

Egon Schiele: The Beginning will also include sketches Schiele completed in 1905 on an old English dictionary. Only one of the dictionary sketches has been exhibited before.

The Louvre’s new outpost in Abu Dhabi, which is slated to open in 2015, has assembled the 130 paintings, miniatures, sculptures, and other artworks that will form its permanent collection. Museum officials allowed reporters a sneak peek of the works including paintings by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Rene Magritte (1898-1967), Édouard Manet (1832-1883), and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). The entire collection will be on view from April 22 to July 20, 2013 as part of the exhibition The Birth of a Museum at a gallery on the island of Saadiyat, close to where construction for the new museum is currently underway.

Louvre Abu Dhabi’s collection is comprised of numerous works from private collections, many of which have never been on public view before. Highlights from the museum’s holdings include Picasso’s gouache, ink, and collage work on paper Portrait of a Lady (1928); Gauguin’s Children Wrestling (1888); and Paul Klee’s (1879-1940) Oriental Bliss (1938).

The Louvre’s new venue, which was designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel, is the museum’s first branch outside of France. The venture is expected to bring the Louvre and its French partner museums approximately $1.31 million over 30 years. The Louvre also has an offshoot location in the northern city of Lens.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City will present Diego Velázquez’s (1599-1660) Portrait of Duke Francesco l d’Este, one of the most important portraits by the Spanish painter, through July 16, 2013. The painting is on loan from Italy’s prestigious Galleria Estense in Modena and has never traveled to the United States before. The exhibition, Velázquez’s Portrait of Duke Francesco l d’Este: A Masterpiece from the Galleria Estense, Modena, will coincide with the opening of the Met’s renovated New European Painting Gallery, 1250-1800.

Velázquez, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, painted d’Este, the Duke of Modena and Reggio Emilia, while he was visiting Madrid in 1638 to meet with King Philip and ask for his support. The commanding portrait of the 17^th century ruler is a key work of baroque portraiture as well as a prime example of Velázquez’s artistic contribution to Spanish diplomacy.

The Galleria Estense acquired the portrait of d’Este in 1843 where it joined works by Tintoretto (1518-1594), El Greco (1541-1614), and Paolo Veronese (1528-1588). The museum also boasts a strong collection of decorative works, musical instruments, archaeological material, and sculptures. The Galleria was damaged in 2012 when a series of earthquakes struck the region of Emilia-Romagna. Restoration of the building has begun but will require years of repair. In the meantime, while many of the museum’s works are being held at the Ducal Palace in Sassuolo, Velázquez’s portrait will make a highly anticipated appearance to New York.

A rare and early reclining armchair designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) is currently on view at the Currier Museum in Manchester, NH. A pioneer of modern architecture, Wright designed the chair between 1902 and 1903 and it features the minimal aesthetic and linear design that he is best known for. The chair was originally designed for his prairie style Francis W. Little House in Peoria, IL but he used different variations of the chair over the course of the next decade, including in his own studio in Chicago’s Oak Park.  

The presentation of the chair coincides with the reopening of the Currier’s Isadore J. and Lucille Zimmerman House (1950), which Wright designed. Along with the exterior, Wright devised the House’s interiors, furniture, gardens, and even its mailbox. The Zimmermans left the house to the Currier in 1988 and it opened for public tours in 1990. Besides being able to view a Wright masterpiece, visitors are offered a glimpse of the Zimmermans’ personal collection of modern art, pottery, and sculpture. The Zimmerman House is the only Wright home open to the public in New England. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Tours of the Zimmerman House are offered ten times a week and require a reservation.

Sotheby’s will present three early bronzes from Auguste Rodin’s (1840-1917) pivotal The Gates of Hell at its Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on May 7, 2013 in New York. The three casts are part of a renowned private collection and include a rare, early cast of The Thinker (1906), which is expected to garner anywhere from $8 million to $12 million.

The cast of The Thinker was made by the Alexis Rudier foundry in Paris and was commissioned directly from the artist by the publishing tycoon, Ralph Pulitzer. The sculpture features a plaque stating that it was made for Pulitzer under Rodin’s immediate supervision. The other casts included in the Impressionist and Modern Art auction are Rodin’s beloved The Kiss (1909) and Ugolino and His Children (1883), which was only cast three times during Rodin’s lifetime.

The Directorate of Fine Arts commissioned The Gates of Hell, which was inspired by Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, in 1880. The project was originally expected to take five years but Rodin spent 37 years working intermittently on what would become the defining sculpture of his career. While The Gates of Hell was never fully realized, many of Rodin’s most notable sculptures are related to the single and multi-figure works he created for the commission.

Pickpockets have always been most prevalent at locations that attract a high volume of tourists such as the Louvre. However, the pickpocketing problem at the French museum has gotten so severe that 200 members of the institution’s staff staged a walkout earlier this week in protest of the pickpocket gangs that target visitors. The museum reopened to the public on Thursday, April 11, 2013 with a squad of approximately 20 uniformed police officers patrolling the grounds.

The police officers were recruited in response to staff concerns. Many Louvre employees have endured violent altercations with pickpockets including being spat at, insulted, and hit. Many of the criminals return to the museum repeatedly after being barred from the premises. Museum officials hope that a strong police presence will deter pickpockets from setting up shop at the Louvre, which sees about 10 million visitors each year.

Thirty-five out of forty-four senior art students were left without their sketchbooks, canvases, brushes, books, and completed works after a fire broke out at Pratt Institute in New York City on February 15, 2013. The fire, which ignited in Pratt’s historic Main Building due to faulty electrical wiring, also destroyed much of the structure’s roof and the studios that painting students are given in their final year.

In an effort to ease the students’ crushing loss, art dealer Larry Gagosian has partnered with Pratt to present a special drawing and painting exhibition. Gagosian was especially moved by Pratt’s fire as he almost lost a sizable chunk of his own collection after a fire broke out at his home in the Hamptons in 2011.

Flameproof will feature 100 works by Pratt’s 44 senior drawing and painting students and will be curated by Eugenie Tsai, the John and Barbara Vogelstein Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition is focused on the students’ collective experience at Pratt and was largely facilitated by the Pratt recovery effort, which provided students with donated supplies and gift cards from the school’s administration and local art stores.

Flameproof will be held at the Seagram Building on Park Avenue from May 9-14, 2013.

After 89 years in British collections, Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) Child with a Dove will leave the UK. The painting, which marks Picasso’s transition from a predominantly Impressionist style to his somber blue period, was sold last year to a collector in Qatar for nearly $77 million. The UK’s government quickly placed an export ban on the work in hopes that a British buyer would step up and claim the painting. The ban expired in December and no British collector or institution was able to raise the funds necessary to keep Child with a Dove in the country.

Qatar has emerged as a major force in the modern and contemporary art markets in recent years. In 2011, the emirate purchased one of Paul Cézanne’s (1839-1906) versions of The Card Players for $250 million. Other major acquisitions by the country include Mark Rothko’s (1903-1970) White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) for $72 million as well as works by Andy Warhol (1928-1987) and Richard Serra (b. 1939).  

Child with a Dove first came to the UK in 1924 after being purchased by a British collector, Mrs. R.A. Workman. The painting eventually made its way to the art collector Samuel Courtauld and following his death in 1947 was bequeathed to the Welsh Aberconway family. Christie’s sold the painting in 1947 on behalf of the Aberconways. Just last year the painting went on display at the Courtauld Gallery, which Samuel Courtauld founded, as part of the exhibition Becoming Picasso: Paris 1901. The exhibition ends on May 27, 2013 at which point the painting will be returned to Christie’s and then shipped out of the UK.  

Twelve years ago, the Folk Art Museum erected a monumental flagship building next door to the Museum of Modern Art on West 53^rd Street in Manhattan. In 2011, after a spate of financial troubles, the Folk Art Museum decided to sell the building to MoMA and move to a smaller outpost. Now, the MoMA is planning to demolish the building to make way for an expansion that will connect to a new tower on the other side of the former Folk Art Museum.

The building, which was designed by notable New York-based architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien and features a sculptural bronze façade, has become a Midtown landmark in a short amount of time. However, MoMA officials decided that the building didn’t mesh well with the museum’s glass façade; it is also set back further than MoMA’s structure, making expansion logistics difficult.

MoMA’s new 82-story building will be designed by French architect Jean Nouvel and constructed by Hines, a Houston-based company. The new structure will include apartments and about 40,000 square feet of gallery space. The Folk Art Museum’s former space will provide an additional 10,000 square feet of exhibition space. The renovation is expected to begin in 2014 by which time the Folk Art Museum’s former home will be leveled.      

The Art Institute of Chicago announced that they have acquired Thomas Hart Benton’s (1889-1975) Cotton Pickers (1945), a critical example of American Regionalism, a realist modern art movement that gained popularity during the 1930s. Regionalist artists forsook urban life in favor of creating scenes of everyday rural life in America. Benton was a pioneer of the movement and is considered a pivotal figure in American art.

Cotton Pickers is a rare example of Benton’s large-scale paintings and it is the first oil painting by the artist to enter the museum’s collection. It will bolster the Art Institute’s world-renowned collection of paintings from the period, which includes Grant Wood’s (1891-1942) iconic painting American Gothic (1930) and John Steuart Curry’s (1897-1946) Hogs and Rattlesnakes (1930). The addition of Cotton Pickers helps the Art Institute tell the story of Regionalism more fully. Judith Barter, the Field-McCormick Chair and Curator in the American Art Department, considers the painting one of the museum’s most important acquisitions in the last several decades.

Cotton Pickers will be exhibited alongside American Gothic and Hogs and Rattlesnakes.

Christie’s will present a seminal painting by Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) during their Contemporary Art Evening Auction on May 15, 2013. Created during Pollock’s most important artistic period, Number 19 (1948) is the most significant painting by the artist to appear at auction in 20 years.

One of Pollock’s famous drip paintings, Number 19 features layer upon layer of swirling silver, black, and white paint punctuated by pops of red and green. The movement of the paint mimics the movement of Pollock’s hand, creating a unique connection between the artist and the viewer.

From 1947 to 1950 Pollock was exceptionally prolific as an artist. It was during this time that he revolutionized abstract painting with his gestural drip paintings. 1948 is considered the year that Pollock truly mastered the technique, exhibiting more control over the thinned enamel paint he poured and dripped onto unprimed surfaces.

Number 19, which is an exemplary work from this remarkable period in Pollock’s career, is expected to garner anywhere form $25 million to $35 million at auction.      

The descendants of a Parisian art dealer are demanding that the Henie Onstad Art Center near Oslo, Norway return Henri Matisse’s (1869-1954) Blue Dress in a Yellow Armchair (1937) to them. Nazis seized the painting from its owner, Paul Rosenberg, prior to the outbreak of World War II. Ultimately, Rosenberg, one of the most prominent French art dealers and a personal friend of Pablo Picasso and Matisse, fled to New York and survived the war.

The painting in dispute has been a celebrated part of the Onstad’s collection since the museum was established in 1968. The work was donated to the fledgling institution by art collector Niels Onstad and his wife Sonjia Henie, an Olympic figure skater. Museum Director Tone Hansen attests that Onstad and Henie bought the painting from the Parisian Galerie Henri Benezit in 1950, unaware of its troublesome provenance. Hansen was unaware that Nazis had stolen the painting until the Art Loss Register, an organization that tracks lost and stolen paintings, notified him in 2012.

Art Registry documents show that Rosenberg purchased Blue Dress in a Yellow Armchair directly from Matisse in 1937. Following World War II, Rosenberg attempted to re-establish his business and tried to recover the 400+ works that had been taken from him by the Nazis. The painting was marked on Rosenberg’s personal documents as missing after the war. He also reported the painting missing to French authorities in 1946.

While Rosenberg’s heirs hope that the painting will be returned to their family, Norwegian law states that if a person has had an item in good faith for over 10 years, they are deemed the rightful owner. However, the argument is in contrast to the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, which Norway is a part of.

On Tuesday, April 9, 2013, Christie’s announced that they have been granted a license allowing them to hold independent auctions in Mainland China, making them the first international auction house to do so. The company’s inaugural sale will be held autumn 2013 in Shanghai. Christie’s has been building its relationship with China since 1994 when the auction house set up a representative office in Shanghai.

China’s art market continues to grow at a rapid pace, making it an ideal location for international auction houses. The sale of art and antiques in China garnered $13.7 billion in 2012, making it the second largest market in the world behind the United States. The country’s strong buyer base has been active in Christie’s global auction centers in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Paris. In fact, the number of clients from Mainland China bidding at Christie’s international auctions has doubled since 2008. Christie’s presence in Shanghai will allow the auction house to sell directly to China’s growing number of wealthy buyers.  

China’s auction market is currently dominated by the country’s own Beijing Poly International and China Guardian. Sotheby’s joined forces with the state-owned Beijing GeHua Cultural Development Group last year to hold auctions in China. Sotheby’s own 80% of its venture with Beijing Gehua.

Christie’s recently granted license, which is good for the next 30 years, allows the auction house to hold sales anywhere in China, but prohibits the company from selling anything created before 1949. Christie’s plans to sell wine, jewelry, watches, contemporary Chinese paintings, and international modern paintings starting this fall.

Officials at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York have announced that philanthropist and cosmetics mogul Leonard Lauder will donate $1 billion worth of art to the museum. The gift includes 78 Cubist paintings, drawings, and sculptures and will significantly improve the Met’s 20^th century holdings. The Leonard A. Lauder Collection includes 33 works by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), 17 by Georges Braque (1882-1963), 14 by Juan Gris (1887-1927), and 14 by Fernand Léger (1881-1955); for a private Cubist collection it is unmatched in its quality and breadth.

Highlights from the Lauder Collection include Picasso’s landscape The Oil Mill (1909), which was one of the first Cubist images to be reproduced in Italy; Braque’s Fruit Dish and Glass (1912), the first Cubist paper collage ever created; and Picasso’s Head of a Woman (1909), which is considered the first Cubist sculpture. Together, these works tell the story of a movement that transformed the landscape of modern art. Cubism departed from the traditional interpretations of art, challenged conventional perceptions of space, time, and perspective, and paved the way for abstraction, a concept that dominated the art world for much of the 20^th century.

Lauder acquired his first Cubist works in 1976 and has maintained his remarkable dedication to collecting for nearly 40 years. He continues to collect and is committed to looking for new opportunities to add to his gift to the Met. In coordination with Lauder’s remarkable gift, the Met is establishing a new research center for modern art. The center is supported by a $22 million endowment that Lauder helped spearhead. Grants for the center came from various trustees and supporters of the Met, including Lauder.

The Lauder Collection will be exhibited for the first time at this Met during the fall of 2014.

On April 26, 2013 an exhibition featuring 30 paintings by N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945) will open at the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, ME; the works are being loaned by the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA

Every Picture Tells a Story: N.C. Wyeth Illustrations from the Brandywine River Museum spans four decades and includes Wyeth’s early western paintings, paintings that were used as illustrations for Robert Louis Stevenson books, and later works that boast a more experimental style. Wyeth, an American artist and prolific illustrator, divided his time between Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley and coastal Maine. The Farnsworth often highlights Wyeth’s Maine-related works.

Every Picture Tells a Story will be on view through December 29, 2013.

The Board of Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. announced an upcoming partnership with the National Gallery of Art. The three-year agreement allows the Corcoran to exhibit works of modern and contemporary art from the National Gallery’s collection while the museum’s East Building is under renovation. The Corcoran is working on trimming expenses and has been battling rumors that it will sell its landmark Beaux Arts building due to financial troubles. During the Board’s announcement, officials scrapped any speculation by confirming that the Corcoran will not be moving.

The Corcoran has collaborated with the National Gallery in the past but their new partnership is the most expansive to date. Earl A. Powell III, Director of the National Gallery of Art, said, “We are very pleased to be able to share works from the nation’s collection of modern art with visitors to the Corcoran while our East Building is closed for renovations. We have a history of lending works to the Corcoran, but the larger number of works addressed by this agreement and the increased length of their exhibition at the Corcoran makes this a new development in our long relationship.”

The National Gallery of Art is expected to close for renovations beginning next year.

Marc Chagall’s (1887-1985) Le Nu au Bouquet, which was stolen in 2002 from a yacht moored in Italy, has been recovered in a private collector’s home. The robbery occurred while the boat, which came from the United States, was being repaired in northern Italy’s port of Savona. The thieves replaced the painting with a forgery.

Following the death of the yacht owner, his heir traveled to Italy to recover the boat and its contents, ultimately discovering that the Chagall painting had been replaced by a fake. The heir alerted the Italian police, but news about the painting didn’t surface until 2012 during an investigation into Bologna’s stolen art trade. Investigators were able to trace Le Nu au Bouquet to an art collector from Turin who had purchased the work, which came with an official authentication, in 2003.

Italy’s art theft division is currently investigating three suspects – two Romanians who were working on the yacht at the time of the theft and a gallery owner from Bologna. The Chagall painting is believed to be worth in excess of $1.3 million.

Sotheby’s will offer the Collection of Alex and Elisabeth Lewyt in a series of auctions in New York and Paris beginning on May 7, 2013. The works, which include paintings and drawings by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), Edgar Degas (1834-1917), and Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), will lead Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Sale in New York. Proceeds from the sale will benefit a charitable foundation to be created in the couple’s name. The 200 works, which also include illustrated letters by artists such as Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), are expected to garner anywhere from $67 million to $98 million.

The first sale of the series will present a selection of 20 works from the Lewyt’s collection. Highlights include a seminal Cézanne still-life titled Les Pommes, which the Lewyts bought from the Wildenstein Galleries in 1953; Modigliani’s sensual portrait of the socialite Marguerite de Hasse de Villers titled L’Amazone; and various works by Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque (1882-1963), and Marc Chagall (1887-1985).

Alex Lewyt, a New York-based vacuum cleaner inventor who died in 1988, and his wife, Elisabeth, an animal-welfare activist who died this past December, began amassing their remarkable collection in the 1950s.  

A federal judge will settle an ownership dispute over a Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) painting that was purchased at a flea market in West Virginia for $7. The FBI is currently holding the painting until the argument is settled.

Marcia “Martha” Fuqua claims to have purchased the painting in 2009 and subsequently stored it in a trash bag until she had the work authenticated two years later. After learning that the painting was an authentic Renoir, Fuqua planned to sell the work at auction; it was expected to garner around $75,000. However, Fuqua’s plan was foiled when documents from the Baltimore Museum of Art surfaced, revealing that the painting had been stolen in 1951. It was later determined that an insurer, the Fireman’s Fund, paid a $2,500 claim on the theft; the insurer is now battling Fuqua for ownership of the painting.

Paysage bords de Seine (1879) is believed to have been painted by Renoir on the spot for his mistress. An appraiser hired by the FBI estimated the painting’s worth at approximately $22,000, considerably less than Fuqua’s appraisal as concerns regarding the painting’s ownership and possible theft have lowered its value.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered Fuqua and the Fireman’s Fund to make their cases in written pleas later this month. The FBI is still investigating the case.