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Google: "‘I had a good cry’: New U.S. tariffs hit Canadian artists where it hurts"

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One would think it was a real place in the movie. That’s how convincing these artist are.

Terminator 2 : Building the Truck Bridge Jump Miniature Set | Full Movie Set & Filming Only $0.3 to Start 3D Printing with JLC3DP ! Get Your $123 ...

This woman is not only stunning, intelligent, but she’s also an artist.

WAARDENBURG SYNDROME - 11 years later | Stef Sanjati Hi! My name is Stef Sanjati - welcome to my home!This video is a ...

Hi Followers!

Due to the fact the orange haired buffoon sitting in the White House has placed tariffs on art, I have placed my Etsy account on hold until there is a Democrat back in there to once again fix the mess Republicans have created.

I will continue to post my usual interesting art tidbits as usual.

Thanks so much for following throughout the years. :)

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In 2019, an elderly woman in northern France was clearing out her house ahead of a move. A small painting that had hung above her kitchen hotplate for years risked being discarded during a house clearance. She believed it was a minor religious icon of little value.

A local auctioneer called in to assess her belongings, spotted its quality, and recommended professional evaluation instead. Experts authenticated the work as The Mocking of Christ by the 13th-century Florentine master Cimabue, also known as Cenni di Pepo. It was one of only 11 known paintings on wood, then attributed to the artist.

The small tempera panel on wood, created around 1280, was sold at auction in Senlis in October 2019, for approximately €24.2 million including fees, about $26.6 million at the time.

The French government declared it a national treasure, blocking its export for 30 months; the Louvre Museum later acquired it in 2023.

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Magpie Pair by Robert Bateman.

Not sure if this is true. But...

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The discovery happened last week at the historic Caldwell Mansion. Workers were performing the kind of meticulous restoration that century-old architectural treasures require. The massive marble fireplace in the grand library needed to be carefully dismantled, cleaned, repaired, and reinstalled. It was delicate work on an irreplaceable structure.
But as they examined the chimney from multiple angles, the measurements did not add up. The structure extended further into the wall than it should have. Space existed behind the visible masonry that blueprints did not account for.
Behind the fireplace, concealed within the chimney structure itself, they found a hidden mechanism. When activated, it opened a reinforced steel door that no one had passed through in nearly ninety years.
Beyond the door lay a secret two-story underground art gallery.
The 1,800-square-foot subterranean space featured museum-quality lighting that had been cutting-edge technology in the 1920s. Velvet-lined walls created an atmosphere of luxury and reverence for the works they held. Climate control systems, primitive by modern standards but remarkably effective, had maintained stable temperature and humidity for decades without human intervention.
And hanging on those walls, resting on pedestals, stored in custom-built racks, were over 200 rare paintings and sculptures.
Works by Picasso. Works by Monet. Western scenes by Re*****on. Pieces by important American artists whose works had been documented in catalogs but never seen by living scholars because they were presumed destroyed or lost to private collections that had dispersed without records.
Shelves held detailed catalogs documenting every acquisition. Provenance documents traced ownership histories that art historians had spent careers trying to reconstruct. And most remarkably, the private journals of industrialist and art collector Harlan Caldwell explained everything.
Caldwell had secretly constructed the vault in 1928. His motivations were practical rather than romantic. He feared theft, knowing that his collection's value made it a target for sophisticated criminals. He worried about potential government seizure, aware that political instability could threaten private property rights. And as the 1920s gave way to economic catastrophe, he had additional reasons to hide assets from view.
The Great Depression destroyed fortunes across America. Men who had been wealthy found themselves bankrupt, their assets seized by creditors, their collections sold at auction for fractions of their true value. Caldwell watched colleagues and competitors lose everything.
In 1934, facing financial ruin himself, he made a decision. Rather than surrender his collection to satisfy debts, rather than watch masterpieces dispersed to buyers who would never appreciate them as he had, he sealed the gallery.
The steel door closed. The mechanism was hidden. The fireplace concealed all evidence that the space existed.
Caldwell died in 1937 without reopening the vault. Whether he intended to return someday, whether he simply could not bear to part with the collection even in death, whether he planned to tell someone and never found the right moment, his journals do not reveal. The secret died with him.
For nearly ninety years, the gallery waited in darkness beneath a Chicago mansion. Ownership changed hands multiple times. Families lived above it without knowing it existed. The fireplace that concealed its entrance was admired by generations of visitors who never suspected what lay behind the marble.
The stable temperature, low light, and sophisticated ventilation system had preserved everything in extraordinary condition. Canvases that might have cracked or faded remained vibrant. Frames that might have warped held true. Paper records that might have yellowed or crumbled stayed legible.
Several paintings are now considered lost masterpieces whose reappearance will significantly impact art history. Works that scholars knew from photographs, from catalog descriptions, from mentions in letters between artists and collectors, now exist again as physical objects that can be studied and exhibited.
Art experts from major institutions have been brought in to authenticate the collection. Each piece must be verified, its provenance confirmed, its condition assessed. The work will take years.
The current owners have paused all restoration work in the library. Conservators from the Art Institute of Chicago are documenting every detail of the gallery itself, a time capsule of 1920s museum design as significant as the art it contains.
Plans are being discussed to restore the gallery and eventually allow limited public access as part of the mansion's historical experience. The secret that Harlan Caldwell kept for the last three years of his life may become a destination for art lovers from around the world.
What was intended as routine fireplace restoration has uncovered one of the most significant private art collections ever found in the United States.
A hidden treasure vault. Perfectly preserved. Waiting beneath a Chicago mansion for nearly ninety years.
Harlan Caldwell built it to protect what he loved from a world he could not control. He never imagined that his protection would outlast him by generations.