埃及王后Meresankh III陵墓 免費網上導賞 埃及政府因應疫情，決定免費開放該國4個埃及歷史名勝的網上導賞，而擁有5,000年歷史的埃及王后Meresankh III陵墓，就是其中之一。 哈佛大學考古學家萊斯納（George Andrew Reisner）於1927年發現這個金字塔。萊斯納曾對這座金字塔內繪上畫像的完整程度感到震驚，他更於《美術博物館簡報》上形容從未見過類似的情況。 墓主為埃及第四王朝法老Khafra的妻子Meresankh III。 <免費網上導賞> https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=d42fuVA21To (The Guardian April 15 2020)

Early van Gogh Painting Stolen From Dutch Museum “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring” was the only thing missing after a heist near Amsterdam. Whoever was behind the theft made the move on the artist’s birthday, knowingly or not. BERLIN — A Vincent van Gogh painting was stolen overnight from a small museum in Laren in the Netherlands, just 20 miles southeast of Amsterdam, on what would have been the artist’s 167th birthday. “I feel enormous anger and sadness,” Jan Rudolph de Lorm, the museum’s director, said in a telephone interview. “Because especially in these dark days that we are in, I feel so strongly that art is here to comfort us, to inspire us and to heal us.” The painting was on loan from the Gröninger Museum for a special exhibition, “Mirror of the Soul,” which was to run from January to May. “It’s an early picture, before Arles and before Paris, so it is darker and less recognizable as a van Gogh,” said Andreas Blühm, the director of the Gröninger. Because of the coronavirus outbreak, museums in the Netherlands closed on March 13, and the Singer Laren had announced that it would be closed until at least June 1. “It was a very successful exhibition, attracting over 5,000 visitors a week; that is a lot of us,” Mr. de Lorm said. The picture was painted in 1884 when van Gogh, then 30, moved back in with his parents, who, according to Mr. Blühm, were unconvinced of his career as an artist. “It is one of our main works of art,” Mr. Blühm said, noting he hoped it would be found. “But every piece of art that is stolen from a public museum is art that is stolen from society.” A couple of van Gogh paintings that were stolen from a museum in Amsterdam 18 years ago resurfaced four years ago. Asked whether the artist’s birthday figured in the heist, Mr. de Lorm said the thieves probably did not know. “It’s just strange coincidence, synchronicity — that sometimes happens in life,” he said. (The New York Times 2020/3/30)