Uffizi aims to slash tourist crowds, stop ticket scalpers

Night view of the 16th-century Galleria degli Uffizi in the historic center of Florence, Italy. May 25, 2006 photo by Chris Wee, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Night view of the 16th-century Galleria degli Uffizi in the historic center of Florence, Italy. May 25, 2006 photo by Chris Wee, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Night view of the 16th-century Galleria degli Uffizi in the historic center of Florence, Italy. May 25, 2006 photo by Chris Wee, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

ROME (AP) – The Uffizi Galleries have turned to algorithm experts in hopes of slashing crowds bunching up in front of the likes of masterpieces by Leonardo and Botticelli and drastically reducing the lines that form outside Italy’s most-visited art museum.

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Spanish museum, California litigant in court over disputed Nazi art

Camille Pissarro (French, 1830-1903), Rue Saint-HonorƩ in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain, 1897. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum Collection

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Seventy-nine years ago, a Jewish woman named Lilly Cassirer surrendered her family’s priceless Camille Pissarro painting to the Nazis in exchange for safe passage out of Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.

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Getty museum says it has right to keep prized Greek statue

Victorious Youth, bronze, attrib. to Lysippos, 340-100 BC. The J. Paul Getty Museum Collection. Image: Wikimedia Commons

ROME (AP) – The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has vowed to assert its right to keep an important Greek statue after Italy’s highest court rejected its appeal of a ruling ordering the artwork returned to Italy.

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Quittenbaum auction honors European schools of design Dec. 11

Gio Ponti, dresser made by Cassina, Milan, for the Parco dei Principi Hotel in Sorrento, Italy, circa 1964. Estimate: ā‚¬30,000-ā‚¬40,000. Quittenbaum image

MUNICH ā€“ Quittenbaum Kunstauktionen, one of the leading international auction houses for applied arts of the 20th century, will offer 162 top-class objects that show exemplarily avant-garde tendencies and styles of the most important European design centers on Dec. 11. Absentee and Internet live bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.

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Heritage Auctions embraces Rodin in European art sale Dec. 7Ā 

Auguste Rodin (French, 1840-1917), ā€˜Ć‰ternel printemps,ā€™ bronze with brown-black patina,
25 7/8 x 33Ā¼ x 15Ā¾ inches. Estimate: $400,000-$600,000. Heritage Auctions image

DALLAS ā€“ Leading Heritage Auctionsā€™ Fine European Art Auction on Friday, Dec. 7, is Auguste Rodinā€™s monumental ƉternelĀ printempsĀ (est. $400,000-$600,000). Depicting two lovers in a passionate embrace, this magnificent bronze is a star within a constellation of masterworks from the likes of William Adolphe Bouguereau, Gerald Brockhurst and Louis Valtat. Absentee and Internet live bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.

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