A portrait of a younger Mona Lisa, which its owners claim was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci before his more famous version, has gone on display. The painting is being exhibited in public for the first time in Singapore.

Its owners say expert tests and analysis confirm Da Vinci painted it 10 years before the better-known version. But its authenticity is disputed. Da Vinci expert Martin Kemp said it was "just another copy of the Mona Lisa, an unfinished one, and no more than that."

The architecture school run by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation will try to raise $2 million before the end of 2015 to ensure its future as an independent organization, the foundation announced on Monday, having approved a possible path toward the school’s incorporation.

The school is at risk of losing accreditation in 2017 since the Higher Learning Commission, a Chicago-based nonprofit that accredits universities and colleges, made a recent policy change requiring that “accredited institutions must be separately incorporated from sponsoring organizations.”

A brazen art crime has been uncovered in Uzbekistan. As the "Guardian" initially reported, several employees from the Uzbek State Art Museum have been found guilty of systematically selling original artworks and replacing them with fakes over a 15 year period.

Mifayz Usmanov, the chief curator of the central Asian country's premier art museum, was sentenced to nine years behind bars for his involvement in the daylight robbery. Two restorers were sentenced to eight years each.

The Smithsonian’s museums of Asian art in Washington, DC, are due to release their entire collections online on January 1, 2015. More than 40,000 works, from ancient Chinese jades to 13th-century Syrian metalwork and 19th-century Korans, will be accessible through high-resolution images without copyright restrictions for non-commercial use. The vast majority—nearly 35,000 objects—have never been seen by the public.

The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery are the first Smithsonian museums and the only Asian art museums to complete the labor-intensive process of digitizing and releasing their entire collections online.

Recent additions of artwork representing medieval Europe, the Ancient Americas, 20th-century photography, and contemporary art further enhance the Cleveland Museum of Art’s permanent collection. World-renowned for its quality and breadth, the collection represents almost 45,000 objects and 6,000 years of achievement in the arts.

The latest acquisitions include a Virgin and Child, a rare 13th-century wooden sculpture from the Mosan region of Europe; a Standing Female Figure, a clay figure representative of the Classic Veracruz period on Mexico’s Gulf Coast; and Just the two of us, one of contemporary artist Julia Wachtel’s first paintings to employ cartoons. The museum also announced the addition of eight photographs by Ansel Adams, a gift from Frances P. Taft, a longtime museum supporter and trustee.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has appointed Stephane Aquin from the Montreal Museum of Fine Art as its new chief curator.

Museum director Melissa Chiu announced the appointment Tuesday. Aquin is the second major hire for Chiu, who became director in September. She previously hired Gianni Jetzer as Curator-at-Large.

Aquin will lead a staff of six curators responsible for planning the exhibitions at the Smithsonian museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Aquin succeeds Kerry Brougher, who  served as the museum’s interim director before leaving in May to become director of the new Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum in Los Angeles.

"The Four Times of Day" (circa 1850) by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot  has been purchased for the nation with the help of a grant from the Art Fund. The four panels have a long association with the UK. Representing Morning, Noon, Evening and Night, they were acquired by artist Frederic Lord Leighton in 1865 and were among the earliest Corot works to be acquired by a British collector. Lord Leighton displayed them as the focal point of his London home, where they provided inspiration for his fellow Victorian artists. After his death, the paintings spent more than a century in the same family collection and have been on loan to the National Gallery since 1997. The pictures were acquired for Lord Wantage at Christie’s in 1896 and their sale to the nation was negotiated by Christie’s.

Corot painted the four large panels, which trace the deepening light of the sky from sunrise to star-studded night, to decorate the Fontainebleau studio of his friend and fellow painter Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps.

Sotheby’s New York will host two highly-anticipated design auctions this week. “The Jon Stryker Collection: Masterworks of European Modernism,” will take place on Tuesday, December 16, followed by the “Important 20th Century Design” sale on Wednesday, December 17.

“Masterworks of European Modernism” will feature works from the collection of Jon Stryker -- an American architect, philanthropist, and activist. In 2002, Stryker teamed up with Peter Shelton and Lee Mindel of the New York-based architecture and interior design firm Shelton, Mindel & Associates to renovate his former apartment at the “Prasada,” a Beaux-Arts luxury apartment building overlooking Central Park in Manhattan. With help from Shelton and Mindel, Stryker created a stylish and modern space within the historic building to showcase his collection of European and Scandinavian twentieth-century design and photography.

A long-lost painting by the Spanish Baroque artist Sebastián de Llanos Valdés, which was missing for over 70 years, has been discovered in the UK, after an unidentified individual tried to consign "Penitent Maria Magdalena" to Christie's, according to a DPA report. However, the Staatliche Museum Schwerin, which owns the painting, had previously entered the artwork into Germany's centralized "Lost Art" database for stolen artworks. Since the attempted sale the museum and auction house were able to negotiate the work's return; with the individual who found and consigned the Valdés reportedly being offered a reward by way of compensation.

The artist was born in Seville, and was a pupil of Francisco Herrera the Elder, he worked chiefly for private patrons. In 1660, the artist actively supported Bartolomé Esteban Murillo in founding the Academia de Bellas Artes (Academy of Art), afterwards making frequent donations of oil and other materials for the students' use.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam acquired a 17th-century sculpture by Adriaen de Vries at Christie's New York last week for a record $27.9 million against an estimate of $15—25 million. The recently rediscovered bronze—a Bacchic figure supporting a globe—is said to be one of the artist's best works and represents one of the first De Vries statue in a Dutch art collection, according to a statement from the museum.

Adriean de Vries “is the Dutch Michelangelo and his works are equally rare," said Rijksmuseum general director Wim Pijbes. “Therefore it is absolutely great that we have been able to buy this fabulous sculpture for the Netherlands."

Glassmaking originated around 2500 B.C. in Mesopotamia, and by the mid-first millennium B.C. it had spread throughout the ancient world. The number of vessels made from glass remained limited, however, until the introduction of two important technical advances—the use of the blowpipe and closed multipart molds—in the late first century B.C. and the early first century A.D., respectively. These advances revolutionized the glass industry under the Roman Empire, making glass vessels accessible to all and allowing producers to create a wide range of shapes, sizes, and usages. Some of the earliest vessels made by mold blowing bear the names of the craftsmen who “signed” the molds.

In the early first century A.D. the most outstanding examples of Roman mold-blown glass were made by a craftsman called Ennion, and products of his workshop are the focus of the exhibition "Ennion: Master of Roman Glass," at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is the first exhibition of ancient glass organized by the Metropolitan, which has one of the finest collections of this material in the world.

The High Museum of Art has announced the final installment in its series of “American Encounters” exhibition collaborations with the Louvre, Arkansas’ Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Chicago and Paris-based Terra Foundation for American Art.

“The Simple Pleasures of Still Life, ” the fourth exhibit in the four-year project, will run at the High from Sept. 26, 2015 to Jan. 31, 2016. The intimate show will focus on how late 18th- and early 19th-century American artists adapted European still-life tradition to the taste, character and experience of their younger country.

With a squirming baby and a bowl of fruit, a mother and her family look as if they could be having a picnic under threatening skies.

But look deeper. The mother is Mary and she's handing Jesus a piece of fruit, an echo of Eve handing Adam an apple. Her far-off gaze conveys sadness at knowing what the future holds. The friend is Mary Magdalene, the poster girl for sin, casting her eyes down in penitence.  

The fifth and latest installment of the Portland Art Museum's Masterworks series brings El Greco's "Holy Family With Saint Mary Magdalen" to Portland through April 5.

The Clark Art Institute recently received the gift of a significant, rare commissioned portrait by Winslow Homer.

"Charles Prentice Howland" (1878), an oil painting that has never been publicly exhibited, was donated to the Clark by the sitter's granddaughter, Susan Montgomery Howell. The painting, which had remained with the family since 1878, is on view at the Clark.

"We are grateful to Susan Montgomery Howell and her family for giving the Clark this important, little-known painting, which will now be enjoyed by the public. I have long known Charles Prentice Howland's namesake, C.P. Howland, so it is a true delight that this wonderful connection has brought us together," said Clark Director Michael Conforti.

After seven years of offering free general admission, the Indianapolis Museum of Art will go back to charging a fee this spring.

Starting in April, tickets will be $18 for adults and $10 for children ages 6 to 17, the museum announced Friday.

The IMA dropped its $7 admission fee in 2007 but said it will return to charging a fee in order to maintain long-term financial stability.

An Italian pensioner who unknowingly bought a stolen Gauguin for a pittance has been allowed to keep it after it was valued at $50 million.

The man, who has requested anonymity out of fear the painting could attract thieves, acquired the work along with another piece at an art sale in Turin in 1975.

The auctioneers told him they were worthless "rubbish," but they were in fact an 1889 Gauguin entitled "Fruits on a Table" or "Still Life with a Small Dog," and a work by Pierre Bonnard entitled "Woman with Two Armchairs," now thought to be worth $850,000.

The descendants of the goldfish glinting in the shady water, in a painting going on view at Sotheby’s auctioneers, are still swimming in the same pond today. The pond was dug by Winston Churchill at his beloved home, Chartwell in Kent, and the original fish were a present from Harrods.

His painting of the scene is one of the star items in an auction of personal possessions left by his last surviving child, Lady Mary Soames, who died last June aged 91.

together with furniture, jewelery, photographs, books – many signed by the authors – and silverware including the dishes which his budgie Toby was trained to march up and down the dinner table and serve salt from, is on public display at Sotheby’s in Bond Street from now until the auction next Wednesday, December 17.

On Wednesday, December 10, Google announced that it has established a platform that allows museums to share their exhibitions with smartphone users. The Google Cultural Institute, which is dedicated to preserving and promoting culture online, partnered with eleven museums and institutions in Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Nigeria, to launch the pilot project. The apps are available for free on the Google Play Store.

The platform helps museums bring their exhibitions into the digital realm by assisting in the creation of smartphone-accessible mobile applications -- Google handles coding and app development and provides participating institutions with tools such as the 360 Indoor Street View and YouTube.

A new retrospective exhibition of the American artist James Turrell (born 1943) at the National Gallery of Australia is so intense that visitors will be asked to sign a waiver, before viewing one of the installations. This Saturday, the work opens to the public which includes some extremely complex constructions. The highlight is titled "Bindu Shards," and visitors only with a premium ticket can enter the artwork if they sign a waiver. Turrell describes the work as "behind the eyes light.” This is not for anyone with epilepsy, a pacemaker or claustrophobic sufferers. "It's quite an emotional work I would say, and one that I hope would have you thinking about your relationship to light," Turrell said at the launch.

The 72-year-old, was Born May 6, 1943 in Los Angeles, California. Graduated Pasadena High School, 1961. BA Psychology, Pomona College, 1965. Art Graduate Studies, University of California, Irvine, 1965-1966. MA Art, Claremont Graduate School, 1973.