All posts tagged: marble

BBC’s ‘brilliantly entertaining’ drama Marble Hall Murders is perfect for Agatha Christie fans

BBC’s ‘brilliantly entertaining’ drama Marble Hall Murders is perfect for Agatha Christie fans

Published by Daniella Wilson

The BBC has unveiled a first look at the upcoming mystery series, Marble Hall Murders, based on the best-selling novel by Anthony Horowitz. The six-part series, which is a sequel to Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, sees Lesley Manville reprise her role as book editor turned sleuth Susan Ryeland, alongside Tim McMullan as famous literary detective Atticus Pünd. © BBC/Eleventh Hour Films/Sony Pictures Television/Jonathan HessionLesley Manville and Tim McMullan lead the cast as Susan Ryeland and Atticus Pünd An impressive list of stars has joined the cast, including Mark Bonnar (Shetland, Dept.Q), Patricia Hodge (All Creatures Great and Small, A Very English Scandal) and more. The series is adapted by Horowitz, who is no stranger to bringing acclaimed dramas to the small screen. His previous credits include Foyle’s War, ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot and the previous two adaptations of his Susan Ryeland novels.  Recommended videoYou may also likeWATCH: Have you seen Magpie Murders? Since devouring the entire Foyle’s War boxset in lockdown, I’ve become a big fan of Horowitz’s TV dramas. An expert at crafting …

Denver Art Museum Returns Looted Marble Head to Turkey

Denver Art Museum Returns Looted Marble Head to Turkey

Published by Jenni Sidey

The Denver Art Museum has returned a marble head of a bearded man stolen from the ancient city of Smyrna to Turkey. This marks the latest in a growing list of successful restitutions tied to the country’s renewed campaign to reclaim its cultural heritage from museums worldwide.  The sculpture’s provenance indicates it was likely carved in the fifth century BCE in Smyrna—the ancient Greek name for present-day Izmir. Situated on Turkey’s Aegean coast, the city is among the world’s oldest continuously inhabited seaports and trade centers, a distinction that has also made it a frequent site for archeological excavations and, inevitably, a target for illicit antiquities trafficking. According to Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Minister, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, the marble head was unearthed in the city’s agora, or public gathering place. Related Articles “Through cooperation and constructive dialogue with the Denver Art Museum, we have brought this artifact back home,” Ersoy told the Turkish news outlet Yeni Şafak. The sculpture is now on view at the İzmir Archaeology Museum. In recent years, Turkey has notched a …

The Met Releases High-Definition 3D Scans of 140 Famous Art Objects: Sarcophagi, Van Gogh Paintings, Marble Sculptures & More

The Met Releases High-Definition 3D Scans of 140 Famous Art Objects: Sarcophagi, Van Gogh Paintings, Marble Sculptures & More

Published by José Betancourt

We can go through most of our lives hold­ing out hope of one day see­ing in real­i­ty such works as van Gogh’s Sun­flow­ers, Mon­et’s Haystacks, a clay tablet con­tain­ing actu­al cuneiform writ­ing with our own eyes, or the ancient Egypt­ian Tem­ple of Den­dur. We can actu­al­ly come face to face — or rather, face to sur­face — with all of them, tem­ple includ­ed, at New York’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art, which con­tains all those and more arti­facts of human civ­i­liza­tion than any of us could hope to exam­ine close­ly in a life­time. But even if we did, we might only feel tempt­ed to look at them more close­ly still, even to touch them. That may be an improb­a­ble hope, but we can at least get clos­er than ever now thanks to the Met’s new archive of high-def­i­n­i­tion 3D scans. “View­ers can zoom in, rotate, and exam­ine each mod­el, bring­ing unprece­dent­ed access to sig­nif­i­cant works of art,” says the Met’s offi­cial announce­ment. “The 3D mod­els can also be explored in view­ers’ own spaces through aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) on most smart­phone …

Trump’s marble fixation hits the Kennedy Center’s armrests

Trump’s marble fixation hits the Kennedy Center’s armrests

Published by Sam Flores

President Donald Trump has found a new way to leave his mark on a public institution: marble armrests.   In a Truth Social post this week, Trump bragged about “potential Marble armrests for the seating” at what he called “The Trump Kennedy Center,” declaring the design “unlike anything ever done or seen before.” The post included photos of the proposed armrests, a detail that quickly drew mockery, confusion and criticism across social media. The announcement fits neatly into a pattern. Trump has long treated public spaces as opportunities for personal branding, favoring luxury materials and aesthetic flourishes that signal wealth and permanence. In the same post, he also highlighted renovations to the White House’s Palm Room, emphasizing its expanded use of marble, as if to underscore that this isn’t a one-off idea, but a guiding design philosophy. Critics argue that marble armrests are less about improving the audience experience and more about spectacle. Cold stone, after all, does little to enhance comfort during a long performance. What it does do is communicate excess, a visual …