Private Treasures
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Private Treasures
Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.
Private Treasures provides the public the rare opportunity to view works from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries drawn entirely from an esteemed private collection. The exhibition features many drawings from the Italian school, such as Agnolo Bronzino's exceptional Study of the Dead Christ. Further highlights include a double-sided sheet of studies by Correggio for his decoration of the cupola of S. Giovanni Evangelista in Parma as well as works from the Roman High Baroque by Pietro da Cortona and Bernini and by eighteenth-century Venetian artists Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo.
French drawings from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries are also well represented. Antoine Watteau's spectacular drawing of a Man Playing a Guitar, illustrative of an artist's rapid and immediate notations, is shown alongside Vincent's Drawing Lesson, which is replete with amorous undertones and constitutes a highly finished work. A landscape by the seventeenth-century master of pastoral scenes, Claude Lorrain, was one of several drawings by French artists active in Rome. The eighteenth century was represented by artists such as Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Hubert Robert and the nineteenth century by Odilon Redon and Edgar Degas.
Among works by British artists, there are a freely drawn landscape by Thomas Gainsborough and John Constable's oil sketch of the sea-shore at Brighton. A luminous view of an Amsterdam street by the eighteenth-century artist Jacob Cats is one of several sheets from the Dutch school. The German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich is represented by an evocative moonlit landscape. The selection concludes with works by Adolf von Menzel and powerful self-portraits by Käthe Kollwitz and Lovis Corinth.
Private Treasures is on view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, May 6 through September 16, 2007.
François-André Vincent (French, 1746–1816) The Drawing Lesson, 1777, (detail) Brush and brown wash over graphite 12 13/16 x 14 13/16 inches (325 x 377 mm) Private collection
The Morgan Library & Museum is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday from 10:30 am to 5 pm, and Friday from 10:30 am to 7 pm.
225 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 (212) 685-0008
The programs of The Morgan Library & Museum are made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
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Will we ever find the Ark of the Covenant or a treasure depicted in the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Throughout history, fantastic treasures from various cultures have been stolen or mysteriously gone missing. Often their theft or disappearance happens during times of war or disaster, when they can't be protected or when a military force decides to take those treasures as a trophy. Sometimes treasures are recovered, but many are still missing.
Here, Live Science takes a look at some of these lost treasures that may never be found. Some of these treasures are now likely destroyed, but some may still exist and one day be recovered.
The Amber Room was constructed in the Catherine Palace in the 18th century in Tsarskoe Selo, near St. Petersburg. The room contained gold-gilded mosaics, mirrors and carvings, along with panels constructed out of about 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms) of amber. Tsarskoe Selo was captured by Germany in 1941 during World War II, and the room's panels and artwork were disassembled and taken to Germany. They haven't been seen since, and it's possible they are now destroyed. Today, the Catherine Palace hosts a re-creation of the Amber Room.
The pyramid of Egyptian pharaoh Menkaure is the smallest of the three pyramids constructed at Giza around 4,500 years ago. In the 1830s, English military officer Howard Vyse explored the Giza pyramids, at times using destructive techniques (his use of explosives being the most notorious) to make his way through the structures.
Vyse made a number of discoveries at Giza, including an ornate sarcophagus found in Menkaure's pyramid. Vyse tried to ship the sarcophagus to England in 1838 aboard the merchant ship Beatrice, but the ship sank during its journey and took the ornate sarcophagus down with it. If the Beatrice is ever found, it may be possible to retrieve the ancient sarcophagus.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Ark of the Covenant was a chest that held tablets engraved with the 10 Commandments . The chest was kept in a temple in Jerusalem in ancient Israel that was said to have been built by King Solomon. This temple, sometimes called the First Temple, was the most sacred site on Earth for the Jewish people, but it was destroyed in 587 B.C. when an army from ancient Babylon , led by King Nebuchadnezzar II, conquered Jerusalem and sacked the city. It's unclear what happened to the Ark of the Covenant, and its location has long been a source of speculation.
The Honjo Masamune is a sword that was supposedly created by Gorō Nyūdō Masamune, who lived from 1264 to 1343 and is considered by many to be the greatest sword maker in Japanese history. The sword is named after one of its owners, Honjo Shigenaga, who took it as a prize after a 16th-century battle. The sword later came into the possession of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who became the first shogun of Japan after winning a series of wars in the 16th century.
The sword passed down through the Tokugawa family until the end of World War II, when the sword was turned over to American authorities during the American occupation of Japan, as they were concerned that the sword, and others like it, could be used against the Americans. But the sword never reappeared. It's possible that U.S. soldiers destroyed the sword, along with other captured Japanese weapons; or they may have brought the sword to America, meaning it could be recovered.
The Library of the Moscow Tsars supposedly contained a vast collection of ancient Greek texts, as well as texts written in a variety of other languages. The rulers of the Grand Duchy of Moscow supposedly built the library by 1518, and in the 16th century prince Andrey Kurbsky wrote of a meeting between the philosopher Maximus (1475–1556) and the grand prince of Moscow Vasili III (1479-1533) in which the grand prince showed Maximus a massive number of Greek books wrote, David Arans, a scholar, in an article published in 1983 in the Journal of Library History (opens in new tab) .
There are claims that Ivan IV, better known as Ivan the Terrible, who lived from 1530 to 1584, somehow hid the library's texts. There have been many attempts over the centuries to find this "hidden library," but so far the searchers have come up empty-handed. Regardless of whether or not this hidden library existed, a number of ancient texts written in Greek and other languages are located in archives in Moscow and St. Petersburg, historian Patricia Kennedy Grimsted wrote in her book " Archives in Russia: A Directory and Bibliographic Guide to Holdings in Moscow and St. Petersburg (opens in new tab) " (Routledge, 1997).
Stolen in 1907 from Dublin Castle, the "crown jewels of Ireland" were "not connected with any coronation ceremony and included no crown. Rather, they comprised a jewelled star of the Order of St. Patrick and a diamond brooch and five gold collars of that order, all Crown property," Tomás O'Riordan, a historian and project manager at University College Cork, wrote in an article published in 2001 in History Ireland magazine (opens in new tab) . "[The] Order of St. Patrick was founded in 1783, to reward those in high office in Ireland and Irish peers — referred to as Knights' companions — on whose support the government of the day depended," O'Riordan wrote.
Britain controlled Ireland at the time these "crown jewels" were created in 1783. The jewelry was made from 394 stones taken from Queen Charlotte's jewelry and an Order of the Bath badge. Queen Charlotte was the wife of King George III. The jewels also held rupees from a Mughal emperor and possibly precious stones provided by a sultan of Turkey, O'Riordan said.
The jewels were kept in a library, and lax security was blamed for making the robbery possible. Who stole the jewels and what happened to them remain a mystery. A wide range of people have been suspected of pulling off the heist, including Francis Shackleton, brother of the famous explorer Ernest Shackleton , although nothing was ever proved.
The Greek lyric poet Sappho, who lived in the seventh century B.C., was the Shakespeare of her day. She was highly regarded by the ancient Greeks, who considered her to be one of the finest poets. Unfortunately for us, few of her poems still survive. In 2014, however, sections of two never-before-seen poems by Sappho were revealed by University of Oxford papyrologist Dirk Obbink. One poem talks about her brothers, while the other tells of unrequited love.
Their provenance is unclear. In 2021 Brill retracted (opens in new tab) an article written by Obbink that detailed its provenance and right now it is uncertain where exactly they come from.
In 1357, a ship called the São Vicente set sail from Lisbon in Portugal to Avignon in France, carrying treasures acquired by Thibaud de Castillon, the bishop of Lisbon who had recently died. The treasures included gold, silver, rings, tapestries, jewels, fine plates and even portable altars. While sailing near the town of Cartagena, in modern-day Spain, the São Vicente was attacked by two heavily armed pirate vessels, whose crew seized the treasure.
One pirate ship, commanded by a man named Antonio Botafoc (which in the languages used at the time in Iberia means "fire blast" or "fire fart") was later captured after it ran aground. However, the other pirate ship, commanded by Martin Yanes, appears to have made a clean getaway. What happened to Yanes, his pirate crew and the stolen treasure is unknown.
The "Just Judges" panel is part of the Ghent Altarpiece, a 15th-century work of art painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck in Saint Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. The panel shows a number of characters, whose identities are uncertain, on horseback. Philip the Good, who was duke of Burgundy at the time the altarpiece was created, is likely one of the characters.
The panel was stolen in 1934 and has never been found. However, despite the passage of time, new tips continue to come in, and the case file — which is now more than 2,000 pages long — is still active, Noah Charney, an art historian, wrote in an article published in The Guardian (opens in new tab) in 2013. There had been numerous other attempts to steal the Just Judges panel and other parts of the Ghent Altarpiece prior to the 1934 theft.
The yellow 137-carat Florentine Diamond was likely from India that may have made its way to Europe by the end of the 15th century. How and when it got to Europe is a matter of debate. One story is that Charles the Bold who was the Duke of Burgundy from 1467-1477, had it cut from a larger diamond and was so enamored with the Florentine Diamond that he even carried it with him into battle and was supposedly killed with it on him.
After World War I the last emperor of Austria-Hungary, Charles I, fled with it to Switzerland where he put it in a bank vault and entrusted it to an Austrian lawyer named Bruno Steiner, who was supposed to help the deposed royal family sell it and other royal jewels, wrote historian Gordon Brook-Shepherd in the book "Uncrowned Emperor: The Life and Times of Otto Von Habsburg" (Bloomsbury, 2007). It's unclear what happened next. A news report published in 1924 indicated that Steiner was arrested, charged with fraud and acquitted. It's possible that the Florentine Diamond was recut and is now a series of smaller diamonds.
In 1505, Leonardo da Vinci painted a mural depicting the 1440 victory of the Italian League (led by Florence) over Milan in the Battle of Anghiari. The mural, created in the Palazzo Vecchio (the town hall in Florence), disappeared in 1563, when the hall was remodeled by painter and architect Giorgio Vasari.
In 2012, a team of art experts announced they had discovered evidence that the mural was not destroyed and that Vasari had simply painted his own mural over da Vinci's work. The team had been doing scientific tests on the mural for years and had published a few of their studies including a radar study published (opens in new tab) in the journal NDT & E International in 2005.
However, the team's results were never confirmed, and the research was put on indefinite hold later that year. In 2020, a different team of researchers contended that da Vinci had never painted the mural to begin with, although this claim is also disputed. Ultimately, what became of the mural — and whether it even existed — is a subject of debate.
Between roughly A.D. 66 and 74, Jewish rebels fought against the Roman army in an attempt to free Israel from the Roman Empire 's control. In A.D. 70, the rebels suffered a critical blow as Jerusalem was captured by a Roman force led by Titus, a general who would later become a Roman emperor. The Second Temple, at that time the most important religious site for Jewish people, was destroyed, and the Roman army carried its treasures back to ancient Rome . Those treasures included the temple's menorah — a lamp stand with six branches.
The Arch of Titus, located close to the Colosseum in Rome, includes a scene depicting the menorah being carried to Rome; in the scene, the menorah appears as a massive object, almost as big as the soldiers carrying it. The fate of the menorah after it arrived in Rome is unclear.
Perhaps the most unusual Dead Sea Scroll discovered in the Qumran caves in the West Bank is a text engraved on a sheet of copper that discusses the location of a vast amount of hidden treasure. This Copper Scroll, as it is called, is in a museum in Jordan. Whether the ancient writer of the scroll was describing a real or legendary treasure is a source of debate among scholars. At the time the scroll was written, around A.D. 70, the Roman army was in the process of defeating Jewish groups that were rebelling against Roman rule; the Roman army had taken Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple.
Some scholars have speculated that the treasures referred to in the Copper Scroll could be real treasures that were hidden before the Roman army destroyed the temple. Other scholars have argued that the amount of treasure discussed in the Copper Scroll is so vast that it must be the stuff of legend.
On March 18, 1990, two thieves dressed as police officers broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (opens in new tab) in Boston, Massachusetts, and stole 13 works of art valued at about $500 million. They included three works by the Dutch painter Rembrandt and five works by the French artist Edgar Degas. The thieves' identity is still unknown, and the artwork has never been recovered. It's possible that the thieves who stole the works of art are now dead and the paintings are severely damaged or destroyed. Despite the high value of the art, it would be difficult to sell as it is well known, and any buyer could easily determine that it was stolen and end up facing criminal charges themselves.
In 1923, the fossils of a hominid that is sometimes called Peking Man (a form of Homo erectus ), who lived between 200,000 and 750,000 years ago, was discovered in a cave near the village of Zhoukoudian, close to Beijing (which at that time was called Peking). The fossils disappeared in 1941, during the Japanese invasion of China, andhe their location today is unknown. Some scholars have speculated that the fossils were lost at sea while being transported to the United States (in an effort to save them from the invasion); others think they may actually be located under a parking lot in China.
Q Source, as modern-day scholars call it, or sometimes Q, is a hypothetical first-century A.D. text that contains a number of sayings attributed to Jesus. If it existed, scholars believe that Q source was used by ancient writers to help craft the gospels of Matthew and Luke. The existence of Q Source is based partly on the fact that several passages in Matthew and Luke are identical.
While the Gospel of Mark is believed to be a source for both Matthew and Luke, some passages included in both Matthew and Luke are not in Mark. Some scholars believe that those passages are from another source, which they call "Q Source." ("Q" stands for "quelle," which means "source" in German.) The problem is that no copy of Q Source, if it really existed, is known to survive. Some recent scholarship suggests that the Gospel of Marcion, a second-century non-canonical text, may contain parts of this Q Source.
According to legend, near the end of the World War II, a Nazi force led by SS officer Ernst Kaltenbrunner sank a vast amount of gold into Lake Toplitz in Austria to keep it from being captured by the invading Allied forces. Since that time, numerous searches have been undertaken, but, so far, no gold has been found.
It's possible that the story is a just legend and that in reality no gold was sunk into the lake; however, some researchers have noted that the lake has poor visibility and a vast amount of logs and debris that make attempts to locate any gold both difficult and dangerous. Some divers have been killed trying to find gold in the lake's waters.
The Italian painter Raphael Sanzio, often simply called "Raphael," who lived from 1483 to 1520, painted this striking "Portrait of a Young Man." The identity of the person in the painting and the exact date when Raphael made it are both unknown. The painting was owned by the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, Poland, in September 1939 when the German army invaded Poland. Nazi officials stole the painting from the museum and intended to put it in the planned Führermuseum in Linz (the Linz Art Gallery), Austria, the Monuments Men Foundation noted on its website (opens in new tab) .
The Führermuseum was never built, and the painting was last seen in Hans Frank's chalet in Neuhaus on lake Schliersee, Germany, in January 1945. Frank was a Nazi official who was put in charge of occupied Poland, where he oversaw numerous war crimes and the murder of Poland's Jews. After World War II, he was put on trial, sentenced to death and executed, but Raphael's painting has never been found.
In 1800, Poland's Princess Izabela Czartoryska created the so-called royal casket, which was a collection of artifacts from the royal families who had ruled the country. These artifacts included jewels worn by the kings of Poland, works of art and other mementos. Poland had ceased to exist as an independent state in 1795, having been divided up among the various other powers in the region. The royal casket would eventually fall victim to another group of invaders — it was seized by Nazi Germany after it invaded Poland in September 1939. The casket's contents are now lost.
William Shakespeare is known to have written the play "Love's Labour's Won," though no copies survive today. It may be a sequel to "Love's Labour's Lost," a comedy that Shakespeare penned in the 1590s.
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