One of the things I love about being a translator — and all the translators I know feel this way, too — is that I am always learning about new things. I recently translated a special issue of the magazine Beaux Arts on the 50th anniversary of the Historical Monuments Research Laboratory in France. It’s…
I recently discovered on Nicholas O’Donnell’s Art Law Report blog that a new collection of essays has just been published by L’Harmattan in Paris on “Perspectives on Ethics and Cultural Heritage” (Ethique et Patrimoine Culturel: Regards Croisés). These are the proceedings of a conference held on October 20 and 21, 2015, at L’Ecole du Louvre…
In the New York Times yesterday, economist Robert H. Frank attempts to apply a cost-benefit analysis to one of the most iconic works in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts, The Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He thinks it would be great idea to sell it. But this approach is wrong —…
Some good news for cultural preservationists and the archaeology community: a rare Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton that was illegally excavated from Mongolia, reassembled, and then auctioned off for $1.05 million at Heritage Auctions in New York City has been returned to Mongolia by U.S. officials. “We’re working with our foreign counterparts to protect heritage just as…
This is my first blog post, and it happens to fall the day after the ten-year anniversary of the U.S. war with Iraq. The anniversary has mostly passed unnoticed in Washington, according to the New York Times, and I don’t think there’s been a lot of attention in the media, either (perhaps unsurprisingly since the…