Museums and Institutions

A Hellenistic marble stele that was received as a wedding present in the 1950s has been returned to a museum in Germany after an investigation by antiquities dealers and an Oxford scholar.

A 26-foot long kinetic sculpture by Rowland Emett (1906-90) who designed the magical car in the eponymous 1960s film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has been sold by Bonhams for a six-figure sum to the National Railway Museum in York.

A Bath museum hopes to acquire a rare hoard of coins found in a Chew Valley field that could be valued at £4m.

A large jade brushpot from the Qing Dynasty is expected to lead a collection of more than 300 Chinese works of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art going under the hammer at Sotheby’s New York this September.

Jane Austen's House Museum in Hampshire successfully raised the £35,000 required to buy a fragment of a letter written by the great novelist in 1814. The rare manuscript was being sold on behalf of its private owner by London dealer Maggs.

The De Morgan Foundation is launching a series of initiatives to bring the works of Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919) and her husband William (1839-1917) to a wider audience.

A view of the River Seine by Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-28) has entered the collection of The National Gallery in London under the acceptance in lieu scheme.

From the sun-drenched photos of Mexico’s Manuel Álvarez Bravo to Lee Krasner’s vivid abstracts, there is plenty of art to see and buy around the capital this weekend.

An exhibition exploring links between William Morris and Bauhaus, two of the most important names in the last 150 years of design, is set to launch in London provided enough money is raised.

A curator of archaeology at the Yorkshire Museum in York and an assistant curator of ceramics at The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent are among the winners of theArt Fund’s latest annual New Collecting Awards.

A Derbyshire family will host a new exhibition showing a private collection of medieval sculptures in Haddon Hall in Bakewell this autumn.

Women get behind and in front of the lens (and sometimes both at once) at three exhibitions on show in London this weekend.

JMW Turner’s oil painting ‘Walton Bridges’ which sold at Sotheby’s in July last year has been bought for the nation after funding was secured by Norfolk Museums Service.

Jane Austen's House Museum in Hampshire has launched an appeal to raise the remaining funds needed to buy a fragment of a letter written by the great novelist in 1814.