News and updates from around the arts and auction community:
- Thieves broke into Berlin’s Bode Museum before dawn on Monday and made off with a massive 100-kilogram (221-pound) gold coin, police said. The coin has a face value of 1 million Canadian dollars ($750,000), but by weight alone, its market value could be almost $4.5 million. [Read more from Associated Press]
- A portrait of George Michael painted by Damien Hirst as a tribute to the late British pop singer has sold for nearly $600,000 at a charity auction. Proceeds will benefit HIV and AIDS-prevention and awareness programs. [Read more from The Irish Times]
- British monks have been enjoying international cuisine for longer than once thought. A 1793 recipe book discovered in the archives of a Benedictine monastery has revealed that priests of that order were dining on such spicy delicacies as Indian curry well over 200 years ago. [Read more from The Mirror]
- Cy Twombly’s Leda and the Swan (1962), which has not been seen publicly for more than 25 years, will be auctioned on May 17 in New York. It’s the sister painting of a work of the same title that’s held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. [Read more from Christie’s]
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