Rare Albrecht Altdorfer Renaissance Painting Heads to Sotheby’s, French Police Recover Six Stolen Picasso Engravings, and More: Morning Links for November 5, 2026

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Good Morning!

• The Themed Entertainment Association reports that museums in China are the world’s most visited in 2025, while American federal museums have experienced a drop in attendance.
• French police have recovered six stolen engravings by Pablo Picasso and arrested seven suspects involved in the theft.
• Filmmaker Barry Avrich responds regarding his upcoming unauthorized documentary film, “Shadow Man: Inside The Secret World of Larry Gagosian.”

The Headlines

RENAISSANCE RARITY. A Renaissance painting by German artist Albrecht Altdorfer, thought to be one of the earliest Western landscape paintings of its kind, is heading to Sotheby’s for the December 9th London auction after spending about 70 years tucked away in a private Swiss collection, The Guardian reports. The exceptionally rare painting, lengthily titled, A Thickly Wooded Landscape With a Rainbow Behind the Trees and a Distant Outcrop to the Right Beneath a Cloud-Laden Sky, was made around 1520 and is estimated to be worth $3 million to $6.7 million (£3 million to £5 million). The painting by Europe’s first so-called “pure landscape oil artist” was identified earlier this year and is only the third such landscape painting identified by the artist. It is “one of the most exciting discoveries imaginable in our field,” said George Gordon, co-chair of Sotheby’s worldwide old masters department. Plus, New Yorkers will get a chance to see it from November 7 to 19 at Sotheby’s, before it heads to London.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. French police recovered six stolen engravings by Pablo Picasso on Tuesday and have arrested seven suspects involved in the theft, reports Belga News Agency. Just before 2 a.m. on October 2, two people broke into a restaurant in Mougins, a hilltop village on the French Riviera, where Picasso had lived, and stole the original engravings hanging in a private room. They escaped by car and were aided by accomplices. The engravings were made in the early 1930s and are reportedly in excellent condition. They belong to the restaurant owner and are estimated to be worth over €100,000 euros ($112,400). Asked if it was still safe for the restaurant to exhibit the works, lieutenant-colonel Guillaume Plaidy told AFP it is “an obligation to continue exhibiting art today.” And if anything is stolen, “we will track them down, and we will find them,” he said.

The Digest

New research from the Themed Entertainment Association shows that museums in China are the world’s most visited in 2025, while American federal museums have experienced a drop in attendance. [Ocula]

Yoshitomo Nara discusses the effects of glaucoma on his work, ahead of shows at David Zwirner’s two galleries in Chelsea. [The New York Times]

The lost Georgia O’Keeffe landscape painting, Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I, has emerged and is headed to auction at Christie’s on November 17. [Hyperallergic]

The Amersfoort Museum in the Netherlands has canceled an exhibition that would have celebrated 300 years of Jewish life around the city’s historic synagogue because of “tensions following October 7, 2023,” and “possible reactions,” according to organizers. [JNS]

The Japanese art collective TeamLab is expanding to the US, opening in Anaheim, California’s forthcoming OCVIBE entertainment district. [Artnet News]

Belmond will present a collection of photobooks at Paris Photo with Chris Rhodes, Jack Davison and Tara L. C. Sood. [Belmond]

The Kicker

WHO’S AFRAID OF LARRY GAGOSIAN? Filmmaker Barry Avrich has responded to Art Plugged about his upcoming unauthorized documentary film, “Shadow Man: Inside The Secret World of Larry Gagosian.” Whatever he said has left the publication wondering: “Is Larry Gagosian about to be canceled?” Per “exclusive quotes,” whose dense, endorsement-blurb-style use of adjectives has the sound of a written, AI-aided or heavily edited message, Avrich states: “…this new film looks at the extraordinary power, ingenuity and ruthless drive of one person to single-handedly shape, control and manipulate the art industry to create a gallery empire, if not a monopoly.” Again, with the “exclusive quotes,” Avrich adds that the film is “less about the business of art and more of a provocative and somewhat Shakespearean character of the alchemy of human nature, greed and genius.” That’s about it, from Avrich. A release date for the film has not been made public, so whether or not Gagosian will be canceled—and for what reasons—is anyone’s guess.