Re -Train Your Brain To Happiness

November 12, 2013

Earliest Big Cat Fossil Found in Tibet

AN ancient skull found in Tibet indicates that big cats originated in central Asia, and not Africa as widely thought, palaeontologists reported.

Dated at between 4.1 and 5.95 million years old, the fossil is the oldest remains ever found of a pantherine felid, as big cats are called.

It compares with the previous felid record holder - tooth fragments found in Tanzania that are estimated to be around 3.8 million years old.

"This find suggests that big cats have a deeper evolutionary origin than previously suspected," said Jack Tseng of the University of Southern California, who led the probe.

Big cats, a group called Pantherinae, include tigers, lions, leopards, snow leopards and jaguars.

Their evolutionary odyssey has been hotly discussed, spiced by a lack of fossil evidence to settle the debate.

Tseng, accompanied by his wife and fellow palaeontologist Juan Liu, and Gary Takeuchi of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, made the find in 2010 in a remote border region between Tibet and Pakistan.

It was found wedged in among more than 100 bones that were probably deposited by a river that exited a cliff.

After three years of anatomical comparisons with other fossils, and using DNA data to build a family tree, the team is convinced the creature was a separate species.

Among modern big cats, its closest relation is the snow leopard.

The weight of evidence suggests that central or northern Asia was where Pantherinae originated, some 16 million years ago, according to the paper in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

They may have lived in a vast mountain refuge, formed by the uplifting Himalayas, feeding on equally remarkable species such as the Tibetan blue sheep.

They then dispersed into Southeast Asia, evolving into the clouded leopard, tiger and snow leopard lineages, and later movements across continents saw them evolve into jaguars and lions.

The split with Felinae -- a group that includes cougars, lynxes and domestic cats -- occurred about six million years ago.

The newly-discovered felid has been called Panthera blytheae, after Blythe Haaga, "the snow leopard-loving daughter" of a couple which supports the museum in LA, the university said in a press release.

With thanks to New Straits Times

Main Picture credits: The Australian

Lions previously cited here AllMyFaves Blog

Some other related posts:

Walking With Dinosaurs: Feathered, Furry and Fierce

Earliest Big Cat Fossil Found in Tibet

"Chicken From Hell’ Dinosaur Gets A Proper Name

Chinese Jurassic Park Yields Incredible Feathered Dino Find

Dinosaur Bones Found Near Red Sea

Some other related posts:

The Serengeti Lion: An Exquisite National Geographic Project

Buddhist Monks and The "Tiger Temple" of Kanchanaburi

Lion Cub Triplets Raise Hope for The Endangered Asiatic Lion

The Siberian Tiger

Bornean Marbled Cat: An Ultra-rare Cat Species Captured On Camera

Iranian Cheetah Sighting Gives Hope To Conservation Efforts

Cincinnati Zoo Cheetah Sets New World Speed Record!

Snow Leopard and Cubs at Magdeburg Zoo

Swimming Tigers at Australia Zoo

Clouded Leopard Cubs At Houston Zoo

Another Chance for Three Orphaned Tiger Cubs

Golden Tabby Tigers

Lion Protector, Shivani Bhalla Helps Big Cats and People Coexist

Surprising Facts About Our Favorite Big Cats

Asher Jay: Art Of The Matter

India’s Wild Tiger Population Has Increased 30% Since 2010

Clouded Leopard Born at Florida Zoo

World Lion Day: Some Stunning Images Of The King Of The Jungle

Two Snow Leopard Cubs Born at Brookfield Zoo

White Lions - A Royal Family

Lions Gain New Endangered Species Protections

Leopard Hunting Banned in South Africa For Remainder of 2016

Africa’s Big Five Animals

Tigers Are Coming Back!

Tracking Sumatran Tigers

Russia Builds A Huge Tunnel To Save A Near-Extinct Group of Leopards

30 Tiger Zoos In Thailand Face Nationwide Checks

The Truth Behind The Tiger Temple

The Black Panther

Russia's 'Extinct' Persian Leopards Reintroduced To Black Sea Mountains

Why Big Cat Rescue Doesn’t Have Cheetah or Jaguars

The Best Big Cat Videos Come From The Wild

Pallas's Cats To Get Their Own 'Palace' In Siberian Mountains

Amur Tiger Release

Over 100 Tigers Killed And Trafficked Each Year

Last Wild Ocelots In Texas Get New Paths To Safety

Sabrina:A Sumatran/Bengal tiger

November 10, 2013

Finally: A Digital Home For Lost Masterpieces

This is great news! And another example of ingenuity and technology.

TWO-THIRDS of work by some of the most renowned artists is thought to have been misplaced, stolen or destroyed, but an American art historian hopes to raise our appreciation of what remains by drawing attention to missing masterpieces.

Professor Noah Charney, of the American University of Rome and president of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, has selected the first ten entries for a virtual Museum of Lost Art, which would have an auction value if miraculously discovered of almost $A1.06 billion.

Unlike the 1,400 paintings unveiled in Augsburg last week that were looted by the Nazis, these ten are almost certainly lost forever. They include works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio as well as two examples of Classical sculpture. Some were stolen or destroyed by fire, one was used as target practice by French soldiers and one is even feared to have been fed to pigs by the Mafia.

"For most pre-modern artists, we know of far more works than are actually extant," Professor Charney said. "In many cases, some two thirds of the total oeuvre is considered lost. An awareness of just how much is lost is a poignant reminder of the value of the smaller percentage that still exists, that can be visited, and that must be protected and preserved."

Lost works, he says, can be re-created from their description in works such as Giorgio Vasari's 16th century Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, or through copies, as in Rubens' version of Leonardo's lost Battle of Anghiari.

Professor Carney's top ten was commissioned by Artfinder.com, the largest online platform for the purchase of art from around the world, and the estimations of their worth were provided by Coram James, the antique valuers.

It starts with the 12m chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athena, sculpted by Phidias, that stood in the Parthenon and would be worth an estimated $A170 million today. It is depicted on coins, miniatures and engravings and was described by the historian Pausanias. It was stripped and damaged by fire and last seen in Constantinople in the 10th century AD.

Most Classical Greek sculpture was cast in bronze and has since been melted down but many pieces survive through Roman copies in marble. Professor Charney has selected a sculpture of Hercules by Lysippus in 390BC, which also went missing in Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.

The list also includes Leonardo's massive equestrian statue for Sforza Castle in Milan. He had made a 7m terracotta model but before he could cast it, Milan was overrun by French troops, whose archers used the horse as target practice. Another lost Italian work is the frescoes on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice by Giorgione and Titian, which crumbled in the briney atmosphere. Only fragments survive.

The most expensive item, valued at $A342 million, and one of the few that may still be found, is the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace near St Petersburg, Russia. The room, built between 1701 and 1711 by Andreas Schluter and given to Peter the Great, contained six tonnes of amber. It was looted by the Nazis and disappeared in Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad).

There are two Caravaggios on the list. The Palermo Nativity was stolen by the Mafia in 1969 and is rumoured to have been fed to pigs after being damaged in an earthquake while his Portrait of a Lady went missing during the fall of Berlin in 1945.

A two-tonne bronze, Reclining Nude by Henry Moore, was also stolen in 2005 during a world shortage in copper and bronze. It is feared the sculpture was sold as scrap for as little as $A2,500. If found, it would be worth $A17 million.

Rogier van der Weyden's four-part Justice of Trajan and Herkenbald were made between 1439 and 1450 and decorated Brussels Town Hall. They are thought to have been destroyed by the French in 1695 but survive as copies.

The final item is Michelangelo's Sleeping Eros, a forgery of a Roman sculpture. It is thought to have been destroyed in the Palace of Whitehall in 1698.

Professor Carney says that dozens more missing works could have been on the list, including a panel from the Ghent Altarpiece, one of the most frequently stolen works of art.

by Patrick Kidd

With many thanks to The Australian

Additional credits:

Amber Room Picture credit and lots more information here.

Conceptual image of Leonardo’s unmade horse from here.

A similar Chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Athena, and more information here.

The 10 most-wanted missing paintings.

Posts on art
Van Gogh On Dark Water Animation

This Fake Rembrandt Was Created By An Algorithm

Fore-edge Painting: Artists Hide Paintings Along The Edges Of Old Books

Insanely Realistic Pencil Drawings

Found: A Missing Paul Gauguin Painting

Royal Academy of British Art Coming To Town

Australia and the UK Battle Over Historic Paintings Of A Kangaroo And A Dingo

Finally: A Digital Home For Lost Masterpieces

America: "Painting a Nation" Exhibition in Art Gallery of NSW

Chauvet Cave Paintings: Cave Women Left Their Artistic Mark

London exhibition of Australian art holds up a mirror to our nation: more iconic images

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

Some Fascinating Pictures featuring Alyssa Monks

Visual Art of the Human Body by Cecelia Webber

Ronnie Wood: His Art and The Rolling Stones

The lost Van Gogh: Painting found in Norwegian attic is confirmed as priceless work by Dutch master

Market Find Turns Out To Be A Lost Faberge Egg

Charles Dellschau: Secrets of An Undiscovered Visionary Artist

Tom Pinch: Time - Lapse Portraits of Paul McCartney and John Lennon

How JMW Turner Set Painting Free

The Curious Case Of The Renaissance Cockatoo

Images On Andy Warhol’s Old Computer Discs Excite University Students

Human Ingenuity: From the Renaissance to the Age of the Internet - The Sistine Chapel

Katsushika Hokusai: Japanese Artist

Picasso's "Women of Algiers" Breaks Auction Record

Looted Treasures Open Door To The Dark Nazi Past

Long-lost Caravaggio Masterpiece Found In French Attic

Frederic Remington: The Man Who Helped Bring The West To Life

Loving Vincent: The World's First Fully Painted Film

Vincenzo Peruggia: The Man Who Stole The Mona Lisa And Made Her more Famous Than Ever

The Isleworth Mona Lisa: A Second Leonardo Masterpiece?

Optical Illusions In Art

MC Escher: An Enigma Behind an Illusion

Hidden Degas Portrait Revealed

First Faberge Egg Created For 99 Years Goes To Doha

The World’s Priceless Treasures

Woman in Gold: Another Biopic For Dame Helen Mirren

Australia and the UK Battle Over Historic Paintings Of A Kangaroo And A Dingo

Finally: A Digital Home For Lost Masterpieces

Could Anyone Paint A Vermeer?

Artemisia Gentileschi - Her Biography And Her Art

John Constable Painting Sold By Christie's For £3,500 In June 2013 Will Now Go To Market To Sell For £2 million

The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy

Yulia Brodskaya:Paper Explodes With Life In This Artist's Hands

Images On Andy Warhol’s Old Computer Discs Excite University Students

Human Ingenuity: From the Renaissance to the Age of the Internet - The Sistine Chapel

Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Scotland’s Greatest Architect

David Bowie's Personal Art Collection Auctioned Off For $30 Million

November 09, 2013

The Rolling Stones at Villa Nellcôte and "Exile On Main Street"

I have several posts about old songs on this blog. I make no apologies for it – I like classic rock!

I consider all this to be part of our Western musical culture.

The Rolling Stones surely have to be considered as the greatest Rock Band ever. That is not to say the Beatles weren’t “The Fab Four”.

The Stones, however have remained largely intact over this period of time and still perform.

Of course we lost Brian Jones, John Lennon and George Harrison all too early. And we also lost Gram Parsons, another favourite of mine.

I have featured all these artist on my blog more than once.You can find them with the search function.

The Stones are still performing a lot and their appearance at Glastonbury was quite historical.

I sometimes wonder if the song “Sweet Virginia” was influenced by Gram Parsons as it has a somewhat country flavour.It’s just a guess on my part of course.

Keith and Gram were close friends.

Villa Nellcôte was the exotic location where the Rolling Stones recorded their legendary Exile On Main St album. John Robinson shines a light on the decadent mansion.

In the new Rolling Stones documentary film, Stones In Exile, Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts visit several locations crucial to the making of the band's 1972 album Exile On Main St. They visit Stargroves, Mick Jagger's former home, where several sessions were held. The pair take a stroll through London's Olympic Studios, where a wealth of the band's late-60s and early-70s recordings took place. They go to Sunset Sound studios in Los Angeles, where Exile's tapes were mixed and mastered.

The one venue the immaculately dressed pair don't revisit, however, is arguably the most infamous in the album's history. Commissioned in 1854 by a businessman named Eugene Thomas, in 1971 Villa Nellcôte, in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Côte D'Azur was the temporary residence of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, his partner Anita Pallenberg and their son, Marlon. Upstairs, a beautiful entourage socialised, often illicitly. In Nellcôte's many-roomed basement, the Rolling Stones recorded material for what became their most storied album.

"It's got a raw sound quality, and the reason for that is that the basement was very dingy and very damp," says Mick Taylor, Stones lead guitarist for the five years between 1969 and 1974. "The roof leaked and there were power failures. We had to deal with all that, and go with the flow."

The flow to which Taylor refers was the fragrant drifting in and out of some of the era's most interesting characters. Musicians like Bobby Keys, the sax player who taught Keith Richards the pleasures of throwing furniture out of windows. Drug dealers like Tommy Weber, who arrived with his children, and a plentiful supply of cocaine. Glamorous friends like Stash Klossowski, son of the painter Balthus. There were record execs, family members, groupies, wasters and journalists.

"People appeared, disappeared, no one had a last name, you didn't know who anybody was," remembers Robert Greenfield, who was at Nellcôte to interview Keith Richards for Rolling Stone. "There were 16 people for lunch, and lunch went on for three-and-a-half hours. It was an unparalleled cast of characters."

For all the relaxed atmosphere at Nellcôte, it was, however, pragmatic business practice that had taken the Stones to the south of France. With the disaster of the 1969 Altamont free concert behind them, the band had spent the previous 18 months putting their affairs in order. They had started their own record label, and were about to release the classic Sticky Fingers album. They were planning a massive US tour for 1972.

They were musicians, and major celebrities, but if they stayed in the UK, they would have to pay 93% income tax.

The band's financial advisor, Prince Rupert Lowenstein, came up with an ingenious solution. After playing a short "farewell tour" in England, in April 1971, The Rolling Stones went into tax exile in France. At Keith's residence, they parked their new acquisition, a £65,000 mobile recording studio, and set, erratically, to work.

"It was an impressive house," remembers Andy Johns, who engineered and mixed Exile. "Somewhat baroque. The heating vents on the floor were gold swastikas. Keith told me that it had been a Gestapo headquarters in the war. But he told me, 'It's OK. We're here now.'"
While the Stones soaked up the hospitality, producer Jimmy Miller and Andy Johns waited in the van for inspiration to strike the band. As Keith's recreation continued, it was clear they would be waiting a long time. "Keith's euphemism was, 'I'm going to put Marlon to bed now …'" remembers Johns. "Nobody really went upstairs. I remember being at the bottom of the stairs once with Mick Jagger and Jimmy Miller, and we wanted Keith. I said to Mick, 'It's a band thing, why don't you go and get him?' He said, 'I'm not going up there …'"

"There was a friction at that time," says Marshall Chess, who ran the Stones' own record label. "Mick didn't like Exile; it was being made in Keith's domain. And then there was the drug issue, which I was somewhat naive about. But I could see the effects."

"Keith was open about everything," says Robert Greenfield of his interview with Richards, "apart from the heroin." He remembers how he watched Mick Jagger wait in vain for Keith Richards to emerge so they could begin a songwriting session, then leave disappointed.

Meanwhile, the friendship between Keith and another Nellcôte guest, singer-songwriter Gram Parsons, wasn't helping the band's productivity.

"Keith invited us down," remembers Gretchen Carpenter, then married to Parsons. "Keith and Gram were two peas in a pod. They were best friends, exploring music. They were instantaneous friends, and instantaneous troublemakers." As time passed, it became clear that something was needed to help kickstart the writing and recording process. When it did arrive, it came not from the exotic south of France, but – bizarrely – from the south of London.

For several years prior to 1971, the Stones had kept a rehearsal studio-cum-equipment store in Bermondsey. On a visit there in 1971, Trevor Churchill, then the European label manager for Rolling Stones Records, noticed a pile of tapes lurking in the corner of the room. "I thought, 'What the hell are they doing here?'" remembers Churchill. "So, I bounced them on to cassette, then took them to the south of France."

The tapes Churchill took to Nellcôte were a mixture of demos and incomplete tracks, with names – like Bent Green Needles and Good Time Woman – that even today sound unfamiliar. What they went on to become – respectively, the Exile classics Sweet Black Angel and Tumbling Dice – are rather better known. "That's how Exile turned into a double album," explains Churchill. "They got an extra half a million dollars. They were quite pleased with that."

While the band continued their intermittent recording, the days at Nellcôte passed in a slow, dazed enchantment. To pass the time, Andy Johns and horn player Jim Price set up a casino in their own villa. A guy lived on the front lawn, in a tepee. "There wasn't really any pattern, that wasn't the way they rolled," says Gretchen Carpenter. "If the kids wouldn't sleep, we'd take them out in a speedboat ride to Monte Carlo. We'd have cocktails, and the kids would fall asleep on the way. It was the most perfect summer, but everything seemed to go wrong after that."

There was a burglary, during which several guitars were stolen from the house. Producer Jimmy Miller began getting more involved in the heavy drug use among the musicians. Ultimately, there was a drugs bust, which precipitated the Stones' rapid departure for America in October, where they worked to make sense of the Nellcôte tapes, and, says Marshall Chess, "Mick took control". The deserted mansion, and the beautiful people who had temporarily resided there, meanwhile, were left to take their place in rock legend.

"Sometimes turmoil and trouble in art make it come out good," says Marshall Chess. "Toulouse-Lautrec drank absinthe. Great jazz musicians shot heroin. It made for a strange scene, but that colouration, that quality is there in Exile."

Today, the most famous house in Villfranche-sur-Mer remains cloaked in mystery. While he was making Stones In Exile, director Stephen Kijak asked to visit Nellcôte, but the current owners declined to let their property be filmed. In a way, it's a fitting end to this chapter in the Exile On Main St story. Everyone has their own take on what one might be going on inside. The truth, though, is behind closed doors.

An exhibition of the photographs of the Rolling Stones at Villa Nellcôte by Dominique Tarlé is on at the Atlas Gallery (in association with Raj Prem Fine Art Photography), 49 Dorset Street, London, W1 from 15 Jul to 31 Aug. More pictures here.

I think I now know where some of my uncredited pictures may have come from, thankfully!

The Glastonbury picture of the Stones in action is a still I took.

This picture of Gram Parsons was received by email so I can’t cite the source, unfortunately.

Robert Greenfield's book about the making of Exile On Main St is out now (Da Capo).

With many thanks to the 2010 article in The Guardian

From You Tube and thanks for the upload to

"From the haze of chemistry and the mist of hangover arose legendary tune made by Gram Parsons and Keith Richards.

This can be found on unofficial (bootleg) record of The Rolling Stones named ULTRA RARE TRAX Vol. 2 "

I have several posts on the Rolling Stones as well as Gram Parsons. You can use the search function to find them,including: