ArtCurious News This Week: July 29, 2022

July 29, 2022 Jennifer Dasal

Hi there, everyone. It’s Jennifer, ArtCurious host, back at you this week with our new short-form Friday roundup of my favorite art history updates and interesting news tidbits. This is ArtCurious News this Week, and this, as a gentle reminder, is in addition to the ArtCurious episodes you know and love and gets you up to date on the latest goings-on in the realm of art history. Okay, let’s go.

This week’s stories:

Artnews: Archaeologists Unearth Roman Mosaic in Rural British Town

Artnews: The First 750-Year-Old Medieval Shipwreck Was Discovered Off the Coast of England

Artnews: The ‘Indiana Jones of Art’ Receives Priceless Lost Relic Containing Jesus’ ‘Blood’ in Package On Doorstep

Artnews: Activists Glued Themselves to Botticelli’s ‘Primavera’ in Latest Climate Protest

The Observer: Museum Director Responsible for Seized Basquiat Collection Has a Previous History of Discovering So-Called Lost Art

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Episode Transcript

Today is Friday, July 29, 2022. And this week I’m sharing some exciting archaeological news with you this week. First up, it has been a big week for British archaeologists—in Hinton St. Mary, a village in the Dorset region, archaeologists recently discovered a mosaic dating back to the 4th century, when Rome occupied much of what is now Great Britain. The excavation of this site was commissioned by the British Museum, who worked with archaeological and heritage service company Vianova Archaeology, to uncover ancient Roman sites in Dorset. This mosaic, comprised of multicolored tesserae, or the small tones used to create the mosaic’s designs, showcases a mythological scene of the Greek hero Bellerophon, shown riding a Pegasus and slaying a chimera, a fantastic creature that is a lion-goat-snake combo. Though the mosaic isn’t in the best condition since it was found on a site that had been used for agriculture for centuries, it’s still an interesting find that helps to uncover the ancient Roman past of the British Isles. What’s also fascinating is that this recently discovered mosaic is actually the second mosaic found at this site. The other one was discovered in 1963 and is by far larger and in much better condition, and it presents viewers with a portrait of a man in its center roundel. It’s long been argued as a portrait of Jesus Christ, as the figure is presented before the Greek letters chi and rho, the first two letters of the word “Christ” in Greek, and when presented together have long been used as symbols for Christianity as a whole. As the figure is additionally flanked by pomegranates, which are sometimes used to symbolize eternal life and the resurrection of Christ, this seems like an apt identification of the central figure, though others have also identified the emperor Constantine I as another potential candidate.

For our next story, we’re staying in Britain but we’re bypassing land in favor of the sea. According to ArtNews, the first known shipwreck from the medieval period was discovered off the Southern coast of England, as announced this week by Bournemouth University. The shipwreck was found in 2020 but the discovery was only announced to the press in recent days. The man who discovered the wreck is a local sea captain named Trevor Small, who has long had a passion for searching for shipwrecks. As he said in an announcement, quote, “I was born into a seafaring family. I’ve skippered thousands of sea miles looking for shipwrecks from my home port of Poole. In summer 2020, I discovered what I believed to be an undetected wreck site. Recent storms had revealed something unknown on the seabed. I was granted permission to dive the wreck. The rest is history! I’ve found one of the oldest shipwrecks in England.” Unquote.

According to maritime archaeologists, there are several unique factors that have allowed this wreck to remain in such staggeringly good condition. Not only have layers of sand and stone protected much of the ship, especially its hull, from being destroyed entirely, but the low oxygenation of the water surrounds the wreck also minimized damage. The ship is estimated to be around 750 years old and has been nicknamed “The Mortar Wreck” because it appears that the ship had been carrying quite a bit of limestone, which was often used to make mortars for grinding flour during the Middle Ages.

I’ve got one more story to share with you today—but we’re going to take a little break for some brief words from today’s sponsors. But come right back—there’s more art news to share.

Welcome back to ArtCurious, and our News this Week. For our last story today, I’m thinking about what is, quite possibly, one of the most interesting items ever left on someone’s doorstep. This week, a Dutch art historian and art crime investigator named Arthur Brand announced that he had recovered an ancient Roman Catholic relic that was stolen from a church in Normandy. The relic, he said, was left on his doorstep.

To be totally fair, Brand had asked for it. Literally. The investigator had been tipped off by a source who claimed to be indirectly connected to the thieves, who pilfered the relic from the Fécamp Abbey Church earlier in June. Brand notes that once he notified the source that the relic could not, in fact, be sold, he asked them to deliver it safely to Brand, leaving the item on his doorstep and ringing the doorbell. As Brand reported, once the contact agreed to return the reliquary, he waited at home for days—and nights—to make sure he was around to safeguard the package. In an interview with the BBC, he said, quote, “A couple of days later, at 10:30 in the evening, the doorbell rang. I looked from my balcony outside and in the dark I saw a box. I ran down the stairs, afraid that someone would take the box. Outside I looked around, but there was no one there.”

Holy relics are fascinating and curious enough to devote a whole slew of ArtCurious episodes on them—and we did touch on them early in our 1st season—in episode #10, when we looked at the phenomenon of crying statues—but what makes this one special is that it is a relic housing what is called the Precious Blood of Christ, a golden, church-shaped reliquary holding lead vials purported to hold drops of the (surprise, surprise) blood of Christ from his Crucifixion, and they have been lovingly accommodated in the Fécamp Abbey Church for the past 1,000 years. According to Brand, its religious importance was his bargaining chip with getting the work returned. As he said, quote, “To have the ultimate relic, the blood of Jesus in your home, stolen, that’s a curse.” Brand passed the relics onward to the police, and the police, in turn, will present them back to the abbey in Fécamp.

Now, before we go, I’ve got bonus stories for you. Yay! These are two follow-ups to stories that I’ve shared in previous episodes of ArtCurious News This Week. First, yes, there was another climate protest with art as its center—this time, it took place in Italy, with disruptors from the Italian group Ultima Generazione (Last Generation), gluing themselves to one of the most iconic paintings of the Italian Renaissance—Sando Botticelli’s Primavera, at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Now, if you’ve listened to previous episodes of ArtCurious News This Week, then you already know my thoughts about using art—especially art that you don’t personally own—as a centerpiece of protest (here’s a hint—I don’t love it). But I do give at least a tiny bit of credit to the protestors with Ultima Generazione, who put out a statement writing, quote, “We consulted restorers who advised us to use a glue suitable for glass and frames… In the same way that we defend our artistic heritage, we should be dedicated to the care and protection of the planet that we share with the rest of the world.” So there’s that, at least. But I also want to know: who are these art restorers who would recommend even quote-unquote “glue suitable for glass and frames?” Someone sympathetic to the cause, certainly, but it also feels a bit antithetical to a restorer’s work. Anyway.

Last follow-up. Previously I mentioned the story of the art historian who has been accused of falsely identifying several paintings as authentic works by Jean-Michel Basquiat. In that story, the historian noted that she had been bullied by the director of the Orlando Museum of Art, Aaron de Groft, who was showcasing the purported Basquiats in a blockbuster exhibition earlier this year. After the works were seized as potential fakes, de Groft was ousted from the OMA. According to an article in the Observer, this doesn’t appear to have been the first time that de Groft did something shady like this. As noted in the Observer, de Groft has had a history of quote-unquote “discovering” paintings, especially works from the 16th through 20th centuries, by previously unknown artists and then re-attributing them as masterworks by big-name artists—previously unknown “finds” of works by Jackson Pollock, Paul Cézanne, and Titian are among the pieces—now heavily disputed—that were deemed authentic by de Groft. Now, if you’ve listened to my show before, then you know that art attribution is a very, very tricky and often inexact business (wink wink, Salvator Mundi, wink wink), but still, all of this is interesting as a pattern, is it not?

Thanks for listening to this new segment—our short-form news recaps—that will help round out our art historical knowledge here on ArtCurious. If you liked this episode, please let me know. You can hit me up on Facebook or Instagram (I’m quicker to respond on Insta) or email me at jennifer@artcuriouspodcast.com. If you’re missing your traditional ArtCurious content while we are on break between seasons, definitely check us out on YouTube. I recently posted a video with extra content from our Berthe Weill episode that didn’t make it into my original recording, and you get to see me make a gaffe when I accidentally move from commenting on French history to inadvertently referencing a famous Steven Spielberg film. So that’s fun. You can find that by going to youtube.com/c/artcuriouspodcast, or by searching ArtCurious—one word—on YouTube. Until then, see you next week—and stay curious!