A dog which sailed aboard the Mary Rose ship 465 years ago is to take up residence in the Mary Rose Museum at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

The animal’s skeleton, which has been reconstructed by staff at the Mary Rose Trust, will go on display from Friday 26 March.

The dog was discovered trapped in the sliding door of the carpenter’s cabin of the Mary Rose, which sank in 1545.

The dog, named Hatch by museum staff, was probably used as a ratter.

The remains will be kept at National Museum of Australia in Canberra

Members of an Aboriginal tribe are to hold a ritual at Liverpool’s World Museum to mark the repatriation of human remains to Australia.

A skull is being returned to representatives of the Ngarrindjeri people because it has strong spiritual and religious significance.

The remains were purchased from Dr William Broad, of Liverpool, in 1948.

He visited Australia between 1902 and 1904 and published works on Australian skeletal remains.

Smoking ceremony

The event, which follows a private commemoration, involves rituals including a smoking ceremony using smouldering eucalyptus leaves in a bowl.

The Ngarrindjeri (meaning The People) is a group of 18 clans or lakinyeri who speak similar dialects and have family connections around the lower Murray River, western Fleurieu Peninsula and Coorong, South Australia.

In January 2006, National Museums Liverpool received a request for the return of all Australian human remains in its possession.

The remains entered our collections many years ago and it is fitting that they are being returned to their homeland Dr David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool

This is the first of the remains of three individuals being returned to Australia. Dates for the return for the other two have yet to be fixed.

They will be returned following consultations with the Australian indigenous communities from the areas where they originated.

Keeping place

Some of the remains were collected from Darnley Island in the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea by explorers on the voyage of the Rattlesnake in 1849. National Museums Liverpool acquired them from the Norwich Castle Museum in 1956.

The other remains are believed to have originated in north Queensland. They were given to National Museums Liverpool by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, London, in 1981. This museum had owned them since 1933.

None of the remains have been on public display, nor have they been used for research or educational purposes.

The remains will be kept in a keeping place at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.

‘Sensitive issue’

Dr David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool, said: “The remains entered our collections many years ago and it is fitting that they are being returned to their homeland.

“The repatriation of cultural items to their countries of origin is a complex, emotive and sensitive issue. National Museums Liverpool takes a decision in each individual case when items are requested for repatriation.”

An Aboriginal skull of a 19th Century warrior called Yagan was handed back by Liverpool City Museum in 1997 after it had been buried in Everton Cemetery.

It sparked a wave of controversy on its return to Australia when community leaders could not decide where to bury it and others saying it should never have been brought back.

Van Gogh famously painted a self-portrait with his ear bandaged

Vincent van Gogh did not cut off his own ear but lost it in a fight with fellow artist Paul Gauguin in a row outside a brothel, it has been claimed.

It has long been accepted that the mentally ill Dutch painter cut off his own ear with a razor after the row in Arles, southern France, in 1888.

But a new book, based on the original police investigation, claims Gauguin swiped Van Gogh’s ear with a sword.

The authors argue the official version of events contains inconsistencies.

Witness statements

The book, titled In Van Gogh’s Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence, is the product of 10 years of research by German academics Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans.

They looked at witness accounts and letters sent by the two artists, concluding that the row ended with Gauguin - a keen fencer - cutting his friend’s ear off.

Van Gogh then apparently wrapped it in cloth and handed it to a prostitute, called Rachel.

Mr Kaufmann said it was not clear whether it was an accident or a deliberate attempt to injure Van Gogh, but afterwards both men agreed to tell the police the self-harm story to protect Gauguin.

He said the traditional version of events is based on contradictory and improbable evidence, and no independent witness statement exists.

“Gauguin was not present at the supposed self-mutilation,” he told Le Figaro newspaper in France.

“As for Van Gogh, he didn’t confirm anything. Their behaviour afterwards and various suggestions by the protagonists indicate they were hiding the truth.”

Gauguin later moved to Tahiti, where he produced some of his most famous works. Van Gogh died in 1890 after shooting himself in the chest.

NORFOLK, Va. – Nearly a century after the Titanic struck ice in the North Atlantic, a federal judge in Virginia is poised to preserve the largest collection of artifacts from the opulent oceanliner and protect the ship’s resting place.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, a maritime jurist who considers the wreck an “international treasure,” is expected to rule within weeks that the salvaged items must remain together and accessible to the public. That would ensure the 5,900 pieces of china, ship fittings and personal belongings won’t end up in a collector’s hands or in a London auction house, where some Titanic artifacts have landed.

The judgment could also end the legal tussle that began when a team of deep-sea explorers found the world’s most famous shipwreck in 1985.

The salvage company, RMS Titanic Inc., wants the court to grant it limited ownership of the artifacts.

At the same time, a cadre of government lawyers is helping Smith shape covenants to strictly monitor future activity at the Titanic wreck 2 1/2 miles beneath the surface of the Atlantic. Amid evidence of the ship’s deterioration, experts and government lawyers say the sanctity of the Titanic must be properly protected as a memorial to the 1,522 people who died when it went down.

“For the most part, the value of Titanic is its history — and not from some pile of gold, silver and jewels,” said Ole Varmer, an attorney in the international law office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose office has developed guidelines for the Titanic.

Because the Titanic sank in international waters on April 15, 1912, and the ship’s owners are long gone, the wreck site and its artifacts have been subject to competing legal claims since an international team led by oceanographer Robert Ballard found it 24 years ago. The courtroom survivor is RMS Titanic Inc., also known as RMST, which gathered the artifacts during six dives. Courts have declared it salvor-in-possession — meaning it has exclusive rights to salvage the Titanic — but have explicitly stated it does not own the 5,900 artifacts or the wreck itself.

RMST is a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions Inc., an Atlanta company that bills itself as “a major provider of museum-quality touring exhibitions.” Its offerings include sports memorabilia, a traveling Star Trek homage and “Bodies,” an anatomy exhibit featuring preserved human cadavers.

RMST conducts traveling displays of the Titanic artifacts, which the company says have been viewed by 33 million people worldwide.

Last month, RMST underwent a shakeup of its board and saw its director resign over the company’s poor financial performance, according to Premier Exhibitions filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and statements by dissident shareholders. Smith had expressed concerns before the board shakeup about RMST’s ability to continue properly managing the collection, considering the company’s financial situation.

No one familiar with the case or the artifacts has questioned RMST’s handling of them.

RMST is seeking limited ownership of the artifacts as compensation for its salvage efforts. In its court filing for a salvage award, the company put the fair market value of the collection at $110.9 million. The same filing states that RMST’s costs associated with the recovery and conservation of the artifacts have exceeded revenues from their display.

If the court agrees to RMST’s request, the company could sell the entire collection to a museum with court approval.

Robert W. McFarland, an attorney for RMST, declined to comment before Smith rules.

Smith is drawing upon the State Department and NOAA to help craft the covenants to keep the artifacts preserved, intact as a collection and available to the public, and to guide future salvage operations at the Titanic wreck by RMST. At a hearing in November, the no-nonsense judge made clear the stakes.

“I am concerned that the Titanic is not only a national treasure, but in its own way an international treasure, and it needs protection and it needs to be monitored,” the judge told lawyers in the case.

Congress has expressed its interest in preserving the Titanic as a memorial. U.S. lawmakers have not, however, implemented an agreement with the United Kingdom, which has already embraced a ban on unregulated salvage of the wreck.

J. Ashley Roach, a retired State Department lawyer who worked on the Titanic case, said the Titanic is the first major shipwreck in international waters to receive such close scrutiny.

“You have a domestic court and now the branches of government working together to make sure the wreck itself continues to be available in the future for the public good,” he said.

International protections have been sought for the Titanic almost since the wreck was discovered. Ballard, who led the team that found the ship, told a congressional hearing in October 1985:

“Titanic is like a great pyramid which has been found and mankind is about to enter it for the first time since it was sealed. Has he come to plunder or appreciate? The people of the world clearly want the latter.”

• Charlotte Higgins
• The Guardian, Wednesday 25 March 2009
• Article history

A colourful courtier? The Cobbe portrait. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Another scholar of high standing has challenged claims that the “Cobbe portrait”, soon to go on display at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, really depicts Shakespeare.

Writing in the Times Literary Supplement, Professor Katherine Duncan-Jones, of Somerville College, Oxford, pours scorn on Professor Stanley Wells’s recent backing of the Cobbe. Her article adds fuel to arguments advanced in the Guardian by Dr Tarnya Cooper, curator of 16th-century collections at the National Portrait Gallery, that the Cobbe is likely to be a picture of colourful courtier Sir Thomas Overbury.

Duncan-Jones points out the portrait’s resemblance to a work well attested as a portrait of Overbury, which is “shrouded in the air-conditioned bowels of the Bodleian”.

Treatment Report

Date of Completion: November 18, 2008

Client: The Biltmore House, Asheville, NC

Location: Bynon Art Services, Taylorsville, NC

Procedure

Bynon Art Services (BAS) conservators are Professional Associates of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) and will perform all treatments, documentation and administration within AIC “Code of Ethics” and “Guidelines for Practice”.

Description

Cassetta style frame with applied lamb’s tongue to the back edge, egg and dart compo molding to the inner back edge and bead compo molding to the inner front edge. Applied compo ‘Bow’ ornament to the top of the frame set to the face. This bow is supported by an internal wire. Mitre corner joint held by nails. Surface is water gilded over a black/grey bole and gesso base.

Condition

Measurements: 24 1/8” X 18” (rebate), 31 X 22 ¼” (outside)

This frame is in poor decorative condition. Structurally it is in very good condition.

Fig. 1

The image above (Fig. 1) shows the frame with its bow decoration on the top of the frame. There are multiple areas of small loss around the frame where sections of ‘compo’ have been detached and lost. Other areas of loss appear on the flat face surface where losses range from the gilded surface to the wood substructure. Examples of these are illustrated in Figs. 2 and 3.

Fig. 2

The above image (Fig. 2) shows one area of loss to the small ‘compo’ molding surrounding the outside edge of the frame. Fig. 3 illustrates an area of loss to the flat face surface. This image also shows the delaminating of the gilded areas on the face of the frame.

Fig. 3

The surface of the frame exhibits signs of mishandling in the form of fingerprints and smudges. This appears to be on a wax finish that has discolored, showing areas of flatness. The foremost concern with this frame is the decorative bow/ribbon mounted to the top of the frame. Its construction comprises a metal (iron est.) wire support for a ‘compo’ molding that has been water gilded. Fine, orange, crusty corrosion product is present on the surface of the wire, which has caused cracks, as well as large areas of loss to the ‘compo’ molding. Remaining compo is generally unstable especially because the wire support is misshapen and out of place.

Fig. 4

The above image (Fig. 4) illustrates the corrosion adhered to the wire, partially responsible for the losses to the molding. Fig. 5 is a good example in detail of metal corrosion migrating into the ‘compo’. Probably the physical expansion of the corrosion product along with environmental issues that contributed to the corrosion delaminated the compo from its wire support. Of course, these losses will continue if the wire remains unstable.

Fig. 5

Cleaning and Consolidation

The surface of the frame was coated in a waxy film that had been disturbed by mishandling and accumulated dirt. Areas of the frame were test. Some areas of the surface were too unstable and fragile to be fully cleaned. Therefore a partial cleaning of the whole frame was undertaken as to maintain a uniform overall appearance.

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

Figs. 6 and 7 show examples of surface cleaning.

Fig. 4 is an image of the corrosion on the metal support wires of the decorative bow. This corrosion was removed with a fine wire eraser brush. The cleaned wire was then covered with a coat of 5% solution of acryloid B-72 in acetone.

The metal supports were then re-shaped to their original form. All joints and fragile areas of compo were then consolidated.

Molding

It was decided to use compo for the molding replacements in the bow. The recipe used was a standard composition of linseed oil, rosin, pearl glue and calcium carbonate. The compo was prepared in advance and stored until needed. The areas around the reconstruction were coated with 5% solution of acryloid B-72 in acetone to act as an isolation layer. A series of temporary casts were prepared from a part of the frames original molding that could be representative of all the losses. Into these casts silicone RTV was poured and left to cure. Once cured, the silicone mold was placed (detail up), into a small section of aluminum conduit to form the final cast. Into the conduit was poured a two part casting plastic. After the plastic had hardened, it was removed from the aluminum conduit and the silicone mold was removed to reveal the final cast. The final cast was now ready to be set into a block of hardwood so that compo molds could be formed under pressure from a vise. This final plastic cast was worked to eliminate any undercuts.

Below is a brief illustration of the process in preparing the compo molding:

The cast and the wood are coated with linseed oil to release the molding.

A desired amount of compo is place into a steamer to soften.

Once soft, the compo is shaped and placed into the cast.

-then firmly pressed into the cast.

Then the cast with compo is covered with another piece of wood and placed under strong pressure until the compo has cooled.

When removed from the press, the final mold should release with ease.

After the compo has hardened it can be manipulated by steaming, and the new molding will be ready to fit a desired form.

Attaching the Compo

The compo was cut and formed into shape and left to harden. The hardened compo was attached to the wire with a 50% solution of acryloid B-72 in acetone, and held in place with Berna Assembler clamps as in Fig. 8.

After the molding was set in place, the back losses were filled with soft compo.

Fig. 8

Other areas of small loss were molded using the same methods described previously. (Figs. 9 and 10)

Fig. 9

Fig. 10

In the center of the bow was a missing knot. This knot had to be copied from a photograph of an existing frame at the Biltmore House that still possessed its knot. (Fig. 11)

Fig. 11

Surface Treatment

The replacement molding on the bow (Fig. 12) was then coated with a layer of gesso. Beva Gesso was used on other areas of the frame including the losses to the surrounding edges.

Fig. 12

A layer of gilder’s clay bole was then applied to all areas of loss. (Fig. 13) After the bole had dried, these areas were ready to be gilded and a mixture of water gilding and in-painting areas with mica pigments was carried out.

Fig. 13

In areas that were water gilded, a 23.75-carat gold leaf was used. The gold leaf was then burnished and toned with Renaissance Wax mixed with black pigment. Rottenstone was applied, and partially removed, to the newly gilded areas to further match the new gilding with the old.

Finally, a coat of Renaissance Wax was applied overall and buffed in areas, to maintain a uniform appearance. (Figs. 14 and 15)

Fig. 14

Fig. 15

Before

After.