Astonishing unseen Caravaggio unveiled
PLUS: The $6m banana
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This edition also features: Ian Hislop’s clash at British Museum | Marie Antoinette watch coming to UK | Smithsonian quietly removes Director
Happy Friday.
There’s now fewer than 40 days left of the year (wow). Which means my 2025 work has already begun.
This week on maxwellmuseums.com I posted a piece on the Wallace Collection’s 2025 exhibitions. And I’ll be updating my similar pieces on the British Museum, V&A and Tate Modern, Belgium and the Netherlands very soon too.
I’ve also asked lots of leading names from the museum world to tell me their most anticipated shows of the coming year, which I can’t wait to share with you in this newsletter soon. Before that though, said leading names will be telling me (i.e you) their favourite reads of 2024, to give you some Christmas gift buying inspiration.
I’ll also be writing my round-up of the new museum openings I’m excited for next year. And there are a lot so it’s hard to narrow them down!
I do need to start planning my interview editions for next year though. Highlights of my interviews this year have included the Director of Amsterdam’s Rembrandt House Museum, and all nearly all the venues hosting the National Gallery’s National Treasures paintings. And just this week I sent you an interview with the Munch Museum Director on their fight for artistic freedom — catch up here.
But I want to publish even more in 2025 and go even bigger. So if you have a tip for someone I should speak to, hit reply to this email and tell me. Maybe I should speak to you! I’m particularly keen to speak to people in fundraising, to donors, to art collectors, to visitor services people and anyone that runs an art hotel. (Honestly, I am fascinated by an art hotel.) But anyone with an interesting — or newsy —story is very much welcome.
In the meantime, are you one of the millions of new Bluesky users? The platform has been getting over a million new peeps a day over the past week, and with the results of my poll last week (read to the end to see them all) it seems Twitter is being abandoned by many. So I suspect many of you are fresh sign ups over past seven days. A reminder you can find me there — as maxwellmuseums — if you want news throughout the week.
Finally though, when do you want your news on a Friday? You may have noticed over the past few weeks this newsletter has dropped at slightly different times over the course of Friday evenings (UK time) in order to see when most people would prefer to read it. The results are inconclusive, so I just thought I’d ask you. Please vote below on to tell me what time works best for you.
Now onto the news!
— maxwell
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Need To Know
The $6m banana
A 34 year-old crypto-tycoon was revealed to be the buyer of the world’s most expensive banana — aka the artwork Comedian by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
Justin Sun — founder of cryptocurrency platform Tron — paid $6.2 million for the work at Sotheby’s New York this week, much higher than its $1m estimate. He said he intends to eat the banana, but that he also intends to pay for the piece in crypto. Sotheby’s made the relatively rare decision to allow crypto currencies to be used for this sale, in a nod to the interest cryptocurrency investors have in this work.
In recent weeks a pair of meme coins inspired by Cattelan’s banana have been hugely popular. One was minted by a Sotheby’s employee and has seen its market cap climb to as much as $330 million.
There’s five versions of Comedian in total. One of the original buyers donated their banana to New York’s Guggenheim Museum, who have yet to put it on display. (Read more)
More Slovak gallery unrest
Miloš Timko, Director of the Slovak National Gallery (SNG), ordered the closure of his own venue yesterday because of what he called “possible misuse of the gallery for political purposes.” It was the same day staff planned a press conference at the gallery to protest about his leadership.
Two thirds of employees went ahead with speaking to the media, and presented demands for change to Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová. They warned if demands weren’t met, there would be mass resignations in January.
Earlier this year, thousands of demonstrators protested against the government’s hostility to the country’s cultural organisations, including the sacking of the previous SNG director by the hard-right minister Šimkovičová. The government cited "political activism" for the dismissals (see the pattern?)
On Thursday, gallery employees raised concerns about targeted dismissals, non-transparent organisational changes, poor communication from Timko — and they demanded the appointment of a competent director. (Read more)
Unseen Caravaggio — until now!
A rare surviving Caravaggio portrait that’s never been seen in public before has gone on show in Rome.
The portrait had been in a private collection in Florence for decades, and has not even been made available for research. But Italy’s National Galleries of Ancient Art has pulled off what no other institution has — it convinced the owners to lend it. “They all said it was impossible” Director Thomas Clement Salomon said. The work— depicting Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII — was unveiled today at the Palazzo Barberini.
It was first identified as a Caravaggio in 1963 by an expert who found it in the secretive family’s collection. Many of the world’s most pre-eminent scholars on Caravaggio had been turned away from seeing it over the past 60 years.
It’ll be on show for three months, and the plan is now to try to buy it. “The idea to buy it is a dream,” Salomon said. “It’s a challenge, but it’s something we’ll work on, if possible.” Massimo Osanna, the director of Italy’s museums, added that “obviously it’s a dream” to acquire the work. “But we’ve seen that dreams can come true.” (Read more)
News from the UK
Sponsor woe 💸 | Another sponsor headache for the Science Museum. Bribery charges have been brought in the US against the Adani Group’s billionaire founder and chairman. A subsidiary — Adani Green Energy — are the naming sponsors of the museum’s new Energy gallery. A spokesperson said the museum is “aware of a case” and they “will be monitoring developments in line with our due diligence processes.” (Read more)
About time ⏱ | In more upbeat Science Museum news, they will display one of the world’s most valuable watches next month. Designed for Marie Antoinette, the No.160 watch by Abraham-Louis Breguet has never been seen in Britain before. Crafted from the finest materials including rubies, sapphires, platinum and gold, Antoinette died before it was completed. It’s the star of the museum’s Versailles: Science and Splendour exhibition. (Read more)
Holburne home 👥 | Three monumental aluminium portrait busts by Thomas J Price are calling the palatial surroundings of Bath’s Holburne Museum home for the next three years. The works — the Numen series, a modern spin on ancient traditions of monumental sculpture — are dispersed among the permanent collections and are on long-term loan from the Goldstein family. Holburne Director Chris Stephens said the Price works would “respond to and reflect” the museum’s 18th century paintings. (Read more)
It’s destiny 🔮 | The newly-revamped and expanded Warburg Institute in London is to devote its inaugural exhibition in its new gallery to the history of Tarot. It’s the first time the subject has been examined in a UK show, and will explore the cards’ origins as a recreational game in Renaissance Italy, and its subsequent transformations. Many items will be displayed for the first time, and a highlight will be one of the world’s earliest surviving examples of the form. (Read more)
Great clash ✍️ | In a strongly-worded column in this week’s Private Eye, the magazine’s editor Ian Hislop reveals his total astonishment at the seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Trustees dinner at the British Museum, just one day after the bishop had resigned over an abuse scandal. Hislop recounts how he then clashed with Justin Welby in the Great Court of the museum for what Hislop says was his “shameless behaviour.” (Read more)
News from around the world
Belgium 🇧🇪 | Ostende’s statue of King Leopold II — who led a bloody colonial rule in the Congo — will have new artworks by Hew Locke added to it, to provide more context to its history. Locke was selected from 11 artists. His intervention will see five masts placed in front of the statue — obscuring sight-lines — and each featuring a symbol linked to colonial history. The Leopold statue has been defaced often in recent years. (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸 | The Smithsonian quietly removed the director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum over the summer, it’s been revealed. After years of complaints about Stephanie Stebich’s management, she was found another role at the Institution with no announcement. The Smithsonian’s Board asked for her to be removed, and then threatened to resign when bosses resisted. Museum workers who spoke to the Washington Post described an atmosphere of fear and recrimination under Stebich. (Read more)
Netherlands 🇳🇱 | Rotterdam’s new museum of migration has an opening date. On 16 May 2025, Fenix will open its doors on the city’s harbour. It’s billed as the first museum “dedicated to themes of migration through the lens of art.” The museum’s inaugural exhibition will be a group show of 150 works from the Fenix collection and acquired over the past five years — including works by Cornelia Parker and Do Ho Suh. (Read more)
USA 🇺🇸 | René Magritte has joined an elite club of fewer than 20 artists whose works have commanded over $100m, with 1954’s Empire of Lights going under the hammer for $121m at Christie’s. It also marks the only work to command nine-figures this year. The auction house also saw a record for an Ed Ruscha — selling for $68.3 million. Earlier in the week, Sotheby’s sold a Claude Monet Water Lilies scene for $65.5 million, the first time this work had ever gone to auction. (Read more)
Best of the rest
Missed Monet? | With two months still to go, the Monet show at the Courtauld has sold out. Final tickets (until 9pm on its last week) were snapped up in an hour. The gallery’s now confirmed no more tickets will be released.
Royal appointment | HM The King has become the Royal Patron for National Galleries of Scotland. The gallery’s Chair said the King “has demonstrated a deep appreciation for the value that art offers to everyone in Scotland.” (More)
Assembly’s ask | The London Assembly passed a motion asking the Mayor of London to give more cash to the Migration Museum’s £20m move to a permanent home. The Assembly’s solitary Reform member was the only vote against. (More)
Award winners | 2024’s Apollo magazine awards have seen Jeffrey Gibson named artist of the year, and Ittai Gradel — the eBay sleuth who spotted the thefts from the British Museum — named personality of the year. (More)
It’s popular | Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey and Jeff Goldblum lit up Greenwich’s Queen’s House bright green last night to celebrate the Wicked movie. They also switched on the Royal Observatory’s Meridian laser. (More)
👀 Last week’s most clicked news story | A Byzantine art exhibition at the V&A and a Hawaiʻi show at the British Museum look like highlights of 2026 based on current job vacancies
📊 Last week’s poll results | Have you left — or are you planning to leave — Twitter?
— YES — it's over 57%
— NO — I love it 10%
— Never been on it. Soz 33%
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