George Young

At a miserable-looking rally for the centre-left Place Publique in mid-March, its co-president, MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, made international headlines calling for the Trump administration to return the Statue of Liberty, gifted by the French in 1886 to commemorate the Declaration of Independence: ‘It was our gift to you. But apparently you despise her. So she will be happy here with us.’ The predictably sensationalist headlines dissipated in a flurry of Republican outrage against ‘the low-level French politician’ as quickly as they had arrived. But Glucksmann’s demand – sincere or not – caught the attention of a group of sculptors who, in their words, have ‘taken up the dream of civilisation’ to produce monumental civic sculpture.

The long neglected art of Byzantium and early Christianity is returning to the world’s museums. Last November, the Louvre confirmed plans for a 3,000 square metre department dedicated to the Byzantine legacy and more than 20,000 works from Ethiopia to Russia that are currently scattered across the museum’s cabinets. Having been initially shelved a decade ago, this monumental undertaking is scheduled to open in 2027, signifying a pivotal moment for the Christian arts of the Eastern Roman Empire to become a serious curatorial subject in European museums once again. (A precursor to the new department established in 1954 lasted but 15 years.) Byzantine art has been the subject of serious study in universities only since the 1940s.