The Headlines
SUSPECTED LOUVRE THIEVES ARRESTED. Two suspects have been detained in connection with the theft of jewels, including pieces once belonging to Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie, from the Louvre on October 19. French prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement on Sunday that authorities made the arrests on Saturday evening. One man was reportedly arrested while preparing to board a flight to Algeria at Charles de Gaulle Airport. He was apprehended around 10 p.m. local time, according to the French newspaper Le Parisien . Both suspects are in their 30s and from the Seine-Saint-Denis area of Paris, authorities said. On Friday, investigators said they were focusing on a newly surfaced video allegedly showing two thieves, one clad in a yellow vest and another in all black, escaping the Louvre with $102 million worth of Napoleonic jewelry using a furniture lift. Nine artifacts were taken from the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery. Eight remain missing; the ninth, a crown, was dropped in haste.
A SURREAL NIGHT FOR SOTHEBY’S. Sotheby’s tapped into the energy of Art Basel Paris on Friday, recorded the highest-ever totals in France for Surrealist and modern art auctions, ARTnews reported. The house’s “Surrealism and Its Legacy” and “Modernitês” sales took a combined €89.7 million ($104 million), marking a 50 percent increase from the same double-header auction series last year. Amedeo Modigliani’s Elvire en buste (1918–19) led the way, soaring past its €7.5 million ($8.7 million) high estimate and selling for €27 million ($31.3 million). That makes it the most expensive Modigliani work sold in France—and the most valuable piece of any kind sold by Sotheby’s Paris. Seven bidders chased the painting, which had not been seen since publicly since it entered a private collection in 1947. The Surrealist part of the sale generated €26.9 million ($31.2 million), the second-highest total ever for a Surrealist auction at Sotheby’s in France.
The Digest
London-based satirical artist WOTW (Wankers of the World) pulled off a shock win at the 2025Cass Art Prize, which comes with £10,000. The provocative artist has addressed the culture war and increasingly divisive politics. [Cass Art Prize]
Archaeologists from the Szent István Király Museum have unearthed an Avar warrior’s tomb near the border of Aba and Székesfehérvár in Hungary. According to experts, the tomb dates to between 670 and 690 CE, during the Middle Avar period. [Heritage Daily]
Take a look back at 25 years of Gilbert & George following the duo’s show at the Hayward Gallery show in London. [Hyperallergic]
Artnet News spoke to a museum director and a cultural strategist—the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s Thomas P. Campbell and András Szántó, respectively—about how museums can benefit from the AI revolution. [Artnet News]
The Kicker
A NEW INSTITUTION RISES.The Guardian reports on how the Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey has survived a scandal to “deliver a mazy ambush.” It is the first major museum project designed by architect David Adjaye to open since 2023, when three women accused him of sexual assault and harassment. “Adjaye has denied the allegations and no charges were brought against him, but the scandal saw his meteoric rise swiftly turn into a dramatic fall from grace,” the paper reports. “Numerous projects around the world were cancelled. But Princeton pressed on.” With Adjaye having stepped back, others at his firm—including Marc McQuade, former associate principal at Adjaye; Erin Flynn , partner at Cooper Robertson; and Ron McCoy, Princeton’s in-house architect—took a more active role.
