Slovak National Gallery’s department heads resign – with 177 staff threatening to follow

Five department heads of the Slovak National Gallery, four of whom are on the institution’s executive board, have offered their resignations in an open letter to Slovakia’s culture minister Martina Šimkovičová, reports the Art Newspaper. Issued on 26 November, the letter comes after a meeting with the newly appointed acting director general Jaroslav Niňaj, which they describe as ‘full of intimidation, threats and investigations’. Niňaj is the third occupant of the post in four months since Slovakia’s right-wing government  dismissed long-term director Alexandra Kusá in August. His immediate predecessor lasted just two months. Tensions have continued to grow since the summer and another 177 employees have threatened to resign in January ‘if nothing gets better’. The department heads’ resignations are expected to take effect in the coming week.

London’s historic Smithfield and Billingsgate markets are likely to close for good in 2028, reports the BBC. The decision comes after the City of London Corporation voted to withdraw its support of the markets’ relocation to a purpose-built site in Dagenham, citing major cost concerns; £308m has already been spent in buying and preparing the site. Smithfield, which has been in operation for some 850 years and is one of Europe’s largest wholesale meat markets, has long been pegged as the new location for the London Museum. Billingsgate fish market in Canary Wharf will reportedly be transformed into thousands of new homes. The City of London has offered traders compensation – thought to be in the region of £300m – for the imminent closure and stated that they will help them find new premises. However, as one vendor whose family has traded at Billingsgate for 70 years told the BBC, ‘for what we’ve been offered to vacate the premises, I can’t go and reinstate myself somewhere else.’

Rotterdam has become the first city in the Netherlands to repatriate objects from its local collection to Indonesia, returning 68 artefacts unlawfully removed by Dutch colonial forces in the late 19th and 20th centuries. This includes two singa – mythical lion – statues taken from the palace of Cakranegara in Lombok and 66 artefacts from South Bali. A recent press release from the Wereldmuseum, where the objects were previously held, stated that the return is a ‘significant step in implementing the national policy framework on the restitution of colonial collections’. It follows the Netherland’s return of almost 500 objects to former Dutch colonies in 2023, prompted by a governmental committee’s recommendation from 2020 that the country  ‘unconditionally return’ objects that had been unlawfully removed during colonial occupations.

Bonhams is facing calls to withdraw a Roman plate from an upcoming auction amid claims that the object was looted from Turkey, the Guardian reports. The 3rd-century silver plate, which is decorated with an image of a river god, is up for sale, with an estimate of £20,000–£30,000 on 5 December. However, Dr Christos Tsirogiannis, an expert on the trafficking of looted antiquities, says he has evidence that the plate was purchased from Turkish traffickers by Gianfranco Becchina, who has been convicted in both Italy and Greece of dealing illegally in antiquities. According to Tsirogiannis, Becchina’s seized archives contain documents that confirm the sale, including images of the plate and proof of a $1.6m payment by Becchina to the traffickers for a group of Roman silver objects. Earlier this year, Tsirogiannis called for the same plate to be removed from a July auction; however, the sale progressed, with the plate achieving £74,000. It returns to auction after its buyer failed to pay up in time. Tsirogannis has also questioned the origins of a portrait bust of the Emperor Hadrian in the same sale. In response to Tsirogiannis’s claims, Bonhams insists that it has vetted the plate’s provenance in line with its procedures.