Long-Lost Leonardo Da Vinci Painting

Still quite a few unanswered questions about the painting. I'd like to see a bit more information released and confirmed first.

From ARTnews:

A painting by Leonardo da Vinci that was lost for centuries has been authenticated by distinguished scholars in the United States and Europe and will be exhibited at London's National Gallery as part of a Leonardo show that opens November 9, ARTnews has learned.

The painting, Salvator Mundi, or "Savior of the World," depicts Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand holding a globe. It is painted in oil on a wood panel and measures 26 by 18 1/2 inches in size.

Complete article here.

Van Gogh's "self-portrait" actually his brother

THE HAGUE (AFP) – Art researchers at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum said Tuesday they have "discovered" a work by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh -- long thought to have been a self-portrait -- was in fact a picture of his younger brother Theo.

"According to current opinion, Vincent van Gogh never painted his brother Theo, on whom he was dependent," the Van Gogh Museum said in a statement.

But senior researcher Louis van Tilborgh now believed the 1887 painting of a man wearing a light-coloured hat and a dark blue jacket was in fact Van Gogh's brother Theo, Vincent's junior by five years.

"The conclusion is based on a number of obvious differences between the two brothers," said the museum, pointing out dissimilar features including the neatness of the subject's beard and his round-shaped ear, "something Vincent did not have."

"The form and colour of Theo's beard, more ochre than red, is also an indication" as well as the man's "eye-colour and the style in which he was dressed supports the new insight," the museum said.

"The portrait matches pictures of Theo," Van Tilborgh told the Dutch news agency ANP.

Theo van Gogh died six months after his older brother shot himself in a wheatfield at the age of 37 in Auvers, France, in July 1890.

The new investigation's results are published in a 600-page catalogue, put together by Van Tilborgh and three other researchers at the museum, which houses the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and letters.

Yahoo! News

Virginia Fields dies at 58

Virginia Fields, senior curator of art of the ancient americas at LACMA, died this week from diabetes complications. She was a lovely woman and wonderful colleague. She will be greatly missed by family, friends, and scholars around the world.

Virginia M. Fields, a leading scholar of early Mesoamerican art and archaeology who joined the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's curatorial staff in 1989 and devoted 22 years to making the museum a vital center of Latin American culture — partly by organizing major exhibitions such as last year's "Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico" — has died. She was 58.

Fields, who had suffered from diabetes since her youth, died Wednesday night of long-term complications from the disease in a hotel in Mexico City. She had traveled there with her husband, photographer and filmmaker David Miller, to attend a professional conference and finalize plans for an upcoming exhibition...

Read complete obituary by Suzanne Muchnic,
Special to The Times, June 19, 2011.