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The Headlines
IRANIAN LANDMARKS HIT. More news of damage to historical sites in Iran is coming through as the war drags on in the region, reports The Art Newspaper. Following the UNESCO-listed Chehel Sotoun in Isfahan and the Golestan Palace in Tehran, other landmarks have been hit by American-Israeli airstrikes. They include sites in Isfahan’s historic center, notably its 17th-century Naqsh-e-Jahan Square and the Dawlatkhaneh complex. According to local reports, damaged buildings include the Ali Qapu Palace and the Jame Abbasi Mosque, the Rakeb-Khaneh pavilion originally for royal stables, the Ashraf Hall, and the 15th-century Teymouri Hall that was converted into the Natural History Museum. Isfahan was home to the Safavid dynasty (1501-1736), and it holds some of Iran’s most prized cultural monuments, as well as densely populated areas. Meanwhile, a Friday strike on the ancient city of Tyre in Lebanon damaged the perimeter of a UNESCO-listed Al-Bass archaeological site, according to the Lebanese government.
LIBRARY OF BRIBERY? Democratic leaders are probing what happened to the roughly $63 million President Donald Trump was paid in settlements by private companies toward his planned, Miami-based library, after the fund for it was administratively dissolved last year, reports the Washington Post. Presidents traditionally establish privately funded, post-presidential libraries that house their archives and serve as museums. Senators Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), and Rep. Melanie Stansbury (New Mexico) shared with the Post their letter to the leaders of ABC, Meta, Paramount, and X, asking for information about their agreements to make settlement payments to Trump’s library and the status of those funds. “Now it is unclear where this money has gone, exacerbating concerns about corruption that were apparent at the time of the settlement,” wrote the lawmakers.
The Digest
Critics are decrying plans to charge a general entrance fee to the Cologne Cathedral to help balance the monument’s income shortfall. [The Guardian]
Italy has spent 30 million euros to acquire a rare Caravaggio painting depicting the nobleman Maffeo Barberini, before he became Pope Urban VIII in 1623. [AFP]
Anonymous, guerrilla artists have installed another statue of President Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein in Washington D.C., this time gilded in gold, and locked in the iconic Titanic-esque embrace. [ARTnews]
In a long interview ahead of the April 25 opening of the exhibit “The Only Ture Protest Is Beauty” at his new, eponymous foundation focused on the art of craft, designer Dries Van Noten discusses the new venture and his busy life after retiring as his brand’s creative director. [Cultured Magazine]
Emerson Bowyer will become the new chief curator of the Kimbell art Museum in Fort Worth, and will begin his new role on March 5. [Artforum]
The Kicker
PUNJAB PRINCESSES WHO PACKED A PUNCH. An exhibition at Kensington Palace tells the remarkable story of Indian princesses who helped save Jews during the Holocaust. They were also ardent suffragettes and supporters of the South Asian gay community, reports the Times. The show titled “The Last Princesses of Punjab,” opening March 26, recounts the lives of the princesses Sophia Duleep Singh, Bamba Sutherland, and Catherine Duleep Singh, who lived in exile in Britain, and whose family had ruled the Sikh Empire. In just one example of their bravery, Catherine sponsored the escape from Germany of Ursula Hornstein’s Jewish family when the latter was a young girl. “It’s an incredible testament to someone being kind and generous,” said Hornstein’s youngest son, Michael Bowles.
