The Chronicle of Higher Education
News Blog
In the Comments

"Many, many years ago one of my English TA officemates noticed that a student wrote 'writhing' instead of 'writing.' We spent the rest of the afternoon inserting 'writhing' into textbook titles ('Writhing with a Purpose') and other phrases like 'technical writhing.' My favorite: 'writhing across the curriculum.'” --peg

Herding the 'Escape Goats': Contest Sends Up Epidemic of Student Howlers

Recent Posts

Judge Overturns Florida's Ban on Academic Travel to Cuba

U. of Central Arkansas President Resigns Amid Furor Over Secret Bonus

Herding the 'Escape Goats': Contest Sends Up Epidemic of Student Howlers

University in India Takes Steps to Set Up Shop in the United States

Iraqi University President Is Accused of Ties to Al Qaeda


Most Commented This Month

New Mexico State U. Threatens to Revoke Fired Professors' Degrees | 69

Drinking-Age Campaign Binges on Big Names, Big Media | 68

Obama Labeled 'Elite' as He Continues to Collect From Professors | 68

Herding the 'Escape Goats': Contest Sends Up Epidemic of Student Howlers | 54

Professor Who Flew to Deliver Guest Lecture Bills Stanford for Carbon Offset of Travel | 54

By Category

Athletics
Community Colleges
Government & Politics
Information Technology
International
Money & Management
Northern Illinois
Research & Books
Short Subjects
Students
The Faculty

Blog Archives

Search

Keep Up to Date

Daily news blog: RSS  / Atom

Daily news reported by The Chronicle: RSS

Contact us

July 5, 2006

Art Historian Says Museum Paid $50-Million for a Fake Duccio

An art historian at Columbia University says the Metropolitan Museum of Art paid $50-million last year for a 19th-century painting that only appears to be the work of the early Italian master known as Duccio. According to The Times of London, the Columbia professor, James Beck, says the painting, which depicts the Madonna and Child, does not resemble any of the handful of known works by Duccio, a 14th-century painter who is regarded as one of the founders of Renaissance art.

Mr. Beck, who will publish his analysis of the small painting in a new book in September, is no stranger to art-historical controversy. In the early 1990s he focused a withering attack on the Italian authorities who oversaw the cleaning of Michelangelo’s landmark frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, a project that removed nearly 500 years of accumulated grime and showed the paintings to be remarkably more colorful than had ever been imagined. Mr. Beck said the curators had overcleaned the frescoes, and had in fact removed some of Michelangelo’s own pigments (The Chronicle, March 4, 1992). In a later book, he said the Sistine cleaning and other similar projects had resulted in a “massive recasting of Western civilization’s sacred texts” (The Chronicle, March 16, 1994).

Posted on Wednesday July 5, 2006 | Permalink |