Top lot in Skinner’s Boston sale of Oriental Rugs and Carpets on 11 May was lot 118, this high class Shahrisyabz embroidery, with the classic four and one design in both field and border, which fetched $50,000 against a paltry estimate of just $2,000-3.000. While not a world record, it is one of the highest prices ever paid for the type, and indeed for suzanis of any label.
On May Day 2013, in Christie’s London sale of 20th Century Decorative Art and Design, two English Arts & Crafts Movement embroideries closely associated with William Morris and his daughter May Morris were sold for significant prices.
Two events in New York’s Upper East Side bring the best African, Oceanic and American art to the USA for a week in May.
‘The Lady and the Unicorn’, one of the most splendid European artworks of the Middle Ages, has left Paris for Japan until October 2013 – the first time the tapestry cycle has been out of Paris since 1973.
Paris’s Quai Branly museum has a good track record of bringing the art of little-known cultures to the attention of worldwide audiences. The Philippines can hardly been described as ‘little-known’, of course, but – unbelievably, until now – its art and culture have not been the subject of any specialist exhibitions.
President Barack Obama has revealed the appointment of HALI’s peripatetic Contributing Editor Thomas Murray to the US Government’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee.
On 14 March 2013, the Victoria & Albert Museum announced the finalists for the third Jameel Prize. The winner of the £25,000 biennial award is selected from a shortlist of ten artists and designers.
With museums around the world competing to find ever more imaginative ways to get new and younger audiences to visit their exhibitions, the Guimet in Paris has come up with treasure: its latest show celebtrates the ’80s Japanese-French animated series The Mysterious Cities of Gold, along with its recent sequel series.
Canal Mills in Leeds, imposing in its former grandeur as a textile mill and now a music and performance venue, has received a mural makeover by Yorkshire-based graffiti artist Phlegm.
In early April, the Denver Art Museum (DAM) announced that it has been awarded a USD 1.75 million gift from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its textile art department.
