Displaying items by tag: oxford university

A Renaissance silver-gilt and enamel salt cellar, bequeathed by collector Michael Wellby to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, has been identified as Nazi loot. It will thus be returned to the descendants of its pre-WWII owner.

The intricate piece is one of the 500 silverware items—believed to be worth in excess of £10 million—donated to the museum in 2012 by Wellby, a former friend of Professor Timothy Wilson, the museum's Keeper of Western Art.

Hackers have stolen the personal details of nearly 8,000 visitors to Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum, but the museum is telling people not to worry, reports the Guardian.

The Ashmolean has sent an email to those 7,757 people whose names, addresses, email addresses, and date and time of visit had been accessed by a hacker who attacked the institution’s website. In an email to those affected, after apologizing, the institution assured everyone that no financial information was compromised, so there is only a “small risk” of identity theft. More likely, they can look forward to “some unwanted marketing communications, whether by email, post or telephone.”

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth has put its newly acquired landscape by a Dutch master on display.

The 17th century painting by Jacob van Ruisdael titled Edge of a Forest with Grainfield went on display Friday. Ruisdael is considered one of the greatest landscape painters. Ruisdael expert Seymour Slive calls the painting “a world-class masterpiece.”

Earlier this year the museum purchased the painting from Oxford University's Worcester College, which had the work since 1811 when an alumnus donated it.

The smartly dressed man with frown lines and a bristling moustache is as much a mystery as the rollicking scene in Vulcan's forge, where a cherub is in imminent danger of being clouted by the blacksmith's hammer. They are among thousands of enigmatic paintings, hanging in galleries, council chambers, boardrooms and fire stations, about which almost nothing is known.

The public, however, is being invited to turn art detective, and help trace artists, dates, subjects and other helpful information about the paintings.