Free Republic

The Fulton County jail that booked former President Donald Trump last week reported its fourth inmate death this month on Tuesday. The sheriff's department confirmed that the death took place on Saturday, but offered no other details, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The Rice Street jail has come under intense scrutiny due to conditions at the facility and is currently the subject of a federal civil rights investigation. Earlier this month, three other inmates perished while in custody, including Alexander Hawkins, Christopher Smith, and Montay Stinson. The Department of Justice launched its probe last month, citing allegations that "Fulton County Jail...

The legal heirs of a German Jewish banker who was forced to sell his art collection to avoid persecution by the Nazis are suing a Japanese holding company to reclaim ownership of a painting by Vincent van Gogh. Three heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, based in New York and Germany, filed a lawsuit on December 13 in an Illinois district court against Sompo Holdings, an insurance company based in Japan, to dispute its legal title to the painting Sunflowers (1888). The claim states that Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was a “casualty” of Nazi-era policies and economic sanctions that forced him to sell his...

A European collector has bought a 17th century copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting for 2.9 million euros ($3.4 million), a record for a Mona Lisa reproduction, in an auction at Christie's in Paris on Friday. Known as the "Hekking Mona Lisa," after its owner who unsuccessfully argued that a copy he had bought in the 1950s was the real thing, is one of many reproductions of the original, which hangs in the Paris Louvre museum. "This is madness, this is an absolute record for a Mona Lisa reproduction," a Christie's spokeswoman said. She said there had been...

An oil painting by Pablo Picasso sold for $103.4 million at a Christie's auction in New York, smashing its presale estimate of $55 million. The portrait of Picasso's French lover Marie-Therese, "Femme assise près d'une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse)", or 'Woman sitting near a window,' led the '20th Century Evening Sale' on Thursday. Keith Gill, head of the Impressionist and Modern Art department at Christie's London, said the work may be familiar to art lovers from its appearance at a landmark Picasso 1932 exhibition at the Tate Modern in 2018. "It's an incredibly iconic image. It hasn't been seen up at auction...

“Everydays — The First 5000 Days,” by the artist known as Beeple, set a record for a digital artwork in a sale at Christie’s. After a flurry of more than 180 bids in the final hour, a JPG file made by Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist known as Beeple, was sold on Thursday by Christie’s in an online auction for $69.3 million with fees. The price was a new high for an artwork that exists only digitally, beating auction records for physical paintings by museum-valorized greats like J.M.W. Turner, Georges Seurat and Francisco Goya. Bidding at the two-week Beeple sale,...

THE Queen's nephew the Earl of Snowdon appears to have been named in Jeffrey Epstein's infamous little black book of contacts. David Armstrong-Jones - better known as David Linley - seems to have been listed among a string of other high profile names compiled by the paedophile financier. There is no suggestion that the Earl has done anything wrong, or even had any kind of personal relationship with Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell. Mr Linley is the son of The Queen's sister Princess Margaret, is 21st in line to the throne, is an honorary chairman of auction house Christie's, and runs...

William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, known as the First Folio, could fetch between $4 million and $6 million at an upcoming auction at Christie’s New York. The book was published in 1623 by his friends and fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell after Shakespeare died in 1616 at age 52. Containing 36 of Shakespeare’s plays, the First Folio is the first authoritative collection of his plays and ranks as one of the greatest works of world literature. The copy was offered for sale from the collection of Mills College in Oakland, Calif. It’s one of only six complete...

As a diplomatic dispute rages between Egypt and the auction house Christie's in London over a sculpture depicting the head of the pharaoh Tutankhamun, set to be auctioned on July 4, a Live Science investigation reveals several clues as to where this sculpture comes from. The sculpture, being auctioned off by an anonymous owner through Christie's, is made of quartzite (a type of stone). Estimates for how much the sculpture will fetch vary around $5.1 million (4 million pounds). However, Egypt believes that it was looted from the Karnak temple sometime after 1970, and the country's embassy in the U.K....

A wheelchair used by physicist Stephen Hawking has sold at auction for almost £300,000 ($393,000), while a copy of his doctoral thesis fetched almost £585,000 ($767,000), auctioneer Christie’s said Thursday. The motorized chair, used by Hawking after he was paralyzed with motor neuron disease, raised £296,750 in a Christie’s online auction. It had been expected to fetch up to £15,000. Proceeds from the chair’s sale will go to two charities, the Stephen Hawking Foundation and the Motor Neurone Disease Association. Hawking’s 1965 Cambridge University thesis, “Properties of Expanding Universes,” sold for £584,750, more than three times its pre-sale estimate, in...

One of David Hockney's famous "pool paintings" is coming to auction and is expected to sell in the $80 million range, easily breaking the record for a work by a living artist sold at auction. The British artist's "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)," to be auctioned at Christie's in November, is considered one of his premier works. Christie's has estimated the work at about $80 million, but says it expects it to sell for more. The previous record for a work by a living artist was set by Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog," which sold for $58.4 million...

Francis Bacon’s three-paneled painting “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” became the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction on Tuesday when it soared to $142.4 million at Christie’s.

Charles Krauthammer described New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s attack on Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s foreign-policy views “fearless,” “electrifying,” and “an extremely important moment.” Christie’s remarks touched off a kerfuffle between the two Republican politicians, both of whom are seen as contenders for their party’s presidential nomination in 2016. In Krauthammer’s words, It was an extremely important moment. Rand Paul represents the sort of isolationist wing of the Republican party; by this direct, fearless attack on him by Christie, I think he takes up the mantle of the majority of the GOP, which is interventionist. And that’s a really important moment.

First lady Michelle Obama didn’t directly address New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to have weight-loss surgery in an interview that aired Wednesday, but she said his struggle shows why her “Let’s Move” exercise program is so important.(snip) “It’s something between the governor and his family, and I try not to comment on people’s personal choices. I think Governor Christie is terrific and you know, his family is wonderful, and I wish them the best.”

A book owned by George Washington and containing his own annotated copy of the Constitution sold for almost $10 million at Christie's, more than three times what it was expected to draw. A fierce bidding war between two unidentified parties forced the price up, and applause erupted in the venerable auction house when the hammer came down and the 223-year-old book sold for $9,826,500 to the Mount Vernon Ladies Association.The Acts of Congress volume includes a copy of the Constitution, a draft of the Bill of Rights, and acts creating the executive, State and Treasury department. The book was printed...

(Reuters) - A gold-embossed piece of U.S. history will go up for sale this month, when Christie's auctions off George Washington's personal copy of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. The documents, which date to 1789 and are signed and annotated by the first U.S. president, are poised to fetch from $2 million to $3 million when they hit the block on June 22, the auction house said on Wednesday. The bound papers constitute Washington's personal copy of the Acts of Congress. These include the Constitution, whose preamble promises to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our...

When Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president in January 1981, the country was at low ebb. Jimmy Carter had spent the four previous years running the nation into the ground, leaving unemployment above 10%, inflation above 15%, Communist operatives laughing at our perceived weakness, and Iranians holding 53 of our fellow citizens hostage for 444 days. When Republican Chris Christie was sworn into office as governor of New Jersey earlier this year, the situation he faced was somewhat similar. His predecessors, among them Democrat Jon Corzine, had run the state into the ground. Because of this, Christie literally inherited...

If you’re concerned about violent political rhetoric, perhaps you should pay more attention to the New Jersey Education Assocation. According to the Bergen County Record, the powerful teachers union circulated a memo that added Christie to an “attack” list and prayed tongue-in-cheek for his demise: Bergen County representatives of the state teachers union have ratcheted up the campaign against Governor Christie’s agenda in a fiery memo that encourages members to “get some dirt” and “go public,” and adds the education commissioner to the “attack list.” But it’s the memo’s closing “prayer” that is sure to ignite controversy: “Dear Lord …...

Forbes magazine's ninth annual list of top-earning dead celebrities was unveiled Wednesday, and surprise, surprise: Neither Michael Jackson nor Elvis Presley held court at the top. Late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent debuted in the No. 1 spot with an estate that earned $350 million in the year after his death from brain cancer in June 2008. To place on this year's list, "delebs" -- industry speak for dead celebrities -- had to earn at least $6 million between October 1, 2008, and October 1, 2009. Saint Laurent earned well past that. A February Christie's auction sold most of...

A "poem" purportedly written by a teenage Bob Dylan and up for auction at Christie's is actually a song written by the late Canadian country singer Hank Snow, the auction house said on Wednesday. Christie's announced on Tuesday the sale of the hand-written poem believed to have been written in 1957 when Dylan was 16 and away at Jewish camp. But Christie's failed to detect that the words, with a few minor variations, matched those of a song previously recorded by Snow, who died in 1999 at age 85.

Beijing swiftly moved to punish auction house Christie's with tightened customs rules Thursday after its protests failed to stop the sale of two imperial bronze sculptures taken from China nearly 150 years ago. The move signals China's resolve in its campaign to rescue pieces of its cultural heritage now scattered around the world - but the impact of the new rules on the auction house, if any, was not clear. The disputed 18th century fountainheads - heads of a rat and a rabbit - were sold to an unidentified telephone bidder or bidders Wednesday for 28 million euros ($36 million)...