NEW YORK (AFP) – New York’s famed Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday strongly condemned the “catastrophic” destruction of ancient artifacts by extremists in Iraq’s second city of Mosul.

Upon learning of the destruction of artifacts at the Mosul Museum by Islamic State jihadists, Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, condemned the act as “wanton brutality.”

Campbell said in a statement: “Speaking with great sadness on behalf of the Metropolitan, a museum whose collection proudly protects and displays the arts of ancient and Islamic Mesopotamia, we strongly condemn this act of catastrophic destruction to one of the most important museums in the Middle East. The Mosul Museum’s collection covers the entire range of civilization in the region, with outstanding sculptures from royal cities such as Nimrud, Nineveh, and Hatra in northern Iraq. This mindless attack on great art, on history, and on human understanding constitutes a tragic assault not only on the Mosul Museum, but on our universal commitment to use art to unite people and promote human understanding. Such wanton brutality must stop, before all vestiges of the ancient world are obliterated.”

Militants from the Islamic State group knocked statues off their plinths and smashed them to pieces with sledgehammers at a museum in Mosul, all shown on a video released by fighters.

In another scene, a jackhammer is used to deface a large Assyrian winged bull at an archeological site in the city which the Sunni extremist group captured last summer.

Experts say the items include many pieces from the Assyrian and Parthian eras dating back several centuries B.C.

LONDON – A rarely seen portrait of the Duke of Wellington goes on view at the National Portrait Gallery as part of its exhibition “Wellington: Triumphs, Politics and Passions,” opening March 12. The portrait has never been publicly displayed in the United Kingdom.

Painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence toward the end of the artist’s life, the portrait will be displayed alongside famous paintings of the Iron Duke, including those by Goya and Hoppner, in the first exhibition devoted to Wellington’s life (1769 –1852). Prior to its loan to the gallery from a private collection last year, the portrait, which is in excellent condition, had not been shown in public for any significant period of public display since it was painted.

The large oil-on-canvas portrait was commissioned a year after Wellington had become Tory Prime Minister by Sarah, Countess of Jersey, a leading political hostess and supporter of the Tories in the 1820s. At Lawrence’s death in 1830 the portrait remained unfinished. But unlike many other clients, Lady Jersey refused to have it finished by a studio assistant.

On hearing that the Duke of Wellington had fallen from power in 1830, Lady Jersey burst into tears in public. She reportedly “moved heaven and earth” against the Reform Act 1832 which Wellington had also opposed.

“While it is unfinished, the artist has captured in Wellington’s face a feeling of sensitivity appropriate in a portrait made for one of Wellington’s most devoted friends,” said Paul Cox, associate curator, National Portrait Gallery.

Painted in 1829, the year Wellington was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and in which he fought a duel with Lord Winchilsea over the issue of Catholic emancipation, the portrait shows him in civilian dress with only his black collar and white stock visible. It was commissioned at the height of Wellington’s political career, while he was prime minister.

The painting will be seen in the exhibition alongside Goya’s portrait of Wellington started in 1812 after his entry into Madrid and later modified twice to recognize further battle honors and awards.

Taking place to mark the bicentenary year of the Battle of Waterloo, “Wellington: Triumphs, Politics and Passions” (March 12 – June 7) will explore not only the political and military career of the victor of this great battle, but also his personal life through portraits of his family and friends. Drawn from museums and private collections including that of the present Duke of Wellington, the exhibition of 59 portraits and other art works includes rarely seen loans from the family including a portrait by John Hoppner of the Duke as a youthful soldier and a daguerreotype portrait by Antoine Claudet, in the new medium of photography, taken on Wellington’s 75th birthday in 1844.

As well as tracing his professional and private life, the exhibition considers the attempts of the art world to celebrate the Duke of Wellington’s military successes. Commemorative objects on display will range from royal commissions by Europe’s foremost artists and manufacturers to more modest souvenirs aimed at the domestic market. Wellington’s eventful and often difficult political career will be illustrated by examples of the many satirical prints published in the 1820s and 1830s and the exhibition will also examine the reappraisal of Wellington’s life that took place at his death and on the occasion of his lavish state funeral.

Curated by Paul Cox, associate curator, National Portrait Gallery, with close support from Lucy Peltz, curator of 18th-century portraits, National Portrait Gallery, this biographical exhibition will use portraits and objects to explore Wellington’s military career and his sometimes controversial political and personal life.

BREWSTER, Mass. (AP) – One of the earliest and best-known photographs of Helen Keller with her teacher, Anne Sullivan, has found a permanent home at the Brewster Historical Society Museum.

Taken in 1888 in Brewster by Cornelius Chenery, it shows 8-year-old Keller with her devoted teacher when the two of them were on vacation at the Freeman-Hopkins House at 1491 Main St.

The photograph received international attention when another donor, the late Thaxter Spencer, of Waltham, gave a print of it to the New England Historic Genealogical Society in 2008. At the time, it was regaled as an amazing discovery – thought to be the earliest photo of pupil and teacher together and the only one that included a doll, said Sally Gunning, of the historical society. Sullivan’s gift of a doll when she first came to teach deaf, blind, and mute Helen, then 6, at her Alabama home inspired Keller to spell her first word D-O-L-L in her teacher’s hand.

Reading about the donation in 2008 in her local newspaper, Alys Walker, of New Hampshire and formerly of Whitman, recognized the image as one taken by her great-great-Uncle Cornelius. She and her mother had kept this photograph with her uncle’s other belongings.

Walker said she took it out when her Whitman Middle School teacher colleagues did units on Helen Keller. Walker never realized the photo had any real significance until the matching print received all that attention.

Walker’s print, she quickly realized, was probably even more significant because it included a little note written in neat, blocky print by Keller’s own hand, Walker said in a phone interview.

“With much love, Helen A. Keller,” it stated.

Also, her uncle had kept a precious note from Helen, which she wrote to him in 1889. She wrote to tell him she could not sit for another portrait because, at age 9, she was helping her school, the Perkins School for the Blind, organize a tea fundraiser for the kindergarten.

“Teacher asks me to write you that she fears she cannot give you another sitting at present,” Keller begins.

It ends with, “With much love from your Little Friend Helen Keller.”

Walker donated the letter and photo to the museum on Jan. 20.

“We felt it was taken in Brewster so it should stay in Brewster,” Walker said.

Appraiser estimated the photograph to be worth $10,000 in 2014, and the letter $2,000, Walker said.

It’s hard to call a photograph original, since the only original is the negative, said Leah Kingman, who specializes in European antiques and photography at Eldred’s Auctioneers and Appraisers in East Dennis.

Chenery had his negatives destroyed upon his death, Walker said. Many photographers marred or marked their negatives so they could not be reproduced without their knowledge, Kingman said.

The genealogical society, however, acknowledged that Walker’s gift to the Brewster museum is as close to an original as you can get for a print.

“I’m so glad that it found a home,” said Judy Lucey, an archivist for the New England Historic Genealogical Society. “Brewster is the appropriate place for it.”

At the age of 8, when the photo was taken, Keller had been with Sullivan for just over a year. Sullivan, an orphaned and impoverished woman whose intelligence led her to give the valedictory address when she graduated from Perkins School for the Blind, had been sent after graduation to teach Keller in Alabama.

There she was able to transform an unruly and frustrated Keller into a young celebrity by teaching her to communicate. Keller would go on to be the first deaf and blind person to graduate from college, Radcliffe, with her teacher by her side.

Keller co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, according to the Perkins School website. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Keller the Presidential Medal of Freedom, according to Perkins.

Keller summered in Brewster with her teacher at the home of Sophia Hopkins, a sea captain’s widow and a housemother at the Perkins School for the Blind. Hopkins and Sullivan were friends.

The Brewster Historical Society members have not decided how to display the photograph and letter, said Thomas Slezak, manager of the museum. The museum will be moving to the Elijah Cobb House at 739 Lower Road in 2016, he added.

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